Today I learned: Benjamin Franklin believed in and researched merpeople

Ellis Library gets a lot of serials. A LOT. If you have an interest in a topic, we have at least one journal/magazine that will interest you, from art to history to footwear. Today’s focus is on History Today, “Britain’s best-loved serious history magazine.”  Not a history buff?  Trust me, you’ll still find something amazing in this journal or on their website (https://www.historytoday.com/) – they even included a spotify list to go with the most recent issue!

The May 2018 edition has a very creepy merperson on the cover, but don’t let that dissuade you. The article, “Diving into Mysterious Waters,” discusses not only the legend of mermaids/mermen, but how some of the most famous and intelligent people in early Europe wholeheartedly agreed that merpeople existed.

You may remember Cotton Mather from history lessons. He was the guy with giant, white hair who was disgustingly enthusiastic about hanging witches during the Salem Witch Trials.  Considering he believed that nonsense, it isn’t a huge surprise that in 1716, he wrote a letter to the Royal Society in London, revealing that he sincerely believed in merpeople.

While we scoff at this admission now, was it really that surprising? Sure, Christopher Columbus believed in merpeople, even claiming to have seen three of them upon arriving in the New World, but when Europeans first landed in North America and saw the opossum for the first time, they compared them centaurs and gorgons because they had never seen a marsupial, let alone one with a grumpy face. There were new discoveries all the time. “The 18^th century was as much a time of wonder as it as of rational science: the two, in fact, seemed to interweave by the day.”

It’s not surprising that tales of merpeople existed then, and still exist to this day. Since ancient times, people have worshipped merpeople. Medieval European churches were covered with mermaid symbolism (the theory is that these decorations were a reminder to Christians “of the dangers of the lust for flesh”). Even after religious changes in Europe, when Catholic imagery was erased, merpeople stuck around.

Sightings abounded as well. In 1403, a group of Dutch women apparently found a mermaid and taught her how to wear clothes, take up spinning, and converted her to Christianity.  How a woman who was half fish would wear clothes or exist outside of water is beyond me, but people believed them. Mermaid sightings increased in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, with the seas abounding with tales of mermaids and their siren calls. The explorer Henry Hudson (of Hudson River fame) noted sightings in his captain’s log. Descriptions of mermaids over time contained the same basic information regarding their looks, until 1759, when the creepy drawing, “The Syren Drawn from Life” was published and freaked everyone out with its big ears, bald head, and “hideously ugly” features.

European cabinets of curiosity began to display “mermaid appendages” and by the end of the 18^th century, some of the “smartest men in the western world,” including Benjamin Franklin and other members of the Royal Society, decided to take on the task of trapping and investigating merpeople.  This was a step in the kind of scientific research we continue to use today.  Sure, we may not chase mermaids around, but we do investigate other amazing things, with scientific discoveries happening all the time.  Parallel universes and DNA codes may not sing to sailors and lure them to their death, but the current scientific research is still pretty amazing.

The creepy mermaid drawing vs how people typically imagine mermaids. That picture had to have bummed people out when it was published.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to prove that not all merpeople conform to the same typical body type, here’s a new discovered species.

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DRAFT

Jenny Bossaller, Associate Professor at the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, donated a copy of the third edition of Introduction to Public Librarianship, which she coauthored with Kathleen de la Peña McCook, to Mizzou Libraries as well as other libraries in the MU system and the Daniel Boone Regional Library.Though she has used different editions of this book over the years in the her Introduction to Public Libraries class, this is the first edition she helped edit and write.

By the time that course is offered again next year, Jenny plans to have given all ten of her author copies of the book to libraries around the state, including more public libraries. She says, “I think that’ll be helpful for all the online students.” When the course is in session, she’ll ask Mizzou Libraries to pull the text from general circulation and put it on reserve so that her students will have access to it if they can’t afford to purchase their own copy.

As a teacher, Jenny “loves having a textbook” for this course because it’s comprehensive, with one chapter per week of the semester, and “it’s sequenced in a way that makes sense together as a book.” She finds building off a core text with supplemental materials easier than cobbling together a course from scratch. “The goal,” she says, “is to give them professionally edited and accurate materials and then making them as inexpensive as possible.”

