Thank you to the following graduate students, staff members and librarians who volunteered to work at last weekend’s Show Me Mizzou Day activity at Ellis Library:
Grace Atkins
Tyler Blood
Shannon Cary
Cindy Cotner
John Fifield
Kelli Hansen
Haley Gillilan
Trevor Hook
Jefferson Hulbert
Nav Khanal
Taira Meadowcroft
Amanda Sprochi
Kelsie Wilkins
Michelle Zigler
Around, eighteen-hundred people attended Show Me Mizzou Day and over 150 people came through Ellis Library. Attendees had over 100 activities/events to choose from. Compared to other activities, we were one of the most family-inclusive events, meaning there was something for all age ranges to enjoy. We received feedback that attendees loved playing with the tech, viewing the maps and making buttons. It was a success thank to our volunteers!
In addition, the Health Sciences Library also provided activities for their visitors.
With sponsorship from ULSAC, MULSA, and the Libraries we are once again going to celebrate Library Student Employee Appreciation Day. The celebration will be Thursday, April 25th. There will be a cookie reception in the Ellis Staff Lounge from 2pm to 3:30pm that day. We encourage you to meet up with your students and come with them to partake in some cookies and let them know your appreciation for all that they do for us. We will also again be sending boxes of cookies to all of the specialized libraries and off-site locations so that you can celebrate with your students in your space.
Supervisors, please forward the below invitation to your student employees.
Please join the University Libraries Student Advisory Council (ULSAC), the MU Libraries Staff Association (MULSA), and the University Libraries in celebrating you, our wonderful student workers.
We will be hosting a Reception featuring cookies for you on Thursday, April 25th from 2pm to 3:30pm in the Ellis Library Staff Lounge. Please drop in between classes for cookies and some conversation. We will also send cookies to each Specialty Library and off-site location for students who do not work in Ellis Library.
The Libraries truly could not operate without our student workers! Thank you for all you do!
Julie Housknecht has taken a position at a consortium of academic libraries in South Carolina and will be leaving the University Libraries. Her last day was May 15.
If you missed our Instagram stories on the Mizzou Instagram feed during National Library Week, just go to the Libraries Instagram profile and click on the Library Week.
Check out this Special Collections Instagram post about Notre Dame that was liked almost 500 times: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwSqGZqATLA/
Every year, undergraduates across all disciplines are encouraged to submit research projects to the University Libraries Undergraduate Research Contest. Their research projects can be traditional research papers, musical compositions, works of art, videos, web pages, or other creative works. The projects are judged by a cross-disciplinary panel of librarians who evaluate the sophistication of their research process and their use of University of Missouri Libraries resources.
One 1st prize $500 scholarship and one 2nd prize $250 scholarship are awarded to an individual or group project. Winners have their projects archived in MOspace, MU’s digital repository.
This year’s winners were recognized at the Friends of the Libraries council meeting on Saturday, April 6. Awards were presented by Rachel Brekhus, Humanities and Social Science Librarian.
1st Prize Winners: Ashley Anstaett, Phong H. Nguyen and Andrew J. Greenwald Conceptual Design of Microfiber Removal Using Pressure-Swing Filtration
Their engineering paper is so much more than a design blueprint. It is a well-written and well-organized document that includes, not only the physical science involved with an invention, but also practical considerations of how the product could be maintained in real-world environments, how it could be marketed, and why it’s important to have products that remove microfibers from the environment, at the household level.
Their interdisciplinary group project required both library spaces and library resources. They described the Engineering Library’s collaborative space as “preferred” and “work-conducive,” and as providing software necessary for the conceptual design of the invention. The group also described their use of general and specialized online research tools. The process paper was more specific than most in describing how their keyword searching was done, and they identified the specialized e-journal database, Science Direct, which they used, not only for the review of literature, but also during the design process. Their process paper makes clear that in the world of product design, research is iterative and tightly connected with the creative process.
Vice Provost of University Libraries Ann Campion Riley (far left) and Humanities and Social Science Librarian Rachel Brekus (far right) present Ashley Anstaett (middle left) and Phong H. Nguyen (middle right) with their certificates. Brekhus is holding the certificate for Andrew J. Greenwald, who could not attend.
2nd Prize Winner: Erielle Jones Fly Like an Eagle: The Success of STOP-ERA in the Missouri Senate 1977
In her paper, Jones did an excellent job of linking the rhetoric in Phyllis Schlafley’s Eagle Forum with the rhetoric used in the Missouri State Legislature to argue against passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), including associating passages of the ERA with affirmative action measures, unpopular among Missouri white conservatives.
The process paper detailed, not only Jones’s ultimate choice of primary historical sources, but also her independent exploration of other primary sources in pursuit of an earlier approach to the topic, which did not yield the hoped-for documentation. The paper showed the role of discipline, assistance from library and archives professionals, and serendipity in finding and selecting sources while maintaining focus on a well-defined research question. Sources examined included correspondence, leaflets, newsletters, invitations, and receipts from the personal archives of state representatives, state senate testimony, surveys, news sources, and court transcripts.
Her process showed a commitment to both the importance and the limitations of historical documentation, and understanding of the social and racial context of both the political-opinion media environment, and this media’s impact on the legislative process. Certainly, the practice in popular conservative media of linking proposed legislation not directly related to race, with narratives of governmental interference with default racial distributions of privilege, continues to be relevant today.
Vice Provost of University Libraries Ann Campion Riley (left) and Humanities and Social Science Librarian Rachel Brekhus (right) present Erielle Jones (middle) with her certificate