Voter registration deadline in Missouri is Wednesday October 10.
First-time Missouri voters must vote in person on November 6, unless they presented acceptable photo ID to the County Clerk at the time they registered. Only those who have voted in Missouri before, or who have presented that ID (not just included their driver’s license number on their registration form), will be sent an absentee ballot when they request one, and they must request it by October 31.
If a student wants to register in a district outside Boone County (either in Missouri or in another state), they must be aware that the process for both registration and absentee voting differ, and may be unexpectedly complicated (for instance, to vote absentee when registered in another Missouri county, you have to get that absentee ballot notarized). Our guide has links to other counties’ requirements.
The University Libraries conducted the Ithaka S+R survey in the fall of 2017 with the goal of better understanding the research and teaching goals of our faculty and graduate students and their perspectives on the role of the library in helping them to achieve these goals.
Faculty Survey The survey was distributed by e-mail to all 3,090 faculty members on October 2, 2017. There were 680 respondents who clicked on the survey, with 611 starting the survey and 433 respondents completing the survey for an overall response rate of 14%. Responses were received from faculty in all colleges and schools. Note that law school faculty were not included in this survey process.All respondents answered questions on discovery and access, research practices, perception of students’ research skills, and the role of the library. Respondents were presented randomly with additional modules on library space planning, scholarly communication or market research.
Graduate and Professional Students Survey The survey was distributed by e-mail to all 6,543 enrolled graduate and professional students on October 2, 2017. There were 1,307 respondents who clicked on the survey, with 1,191 starting the survey (18%) and 939 respondents completing the survey for an overall response rate of 14%. Responses were received from students in all colleges and schools. Note that law school students were not included in this survey process. All graduate student respondents answered questions on higher education objectives, coursework and academics, and role of the library. In addition, respondents were presented randomly with either a module on library space planning or research practices.
Over the next few weeks, the University Libraries will be sharing some of the key findings from the survey. If you would like to see the survey summaries and a complete list of the aggregated results for all questions, visit library.missouri.edu/about.
Dr. Frank’s research focuses on prisoner rights and justice involved youth intervention strategies and often travels to speak and consult on issues involving systematic bias and inequity. In 2017, she launched Project MI, a collaborative that aims to transform the criminal justice system and eliminate racial injustice by aggressive advocacy, leadership development, and connecting opportunity communities to law makers.
The One Read Program, which promotes conversations regarding diversity, inclusion, and social justice through students, faculty, and staff reading a particular book together, is sponsored by Mizzou Law and Univerisity Libraries.
In addition to “producing grammatical descriptions and dictionaries for four varieties of the Luyia language cluster in western Kenya,” Michael Marlo is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics and a member of the editorial board of the Language Science Press‘s Contemporary African Linguistics series. Language Science Press is an open access publisher of peer-reviewed linguistics books, including textbooks, and neither readers nor authors pay fees under the Knowledge Unlatched model, which instead relies on financial pledges from institutions and libraries to fund open access projects.
Michael’s editorship originally grew out of a desire to find a financially reasonable publishing outlet for the proceedings of the Annual Conference on African Linguistics. When researching potential publishers for book projects related to his National Science Foundation project, Structure and Tone in Luyia, he had also made note of their African Language Grammars and Dictionaries series.
“One of the major obstacles to the development of the field of linguistics is access to research results,” Michael says. For example, access to the digital version of the most prestigious publisher’s grammar series costs $10,000 plus annual fees for updates. A single book costs $200. Despite the prestige, Michael doesn’t intend to pursue publication through a press with such a prohibitive pricing model because that would limit his audience to those few whose libraries can afford access. He says, “While I recognize that there are still problems of access with publications that are primarily available as PDF downloads online, due to the fact that not everyone has internet access, having my work available for anyone to download is a major improvement in access over most other publishing options, which are either too expensive for readers or require a large subvention from the author, or both.”
Anne Barker
Last summer, Michael learned that Language Science Press was pursuing the institutional support funding model and asked Anne Barker, his subject librarian, if Mizzou Libraries could contribute. He was “thrilled” to learn that some funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities were able to be put toward the initiative. Michael says, “I believe [this model] has the chance to revolutionize publishing in my field, and possibly by extension many other fields in academia.”
Anne confirms, “Librarians have long been concerned that the commercialization of scholarly communication restricts access for individuals and strains library budgets. Changing the traditional publication funding model to provide for more open access is complex and challenging, but the Knowledge Unlatched model is promising. Mizzou Libraries is glad to be able to join this endeavor.”
Michael encourages students to use MOBIUS and Interlibrary Loan to access books outside of our collection. He also encourages students to find their subject areas in the stacks and look around. “There’s a lot of great stuff in there that you won’t easily find just by searching online databases!”