Even with online courses, certain telltale behaviors can signal that students have been unable to afford the textbook, such as not referring to the readings themselves in discussion board posts. Even if students can fake it to get by in the course, Jenny says, “they’re really missing out.”

“We’re in an interesting transition phase with textbooks,” Jenny says. For example, the next edition of Introduction to Public Librarianship, probably five or six years from now, will be what she calls a “good compromise”: a smaller book with a lot more open educational materials available via a companion website. Like many faculty, she’s encountered OER textbooks that are not as professionally produced as those from traditional publishers. Additionally, writing textbooks is not traditionally as valuable for tenure and promotion as other types of publications.

GRACE

“If you have a textbook, put it on reserve for your students because not everybody can afford to buy the textbook,” Jenny advises fellow faculty. She also encourages faculty to work with publishers to see if they will grant access to the PDF of the textbook for a reduced price. SHE’S NOT SURE HOW IT WORKS–WOULD GO THROUGH THE LIBRARY? AS PART OF A PACKAGE?

Because many university libraries in the U.S. do not purchase textbooks as a rule, she says faculty are sometimes confused as to whether they should give their textbooks to the library or not. QUESTION FOR THE LIBRARY

PROCESS FOR DONATING TEXTBOOKS

“I do love MU’s OER initiative, and the incentives that they’re providing are very helpful,” Jenny says, “but for now, this is what I could do to contribute to making this textbook more freely available for our students through the library.”

Ever wonder who is behind the magic of Interlibrary Loan? At the Health Sciences Library it’s Katy Emerson.

She’s the one who receives your requests, scans what you need, and emails it to your inbox, all in the matter of a few hours.

If you search for an article and are hit with a paywall or told the library doesn’t have access, don’t worry! You can request it and Katy will work her magic.

Not only will she find articles the library doesn’t have access to, she will often scan items we have on site to save you the trip to your library.

“What I like most is getting to deliver articles to clinicians. It feels good knowing that the work I do could be having a positive impact on patient care.”

Last year, Katy and the Health Sciences Library’s Interlibrary Loan department borrowed close to 4500 articles and delivered another 1800 articles we had available on site all at no cost to our users. Interlibrary Loan is a free service for Mizzou.

To request articles and books, click on the Findit@MU button if it’s available or you can always fill out a request form.

 

 

 

Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.

If you would like to submit your own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.

Unbound Book Festival
Friday & Saturday, April 20 & 21

• Unbound is a book festival in Columbia, Missouri, which celebrates literature of all kinds. Nationally-recognized and bestselling authors across many different genres will come to mid-Missouri to discuss their work and participate in a variety of stimulating events and environments. The third annual event will kickoff with a keynote address from Zadie Smith on Friday night at the Missouri Theatre and a full day of events on the campus of Stephens College on Saturday. There will be separate programs for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Children’s Events. And it’s all completely free!
• The University Libraries will sponsor a panel discussion at Unbound, focused on the archiving of writer’s works.
  • David Crespy, MU theatre professor, and Anselm Huelsbergen, university archivist, will discuss use of the Lanford Wilson papers from University Archives. Crespy is currently teaching a class utilizing the collection and has written a book on Wilson.
  • Authors William Least Heat-Moon and JoAnn Trogdon will talk about their use of archives in their writing, and their plans to give the University Libraries their notes and manuscripts.

http://www.unboundbookfestival.com/

“Missouri Self-Taught: Lanford Wilson and the American Drama”
Thursday, April 26 to Sunday, April 29

This interdisciplinary conference, which will be held at the MU Department of Theatre, will take place in conjunction with the University of Missouri Press publication of Lanford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches, and Poems, edited by David A. Crespy, a new production of The Rimers of Eldritch presented by the university theatre department, and MU Library’s recent procurement of the Lanford Wilson Collection, an archive that is available to conference attendees for research and study. Registration is free.

Library Society and Legacy Society Joint Reception
Friday, April 27

The Library Society’s 14^th annual event will be a reception with the Legacy Society featuring Marshall W. Mason, a Tony award-winning director. In addition, guests will enjoy heavy hors d’oeuvres, a full bar, and a jazz quartet. The reception will take place from 4:30 to 7 p.m. in the Ellis Library Grand Reading Room.

 

For more information about any of these events, contact University Libraries Advancement at 573-882-4701 or vosss@missouri.edu.