Ellis Library will be closed to the public on Wednesday, December 27 for plumbing renovations. In addition, the MU Libraries will have reduced hours during the fall break. Please visit MU Libraries – Hours for a complete listing.
Resources and Services
Unsolved Mystery #4: Palm Leaf Manuscripts
After a short break, Unsolved Mysteries is back! Two Asian manuscripts on palm leaves are this week's mystery material. One is a single leaf, and the other is a bound book.
The single leaf was acquired as part of the Pages from the Past portfolio in the 1960s.
Like the other items in the portfolio, this leaf has a short explanatory text – but we've haven't been able to verify it.
From the great paritta, a translation in Burmese on a "palm leaf book." In an area of the world where paper and even leather rots almost overnight, strips of palm have long been used as a writing material. Note the two holes in the leaf where a vine cord bound the book and allowed the pages to be turned. The "colophon" states that this translation was completed on the 7th waxing of the month of Tawthalin of the Burmese year 1237 (September 1875). The circular characters are first inscribed on the leaf with a sharp instrument, such as an iron stylus, then an ink of oil and charcoal is wiped over the characters, to make them legible. The Burmese round characters developed because the thin fragile leaf of palm would not take inscribing where long straight lines might split the fiber.
We know even less about the palm leaf book, except that it's been identified as Javanese. It came to us from the collection of Walter Williams, the founding dean of the School of Journalism and President of the University of Missouri from 1931 until his death in 1935. The book was allegedly given to him by Ben Robertson, Jr., a J-School graduate and war correspondent whose resume included brief stints at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and The News of Adelaide, Australia. It's not clear where Robertson would have acquired the book, but it must have come to MU in the early twentieth century.
Is the palm leaf book authentic? What is the text? Is the information about the single leaf correct?
As always, email us at SpecialCollections@missouri.edu with information about these materials, or any of our other unsolved mysteries.
Friends of the Libraries Presents Defeat of the Grandfather Devil
Fundraiser for Friends of the Libraries: A readers’ theater production of The Defeat of Grandfather Devil, one of the few pastorals from Mexico that retain intact elements from the 14th and 15th century Spanish versions will be performed at the MU Corner Playhouse, December 8th at 2 pm. This pastoral was published by Josephine Niggli, an author, teacher and photographer with roots in Mexico and Northern Texas whose writing focused on Mexican folk traditions and plays. (Josephine’s parents were from Moberly, MO.) This play was found and offered to us for performance by Bill Fisher, a lawyer in San Antonio who will be attending the performance.
When Grandfather Devil attempts to disrupt a Mexican town’s Christmas celebration, the community is joined in the fight by a surprising guest. Enjoy The Defeat of Grandfather Devil, a lively pastoral play performed December 8, 2 p.m. in a readers’ theatre format with traditional music and directed by Alex Iben Cahill. Tickets are $20 ($10 for students) to benefit the MU Libraries and guests will enjoy a dessert reception after. Special guest will be William Fisher, who edited the play. Show will be at the Corner Playhouse on the MU campus. For information and reservations, please call Sheila Voss at 573-882-9168 or contact her via vosss@missouri.edu.
Request a Copy
Need a journal article from our print collection? Use the "Request a Copy" link on a FindIt@MU page, and we'll scan it for you — at no charge.
More information: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/findit
Scanning on-campus articles at no charge is a new service (we think we have all the kinks worked out…), please let Kate Anderson know if you run into any problems!
Upcoming Database Cancellation: Biological Abstracts
Access to Biological Abstracts will end on December 31st, 2013. Due to cost considerations, the MERLIN Library system (comprised of MU, UMSL, UMKC, and MS&T) has canceled the subscription to Biological Abstracts effective December 31, 2013.
Looking for alternatives? Try Scopus or these other biology databases.
Contact Kate Anderson if you have any questions or need help transitioning to another database.
Health Sciences Research Day
Health Sciences Research Day will take place Thursday November 14th outside the Health Sciences Library. Details are below, derived from the School of Medicine’s Event page:
Health Sciences Research Day
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013
Category I Poster Session – 9 to 11 a.m. in Acuff Gallery
Keynote Address – Noon to 1 p.m. in Acuff Auditorium
Category II Poster Session – 1 to 3 p.m. in Acuff Gallery
Reception and Awards Presentation – 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Bryant Auditorium
Health Sciences Research Day provides a forum for original research and educational innovations by undergraduate, medical, nursing, and health professions students, as well as predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees working with faculty in the schools of medicine, nursing, and health professions.
Students are encouraged to present the results of their research at Health Sciences Research Day, held each fall at MU’s medical school. This day-long symposium is filled with poster presentations by undergraduate, graduate and professional students, with prizes awarded to the three best presentations in each student category. In addition, special Deans’ Awards will be presented for the most outstanding research conducted by trainees from the schools of nursing, health professions and medicine. Holders of academic titles are not eligible for this competition, except through mentoring roles.
