We had a full house for our recent Fridays@the Library class, “Maximizing your research identity and impact”, but if you missed it, you can now review the recording to learn how to utilize ORCID, Google Scholar Profile, MOspace, and impact factors to maximize your professional impact.
Resources and Services
Ghosts, Friendly and Otherwise
While sometimes our stacks can certainly feel like they're haunted, the only ghosts we know live here are the ones in our books! From Casper the Friendly Ghost to the Headless Horseman, our shelves are inhabited by a large variety of spirits. We even have books claiming to be written by ghosts, such as the Ghost Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, and collections of ghost stories spanning the years.
Automatic writing allows a person to channel the supernatural to produce written words without consciously writing. In this case, allowing the figure of Lazar to write pages worth of witty epigrams from the spirit of Oscar Wilde.
In this pamphlet, a speech is recorded from the ghost of Lord Haversham, who was so disturbed by some of the carrying-ons of the Parliment that he returned as a ghost after his death to give this speech to the House of Lords in 1710.
Even Holmes and Watson join the fray in the fight against evil spirits in these crossover comics that pit the famous consulting detective and his biographer against the opera ghost, or the Phantom of the Opera.
One of the more well-known ghosts in American literature is that of the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Also a terrifying figure in other European folktales, a common theme among all depictions is that, where this spirit shows up, death usually follows.
So if these books make you want to take up ghosthunting this October, you know who to call. (Hint: it's us, Special Collections!)
New Art Display: Medical Illustrations
Please stop by and view our new display, the medical illustrations of Stacy Turpin Cheavens, MS, CMI. Stacy has been the School of Medicine's sole Certified Medical Illustrator for 10 years now, currently at the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute. She works directly with health professionals of all types to create illustrations and animations for journal articles, presentations, posters, textbooks, websites, patient education, and clinical materials, among other uses.
While attending the University of Missouri as an undergrad, Stacy learned that she could combine her two passions, art and the life sciences, in one career. She knew immediately that Medical Illustration was the profession for her. After graduating in 2000, she studied drawing and sculpture at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy, and taught an écorché class (learning anatomy through sculpture). She then continued on to the Medical Illustration Graduate Program at Georgia Regents University in Augusta (then the Medical College of Georgia). It was there that she gained an in-depth understanding of anatomy, studying side-by-side with medical students, and became familiar with the tools necessary to create professional illustrations and animations.
You can view more of her work at medicine.missouri.edu/illustrator. She is also happy to talk about starting a new project or to answer any questions about a career in Medical Illustration. Contact her at cheavenss@health.missouri.edu or 884-5324.
Ma and Pa Ingalls
Charles and Caroline Ingalls (Pa and Ma)
Image taken from Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane
New York and Toronto 1933
Written by their grandaughter, Rose Wilder Lane, Let the Hurricane Roar tells the story of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The novel recounts events in the lives of the young newlywed couple making their way West, detailing the challenges and adventures encountered along the way.
Friday @ the Library Workshop, Oct. 10
Managing and Sharing Your Research Data
Oct. 10 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Room 213, Ellis Library
This session will provide an overview on facilitating the access and reuse of your research data. Learn how to comply
with funding agency policies; create data management plans; and submit data sets to MOspace, MU’s digital institutional
repository.
Registration Preferred. http://tinyurl.com/MULibrariesworkshops
Kate Anderson, Head, Zalk Veterinary Medical Library
Mizzou Must-Reads
For the 175 year anniversary of the University of Missouri, MU professors recommended 175 influential books. See the display near the scanners on the first floor to browse and check out these influential books.
For a full listing of the books go to https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/mustreads. The books are broken out into different categories: autobiographies/biographies, fiction, nonfiction, philosophy/spirituality, plays & poetry, science and social sciences.
Happy Reading!
Bats, Rats, and Spiders
Oh my!
