home Resources and Services The Mizzou Libraries Are Here For You

The Mizzou Libraries Are Here For You

Whether you want research help in person while social distancing or remotely from the safety and comfort of your home, the Mizzou Libraries will stay connected with you!

Many library services — including consultations and assistance, library instruction, reserves and events — will continue remotely online through the spring with some in-person options. The emphasis on remote library services will allow faculty and students to continue their work, regardless of location.

Among the changes that library users will continue to find this semester:

  • Library users will be asked to display #ClearCampus app or have symptoms checked, including temperature checks.
  • Everyone in library buildings will need to wear a face mask and maintain 6 feet of physical distancing. Library users may only remove their mask while eating at the Bookmark Cafe on the ground floor. (This University policy does not make an exception for individuals who have received the vaccine.)
  • An MU ID will be required to access the building after 5 pm.
  • Ellis Library will have limited hours. The library will close most nights at 10 pm, and the Check Out and Information desk will close at 8 pm. Visit library.missouri.edu/hours for the latest information on all campus library hours.
  • The Check-Out & Information Desk on the north side of the first floor will serve as a single service desk for assistance in the library. Visit Ask the Librarians! for online help or to schedule a consultation.
  • Furniture and computer workstations will be spread out in order to ensure physical distancing. The library’s Safety Team will monitor the building to make sure all library users are being safe. Library patrons are asked not to move furniture.
  • Study rooms will be single occupancy only. Library patrons must use masks in study rooms and keep doors open for proper ventilation. You can reserve a study room through the online reservation system. We encourage study groups to meet on Zoom or other online platforms. If you need a space to do in-person group work, you many use rooms 114 and 114A. The furniture is set up for groups to work while maintaining proper distances.
  • The ground floor and 1st floors of Ellis Library have been designated as “quiet conversation allowed” for library users, including students who need to attend their online classes in the library. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors are designated as quiet study space.
  • Only the west entrance of Ellis Library (near Speaker’s Circle) is currently open. The North entrance and the Grand Reading Room on the 2nd floor are closed due to a window renovation project.
  • The west stacks will be closed. To request books or other items, please place an online request and the library will retrieve them for you.
  • Circulation of books will resume, but receiving materials from other libraries may take longer. Library materials may be quarantined when they are returned, and the items may stay on your library account during that time. No fines will be assessed for items that are in quarantine.
  • Food and drink will only be allowed on the ground floor of the library. Masks must be worn on the ground floor unless the user is actively eating or drinking.
  • DigiPrint services have moved out of Ellis Library and will be located in MU Student Center Room 1212A

Library personnel will carefully assess how the new service models are working and will determine whether services can be gradually scaled up or, conversely, whether conditions will require a return to delivering more services remotely. For the latest information on library services and hours, visit library.missouri.edu. You may also subscribe to one of our weekly email newsletters to stay up to date.

Additional Information Regarding Specialized Libraries
Zalk Veterinary Medical Library

J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library

Engineering Library and Technology Commons

Journalism Library

 

 

home Resources and Services Some Offsite Materials Will Become Unavailable on Jan. 25

Some Offsite Materials Will Become Unavailable on Jan. 25

Some Mizzou Libraries materials that are shelved offsite are going to be moved to our newly expanded depository starting January 25. While being moved, the materials will not be available for request and will be temporarily listed as unavailable in the library catalog. We anticipate completion of this process by April 30th. Titles may be requested from other Merlin, MOBIUS or Prospector Libraries or via Interlibrary Loan.

Information About Requesting Materials from Other Libraries

Still have questions? Ask the Librarians!

 

 

home Resources and Services Update to Library Hours for Winter Intersession

Update to Library Hours for Winter Intersession

During the winter intersession, Ellis Library will have limited hours. All libraries will be closed for the campus winter break from Dec. 25 through Jan. 3. For the first two weeks in January, Ellis Library will be open 10 am to 6 pm on Monday through Thursday and 10 am to 5 pm on Friday. The library will be closed weekends.

The specialized libraries will have varying hours and access. Visit library.missouri.edu/hours for the latest information on all campus library hours.

We are happy to continue to provide library services in a safe environment:

  • The Check-Out & Information Desk on the north side of the first floor will serve as a single service desk for assistance in the library. Visit Ask the Librarians! for online help or to schedule a consultation.
  • You are welcome to come into the library and pick your items up at the Checkout & Information desk. We are also continuing curbside service for your convenience. Information about curbside pick up is available here.

