home Databases & Electronic Resources HathiTrust Temporarily Offers Expanded Access to Digitized Books

HathiTrust Temporarily Offers Expanded Access to Digitized Books

By Shannon Cary Posted in Databases & Electronic Resources

Posted on April 14, 2020May 15, 2020

We are pleased to announce that the University of Missouri Libraries now has an additional route for faculty, staff and students to access library books while our doors remain closed. The HathiTrust Digital Library’s Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS) is now activated! This allows our users temporary online access to some materials from our print collection.

Here is some important information about using the HathiTrust Digital Libary:

Login with your university ID to see the temporary access materials.
To activate temporary access once logged in you need to click “check out.” The loan lasts one hour but can be renewed as long as another user is not trying to access the same material.
Temporary access only permits downloading one page at a time.
Additonal materials (that are not under copyright) with full-text access are always available through HathiTrust. Those items are indicated by “full text” rather than “temporary access.”
Full-text access allows downloading of the entire book.

You can watch this video for help.

For more information see HathiTrust’s ETAS: Information for Users. For your convenience, this and other temporary resources are listed at Open Educational and Research Resources: Complimentary Publisher and Vendor Access During COVID-19 Outbreak.

For more information or assistance finding these and other materials during the library’s building closure, use our Ask a Librarian service or contact your subject specialist.

home Government Information, Resources and Services, Staff news Spotlight: Prices and Wages Guide Illuminates a 1920 Cartoon

Spotlight: Prices and Wages Guide Illuminates a 1920 Cartoon

By Lindsay Yungbluth Posted in Government Information Resources and Services Staff news

Posted on April 13, 2020April 14, 2020

Boy tells girl “Jes’ you wait, Susie—I got six seventy-one saved up. Soon as I get nineteen dollars I’m gonna git me seventeen white collars and a swell suit; then I’m gonna git a job as office boy in a bank and git a four thousand dollar bonus an’ buy you that there Soudan.”

The caption, above, to this cute 1920 cartoon from Cartoons magazine (vol.17 no.3), provides a unique opportunity to showcase our Prices and Wages by Decade research guide. The guide, which helps researchers locate primary sources showing historic retail prices and average wages, links mainly to government reports, but also includes catalogs and newspapers when relevant.

This ambitious young man mentions a number of figures that we could take a closer look at with the help of Prices and Wages: the prices of a swell suit and white collars, wages of office boys, and price of a sedan in 1920. To start checking his numbers, let’s head to the 1920s page of the guide.

First, for suits and collars, the 1920 Montgomery Ward catalog link found under the Merchandise tab of the Prices section sounds promising. Sure enough, the index tells us that ‘collars’ can be found on page 388 and ‘youths suits’ on pages 320 to 322. There are plenty of both collars and fine suits for our young hero to choose from!

*Image Source: Montgomery Ward Catalog No. 93, 1920.*

Next we move over to the Wages section to see what we can find for office boy earnings. The link for teenagers’ wages in Detroit, 1922 may be a good place to start. It takes us to the publication Occupations of junior workers in Detroit, which shows the 1922 pay of office boys as $6, $12, or $25 per week depending on hours worked per week (p.22). An entry from the 1921 Official Publication of the Central Trades and Labor Council of Greater New York and Vicinity shows another figure: “As office boy…His compensation is at the rate of $300 per year, and he is paid $25 monthly” (p.47).

*Image source: 1920 Official handbook of automobiles.*

Finally, the big ticket item—the sedan. Back on the Prices side, there is a Travel and Transportation tab containing a link for car prices for 1920-1924 in annual editions of the Handbook of Automobiles. Selecting the 1920 edition, we are taken to a digital copy at the HathiTrust digital library; from here we can either browse by our favorite automaker or search for the word “sedan” using the ‘Search in this text’ tool located at the top right-hand corner of the reading pane to find price listings. Some sedans are indeed priced around $4000 or higher.

What do you think, was our young friend accurate with his financial planning?

home Cycle of Success Chistina Pryor Elected President-Elect of Reference and User Services Association

Chistina Pryor Elected President-Elect of Reference and User Services Association

By Shannon Cary Posted in Cycle of Success

Posted on April 10, 2020May 10, 2020

Christina Pryor has been elected the 2020-21 President-Elect of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). Pryor will serve her Presidential term during 2021-22.

“RUSA has been my professional home since I joined ALA as a student in the MLIS program and I’m honored to have the opportunity to continue my service to the Association that has provided me with so much professional growth throughout my career.”

Christina Pryor has been back in Missouri since 2018 where she currently works as the Interim Assistant Director of Library Operations for the University of Missouri J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library and the Library Engagement and Missouri Coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Mid-Continental Regional Medical Library. Pryor has also held positions with the University of Washington Health Sciences Library, Amigos Library Services, the St. Louis County Library, and Covidien. She has expertise in the areas of training, management, outreach, advocacy, marketing, and public services and has published and presented on a variety of topics including library partnership management, wellness initiatives for library employees, and implementing change in library services.

Pryor earned her BS in Journalism with a specialization in Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and her MLIS from the University of Missouri Columbia where she currently serves as an adjunct instructor for the program teaching a course in medical librarianship.

home Resources and Services Library Depository Expansion Project Update

Library Depository Expansion Project Update

By Shannon Cary Posted in Resources and Services

Posted on April 7, 2020May 8, 2020

The University of Missouri Libraries Depository (UMLD) is an off-campus storage facility, established in 1997, for important, but infrequently used, library materials. UMLD is designed to provide high-density storage in an excellent climate controlled environment, maintained at a constant 55°F and at a relative humidity near 40%. This controlled environment ensures that valuable, yet fragile, paper materials will be available for generations to come.

Currently UMLD is at capacity, housing over 1 million items. In addition, the Libraries rent space for around 400,000 additional materials, and there are approximately 600,000 items that need to be transferred from the campus libraries. In order to accommodate these materials, the UM Board of Curators approved an expansion of UMLD.

The conditions in UMLD, as it is currently configured, add an average of 125 years of functional life to the items in the collection. The improved conditions in the new module will push that to an average of 150 years. The expansion includes new receiving, processing and storage areas to support the additional collections. A hook up for an emergency generator will allow the Libraries to maintain the conditions inside the new module even during an extended power outage. Utilities updates also include significant upgrades to the technology infrastructure, which allow for connecting the local security system to the campus system, adding security cameras and installing WiFi.

The expansion of UMLD, will allow the libraries on campus to recover some much needed space that is currently used to house infrequently used materials. A space planning project is currently underway that will help to determine the best use of space in the Libraries. Users will continue to have access to these materials by requesting them through the library catalog or having materials scanned.

On March 12, the first fence was put up at UMLD, marking the beginning of construction. The project is scheduled for completion on February 1, 2021.