Actually, this post should be called "The Last Two Weeks in Special Collections," since we're changing to a biweekly format for summer. Campus and Ellis Library have been pretty quiet during intersession. We're taking advantage of the lull to catch up on projects throughout the department, including featuring more about Special Collections on Tumblr. We have lots of interesting materials waiting in the queue to share with you this summer, including a weekly series on comic supervillains, occasional peeks into the stacks, in-depth looks at our newest acquistions, videos, fore-edge paintings, forays into the field of digitization, and more.
Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks.
To meet our expected collection expenditures without cuts in FY17, the MU Libraries collections budget would need to be $7.2 million. Our expected revenue (or budget for collections) will be approximately $6 million. To accommodate the shortfall, we will need to reduce our expenditures by 1.2 million or approximately 17% in FY17.
Please see our FY17 Collections Budget page for a full overview of where we are in this collection reduction process.
Recent communications to Department/Program Chairs:
Shoutout to our own Barb Jones for her Valuing Library Services Calculator, which was mentioned in this season's BMJ (British Medical Journal) Insider's Quarterly Newsletter!
What is your library worth to your institution?
How much would it cost to replace your library services on the retail market? Calculate what it would cost to buy library services – at a book store, through pay per view for articles, from an information broker – if you and your library weren't there.
Happy 20th Birthday to our online catalog, MERLIN! Launched on May 28, 1996, the MERLIN Library Catalog is how researchers search for books and other materials that the library owns. Celebrate its birthday this Saturday by searching the catalog!
What does MERLIN search?
MERLIN is the shared library catalog of the four University of Missouri campuses and the State Historical Society of Missouri. The MERLIN catalog searches for books (print AND ebooks), periodicals (scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers), DVDs, CDs, government documents, and other formats of scholarly material that are part of the tangible and online collections at MERLIN member libraries. MERLIN includes the collections of the following Missouri libraries: University of Missouri (MU), MU Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Missouri-Kansas City Law, Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and the State Historical Society of Missouri.
Who has access to MERLIN?
Anyone in the world can search the catalog to see what items are available, but usually only students, faculty, staff, and others affliated with the MERLIN libraries can access the full-text of these materials. Some materials in the MERLIN catalog are only available at one individual library, for example, electronic books available only to users at one campus, databases accessible to users at UMKC, and books available for on-demand library purchase for MU users.
before MERLIN #thedarkages
Why is it called MERLIN? MERLIN stands for the Missouri Education and Research Libraries Information Network.
Our MERLIN library group is a part of MOBIUS, which stands for Missouri Bibliographic Information User System. This system is a consortium of libraries in the state of Missouri. The membership includes 62 full members from colleges, universities, the Missouri State Library, and 2 public libraries (cooperating partners). Check out this map of all of the libraries in the MOBIUS system!
Most of the groups within this system have names from the legend of King Arthur, such as the Arthur, Galahad, and Merlin groups. Why? I'm not sure. If you have the answer to that, email atkinsge@missouri.edu and I'll update this post!
Need help searching MERLIN?
Day or night, you can always Ask a Librarian for research assistance! We're experts on how to navigate the MERLIN and MOBIUS catalogs. libraryanswers.missouri.edu
The highlight of this week was our presentation on teaching diversity with material culture at the Celebration of Teaching, along with our friends at the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Museum, the Museum of Art and Archaeology, the State Historical Society of Missouri, and the Mizzou Botanical Garden. If you'd like to incorporate objects, artifacts, documents, and landscapes into your teaching, let us know! We'd be happy to help, and we're always ready to team up with other collecting institutions on campus.
Our weekly digest of posts will be converting over to a bi-weekly format for the summer, but you can still follow along with us on Tumblr.
Dr. David Brogan MD, MSc is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the School of Medicine. He won the Brian Abel Smith Prize for Health Policy Dissertation at the London School of Economics, a resident research grant from the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, as well as a recent KL2 Mentored Career Development Award. He has also co-authored multiple publications with the London School of Economics on a range of health policy topics, particularly focusing on the utilization of financial call options to stimulate neglected research. This is an ongoing collaboration with the London School of Economics and the Missouri Orthopedic Institute.
For more information on Dr. Brogan’s research interests and publications, click here.
Dr. Brogan recently published in Globalization and Health, transdisciplinary journal that situates public health and wellbeing within the dynamic forces of global development.
Here are some of Dr. Brogan’s thoughts on Open Access:
Why did you choose to publish in an Open Access journal?
I’m quite pleased with the idea that open access journals enhance the abilities of all interested parties to learn more about a topic and greatly enhance the exchange of ideas across may disciplines.
Would you publish in an Open Access journal again? If so, why?
Yes, absolutely, it was a great experience and I would welcome the opportunity to do so again.
This was the final week of the semester! We saw lots of students wrapping up projects and putting finishing touches on papers, and we can't wait to share some of their research with you over the coming weeks.
How would a Mississippi riverboat captain’s dream ship have looked in 1870? For David De Haven of New Orleans, it would have featured spiral staircases, arched passageways, private promenades for the ladies and one for “gents,” and luxury cabins opening into sky-lit rotundas. "Water closets" for passengers were to be tucked behind the two towering side wheels. Captain De Haven submitted his drawings to the U.S. Patent Office and received a patent for the innovative floor plan in 1870. Although the designs and accompanying text are part of the U.S. PTO’s online database, they cannot be retrieved through a simple Google search.
MU’s Government Information librarians are available to help you navigate the rich history of our nation’s innovations, whether they be physical machines, new ways of doing things, or artistic innovations such as steamboat designs. We have been an official depository for federal government since 1862. Our trained government information specialists are ready to assist library patrons search more than nine million U.S. patents dated from 1790 to the present. Contact Marie Concannon at 573-882-0748 or email concannonm@missouri.edu for more information or to schedule training session for your class.
D. De Haven, “Ship Building,” U. S. Patent #105,438. July 19, 1870. To view the patent online at high resolution, enter patent number 105438 at the US Patent Full-Page Image search page: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/patimg.htm
The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is viewed as the American equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, documenting regional American vocabulary. The online edition allows users to browse by region, create their own maps based on DARE survey data, listen to audio clips, and search within definitions, etymologies, usage and regional labels.
After you graduate, the MU Libraries will still be here to serve you. To find out more about the resources available to alumni, visit Library Resources for Alumni.
All of us at the MU Libraries, wish you the very best in your future endeavors!
