Yes, it’s that time of the semester again. You’re studying, you’re researching, you’re writing, you’re living on coffee and no sleep…but look, a fluffy puff of pure love and joy! These calm, cheerful, trained therapy dogs are here to give you a break and put a smile on your face!
Come to Ellis Library on the main floor by the North Doors / checkout desk:
Sunday, December 12 from 6-9pm
Monday, December 13 from 6-9pm
Tuesday, December 14 from 6-8pm
There will also be therapy dogs in the Engineering Library on Sunday from 3 to 6pm.
Thanks to Sherry Melton for coordinating all the dogs and owners who help us de-stress during finals!
The University of Missouri will virtually host Ms. Judy Heumann, a civil rights activist and author. She recently released her memoir titled Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist and was featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary, Crip Camp, about the development of the Disability Rights movement. Ms. Heumann’s leadership was instrumental in pushing Congress to enact major disability rights legislation and then pressing the Executive Office to regulate and enforce the law. Please join us in a virtual discussion about her experiences advocating for herself and other disabled citizens.
Event hosted by: MU Disability Center; Division of Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity; Michael A. Middleton Center for Race, Citizenship, and Justice; Mizzou Hillel; College of Education and Human Development; School of Law Library; University of Missouri Advancement; University of Missouri Libraries; Women’s Studies; School of Health Professions; Mizzou Ed Bridge
November 8th is National First-Generation College Celebration Day and we are thrilled to celebrate our first-generation students, faculty and staff at Mizzou. Additional information, success stories and resources (Zoom backgrounds, social media graphics) to celebrate and support our first-generation students can be found on our website.
One of the featured events on November 8th is “Open Door Day” which invites first-generation students to stop by during open hours to talk with faculty and staff to connect and learn about opportunities. There are more than 90 individuals planning to open their doors to first-generation students! To see a list of individuals participating, please see the website.
The following participants will have open office hours in Ellis Library:
Kelli Hansen, Head of Special Collections – 405 Ellis Library, 2-4 pm
Leaders and Heroes 2: The Arts is Special Collections’ newest digital exhibit, curated by Courtney Gillie and John Henry Adams. A continuation of the 2020 exhibit Leaders and Heroes, we continue to spotlight art, articles, and monographs by historically excluded people. Starting with the LGBTQIA icon Sappho, the exhibit was created to reflect the openly diverse world we live in now. Explore beautiful, hand-crafted wood engravings in Shall we join the ladies? and then dive into the community and culture that expelled Japanese American families built in Tanforan Racetrack horse stalls in Citizen 13660.
Leaders and Heroes exist in good times and bad. Pulling from Mizzou’s many libraries on campus, our further reading section is full of primary and secondary sources for additional contextual information on the history and identity of each fascinating creator featured in Leaders & Heroes 2. We hope you will be entertained by the wit of William Woo and Zora Neale Hurston, moved by the art of Miné Okubo and the Kiowa 5, then inspired by the poetry of Sappho and relentless writings of Lydia Maria Child to advocate yourself.
Now on display, “Provenance Learning and Storytelling” showcases research and creative works completed by students enrolled in the Honors Seminar during Fall 2021, GN_HON 1050H, “Get Real, Go Places! Let Objects Take You There.” The eight-week course takes as its focus the study of material culture, specifically the opportunities for research that objects and artifacts make possible. Students are introduced to the practice of interpreting, inspecting, and writing about objects through regular use of a sketchbook journal and weekly syntheses shared with classmates. The course is taught by Dr. Sarah Buchanan of the iSchool at the University of Missouri (in the College of Education and Human Development) and by gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals based on the Mizzou campus who belong to the Material Culture Studies Group, established in 2014.
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Emphasis on learning about provenance – “the origin of an item and the history behind it,” or “where an object comes from and how it got to be where it is today” in the students’ words – generated a range of creative, colorful expressions informed by the available expertise. Our student showcase features 30 art objects created by 11 undergraduate students, each based on the class visit to a particular collection on the Columbia campus. Students created weekly syntheses reflecting on their visit and a culminating analysis of specific objects appealing to students’ future academic interests.