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 tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Predatory publishing doesn’t just take advantage of authors by misrepresenting review, editorial, and fee structures. It also hinders access to the work itself, hurting the overall enterprise of research. The epidemic of predatory journals reached serious enough heights in 2016 that the Federal Trade Commission charged OMICS, one such publisher of hundreds of predatory journals, for its deceptive practices.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” says Janice Dysart, Science Librarian and creator of the Where to Publish Your Research guide. “Be wary of these email solicitations from publishers trying to get you to submit articles to their journals.” She recommends using the Think Check Submit checklist to determine whether a publisher is legitimate.
Anyone can fall victim to predatory journal publishers. Jung Ha-Brookshire, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Human Environmental Sciences, and Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Textile and Apparel Management, relates her experience after a graduate student recommended a journal a few years ago. She says, “I didn’t think twice about it. We submitted our paper and got accepted without any revisions. Then they were asking us to send money somewhere in Pakistan.” She still didn’t realize what was happening because she hadn’t even heard of “predatory journals.”
That all changed about a year later when she learned of a list of predatory journals from her colleagues. “We found out that our journal was on that list,” she says. They tried to withdraw their work from the publication but couldn’t. Because the journal wasn’t legitimate, the article could only be found via the specific URL and not by searching, so they pulled the publication information from their CVs. Jung says, “We had to take that manuscript as a loss because we couldn’t even take that paper to other publishers since, technically, it is already published.”
After that experience, Jung now checks with her subject librarian, Noël Kopriva, every time she encounters a journal she hasn’t heard of, “no matter how good the website looks.” Jung advises, “Be careful with choosing the right journals. Do not get fooled by address, location, a beautiful website, and a wonderful set of editorial board names. Check with your librarian first when in doubt!”
The University of Missouri Libraries are not just places to find books and journals – we also make available data that is ready for quantitative analysis. Through the University Libraries, all of our faculty, staff and students have member-level access to two data archives: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. The ICPSR offers training and webinars as well, and we are pleased to announce their 2018 Data Fair is approaching. Here’s more from their news release:
ICPSR’s 2018 Data Fair focuses on the most important variable: you. Data is in the news at a dizzying rate, reminding us that our choices in collecting and sharing data are of great consequence. Join us for the Data Fair, a series of webinars taking place October 1-5, to learn from thought leaders who will delve into important topics like:
Since 2010, the ICPSR Data Fair has provided thousands of participants with world-renowned data training and resources. All for free, all virtual, and all open to the public. We invite you to join us for the 2018 Data Fair by registering for sessions here.
The following events and exhibitions have been scheduled to facilitate conversation regarding this year’s One Read Program selection: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community–and all of us–to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
A Brief Moment in the Sun Art Contest
Submissions beginning September 1st- October 18th
We want to feature your work based on The New Jim Crow. Submit a poem, mixed media, a sculpture, a painting, a photo; whichever medium speaks to you. Please contact Michelle Baggett for more information.
July-October: The New Jim Crow – One Read Program Exhibit
An exhibit in the Ellis Library Colonnade features a timeline showing the increasing numbers of incarcerated Missourians over the past four decades. Key moments in law, the privatization of prisons, and stories of anonymous Mizzou Tigers impacted by incarceration are highlighted. Ellis Library Exhibit Case
The One Read Program, which promotes conversations regarding diversity, inclusion, and social justice through students, faculty, and staff reading a particular book together, is sponsored by Mizzou Law and Univerisity Libraries.
The University of Missouri Libraries are pleased to announce that Christina Pryor has been hired as the new Missouri coordinator for the National Network of Libraries of Medicine in the Midcontinental Region. Christina has a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor of Journalism from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is coming to us from the University of Washington Health Sciences Library in Seattle where she served as the assistant director and community health education coordinator. Her previous positions include consulting and education services manager for Amigos Library Services, reference manager for the St. Louis County Library System, and medical research librarian for Covidien/Mallinckrodt. Christina is currently serving as the conference chair for the Library Marketing and Communications Conference, which will be held in St. Louis this fall.
Tutors from the Writing Center will be offering one-on-one writing support in Ellis Library again this fall. All Mizzou students can take advantage of this service. Tutors can help with all stages of the writing process: brainstorming, revising and polishing a final draft. They are familiar with a variety of writing styles and formats.
Writing Tutors’ Schedule Ellis Library, Room 151-E
Fall 2018
Saturday, August 26 through Finals Week
(no tutors during Thanksgiving Week)
Sunday 4 – 9 pm
Monday to Thursday 11 am – 9 pm
Sign up for appointments on the sign-up sheet which will be posted on the door to Room 151-E at the start of tutoring hours that day. Appointments are for fifty minutes.
