Written by: Isabella Bickhaus

With so many assignments throughout the semester, I find that traditional book clubs—or any activity with a specific expectation—can be overwhelming. Even if the chosen book is one I truly enjoy, the book club date looms over my head like a Canvas deadline. That’s why I enjoy the format of Mizzou Libraries’ Bring Your Own Book Book Club (BYOBook Club), which centers around a monthly prompt instead of a specific book. This allows readers to come and share details about their own chosen book while adding the recommendations from others to their TBR (to be read) list. 

Some prompts for the Spring 2025 semester include a book with a red or pink cover, a book from any of Book Riot’s Read Harder categories, and a book that contains one of your least favorite things (character, trope, etc.). If you do not want to follow the prompt, you don’t have to. Feel free to bring any book you are willing to share with the group, or take inspiration from a past prompt. If you do want to follow the prompt and are looking for a place to start, look no further than the BYOBook Club Library Guide. This guide includes recommendations for books in general, for upcoming prompts, and for past prompts. The books listed under the Fall 2024-Spring 2025 tab are the books shared at past meetings. Beyond book recommendations, the guide also includes different ways to borrow books, details about local bookstores here in Columbia, and banned book lists.

The BYOBook Club meets in 114A Ellis, a room close to the Lowry Mall entrance of Ellis Library with comfortable booth seating. In addition to snacks, conversation starters about the book(s) you bring can help you guide your discussion about your book. Whether you are an avid reader or interested in getting started, this book club has a spot for everyone.  

Here are the Spring 2025 dates for the BYOBook Club:

• Wednesday, February 19, from 4-5 in 114A in Ellis (register here)
  • Book with a red or pink cover
• Wednesday, March 12, time TBA, in 114A in Ellis
  • Pick a book from any of Book Riot’s Read Harder categories
• Wednesday, April 16, time TBA, in 114A in Ellis
  • “My least favorite ____” (character, book, plot, trope, etc.)

Written by: Josiah Abbott

Unless you have been living under a rock, you’re aware of the rapid advancements being made in the AI industry. With the broad usability of AI, there are many resources available to students as we strive for academic excellence at Mizzou. A variety of tools, suggestions on prompting, and details on ethical considerations can be found through the Libraries’ AI guide, but I’ve highlighted a few below.

The resources I am covering in this article are beneficial for efficiency when studying, note-taking, or looking for information. I want to add a warning to not use AI for graded assignments unless a professor has explicitly given permission. If you are unclear on whether AI is prohibited or not, first check the syllabus. Professors are supposed to include guidelines on AI usage in it, but if this is not the case, you can also email them. Because of concerns with academic integrity regarding AI, do not use it if it could put your education at risk. 

To begin, I’m sure many of you have seen or even gotten a text from Roary, Mizzou’s AI helpbot. Roary is primarily intended to be used when searching for a process, location, or department to contact. For example, if you need a recommendation on where to study, Roary will give you a list of locations. If you need contact information for the financial aid office, Roary will reply with it almost immediately. Beyond that, Roary can’t do much more. I wouldn’t ask coursework questions as the AI was not trained on that. However, when you have questions regarding life at Mizzou, instead of clicking around the website for 5 minutes, just ask Roary.

Another helpful tool is Notion AI, a note-taking and scheduling tool one of my fellow peer navigators found. What is so unique about Notion AI is that it can search through all input information (notes, schedule, etc.) and answer questions based on that information. Say you remember talking about feudalism in class but are struggling to remember which of your notes it was in. Just ask Notion AI, and it will give you the correct section and title of what you need. Even better than that, instead of rereading the notes, you could just ask the AI to summarize the topics for a quick refresher. Integrating Notion AI isn’t difficult either. It allows you to sync your Google calendar to quickly load in all of your schedule, as well as upload your notes from a variety of formats, including directly from Google Docs.

If you are looking for help starting a research project, Consensus is a useful option that utilizes the Semantic Scholar database of open access research. A powerful research tool, Consensus allows you to enter a question and will search for and pull 20 relevant papers. After pulling the articles, it gives a brief outline of arguments on both sides of the question with a conclusion to sum it up. For each source, it breaks down how many times it is cited, the type of study it is, and has preloaded citations. With a wide range of filters, you can also narrow down the articles it pulls. Even better, Consensus is constantly being updated with new tools, including a consensus meter that gives a breakdown of articles’ stances on the question. Overall, Consensus is my pick for an AI tool to use in order to jumpstart your research.

Finally, a recent breakthrough, DeepSeek AI, blew up the generative AI market recently (January, 2025). It is an open-source AI competitor in a market dominated by closed-source tools. Combining its relatively cheap production costs and similar computing efficiency, it may be the best GenAI on the market. Currently it matches OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro plan ($200 a month) for a whopping $0. However, this is not a tool I would recommend using straight from the source on their site or phone app. Created and marketed from a Chinese company, this tool comes with concerns about data harvesting and security flaws in the program. However, the open-source nature allows businesses to run it locally where they can tweak parameters for better responses and implement security for individual iterations. Although not a tool an average person should use, I would encourage you to keep an eye on news surrounding it.

