Deb Ward has served for more than 25 years in a variety of roles
University of Missouri Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Latha Ramchand announced today that Deb Ward, the vice provost for MU Libraries and University librarian, will retire on May 31, 2024. Ward’s more than 25-year career has spanned key roles, culminating in her appointment as interim and then permanent vice provost for MU Libraries and University librarian.
Before accepting the position of vice provost, Ward served as the director of the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library. During her tenure, Ward played a pivotal role in advancing the integration of electronic information delivery into health care, introducing clinical librarian services, and promoting the use of evidence-based information in healthcare delivery.
As the leader of MU Libraries, Ward navigated challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring uninterrupted library services while implementing safety protocols and managing a shutdown. Additionally, Ward spearheaded strategic space planning initiatives for Ellis Library, serving as the project director for an NEH challenge grant aimed at upgrading the West Stacks for Ellis Library to create a permanent location for distinctive collections.
One of Ward’s enduring legacies is her unwavering commitment to tailoring library services to meet the evolving needs of students and faculty throughout her years at MU.
“It has been an honor to serve the MU community and contribute to the growth and evolution of our libraries,” Ward said. “I am grateful for the opportunities and support I’ve received throughout my career. As I step into retirement, I look forward to witnessing the continued success and innovation of MU Libraries under new leadership.”
The university will commence a national search for a new vice provost for Libraries, with the desired start date of June 1, 2024. A number of constituent groups will be contacted for input and feedback on potential search committee members.
The MU Libraries are pleased to announce that Nicole Merzweiler has been hired as the continuing resources cataloger librarian. Nicole has a Master of Library and Information Science from Kent State University. She has previously worked as the cataloging librarian at Northeast Ohio Medical University. Nicole’s professional interests include inclusive cataloging and user experience.
The MU Libraries are pleased to announce that Jill Kline has been hired as a student success librarian. Jill has a Master of Library and Information Science from MU and a Bachelor of Secondary Education from Union College. Jill has been working in libraries since 2013 starting as a student worker. After graduating from Union College, she worked as an English, art and yearbook teacher in Centralia, MO, then worked as a public services and outreach librarian at Union College for two years. She has also worked as part of a TRiO Student Support Services program at Doane University.
Comedias Sueltas USA is a website dedicated to the study of Spanish plays, primarily by means of its comprehensive database which maintains and compiles records of comedias sueltas printed before 1834 and are currently held in the collections of academic and research libraries across the United States. Referred to as chapbooks in English, sueltas emerged from printing centers of Spain mainly in the 18th century, and they continued to be produced well into the 19th century. Key characteristics of comedias sueltas include quarto format printed in double column. These singly printed three-act plays were often 32 to 64 pages in length resulting in 4 to 8 gatherings that were later stab- stitched. Many have a printed number on the upper portion of the first page by which printers kept track of the inventory. A primary place for decoration was the area around the title and the author’s name. One finds arrangements of metal ornaments such as fleurons, stars, ivy leaves, and manicules, or elaborate woodcut tailpieces at the very end. Booksellers also took advantage of pages following the end of the play to advertise other titles they had for sale. Early examples of sueltas often lacked imprints and can be dated only through typographical analysis, however, over time dates appeared gradually in the colophons of sueltas.
The first page of Las Bizarrias de Belisa by Lope de Vega Carpio.
These ephemeral works have managed to survive in significant numbers, as printers and publishers maintained these titles in print for the theater-going public. The theater-going public also enjoyed amateur performances and often purchased multiple copies of sueltas for reading at home. From the colophons we see that printers operated in all the major cities in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Salamanca), as well as in some of the smaller cities, and sold some of their sueltas through booksellers all over Spain. It was an active and thriving business.
Director Szilvia Szmuk-Tanenbaum and the team at Comedias Sueltas USA hope that the Database and some of the other features of the website will serve as a valuable resource for students and scholars exploring different aspects of the Spanish theater, book history and the printing culture of the hand-press period in Spain. This comprehensive census includes records and images. As an ongoing process we will continue to enhance records with new data as it emerges. Our objective is to bring awareness and accessibility to these collections, enabling scholars to analyze trends, document change, and provide context allowing for a deeper understanding of the time periods in which they were created. To this end, in addition to accurate bibliographic records, we are including copy specific images of the first and last pages of each play from its holding institution for exact identification.
