The University Libraries are pleased to announce that Noel Kopriva has been appointed as Engineering Librarian and Head of Engineering Library & Technology Commons!
Noel has earned a Bachelor’s in English and two Master’s degrees in Library and Information Science and English from the University of Missouri. She has been working for the University of Missouri Libraries for over three and half years as the Librarian to Textile and Apparel Management and to the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. She previously served as the Agriculture Librarian at West Virginia University for seven years.
This past year, Noel has been serving as the Interim Head of the Engineering Library & Technology Commons and we are happy to have her continue her work in a permanent position.
Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 University Libraries Undergraduate Research Project Contest!
Beckie Jaeckels won first prize and a $500 scholarship for her paper “Written in Stone: A Critical Look at the Nation’s Dealings with Racial Discussion in 2017.” Her paper is structured around her work with Dr. Berkley Hudson as a Discovery Fellow. Dr. Berkley describes the paper as an exploration of “the twists and turns that have led to today’s debate about the role and the legitimacy of monuments dedicated to the Confederacy and its Lost Cause and those connections with enslavement and with contemporary racial strife and brutality.” Beckie cites a wide variety of 38 primary and secondary sources, from traditional print sources to tweets.
Beckie JaeckelsAutumn McLain
Autumn McLain won second prize and a $250 scholarship for her research paper “Jonathan Swift, Misanthropy, and ‘The Voyage to The Land of The Houyhnhnms’.” Autumn began her research with primary documents, Swift’s correspondence around the time when he was drafting Gulliver’s Travels, before delving into secondary sources. Her course professor Dr. Stephen Karian says that this strategy “allowed her to foreground her own words and ideas and to prevent them from being subsumed by those of other scholars–something that many undergraduates struggle with when writing research papers.”
The winners’ papers are archived in MOspace, MU’s digital repository, and linked above.
Thanks to the Friends of the University of Missouri Libraries for sponsoring these awards.
Debbie Parker, instructor at the Center for English Language Learning, pinpoints a key challenge for international students: “Avoiding plagiarism is a daunting task for all students, but it is complicated by the fact that international students have different ideas about what is expected when using support in papers or presentations.”
A major assessment of the Intensive English Program’s students’ mastery of academic English is a formal speech using PowerPoint. This speech must incorporate research and requires students to produce a bibliography. Debbie took her colleague Mary Browning’s advice and contacted Cindy Cotner, the librarian for international students, to set up an instruction session about avoiding plagiarism.
Cindy immediately thought of LibWIS, a series of library workshops for international students. Two of Ellis Library’s Graduate Reference Assistants, Haley Gillilan and Victoria Knight, had recently taught a workshop on just this topic. Planning and teaching workshops is just part of the professional-level training and experience Haley and Victoria receive as GRAs while they complete their degrees in library science. They also provide research assistance in person at the Research Help and Information Desk as well as online through our chat service and assist librarians with other projects.
Haley Gillilan
Cindy suggested that Haley and Victoria teach the session since they had already prepared a lesson on plagiarism specifically for international students. She says, “I am grateful that Debbie granted permission for our graduate students to teach in her classroom. Her students were engaged and asked good questions, and I think this activity was a learning experience for all!”
The instruction session went beyond a dry summary of “how to cite sources in academic classes without plagiarizing.” As part of Haley and Victoria’s presentation, they assessed students’ understanding using example citations. Debbie explains, “They asked the students to guess which ones were correct. If it wasn’t acceptable, the students needed to explain what was wrong with it.”
Learning about plagiarism and potential consequences from current students beholden to the same university standards of academic integrity helped reinforce the message in a unique way. Debbie says, “It also made it easier for me to reinforce the importance of citing their sources because I could refer back to the visit and remind them about the presentation that they heard.”
Victoria Knight
Victoria and Haley benefited from the opportunity to modify a workshop they’d taught before for use in an individual classroom. Victoria says, “Plagiarism is such a big topic and can differ so greatly from country to country. It was an amazing opportunity to get to take one of our library sessions out into the actual classroom. I think it was really beneficial, and it was a fun class to teach.” Haley sums it up well: “I hope that the class helped them with their academic success at Mizzou!”
