Every year we celebrate a week of open access. It’s an opportunity for the academic community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of open access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make open access a new norm in scholarship and research. This year’s theme is Community Over Commercialization. For more information about Open Access, visit our website.
Celebrate Open Access Week with us by reviewing the Open Access Library Guide and attending a virtual workshop:
And if you have some additional time, be sure to check out some of our other blog posts about the different facets to consider when making your research open:
Did you know we have two locations on campus where you can pickup your library books 24/7?
Users can choose Ellis Locker or Lottes Locker as their pickup location when requesting MU Libraries materials. Once the item is ready, users will receive an access code to pick up their items.
Patrons who select the pickup locker location will receive an email saying they have three days to pick up their library materials. At this time, only regular library items will be included in the pickup lockers; no equipment, reserve materials or ILL materials.
The Ellis Library lockers are located inside the vestibule of the west entrance, which is near Speaker’s Circle. The Health Sciences Library Pickup lockers are located in the Medical Science Building, just across the courtyard from the Medical Annex.
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Location: Teaching for Learning Center Registration
Your students may not be aware of the information resources and services the library provides to help them be successful in your class. In this session, we will discuss how library resources and services can be integrated directly into your Canvas course.
The discussion will cover collaborative possibilities and practices for teaching and learning such as scheduling in-person or online instructions sessions, creating, and using interactive library learning modules and tutorials including self-guided tours for students.
Dr. Paula Roper was named Outstanding Professional Librarian at the 2024 Missouri Library Association Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. First awarded in 2017, the Outstanding Professional Librarian Award recognizes a librarian with an MLS or MLIS degree who has made a significant contribution to the improvement and advancement of library and information services. Nominees must have at least five years post- MLS/MLIS work in the library profession.
Dr. Paula Roper has worked for University of Missouri Libraries for nearly 40 years, beginning her career at Ellis Library as part of the inaugural MU postgraduate “Intern-Scholar Program” in 1986. During her time at Ellis, Dr. Roper has worked closely with the MU School of Education and the Black Studies Department to aid both students and faculty, from the early days of online catalogs to the current challenges of navigating AI software. She has also advocated for the Library’s involvement across campus, including large, public events like Black History Month programming and National History Day. Her experience, knowledge, and drive is valued by both her library colleagues and the faculty at her liaison departments. As one of her colleagues puts it, Dr. Roper “encourag[es] and valu[es] her less experienced colleagues, spurring us to get out of our academic comfort zone, and embrace the power we have, as architects of ‘extracurricular curriculum’.”
Date: Friday, October 11, 2024
Time: 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Online via Zoom Registration
The Introduction to Dimensions webinar will showcase how researchers can use this powerful database to find collaborators, track funded activity, identify trends and more.
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!”
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.
Linda Hillemann, Clinical Instructor/Online Education and Field Support Specialist in the School of Social Work, works off campus and supports online students in southern Missouri. She was updating a lecture on the history of social work on Canvas when she realized she didn’t have a credit for a diagram by Mary Richmond, one of the founders of social work. Linda describes her research process: “I have digital copies of some of her documents and was pretty sure which one it came from, but I was wrong! Not only was it not from her book Social Diagnosis, it wasn’t in any of the other documents I have. So I started Googling. There are only so many websites devoted to social work history so I was pretty confident I could find it back, but it was much harder than I expected.”
After searching all the sites she knew with all the search terms she could think of to no avail, she contacted her subject librarian, Kimberly Moeller, for help. Kimberly was able to reverse engineer a search, and Linda says, “A mere two hours later I had the reference and a link to the document.”
Linda Hillemann
Kimberly found the original pencil drawing in conference proceedings over a century old. She explains, “The diagram was first presented and published at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1901, which didn’t originally come up in the search I ran. However, Richmond’s colleagues were apparently so impressed with her work that the diagram was mentioned in numerous iterations of this same conference, referring back to the proceedings from 1901.” Kimberly provided Linda with a link to the scanned version of the proceedings available through the digital library Hathi Trust, which meant she had immediate access.
Linda had never seen the conference proceedings before and found it be a fascinating historical document. More importantly, it provided the reference she needed to include vital information in her course. She explains that the diagram “demonstrates a clear line of a basic social work concept from our beginnings to current practice. That was something I wanted to demonstrate in this lecture: our connection today to our remarkable history, and thanks to Kim I was able to do that.”
Kimberly Moeller
Linda and her online students rely on Kimberly and other librarians to help them locate and obtain materials since they are not able to visit the library in person. When it comes to using the library or needing research assistance, Linda advises, “If you need something, ask, even if it seems like a pretty wild-eyed request. I think these librarians can pull rabbits out of a hat.”
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.