Throughout October the Fantastic Beasts series will be taking a turn for the creepy as each week in October we feature spooky creatures and things that go bump in the night. For the first week we'll start with some of the tamer creepy-crawlies that lots of us see on a daily basis: bats, rats, and spiders. Each of these are commonly featured in tales of terror, and are associated with death, disease, or mystery, among other things. They can also serve as familiars to witches and sorcerors, which is where they picked up a lot of their negative associations. Truth is, many of these fears are largely unfounded, as bats, rats, and spiders are important parts of any ecosystem and for the most part are either scared of or not a threat to humans. Giant versions of any of these (such as those pictured below) are, of course, another matter entirely.
Friday Workshop, Maximizing Your Research Identity and Impact
Oct. 3
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Room 117, Health Sciences Library
Utilize ORCID, Google Scholar Profile, MOspace, h-index, impact factors and more to maximize your professional impact. Learn how to set up accounts and make these tools work for you!
Janice Dysart, Science Librarian
Rebecca Graves, Health Sciences Librarian
Fordyce’s Sermons and a Real-Life Mr. Collins
Remember Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice? He's the creepy, pompous cousin of Mr. Bennett – the one who was intended to marry Lizzie, but ended up with Charlotte Lucas, Lizzie's best friend. During his first visit to the Bennett family, Mr. Collins proves to be such a bore in conversation that he's asked to read out loud instead:
Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but, on beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with:
"Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away Richard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town."
Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said:
"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess; for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin."
Books on proper conduct were popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and James Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women was one of the most widely read and circulated. It became a staple in household and school libraries and went through multiple editions in a short period. One has to wonder, however, whether the young women who were subjected to its wisdom liked it as much as their parents, teachers, and clergymen did. Scholars have pointed out that Jane Austen uses the events above to comment on the place of the novel in society, but also to frame her female characters in relation to the submissive, modest, and pious behavior Fordyce prescribes.
We have one copy of Fordyce's Sermons in Special Collections. It's a second edition in two volumes, printed in 1766 in London. It's interesting to read, especially as an insight into the world of Jane Austen. But what's most interesting about it, to me at least, is that at some point in its early history, it was owned by a man named L. Buck, LL.D., who seemed to have appreciated Fordyce just as much as Mr. Collins did. Here's what he wrote on the front free endpaper:
This Book ought to be read again and again by every young Lady in the Kingdom. I do not know any Praise too great, that can be given to the Author of it. L. B.
Mr. Buck went on to take notes throughout the first and second volumes, underlining sentences and making short, summarizing comments in the margins. I've collected a gallery of some representative examples below.
From Alumni Oxoniensis I was able to find out that our Mr. Buck was probably Reverend Lewis Buck of Bideford, Devon. He enrolled in Exeter College at Oxford in May 1753 at the age of 19, received a bachelor's degree in law in 1765 and a D.C.L. in 1771, and died in April 1783.
To Mr. Buck's credit, it's pretty unfair of me to call him a real-life Mr. Collins. After all, we know very little about him, except for his regard for Fordyce and the fact that he was a clergyman. His interest in these sermons mirrored the attitudes and values of the society around him. Still, it's tempting to look for the reasons he read this book so closely. Was he a father of daughters looking for parenting advice? Was he involved in the education of women? Or perhaps he was looking for ways to counsel young women in his parish? Whatever his purposes, Fordyce's Sermons was a text he studied fully and, evidently, enjoyed.
See Spot Run!
Dick, Jane, Sally and Spot: icons in 20th century American education.
The New We Work and Play by William S. Gray, A. Sterl Artley, and May Hill Arbuthnot. Published 1951.
The Dick and Jane Reader Series was an extremely popular Reader collection used in American classrooms from the 1930's-1970's. Peaking in popularity in the 1950's, it is estimated that almost 80% of Readers used in 1st grade classrooms were from the Dick and Jane series. These Readers focused on whole language and repetition to teach children how to read. University of Missouri-Columbia professor, Dr. A. Sterl Artley, played an important part in the production and study of these books. Dr. Artley won the Thomas Jefferson Award and was a Reading Hall of Fame winner for his work on the series.