Special Collections and Rare Books department invite all colleagues to attend our session “Get Real! Teaching with Library and Museum Collections on Campus" at the Celebration of Teaching Conference, on Wednesday, 21 May, in 219 Cornell Hall, from 2:00 to 2:50 pm.

The panelists represent a broad spectrum of MU scholars: Jessica Boldt, an assistant curator at the Museum of Anthropology; Joan Stack, Curator of Art Collections at the State Historical Society, and her colleague, manuscript specialist John Konzal.  Arthur Mehrhoff, of the Museum of Art and Archaeology will talk about a Roman coin, and  Maggie Mayhan, historical educator at the State Historical Society will lead the discussion. 

Special Collections and Rare Books department will be represented by Kelli Hansen, who organized the session and is its Chairman; Karen Witt who will speak about World War II posters from the Special Collection, and Alla Barabtarlo, with a talk on The Virtue of the Real Text vs. Virtual Reality, or The Clay’s the Thing!

Special Collections weekly Tumblr roundup
Special Collections is actively posting content to Tumblr to raise the visibility of the collections and connect with researchers, students, and book lovers all over the world.  We’re enjoying a great response there, so we thought our colleagues here would be interested in seeing a roundup of a few of our top posts each week.  Enjoy!

·         Fore-edge Painting featuring Abraham Lincoln (click through to see the animated gif)

·         6 Books that Look Like They Belong at Hogwarts: Book 4

·         Arthur Rackham’s 1920 illustrations for Sleeping Beauty

·         Phrenology

Stay tuned for next week’s roundup, or connect with us online: Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr

Wrapping up the Comic Book Lounge
Special Collections, Security, and LTS teamed up to create the Ellis Library Comic Book Lounge in the Colonnade during Monday and Tuesday of finals week.  Special Collections staff supervised use of comics over the lunch hour (11-2) each day, and about 40 students used the lounge during those hours. Many students also availed themselves of the refreshments provided .  We noticed some great comments on social media:

• Now this is a kind and understanding library.  Finals, graduations, etc., and they are offering a respite and safe haven from the stress.  Well done!
• My alma mater knows what’s up.
• Some mad genius must have made this comic up in Ellis Library.
• Way to deal with finals stress!  Excellent!

Kudos to Pat Jones, Connie Housley, and PT Martin for coming up with the idea to create the lounge! Special thanks to Amy Spencer, David Henderson, Shelby Wolfe, Dana Houston, Dottie Heuer, William Martin, Duane Bittle, Dustin Hoffman, and all the other staff who made this event a success.

–Kelli Hansen