Debbie wants all students, especially international students, to know that “the library offers so much more than just books.” A former student worker in Ellis Library, she says, “Librarians are an under-tapped resource which can save faculty, staff and students time and energy. The resources and the workshops can make the students’ learning experience much fuller.”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
This guest post is written by Mary Browning, Instructor at the Center for English Language Learning.
In the fall of 2017, Cindy Cotner, the liaison between Ellis Library and MU international students, and I collaborated on two workshops designed to teach students in my classes about Zotero, an online tool that helps students research, collect, and cite their sources. As an instructor at the Center for English Language Learning, I am interested in discovering ways to enhance the academic experience of international students for whom English is a non-native language. Last fall, Cindy offered a Zotero workshop for 11 of my advanced students who were studying English full-time at the Intensive English Program and 25 international students who were taking my SSC 1150 College Success Seminar at MU.
Mary Browning, Na (Sabrina) Hu, Tianyu (Michael) Bai, and Kazuya Suzuki
During each workshop, Cindy patiently led the students through a progression of steps that allowed them to achieve sufficient mastery to be able to go back to their classrooms and seamlessly use Zotero in subsequent writing assignments. Because of the challenges that many international students face when studying in a non-native language, workshops offered by Ellis Library can greatly enhance their academic experience while at MU.
The Zotero workshop was a definite success: students in both of my classes were able to immediately apply the knowledge and skills they learned in Cindy’s workshop to their academic classes. They reported using Zotero to develop a personal library of relevant research sources, to access this information in real time by incorporating in-text citations while writing their essay drafts, and to create a reference page for their research essays in several strokes.
Mary Browning, Yudi (Gloria) Si, and Junjie (Betty) Qin
I’d advise any MU student, especially international students, to check out and then attend one or many of the workshops offered by Ellis Library to discover tips and techniques to use while researching and writing essays and completing other assignments. MU faculty who are interested in learning more about ways to collaborate with the library, should contact their subject librarian. Cindy is the contact for support of international students.
Mary Browning and Yiqing (Sybil) He
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
In the spirit of service that was the cornerstone of the 1839 founding of the University of Missouri, the Mizzou Alumni Association Student Board presents the Mizzou ’39 Award to 39 outstanding seniors each year. Chosen for their academic achievement, leadership and service to Mizzou and the community, the honorees represent a variety of majors, activities and organizations from across campus. You can meet the whole class of Mizzou ’39 here.
The Mizzou Alumni Association Student Board also presents the Mizzou 18 Award, which honors 18 University of Missouri graduate and professional students in the last year of their degree eligibility. Chosen for their world-class research, collaboration with faculty and staff, and their demonstrated leadership with undergraduate students, the honorees represent a variety of majors, activities and organizations from across campus. You can meet the whole inaugural class of Mizzou 18 here.
We’d like to recognize four students who have gone above and beyond serving on advisory boards and contributing to improvement efforts for the University of Missouri Libraries during their time at Mizzou. Thank you so much to Rachel Bauer, Alexis Ditaway, Billy Donley, and Tori Schafer for your outstanding library advocacy. We know you’re going to go on to do great things, and we hope you’ll continue to be library users and supporters everywhere you go. MIZ! LIB!
The University Libraries are pleased to announce that John Fifield has been hired as special collections librarian. John has a joint Master of Library and Information Science and Graduate Certificate in Book Arts and Book Studies from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor of Music from Oklahoma State University. He is coming to us from the University of Iowa, where he worked as the Robert A. Olson graduate research assistant in special collections and university archives. During his graduate studies at Iowa, John also worked with the Biblioteca del Convento de la Recoleta in Arequipa, Peru.
The University of Missouri has long been a partner and sponsor of activities offered by Missouri River Relief, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to connecting people to the Missouri River. Now MOspace, the University of Missouri’s online repository, is partnering with Missouri River Relief to offer curriculum material to K-12 schools in Missouri. Common Trees of the Missouri River Bottoms: A Guide for Students is the first of these materials. Two Mizzou students assisted with its creation.
Missouri River Relief has removed 876 tons of trash from the river with the help of 23,000 volunteers over the past 16 years and has also reached 18,000 students through interdisciplinary and experiential educational events. Kristen Schulte, Missouri River Relief’s Education Coordinator, says these events are designed to “engage students’ innate sense of wonder and natural curiosity. We believe this approach inspires community engagement, academic achievement, and a sense of stewardship.”
