It’s the end of the semester, and we all know what that means: Finals.
We want you to be prepared, so here are some tips and tricks to help make things a little easier for you this finals season:
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It’s the end of the semester, and we all know what that means: Finals.
We want you to be prepared, so here are some tips and tricks to help make things a little easier for you this finals season:
As a first-generation student, I have always been passionate about supporting first-generation students! After joining Mizzou as a Student Success Librarian, I started supporting first-generation student initiatives. Eventually, I became a member of the First-Generation Student Success Advisory Board, which meets regularly to ensure we continue supporting our first-generation students best, promoting services, starting initiatives, and creating goals for the First-Generation Student Initiatives coordinator.
When students in Tri-Alpha, the first-generation honor society, answered a question about which campus resource impacted them the most, they all answered the library. One student wrote, “The library and the helpfulness of the faculty! The library has been an amazing resource as someone who needs to study and lives in a place with multiple roommates. The faculty has helped guide me throughout my years here and point me in the direction I needed.”
In the past year, I have built tools and initiatives at the library that support our first-generation students both directly and indirectly. I’ve presented at student events, to student parents, and at tabling events to share library tools with first-generation students, and I am so excited that they have found our resources helpful! Here are a few resources that might be helpful for first-generation students or faculty and staff who are interested in discussing how to support first-generation students better:
• A new library webpage for first-generation students sharing resources and tools that are curated specifically for first-generation students. Find it here: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/firstgen
• The NEW Wellbeing Collection on the first floor of Ellis Library includes resources for first-generation students and other campus groups, as well as books for leisure reading.
• A Faculty and Staff First-Generation Initiative, where any faculty and staff can join our reading group. We meet to discuss articles on first-generation topics monthly, and one book per semester.
For more information, contact me: Jill Kline, jill.kline@missouri.edu.
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
2 to 3:15 pm
114A Ellis Library
Open House Research Presentation
ARH_VS 4160W / 7160: Global Encounters in Art History
Prof. Anne Rudloff Stanton
By Ellie Cearley, Alexis Cornett, Fynn Lamanske, Sara Lawson, Jake Mangan, Kaitlyn Melton, Adakunle Ogunleke, Muditha Pathirana, Greg Pekurney, Didintle Setzin, Xiaoran Tang, and Hanxue Zhang
“Rebecca Graves has been a pillar of support for the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing, advancing research, education and student success,” is what attendees heard when Rebecca Graves attended the 35th Annual Nursing Banquet to accept the 2025 Honorary Alumni Award.
The Honorary Alumni award is given to someone who shows outstanding achievement in nursing or support for the nursing profession. It is through her work as an education librarian at the J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library that Rebecca Graves has had such a profound impact on nursing students in the beginnings of their nursing journey to the collaborative efforts with nursing faculty on key initiatives, including systematic reviews and grant-funded projects such as best practices for managing COVID-19 in nursing homes.
“We are excited to honor Rebecca for her amazing support of our faculty and students,” said Donna Otto MSN, who was one of the nominators. “When I coordinated the RN to BSN option for the school back a few years ago, Rebecca was always so gracious to come and work with the students. This is how I knew of her value to our students and faculty.”
Faculty often count on Rebecca to lay the foundation necessary for students to understand and implement evidence-based practice strategies, a skill students will need to excel in their nursing careers, whether in clinical practice or as a nurse researcher. Her ability to simplify complex academic processes has empowered countless students, particularly those returning to academia for advanced degrees. Her approachable teaching style empowers students and strengthens the academic foundation of the Sinclair School of Nursing.
Learning goes both ways. Rebecca shared that it is such a joy to be a part of the “ah ha” moments and values how time spent with students and faculty gives her the opportunity to also learn about ever evolving health sciences. “I deeply respect our nursing faculty for the work they do both teaching our students as well as the research they conduct to improve the health of Missourians and people in general. Being able to assist them in this work and be a part of their team is an honor,” says Rebecca Graves.
Congratulations to Rebecca Graves for being awarded the Sinclair School of Nursing 2025 Honorary Alumni Award!
Starting at 10 am on Sunday, April 27, Ellis Library will be open for 24 hours every day until 7 p.m. on Friday, May 16.
For a complete listing of hours, including for all specialized libraries, visit library.missouri.edu/hours.
Gwen Gray, business, economics and entrepreneurship librarian at the University of Missouri, is the 2025 winner for the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award. BRASS is the Business Reference and Services Section of the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.
Jaya Ghosh, program director of the MU Coulter Biomedical Accelerator, stated in her nomination letter, “Through her contributions to MU’s translational research funding, training and mentorship programs and other entrepreneurial offerings such as the regional I-Corps Program (advisor), MU EQ
Student Accelerator (mentor), Mizzou Venture Mentoring Service (mentor) and Entrepreneurship Workshop Series (mentor), Gwen’s work significantly enhances the innovation and entrepreneurship capacity of MU, and by extension of Missouri and the U.S. at large.”