On display here are clay figures of the campus’s elephant ear plant (colocasia esculenta) and a trio of resident frogs, three oil pastels of the Lambach (Austria) Abbey grammar book’s provenance stamps in Special Collections and Archives, a poem questioning “what information?” after the Museum of Anthropology, “Sundial: an artist’s book,” watercolor paintings of a cardinal bird and the “Ghost Dancing” 1975 van, seed pod and plaster cast sketches, a Bicentennial collage inspired by the 1921 Missouri Centennial Poster at the SHSMO, and a painted clay figure of Akua’ba (Asante) inspired by the Museum of Art and Archaeology, among other reflections on storytelling as accompaniment. For their contributions to the success of the course we gratefully thank: Catherine Armbrust, Jessica Boldt, Buck’s Ice Cream, Cathy Callaway, Connor Frew for THE RISO ROOM, Kelli Hansen, Rachel Harper, Amanda Staley Harrison, Nicole Johnston, Maggie Mayhan, artist Nick Peña, Joe Pintz, Jennifer Roohparvar-Brumfield, Jenna Rozum, Candace Sall, Karlan Seville and Joan Stack.
The course will next be offered in Fall 2022 – join us!
The Digital Media Lab in Ellis Library is hosting a hands-on demo event this Thursday, October 28th from 11am-2pm. Stop by the Colonnade on the first floor and check out some of the equipment we have to offer, including:
getting your picture taken with Halloween decorations,
scan yourself using a 3D Scanner,
and share your thoughts about what you like about the libraries on our open podcast using a soundboard and microphone. Come celebrate with us!
The Digital Media Lab is located above the café on the first floor in Room 156 in Ellis Library, with a Recording Room in 157 and a Film Studio in 3E21. The Lab is free for all students at Mizzou and includes an audio booth and recording space, a film studio with green screen, and both 3D Scanners and a 3D Animation workstation.
For more information about the Digital Media Lab, or to reserve a time, visit our website library.missouri.edu/dml. For additional questions, stop by Room 153 in Ellis Library or email us at ellisdml@missouri.edu.
The Sandi and Barry Garron Campaign collection represents a lifetime of collecting by 1971 University of Missouri Political Science and Journalism alumnus Barry Garron. Garron is the former president of the Television Critics Association and is a longtime reporter and television critic for the Kansas City Star, The Hollywood Reporter and numerous other publications. He is also a prolific collector of presidential campaign buttons, something he has done for most of his life. In 2021, he donated the entire collection to the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs.
The collection spans the presidential election of 1896, the first with campaign buttons, through the 1996 presidential election, with some buttons from more recent elections. Garron said that he felt like a century’s worth of buttons was a good goal and he has certainly accomplished it. The collection includes buttons for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, as well as third party candidates. The buttons both promote and oppose the candidates. Looking at the collection is a colorful, dynamic and fascinating way to learn about the political history of the 20th century in the United States.
Visit the north side of Ellis Library on Lowry Mall immediately after the Homecoming Parade on Saturday, Oct. 9 for refreshments and family activities. The first 100 kids will receive a free mini pumpkin. This event is free and open to the public.
Students returning to Ellis Library’s Grand Reading Room this fall will be greeted by four new inspiring sculptures – Lunas, Lightspire, Photon and Solaris. The bronze sculptures, by contemporary master, M.L. Snowden, were given to the University Libraries by Drs. Holly Orr and Mark Haskell Monroe. Mark’s father, Haskell Monroe, served as the University of Missouri’s chancellor from 1987 to 1993.
M.L. Snowden is the sole living inheritor of select 19th century marble carving, finishing, casting and bronze patination techniques from the Paris studios of Auguste Rodin and Antonin Mercié. She sculpted alongside her father for seventeen years as an apprentice and as a professional in Snowden Studios. In 1990, she inherited a collection of 38 of the original sculpting tools from the Rodin Studios. Rodin’s tools were bequeathed to M.L. Snowden’s father by the Swiss sculptor, Robert Georges Eberhard.
M.L. Snowden has won the world’s most prestigious sculpture prize, The International Rodin Competition in Tokyo, Japan, and most recently was awarded the inaugural Presidential Order of Merit “In Recognition of Significant Contributions to the Betterment of Humanity Through Art,” presented by the Fine Art Foundation with the sculptor’s work recently added to the Presidential art collection at the White House. The sculptor maintains studios in southern California, Paris and Austria.
Since 2016, Special Collections has used Instagram to share our collections with the world. To mark our fifth anniversary on the platform, and to welcome students and faculty back to campus, our fall exhibition celebrates two sets of favorite posts.
One of the exhibit cases highlights your favorites: the posts that were the most liked, commented, and interacted with over the past five years. As you will see, there are wonders to discover in Special Collections, from medieval manuscripts to nineteenth-century publisher’s bindings. These posts are just the beginning!
The other exhibit case highlights our favorites: posts chosen by Special Collections and Archives staff. As these materials show, we envision a future in which Special Collections and Archives foster, reflect and inform an inclusive, diverse, and engaged community, locally and beyond.
This exhibition will be on view in the Ellis Library North Colonnade through fall 2021. For more, make an appointment to visit us in person, or follow us on Instagram.