Written By: Lexi Tucker 

Sometimes you need a quick snack or refreshment while studying at Ellis Library, and this guide will help you find the most convenient options. Whether grabbing a bite, getting a caffeine fix, or filling up your water bottle, Ellis has everything you need to stay energized and focused.  

One feature of Ellis Library that is hard to miss, especially when entering from the West Entrance, is the café. This convenient location offers a simplified menu featuring drip coffee, hot tea, various canned espresso drinks, Pepsi products, and a selection of grab-and-go snack and lunch items. Even if you bring your own food, the cafe provides a microwave, toaster, and bagel cutter during Ellis Library operating hours. The Food and Drink Policy at Ellis encourages smelly, sticky, or messy foods to be consumed in the café area to avoid spills or messes, so please consider what you’re eating before moving elsewhere! The café hours as of Fall 2024: 

• Monday & Tuesday: 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
• Wednesday: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
• Thursday & Friday: 8:00 – 4:00 PM 

Convenient self-serve vending machines are also available at Ellis Library. To find them, head down the hallway past the café, leading toward the elevators for the ground through the fourth floor. As soon as you round the corner to the left, two snack vending machines are available with options ranging from $1.00 to $3.00 for either cash or card. You are welcome to enjoy snacks in most areas of the library, but please clean up and be considerate of those around you. 

Another great feature of Ellis Library are the bottle-filling water fountains. One fountain is near the café and the ground floor bathrooms. The second one is near the Circulation desk and men’s restroom on the first floor.  

In general, the policy for drinks at Ellis Library is to have covered containers and to be careful when operating computers or other devices. Alert library staff about any spills at the West Desk to help keep the library clean.  

In conclusion, Ellis Library offers a variety of convenient snack and drink options to enhance your study experience. Whether you visit the café or grab a quick snack from a vending machine, you can easily stay refreshed and focused while making the most of your time in the library! 

Can I find fiction/fantasy books at Ellis Library?
Written by: Clementine Arneson

Ellis Library is a research library, so it doesn’t hugely prioritize housing the newest fiction and fantasy books that may have just been released. However, there are options for patrons looking to find something fun to read in their spare time.

As always, if you know that Ellis has a book and you have the call number, you can find the book using our call number location guide on our website. However, just browsing through these sections can be fun and can introduce you to many new reads.

 

Ellis Library also has a partnership with the Daniel Boone Regional Library, with a small section of public library books that can be checked out onsite by Ellis patrons. This shelf is located on the first floor, in room 115, to the left of the north entrance. The selection is relatively small, but this shelf is more likely to have recent releases. As of this writing, romance, thriller, and science fiction novels are pretty well represented in this area.

 

Ellis’s literature section is another place to look. This might require a little more browsing, since our novels, poetry books, plays, short stories, and literary criticism are all located in approximately the same area. These books can be found in the PQ 6 to PZ 4 call number range in the 2 East stacks. These books may not be as contemporary or on trend as the public library’s selection, but we have hundreds of books to browse and choose from. Speaking from my own experience, I have found classics like A Tale of Two Cities and older popular fiction, like The Valley of the Dolls in this section. I have also been able to find some rarer fiction, most recently The House of Childhood.

Finally, the juvenile books section, located in the 4 East stacks is a good place to look. This area does house books for children, but it also has many popular teen fantasy reads, such as Twilight and Harry Potter. Browsing in the call number range JUV AG to JUV ZA should turn up at least a few commonly read titles like these.

If you aren’t finding what you’re looking for in Ellis, the Daniel Boone Regional Library is another great option. It is located a little less than a mile away from Ellis, and has many more new releases and a much larger selection of popular ebooks than Ellis. Students who live in Columbia can apply for a library card online at this link: https://www.dbrl.org/library-card-application. You can also request a book you’re looking for through Ellis’s interlibrary loan service or through MOBIUS. These services utilize a network of libraries and can deliver books from across the state to Ellis Library. You can learn more about these services and how to use them at the following links: https://library.missouri.edu/news/ellis-library/peer-navigator-corner-mobius-lending and https://library.missouri.edu/news/ellis-library/peer-navigator-corner-interlibrary-loan-for-articles. Happy reading!

By: Alyssa Westhoff

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for a quick, high-quality scan of an important document, treasured photo, or a favorite book page, Ellis has updated technology to provide that for you! On the first floor just around the corner to the right from the Peer Navigator desk are two new ScannX scanners available for use. 

These scanners have the ability to process documents up to 18.89 x 14.17 inches per page and books 17 x 11 inches in size. Possible output formats include PDF, JPEG, single/multipage TIFF, PNG, MP3 and Word (.docx). Items can be downloaded onto a USB, put in Google Drive, sent to an email, or transferred to a mobile device with the QR Reader app. These devices make it simple to create digital copies of anything you might need, whether for class or personal use. For example, if you only need a few pages from a book, you can quickly capture and save any specific section without having to check out the entire copy!

The scanner on the left is attached to an automatic document feeder that can scan up to 100 pages at a time on both sides. This is ideal for digitizing large batches of documents, such as research papers, class notes, or archived records. Both scanners have options to edit color, orientation, and overhead lighting depending on the item being scanned. Feel free to stop by the Peer Navigator desk with any questions when creating copies for your personal, academic, or professional needs!