The Mizzou Libraries Are Here for You: Updates to Library Services Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic

 

How To Find Dissertations and Theses

We had to cancel Proquest Dissertations Abstracts starting November 30th, but there are several ways you can find dissertations:

For more information on how to find dissertations and theses using this tools and information about borrowing, visit our dissertations guide.

home Ellis Library, Hours Thanksgiving Hours at Ellis Library

Thanksgiving Hours at Ellis Library

Ellis Library will have limited hours during the Thanksgiving Break. For a complete list of the hours of Ellis Library and the specialized library hours, visit library.missouri.edu/hours.

The Bookmark Cafe, which is run by Campus Dining Services, will be closed the entire week of Thanksgiving break. For a complete list of hours for Campus Dining Services locations, visit dining.missouri.edu/hours.

Ellis Library Hours, November 21 to December 1

Saturday, Sunday (Nov. 21, 22)…..Closed

Monday to Wednesday (Nov. 23 to 25)…..8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Thursday to Saturday (Nov. 26 to 28)……Closed

Library hours after the Thanksgiving break are still being determined.

home Resources and Services Mizzou Libraries Can Help Your Students Become Information Literate

Mizzou Libraries Can Help Your Students Become Information Literate

The University of Missouri Libraries are dedicated to the development of a university community that is information literate. Our librarians offer expert research instruction across the disciplines in order to provide the MU community with the skills and knowledge to expertly identify, find and evaluate information.

Our instructional services are informed by the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education. We believe that MU graduates should be able to:

  • Identify problems important to society and the information needed to address them.
  • Find existing sources of information on a topic.
  • Evaluate the accuracy, validity and reliability of information presented in a wide variety of media.
  • Conduct appropriately focused library, field or laboratory research.
  • Analyze and synthesize information gathered, demonstrating strategic and logical reasoning skills.
  • Demonstrate the understanding of costs, benefits and consequences of proposed resolutions to problems important to society.
  • Organize information, data and ideas for further analysis and presentation.

Whether you’re teaching online or in-person, synchronously or asynchronously, it’s never too early to begin collaborating with your subject librarian on integrating information literacy instruction into your courses. Visit https://library.missouri.edu/instruction today to learn more about the variety of instructional services we offer.

 

 

 

 

 

home Events and Exhibits Digital Display of Honors Student Artworks: Making Art for All/Our Time

Digital Display of Honors Student Artworks: Making Art for All/Our Time

The new exhibit “Making Art for All/Our Time” showcases works by undergraduate students who created art from virtual windows into several campus collections. Over eight weeks, we gathered on Zoom to peer inside the galleries, shelves, and sidewalks of campus where objects of material culture are prudently managed for public interactions. Each class allowed students to explore facets of objects that resonated with their interests and experiences, though certainly in a different way than experiencing art in person. As a reflection of those experiences, we are pleased to present a digital exhibit of the Fall 2020 Honors Tutorial GN_HON 1050H “Get Real, Go Places! Let Objects Take You There” student works. The course introduces students to the practice of interpreting, inspecting, and writing about objects through regular use of a sketchbook journal and weekly syntheses shared with classmates. The course is taught by Dr. Sarah Buchanan of the iSchool at the University of Missouri (in the College of Education) and by gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals based on the Mizzou campus who contribute to the Material Culture Studies Group, established in 2014.

Our student showcase features art objects created by 13 undergraduate students, each based on the class encounter with a particular collection on the Columbia campus. Students created weekly syntheses reacting to themes presented by professional curators, and a culminating object analysis aligning with students’ future academic interests. View the treemap-inspired exhibit graphic here, and zoom in!

On display are a clay sculpture recreation of a political cartoon, a digital sketch mounted onto an imagined white cube space, a colored pencil response to works shown in the recent “Mooshu, Donkey, and the Floating Wor(l)ds: New Works by Sumire Skye Taniai” exhibition in the Bingham Art Gallery, a poem accompanying a winter woodcut, and an embroidered fiber art piece depicting the plants and native species of Missouri, among others. One digital artwork revisits the 1916 Golden Lane protest in St. Louis and reminds us that art persists and connects our communities to each other. For their contributions to the success of the course we gratefully thank: Catherine Armbrust, Cathy Callaway, Marie Concannon, Kelli Hansen, Nicole Johnston, Maggie Mayhan, Pete Millier, Candace Sall, Karlan Seville, and Joan Stack. The course will next be offered in Fall 2021 – join us!

home Resources and Services Mizzou Libraries by the Numbers, Remote Spring 2020

Mizzou Libraries by the Numbers, Remote Spring 2020

When the Covid-19 pandemic caused the Mizzou Libraries to move to remote work, we were able to quickly pivot to providing remote services. Because the Libraries already work hard to serve the research needs of our students and faculty where they are, we were well positioned to continue providing remote services while coming up with new ways to provide the service that is usually in person. The above graphic highlights the amount of work that was done during the last half of the spring semester.