Other resources available on the website include:
An extensive Bibliography that consists of publications supporting the study of sueltas in connection with specific items or collections, comprehensive bibliographic resources covering literature that integrates material on comedias sueltas, and references to printers or booksellers of suelta editions, as well as broader insights into printing history that illuminate the practices applicable to suelta
A Glossary of terms, a recent addition still a work in progress, compiles a list of terms that scholars are likely to encounter in our bibliographic records, essays, or general literature about comedias sueltas. Additionally, the diagram of the anatomy of a comedia suelta serves for easy identification of parts and their proper name.
The Websites of Interest section assembles a list of various platforms, mostly from Spain, useful for researchers engaged in the study of Spanish history, theater, or literature.
Comedias sueltas USA has identified just over 100 academic and independent research libraries in the United States that have holdings of comedias sueltas. The size of these collections varies, with approximately one-third of the libraries holding only a few titles, several more holding 11-975 titles, and about 8 collections hold more than 1000 titles. For instance, the University of North Carolina boasts a collection of over 2200 titles and similarly, the Hispanic Society Library and Museum in New York possesses nearly an equivalent number.
At the time of this writing, the team at Comedias Sueltas USA has uploaded 69 collections of sueltas into its database and many more are getting ready to be uploaded. We very much appreciate Kelli Hansen’s assistance by providing images of the first and last pages of each item in the Ellis library Spanish play collection. We feel that having the 62 titles, some of which we haven’t seen before, really adds to the completion of the census.
A cover of one of the factitious volumes in Ellis Library’s collections.
The sueltas in the Ellis library database offer good examples for teaching the history of printing ephemera. These are generally single plays, but we also find them bound as factitious volumes. The term factitious volume is used to describe some randomly bound volume (usually of 12 plays) selected by a collector, bookseller, or librarian. These bound volumes were thought to be easier to handle than the ephemeral pamphlets. The Moreto plays Confusión de un jardín and San Franco de Sena, with no imprint dates, seem to be the earliest in the collection. The most recent suelta in the collection, Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas by Cándido María Trigueros was printed in 1814. A selection of Trigueros’ works are 18th-century adaptations of plays originally written by Lope de Vega. Curiously, nearly half of the Ellis collection is authored by Lope de Vega, a prominent Spanish playwright and poet of the Golden Age. By closely examining this collection students can observe first-hand the printing styles across the 17th -19th century.
Looking at these plays in chronological sequence, it is easy to observe change in typography and orthography. For example, the use of long s (a letter that looked almost like an f) transitions to a modern short s during this period. Other aspects of spelling become modernized as well. The use of a short s but with an early date in the colophon indicated a “concealed reprint” which was done to avoid paying the fee a printer should have paid for reprinting an earlier work.
Women played an important part in the world of 18th century Spanish printing. Seven of the 62 plays in the collection were produced by women printer/booksellers. Women often assumed the reins of their late husband’s or male relative’s business. As was the case with Viuda de Quiroga (Manuel de Losada Quiroga’s widow) and Antonia Gómez (José de Orga’s widow). In addition, there was Teresa de Guzmán who was a printer and bookseller in her own right in Madrid from 1733-1737.
It is important for Special Collections to bring the history of the book and older printing practices to the attention of its users. Plays that students now read in modern paperback edition or electronically did not appear that way to their first readers two or three centuries ago. It is important to have them touch the paper that was made one sheet at a time during this era of printing and even to feel the bite of the type as the raised letter was formed. Experiences such as these bring a deeper understanding to the evolution of printed materials. We hope that faculty, students, and researchers at the University of Missouri will see the value of their Spanish plays collection.
To access comedias sueltas or any other materials in Special Collections, schedule an appointment through the Special Collections website.
The MU Libraries are pleased to announce that Janet Hilts has been hired as arts and humanities librarian. Janet has a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Arts in ethnomusicology and musicology from York University. She previously worked as a research assistant with the project “Sounds of Home: Exploring Local Music Collections and Collecting in Canada,” and as a librarian for the Learning and Instruction Division at Simon Fraser University Library.
The MU Libraries are pleased to announce that Megan Ballengee has been hired as the community engagement coordinator. Megan has a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and Bachelor of Arts in art history and Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from St. Cloud State University. She previously worked as an instructional services librarian at Heartland Community College and an undergraduate instruction & outreach librarian at Texas State University.