Common Trees of the Missouri River Bottoms is not a foolproof taxonomic tree ID guide but instead a guide for a hands-on learning experience for elementary through high school students. It focuses on Missouri River floodplain trees’ bark rather than leaves, a unique approach to teaching and learning tree species. Many Missouri River floodplain trees are very tall with leaves out of reach, while tree bark is at the student level.
Kristen Schulte
Kristen knew that more young people would learn about Missouri River floodplain trees through this method if the guide were freely available online. As a graduate student at the University of Wyoming, she worked on Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps Resources Education Curriculum, seventeen lessons designed for the youth employed in the program. The curriculum is housed in the Wyoming Scholars Repository, which tracks how many times it has been downloaded. “When I started working for Missouri River Relief,” Kristen says, “I knew that we wanted to have a similar curriculum for the Missouri River, and it would be helpful to have the statistical information of the downloads, which we are not able to capture on our website. So I reached out to Noël and Felicity and they were supportive of the idea.”
Felicity Dykas, Head of Digital Services, saw the collection as a good fit for MOspace, and Noël Kopriva, Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Librarian, agreed. Felicity says, “One of our goals for MOspace is to preserve research and scholarship and to make these resources available to the Mizzou community and others worldwide.”
The reach of Common Trees of the Missouri River Bottoms has truly been international. It was added to MOspace in August 2017, and Felicity shares that “It’s already been downloaded more than 400 times, including by people in China, France, Serbia, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.”
Missouri River Relief is developing additional resources to be uploaded to MOspace, including Missouri River Curriculum, Missouri River Information Packets, and Missouri River STEM Challenges.
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
Although the Cycle of Success typically focuses on the relationships among the Libraries, faculty, and students, the Libraries also contribute to the success of all the communities Mizzou serves. The Libraries are an integral part of Mizzou’s mission “to provide all Missourians the benefits of a world-class research university.”
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
When lifelong musician Murry Hammond came to Columbia with his band of twenty-five years, Old 97’s, for the Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend a few days conducting research in Ellis Library. In addition to being a musician, Murry describes himself as a “lay historian with a lifelong passion for preservation and writing history, specializing in transportation and industrial history of primarily Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.” He has digitized and published thousands of images to his website Texas Transportation Archive over the past two decades and is the author of East Texas Logging Railroads.
How did Murry find out that Ellis Library had a wealth of resources in his areas of specialty? The answer is WorldCat, the online catalog that searches the collections of libraries worldwide. Old 97’s had been a Blue Note regular for years, but Murry never had enough time in Columbia for any real research. When they performed at Roots N Blues, however, he flew in several days early and had a “dream visit.”
Eric Cusick, Murry Hammond, Karen Eubanks
Eric Cusick, Karen Eubanks, and Burt Fields were the key staff members who helped make Murry’s time at Ellis Library a successful one. Karen describes her colleagues at the Circulation and Help Desk as the “face of the library” as students and visitors often ask their very first questions there–and the questions vary widely. Students may need anything from directions to the research help desk to a band-aid, and visitors may be curious about events on campus or downtown. Because each circulation team member has different strengths and experiences, they are able to help people find the information (or bandages) they need.
Murry initially corresponded with Eric about the materials he needed before his arrival, and Karen set him up in a location conducive to using his scanner and safely handling fragile materials. She says, “When Murry arrived early one morning at the circulation desk ready to begin his work, I was able to locate a quite study space in our offices that was suitable for his research as he had brought his own scanner and needed a large desk area to accommodate the many large volumes he had requested through Eric from the depository,” the off-campus storage facility. Burt worked with library staff at the depository to help Murry retrieve additional materials as needed during his visit. Murry spent three days, one clocking in at 16.5 hours, conducting research in Ellis Library and was back in December to work with more library materials.
“Mizzou Libraries helped significantly cut down my time at the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress,” Murry says. “I’ve been in literally dozens of the major archives and special collections in most of the lower 48 states, and Mizzou Libraries is in easily in my top ten, at least for what I research. Thank you!”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
Although the Cycle of Success typically focuses on the relationships among the Libraries, faculty, and students, the Libraries also contribute to the success of all the communities Mizzou serves. The Libraries are an integral part of Mizzou’s mission “to produce and disseminate knowledge that will improve the quality of life in the state, the nation and the world.”