Remote Spring 2020, by the numbers

Questions answers via text, email, phone and chat: 1,857

Taught 773 students in 31 online instruction sessions

243,926 searches in online databases and 491,251 website visits

 

home Resources and Services MOspace: Increasing Open Access Availability for All

MOspace: Increasing Open Access Availability for All

International Open Access Week is October 19 – 25! This year’s theme is Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.

There are many options for MU researchers to make their work available open access, but one option available for all University of Missouri faculty is to make a copy available in the MOspace institutional repository.

We are working on several ways to help maximize the reach and persistence of your scholarship and increase awareness of MOspace as an option for Open Access scholarship. As we collect and analyze data about what our researchers are publishing, we are finding that many articles are already available via paid, “gold” Open Access (represented in gold in the images below). When we can, we are collecting these articles and preserving them in MOspace as an additional safeguard to ensuring their long-term availability and accessibility. We are currently processing 371 articles from 2019 and 2020 that meet various criteria for this stage of the project, 76 have already been included in MOspace, and more are on the way. Paid, full Open Access is great but still represents only a fraction MU’s total research output. We are working on ways to reach out individually to authors whose publications qualify for inclusion in MOspace (such as by publisher or funder policy) to encourage authors to upload their manuscripts/postprints whenever possible.

Even articles that are published with a traditional (non-Open Access) license can often be included in an institutional repository in the form of the final manuscript or postprint (your final, post-peer-review “draft”). The image below shows at least 1,095 articles published by MU authors (according to Scopus) in 2019 that currently have no known freely-available full text online, but could be made available in a repository such as MOspace on the basis of the publisher’s standard “green open access” policy. This would make the clear majority of MU research output openly available in some form (gold, hybrid, bronze, and green are all forms of Open Access availability under different terms).

Nearly 80% of MU-authored articles could be openly available

The following image shows the publication activity by publisher, and also helps show how much of our output that is currently “paywalled” could potentially be made available. Each bar represents the number of MU articles published by that publisher in 2019 (according to Scopus), and the red portion represents the number of those articles for which there is currently no available open access copy. Nearly all of these top publishers (each of the top 6 and many others) will allow authors to deposit most article manuscripts in institutional repositories such as MOspace via a green open access policy. The green segments represent where an author, co-author, or other delegate has already done so.

home Resources and Services Be An Informed Voter

Be An Informed Voter

Election Day is right around the corner: Tuesday, November 3rd!

How are you supposed to know who and what you can vote for? Where can you get the information you need to make your voting choices?

  1. Find out who or what can you vote for by getting a sample ballot
  2. Research candidates and issues. There are many resources available to help with your research:
    1. Candidate websites
    2. Local news outlets. In Columbia we suggest the Columbia Daily Tribune: Politics and Election Coverage and Columbia Missourian’s Election Coverage
    3. Voting records of the candidates
    4. Judge reviews
    5. Local groups- these might be local organizations, civic groups that organize around a cause, non-profit organizations, or community clubs.
    6. Public libraries. The Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia has a great election guide.
  3. Research ballot measures. Read the text of the ballot measure before election day to make sure you understand what it says, and what a YES or NO vote means. As you research the proposal, pay attention to the types of information you are reading.
  4. Ask questions about your research. When you are conducting research keep in mind where the information is coming from. Who is speaking and what are their sources? What’s the bias in the information you are reading? Who paid for this? Whose perspective is this and whose perspective is missing? Can you fact check this?
  5. Make notes and bring them with you to vote. Make sure to double check the rules at your polling place.

Visit the Mizzou Election Hub for resources available to you on campus.

This year, all registered voters in Boone County can vote at Mizzou Arena. Remember that you will need to bring an ID to vote.

Thanks to UMKC Libraries for the inspiration behind this be an informed voter post.

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Taira Meadowcroft

Taira Meadowcroft is the Public Health and Community Engagement Librarian at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Missouri.