On the occasion of MU’s 175^th Anniversary, the campus will officially inaugurate Chancellor Loftin into office Thursday, September 18 at 3:30 p.m. in the Missouri Theatre. All of the MU campus community is invited!

It’s COLLEGE COLORS DAY (CCD) time again and the Licensing and Trademarks Office is asking for help from your area to promote the event.  August 29^th marks the 2014 annual College Colors Day, a tradition to promote school spirit and the start of college football season.  Students, staff, alumni & fans are encouraged to participate by wearing their BLACK and GOLD. 

Mizzou is participating in the third annual College Colors Day spirit competition and is asking for fan support to help win the national Spirit Cup award, which includes $10,000 toward the general scholarship fund as well as a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship game.

The Spirit Cup is a points-based rivalry competition that utilizes social media platforms to crown its champion. Tiger fans can earn points for Mizzou by showcasing their school spirit on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtags #collegecolors and #mizzoumade. The Spirit Cup competition kicks off on August 1 and runs through August 28 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Winners of both the Spirit Cup competition and the College Football Playoff sweepstakes will be announced on College Colors Day, Friday, August 29, via CollegeColorsDay.com.

We encourage you to visit the official College Colors Day website, CollegeColorsDay.com for detailed information along with registering your department as a participant.   We would like to see several Mizzou departments registered!!!!   You can also post your pictures on the Licensing Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/mizzou.truman.

COLUMBIA, Mo.− The University of Missouri (MU) Libraries have received $400,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support remediation or content replacement of materials damaged by an extensive mold outbreak in an off-site storage facility. This outbreak, discovered in October 2013, is presumed to have contaminated all of the approximately 600,000 volumes housed in that facility.

Partnerships with Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) and Missouri State University (MSU) will provide access to replacement copies of federal government documents and inter-library loan access to Missouri state materials, respectively. Subcontracts with these universities through this project will support the cataloguing, retrieving and preparing of relevant materials to share with MU Libraries on an as-needed basis. The funding also will help MU review the availability of online or print-ready copies of needed replacements through cooperation with membership organizations. WUSTL will benefit by regaining space vacated by federal documents transferred to MU, while MSU will benefit by having its Missouri state materials catalogued in order to provide access to MU and other area libraries.

“The MU Libraries are deeply grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their support of this project that leverages tools of digital librarianship to help preserve scholarship in traditional formats,” said MU Libraries Director Jim Cogswell. “Institutional partnerships will enable the preservation of regional documents collections. The Mellon Foundation funding will allow MU Libraries to remediate mold for key groups of materials, work effectively with partner institutions for resource sharing, provide continued access to needed content of the damaged materials, and support part of the recovery effort.”

MU Libraries also will spend up to $600,000 from a self-insurance fund; additional sources are being explored. MU Libraries has contracted with a company for remediation services and negotiated for rental of two storage spaces, one in which pre-treated materials will be stored until they are cleaned, and one for storage of the remediated materials. As a longer-term solution, the Libraries are working with University of Missouri (UM) System's risk and insurance management department to develop a new strategy for fully insuring all collections, including those in storage, and will work with campus and UM System leadership to restore a plan for building an expansion to an existing storage facility and to accelerate fund allocation for its construction.

June DeWeese has been awarded the title of Librarian IV Emerita by Chancellor Loftin. This title will take effect on August 31, 2014.

This was submitted to Faculty Council yesterday.

Background

In October 2013, MU Libraries staff members discovered mold growing on books and bound journals in the Libraries’ secondary offsite book depository, in underground caverns north of I-70 in Columbia. The mold growth likely occurred due to inappropriate environmental conditions, specifically a spike in both temperature and humidity in July and August. A private environmental recovery company was retained to investigate, and they reported that the entire collection of some 600,000 volumes is presumed to be contaminated.

Because mold is destructive to printed materials, any volumes to be retained for use in the library collections must be treated to remove the mold before they can be used. Over the past several months, library staff members have been determining what portions of the contaminated volumes should be treated and retained and what portions must be permanently withdrawn and destroyed in order to remove any chance of contaminating other collections of print materials.

In order to meet the considerable costs involved in addressing this disaster, the MU Libraries will be using a special insurance fund established eight years ago to deal with such losses. However, estimates to decontaminate the collections, and to obtain new and more secure storage for materials retained for use, amount to far more than the current total on hand in the fund.

Disposition of Collections

MU Libraries staff have identified three broad categories of materials to guide decisions in prioritizing items either for mold remediation or for permanent withdrawal from our collections.