Every year since 1990, bicycle enthusiasts have converged from around the world for the International Cycle History Conference (ICHC), where papers are presented on all aspects of cycle history and culture.
Few controversies are more important to this group than that surrounding the invention of the “boneshaker,” that is, the original bicycle of the mid-19th century powered by cranks and rotary pedals attached to the front hub. Though it appears to have originated in Paris around 1863, exactly who was responsible for that breakthrough and the original Michaux bicycle company remains unclear.
Fortunately, new technologies in library research may help solve the mystery. In 2022, MU Government Information Librarian Marie Concannon presented a paper at the ICHC titled “How to use digital libraries for historical cycling research,” and spoke about advances which allow powerful full-text searching in millions of books and government records all at once.
One of the historians in attendance was David Herlihy, author of Bicycle: The History published by Yale University Press. After hearing Ms. Concannon’s presentation, he was intrigued by the possibility of using U.S. Patent & Trademark Office databases to answer a key question: in 1869, were the founders of the Michaux company trying to purchase the original bicycle patent granted by the U.S. Patent office in November, 1866 to Pierre Lallement of Paris, France? If so, that would provide strong evidence that they knew this was a valid patent. Mr. Herlihy hopes to analyze data generated by the newly retooled U.S. Patent database, together with 19th century intellectual property law, to make that case.
Ms. Concannon was able to assist with the patent database, but needed help with intellectual property law history. She asked MU Law Librarian colleagues Randy Diamond and Cindy Shearer for input, and was delighted to see all they uncovered — about a dozen articles providing exactly the sort of legal context Mr. Herlihy was seeking, including the steps a foreigner might have taken in the 1860s to either purchase or overturn an existing U.S. patent. Taking such actions could indirectly reveal that individual’s opinion of the bicycle’s rightful inventor.
For now it remains a mystery to us, while Mr. Herlihy works through all the materials sent by our team of librarians. We can’t wait to see his next ICHC paper!
The University of Missouri Libraries are pleased to announce that Navadeep Khanal has been appointed head of the newly created Teaching & Learning Department within the Research, Access and Instructional Services (RAIS) Division. The Teaching & Learning Department combines the former Instructional Services Department with the E-Learning/Digital Media unit and will support instructional services, e-learning, web content management, and the Digital Media and Innovation Lab. The head of Teaching & Learning will report to the associate university librarian for RAIS and work closely with the head of Research and Information Services to provide forward-thinking leadership in support of the libraries’ strategic goal to position the University Libraries as active partners in student-centered learning.
Navadeep has served as the head of E-Learning Technologies at the MU Libraries since 2021. He joined the MU Libraries in 2013 as the e-learning librarian. He earned his PhD in social and community informatics at the University of Illinois in 2012, and a Masters in Library and Information Science in 2005. He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2002. Over the years he has worked closely with his fellow librarians, and instructional technology staff at Mizzou. He went on to set up the Digital Media and Innovation Lab in Ellis Library, and take on the additional role as web manager since 2017. Prior to coming to Mizzou, Navadeep worked at the iShool in Illinois to support research and information technology needs.
Marie Concannon, head of government information for the University of Missouri Libraries, has been awarded the 2023 NewsBank/Readex/GODORT/ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Award from the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association. This award provides funding for research that would make a contribution to the field of documents librarianship. The prize will be used to fund a student position in the library’s Government Information department to help expand the “Prices and Wages by Decade” web guide.
GODORT stated, “The Awards Committee is excited and impressed with your website and research project Prices and Wages by Decade, and acknowledges the immense value it offers to researchers everywhere.”
The “Prices and Wages by Decade” guide points to retail prices and average wages in primary source materials, mainly government documents. The research guide has found fans across campus, the state and the world since Concannon created it in 2012.
Concannon has received two previous awards for the “Prices and Wages by Decade” guide from the Reference and User Services division of ALA.
The MU Libraries are pleased to announce that Mara Inge has been hired as the electronic resources and discovery librarian. Mara has a Master of Library and Information Science and a Bachelor of Arts in art history and archaeology from the University of Missouri. She worked as a senior library information specialist at the MU Engineering Library and Technology Commons since 2018. Before that, Mara was a document control coordinator at the MU Research Reactor.