Gwen’s contributions include supporting entrepreneurial initiatives at local and national levels, fostering community partnerships, supporting student success, and providing professional mentorship to LIS students. Gwen has dedicated years of her career to develop and strengthen networks that have created long-lasting impacts on her community and the broader profession.
Gwen stated, “I am humbled to receive the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award and am deeply grateful to LSEG Data & Analytic and RUSA for this recognition. Many thanks to the committee for selecting me to receive this honor. I’ve had wonderful support throughout my career at the Mizzou Libraries and would like to especially note Rhonda Whithaus and Jeannette Pierce who (unbeknownst to me) spearheaded the nomination effort. They along with so many of my colleagues have been supportive and encouraging, giving me the freedom to explore and go in new directions. I would also like to recognize Doug Moesel, associate professor of management, who started my work in entrepreneurship by inviting me to join a campus committee on the topic in 2004. Greg Bier, executive director of Entrepreneurship Programs, has been a tireless champion of librarians, making sure the entrepreneurship ecosystem knows our value. Thank you to all the faculty, staff, students and community members not named (and there are many) who have made me better than I would be on my own. Thank you again for this honor.”
Congratulations to Gwen!
In a recent user survey, one of the top needs identified by library users was access to more online journal content. In response, the Mizzou Libraries are offering streamlined access to articles in the most most requested journals that are requested through Interlibrary Loan.
When you click “FindIt@MU” for an article in one of these journals, you will see this option: “Need it asap? Request rush delivery.” If you choose this option, the article will be delivered to your inbox within 2 hours, sometimes within minutes. This 24-hour service is available to Mizzou faculty, staff and students.
Don’t see that option for a journal you frequently need? Let us know.
The University Libraries Undergraduate Research Contest seeks to recognize and reward outstanding research conducted by undergraduate students at the University of Missouri.
This year the winner of the first place prize of a $500 scholarship is Nina Schmolzi, a senior studying anthropology. Her project was “Tracing Routes Through Roots: Unraveling the Bantu Migration Through Linguistics and Archaeology.”
The second-place winner and recipient of a $250 scholarship is Benjamin Peter, a senior studying electrical engineering. His project was “Robust Defense Against Extreme Grid Events Using Dual-Policy Reinforcement Learning Agents.”
In addition Jackson Huenefeldt, a senior studying chemical engineering, was given an honorable mention for his project, “Sounds of the Energy Transition.”
Revision of article written by Clare Starkey, Haley Lykins, and Kelli Hansen
The University of Missouri’s division of Special Collections holds over 100,000 items, dating from the eighth century to the modern era, and focuses on books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, posters, printed ephemera and artifacts. Though the typical patrons are collegiate researchers, classes for elementary and middle school students are common and are an important part of the University of Missouri’s mission to benefit all Missourians. In the spring of 2024, Special Collections at the University of Missouri hosted a series of field trips for every sixth grader in the Columbia Public School (CPS) district—more than 1,300 students—under the theme of “Ancient Writing Technologies Lab: Cuneiform, Papyrus, Palm Leaves, Oh My!” This workshop gave students a chance to experience ancient writing technologies from across Africa and Asia while interacting with primary sources. Conceived in consultation with the school district’s social studies coordinator, the Special Collections staff provided hands-on activities on the history of the book to complement the school curriculum on ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China.
Public Services Archivist Haley Lykins stated, “It was exciting to see our primary sources utilized by a new age group. The experience taught us to look beyond the walls of our academic institution for opportunities of outreach and instruction.”
The students rotated between three workstations representing the ancient world. Items from the University’s collection were included to provide a real-life example of the focus of each station and included cuneiform tablets, papyrus fragments and a facsimile palm leaf book. The students visited the University of Missouri campus over the course of 14 field trips throughout April and May. In addition to Special Collections, students visited the University of Missouri’s Museum of Art and Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology, and Francis Quadrangle. Although Special Collections hosted only 10-25 students at a time, around 100 students overall visited each field trip day.
In each 25-minute session, groups of 3-8 students would spend 7 minutes at a station before rotating to the next one. Each station began with a short informational presentation about the collection item before moving onto the activity. The workshops included making replica cuneiform tablets using playdough, drawing hieroglyphics on papyrus using calligraphy markers, and creating replica palm leaf books by writing stories on long strips of paper and tying them together with yarn. The learning objectives for the workshops were to discuss different writing surfaces from different times and different parts of the world, to describe the advantages and disadvantages of the different surfaces; and to interpret, analyze and evaluate primary sources.
After the field trips, Joy Bass, the social studies coordinator for CPS, said, “Just wanted to let you all know that teachers AND students have rated your ‘station’ very high in their reflection surveys and SO many have said it’s been their favorite.”
From discovering new resources to tracking your impact, Mizzou Libraries is here to support you every step of the way!
We offer a range of services covering all aspects of the Research Lifecycle, such as:
Contact your Subject Librarian for services in your area!
See more posts about Scholarly Communication issues