Additional information is available by contacting Debbie Taylor at taylord@health.missouri.edu or 573-884-0042 or visit icats.missouri.edu/researchday/.
Sappington Exhibit on Display
We are pleased to announce a new exhibit has been mounted in the display case on the 3rd floor of the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library. It features Dr. John Sappington of Arrow Rock Missouri who was one of the many unsung heroes in the opening of the West. A pioneer physician, he was the first person in the United States to advocate the use of quinine to treat malarial fevers. However at the time, he was called a heretic by the other physicians in the U.S. The recommended mode of treatment of the day was to bleed and administer purgatives.
He sold over a million of his Sappington Anti-Fever pills (containing quinine) thereby saving countless lives of the settlers living in the Mississippi Valley region and of those travelers headed westward. The pills also played a large part in the success of the Santa Fe Trail. In 1844 he published his book The Theory and Treatment of Fevers which was the first medical text published west of the Mississippi River. Stop by the exhibit to learn more about the career of this fascinating man. More can be learned about Dr. Sappington at: http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/s/sappington/
The Courts Have Spoken: Copyright Law Update
Copyright Law Update for Librarians, Faculty and Academic Administrators
Copyright issues have become increasingly visible in recent years. What do University faculty and staff need to know to access, create, and share intellectual property? Join Joseph Storch, Associate Counsel in the State University of New York Office of General Counsel and the Chair of the Student Affairs Practice Group for a presentation and discussion about copyright as it applies to academia, including Fair Use, First Sale, and the Teach Act. Storch will share his analysis of recent court cases and discuss how they apply to our decisions about use of copyrighted material on our campuses.
This Webinar is open to all interested faculty and staff at MU-Columbia. The Webinar is sponsored by ET@MO, MU Libraries, and MizzouOnline
November 5, 2013 | 1- 2:30 p.m.
Ellis Library, Room 4F51A
Webinar
New Mobile Site
After several weeks of intensive work on the part of Hunter Sadler, a student employee in LTS and junior in the Computer Science, the new mobile site is up. Please take a look at it on your smart phone.
Many thanks to Mathew Stephen for coordinating the project and Danielle Langdon, our graphic designer, for her colorful icons!
Redirect when viewing gateway on a smart phone: http://library.missouri.edu
Direct link: http://library.missouri.edu/mobile/
Halloween Hoodoo
"To catch a spirit, or to protect your spirit against catching, or to release you caught spirit – this is the complete theory and practice of hoodoo."
The above quote opens the five volume set of books entitled Hoodoo–conjuration–witchcraft–rootwork : beliefs accepted by many Negroes and white persons, these being orally recorded among Blacks and whites by Harry M. Hyatt that can be found in Special Collections. Published in 1970, these books represent the culmination of years of interviews conducted by the author over a large portion of the Southern United States.
Not to be confused (as it commonly is), with voodoo or vodou, which are both religions derived from West African religions with a dash of Christianity thrown in, hoodoo is often classified as folk magic and is practiced mainly in the Southern United States. The difference between hoodoo and voodoo and vodou is similar to the distinction between Wicca and witchcraft. Also similar to Wicca and witchcraft is the fact that people often use all these terms interchangeably, though they have different meanings. Thus, one can belong to the voodoo religion and practice hoodoo, but they don't have to, and vice versa.
In hoodoo, a practitioner draws upon the spiritual power residing within them to perform a ritual to bring about power or success. Today's mainstream culture often portrays hoodoo as a negative thing because of the common misconception that all who practice it are greedy or corrupt.
Hoodoo–conjuration–witchcraft–rootwork is a record of people's interactions with hoodoo, containing many accounts about how the interviewee was affected by a conjure or how someone they knew was affected. One woman relates the experience she had when her neighbor put a conjure on her by burying a bottle containing sulfur, hair, a bluestone, and roots of some sort. According to her, this was the reason she was unable to stay up past ten o'clock each night. She proceeds to relate how she destroyed the bottle and its contents and was able to stay up much later the following night while the next day the woman next door had to go to the hospital due to a major problem with her leg. Another interviewee tells the author about a common practice of putting sulfur and ashes from the fireplace in a bag and keeping it in your pocket to ward off those that would do you harm.
Whether or not you believe that hoodoo works, these books make for interesting reading and are a comprehensive relation of a common practice here in the United States that most of us are largely unfamiliar with. So if you get a chance between your Halloween celebrations, come see us at Special Collections where you can find the books mentioned here along with many others!
"Difference Between Hoodoo and Voodoo | Difference Between | Hoodoo vs Voodoo." Difference Between Hoodoo and Voodoo | Difference Between | Hoodoo vs Voodoo. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-hoodoo-and-voodoo/>.
"Haitian_Vodou." Reference.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Haitian_Vodou>.
"Louisiana_Voodoo." Reference.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo>.