Centennial Committee Meeting, Feb. 26

Attending: Shannon Cary, Marie Concannon, John Budd, Rebecca Graves, Gary Cox, Matt Gaunt, Sheila Voss

Kickoff Celebration – Matt Gaunt, Rebecca Graves and Sheila Voss on the subcommittee

  • The Kickoff Celebration is scheduled for September 23, 2015 in Lowry Mall. This event will be geared toward the students. Shannon met with the Libraries’ Student Ambassadors yesterday and asked them to think about what they would like at the event and what giveaways they would prefer.
  • Sheila confirmed that she had scheduled Chancellor Loftin to speak at the celebration.
  • Matt met with the Mizzou athletic department this week to discuss athletic participation at the event. He will continue to follow up.
  • The library student fee is expected to be on the student ballot in November, so promotion of the student fee may also be part of the kickoff celebration.
  • The committee needs to decide if we will order different t-shirts for the kickoff in addition to the ones for the student fee campaign.
  • The committee considered having five days of student giveaways during the week of the Kickoff Celebration. Matt didn’t think it was a good idea to have giveaways so close to the student fee vote. The committee agreed to move the giveaways to Library Week in April 2016.  

Rededication Celebration – Marie Concannon and Gary Cox on the subcommittee

  • The Rededication Celebration will occur on January 28, 2016 in the Grand Reading Room of Ellis Library. This celebration will be geared toward current and retired library employees and the Friends of the Libraries. Rebecca suggested that we also invite faculty to this celebration.
  • Sheila will make a formal request for Chancellor Loftin to speak at the event.
  • Gary will work on assembling exhibits from the last century of the Libraries for the exhibit cases in the Ellis Library Colonnade and for the Grand Reading Room where the event will take place. 
  • Marie plans to hire a person with a Victrola to play historic 78s at the event.

Library Society Dinner – John Budd and Sheila Voss on the subcommittee

  • The Library Society Dinner will occur on April 15, 2016. The Centennial Committee would like to have the event in the Ellis Library Grand Reading Room but we have also reserved the Columns Ballroom in the Reynolds Alumni Center in case the crowd is too large for Ellis Library.
  • The keynote speaker will be David Ferriero, U.S. National Archivist. John suggested that we ask Mr. Ferriero to give a speech on the history of archives or digital archives for faculty, staff and students in Room 114 Ellis Library the morning of the Library Society Dinner.
  • We plan to have a historic textile display in the Ellis Colonnade exhibit cases for the month of April and possibly a mannequin display during the Library Society Dinner in the Grand Reading Room of Ellis Library.

Other Activities

  • There was general support for a student art contest featuring art related to Ellis Library or one of the branch libraries. 
  • A subcommittee of student ambassadors could be asked to organize it with advisory assistance from the Centennial Planning Committee. Some of the decisions to be made include establishing a time frame for the contest, determining how long the library will have the works on display, how the vote will take place, what the prizes will be, who is eligible to enter, etc.
  • Marie will ask Amanda Sprochi, chair of the Exhibits Committee, if that committee could commit to hanging the works and getting the materials safely back to the artists when the contest is over.

Wrap-Up

  • Shannon introduced the idea of adding members to the event subcommittees to help complete the work. This can include staff members and especially library student ambassadors. We currently have 45 student ambassadors who may be available to help.
  • The committee discussed creating a webpage on the MU Libraries Gateway listing the centennial events or creating a paper poster listing the events.