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Tove Klovning, who serves as US, MO, and EU Government Documents Depository Coordinator as well as Foreign/Comparative/International Law Librarian & Lecturer in Law at Washington University in St. Louis, often interacts with researchers seeking access to both historical and current government information. She explains, “Preserving government information and making it accessible for both current researchers and future generations is an important task for depository libraries.” In her work at a sub-regional and Federal depository library, she has benefited from the direction and guidance of Marie Concannon, Missouri’s regional coordinator for the Federal Depository Library Program and Head of Government Information and Data Archives here at Mizzou Libraries.
Tove says she “honestly could not have wished for a more competent Regional Depository Coordinator. Marie is always there to answer any questions we may have and is always willing to offer training, updates, and continuing education to both new and established depository librarians on a regular basis.” For example, when Tove needed input regarding weeding the local collection, Marie consulted with her.
Marie has also worked to help libraries free up much-needed space while retaining government resources in the region: “Thanks to her great work with area depository librarians, an Intrastate Regional agreement was put into place in 2012.” This model encouraged depository libraries to stay in the program, Tove explains, since sharing resources helps each individual library better cope with the perpetual struggle of space issues. Marie met face-to-face with about a dozen depository libraries in St. Louis to facilitate the process of drafting this agreement.
Marie Concannon
In terms of training and support for depository librarians in the region, Tove has found that Marie plays a vital role as educator. A frequently consulted resource is a guide for Missouri FDLP members which helps librarians navigate the federal depository system. Marie built and maintains this guide to facilitate online access to crucial information for these librarians and help keep them informed of training opportunities and conferences.
Organizing workshops and conferences is another way Marie makes sure librarians can get up-to-date training on government information so that they can help patrons access the data they need. In November, Missouri state government employees and both academic and public library employees attended the Missouri State Government Information Conference, which she co-organized. The 2017 theme was “Sunshine and Missouri’s Digital Future,” taking its name from the state Sunshine Law. Marie says the conference’s purpose is “to bridge the gap between libraries and government, and help lay groundwork for closer partnership on projects involving government information accessibility.”
For all of these reasons and more, as Tove says, “We are very fortunate to have Marie as our Federal and State Regional Coordinator.”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
Although the Cycle of Success typically focuses on the relationships among the Libraries, faculty, and students, the Libraries also contribute to the success of all the communities Mizzou serves. The Libraries are an integral part of Mizzou’s mission “to provide all Missourians the benefits of a world-class research university.”
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
“It feels cliché to say, but it’s the truth. Not only is our campus absolutely gorgeous, the people that are there make you feel as though you can succeed the moment you meet them.” As an electrical engineering student, he knew the non-traditional path to medical school he chose wouldn’t be easy, but Mizzou offered him the resources in order to follow his dream and excel right from the beginning.
These days, you can find Alex, like many engineering students, in the Engineering Library, a place he credits as being instrumental to his success as a Mizzou student. The library offers invaluable collaborative space for students studying various engineering specialties and resources on cutting edge innovation in the field.
“My favorite thing about the Engineering Library is the space it provides to engineering students near our classes, peers, and professors. Although the Lafferre renovation has provided more study rooms, they are always occupied, and often not even by engineering students. The library allows students to study individually, work on a group project, or prepare for an exam with friends. As engineering spans a wide range of topics, everyone working in the same place is helpful when there are assignments requiring the intersection of multiple engineering disciplines.”
Through his regular library use, Alex became passionate about the libraries, ultimately serving as the 2016-2017 chair of the University Libraries Student Advisory Council (ULSAC). As chair, he advocated for students’ resource needs, something he says is vital to any Mizzou student experience. Students know what they need to succeed, and ULSAC wants to make sure student voices are heard.
ULSAC visiting the Kenan Science Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. The council visited the Research Triangle to help inspire the Student Vision Report
Over the past two years, ULSAC has been hard at work collecting data from students, developing a student vision for the library in order to make sure all students, regardless of their involvement or backgrounds, are supported by the University Libraries.
Mizzou is what you make of it, and not only will Alex remember the energy of the Mizzou Vs. Mississippi State football game (his favorite Mizzou memory), he will also remember how personally and academically supportive the Mizzou community was. “I cannot wait to come back to Mizzou one day and see students from other universities’ student library councils touring our libraries to bring back ideas for their schools and I am very thankful for the opportunity to have been the Chair of such an amazing council of student leaders that made this possible.”