Category 1 – rare, distinctive and scarcely-held items to be treated and retained.

Examples in this category include:

·         Materials published prior to 1871

·         Materials that have unique characteristics or that form part of a distinctive collection

·         Materials that have local significance or value

·         Materials held by 10 or fewer libraries worldwide (as determined by OCLC analysis)

·         Materials with distinctive characteristics (e.g., non-English language works; graphic arts, illustrations or photographs; mathematical formulae; etc.)

Category 2 – multiple copies or readily accessible items that may be withdrawn permanently.

Examples in this category include:

·         Materials duplicated elsewhere in the MU Libraries, or in UM Library Depository.

·         Materials duplicated at one or more of the other three UM System libraries.

·         Materials duplicated within the MOBIUS consortium of Missouri libraries.

·         Materials not in MOBIUS, but readily available via interlibrary loan from Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and other regional partners.

·         Materials duplicated electronically in trusted digital repositories of academic journals and books (e.g., JSTOR, Hathi Trust, etc.)

·         Federal documents published post-1950. (Other libraries in the state have generously offered to replace mold-damaged copies with documents from their collections.)

Category 3 – decision deferred until more information is gathered and consultation is completed.

Materials not immediately placed into categories 1 or 2 will be retained until final decisions can be made either to retain or to withdraw permanently. We will be leasing a new space in which to hold these volumes while awaiting final decisions on their disposition. Because we are committed to having MU faculty assist in selecting materials to be salvaged and retained for our collections, having this holding space is essential.

Recent Developments

The MU Libraries have received many expressions of sympathy and support since news of the mold outbreak was released. A special fund has been established to assist in salvaging the thousands of books and journals that require special treatment to eradicate the mold. Individuals can contribute to the “Collection Enhancement Fund” via the MU Libraries website at the following site:

https://donatetomu.missouri.edu/givedirect/GDItem.aspx?item_id=117

In March, a grant proposal was submitted to a major private foundation seeking assistance in pursuing the plan to remediate contaminated volumes. We expect to learn in early June whether the proposal is accepted for funding.

With guidance and approval from MU Facilities Planning and the UM Procurement Office, steps have been taken to obtain a contractor for treatment of volumes identified for salvage and to secure new and environmentally stable storage space for treated materials.

After a search of suitable above-ground storage facilities in close proximity to the MU campus, three potential sites were selected for further review. From these three, a preferred facility has been selected and negotiations for a lease are nearing completion. We expect to have the lease signed soon and preparations underway to take occupancy on or about May 1.

Proposals from mold-remediation contractors were solicited over the past two months, and eight bids were received on March 14. A preferred bidder has been identified and negotiations are now underway with the contractor. We expect to have a contract signed on or about April 1, with work to commence by the middle of the month.

Future Plans

This disaster has underscored the need to pursue purpose-built, environmentally secure space for long-term storage of our physical collections. Since 1997, the UM Library Depository (UMLD), the primary storage facility used by MU and the three other libraries of the UM System, has worked flawlessly in this capacity. Located on LeMone Blvd., off Highway 63 in Columbia, the UMLD contains about 1.2 million print volumes, which are used by the four UM campuses and are also available to all libraries in the state via the MOBIUS network. The facility was designed to accommodate an addition which would double the space of the original structure when it reached its maximum limit. Approaching that limit in 2006, a request was made to the UM academic officers to consider funding the UMLD addition, but that option was deemed to be cost-prohibitive. Instead, leased storage space, in the caverns north of I-70, was judged to be the preferred course of action.

The MU Libraries proposes to work actively with the campus administration to return the construction of the UMLD addition to the priority list for capital projects. The MU Faculty Council and the Library Committee have both expressed support for this option, and it is our hope that this request will be put before the University Board of Curators early in the new fiscal year.

Submitted by Jim Cogswell, Director of Libraries

April 3, 2014

An FAQ document about the mold at UMLD2 has been created by the Library Management Team, Matt Gaunt and Shannon Cary. It is now available from the Libraries' home page. 

You may refer patrons to this page or use this page to help you answer patrons' questions. Please continue to send reporters directly to Shannon Cary. 

This page will be updated as more information is available.

You can pick up a 2014 MU Libraries calendar poster in the Admin office. Or you can email me (carysn@missouri.edu), and I will have one (or more) sent to your office.

–Shannon

Ellis Library Digiprint Hours next week:

Open Monday Dec. 23, Closed rest of week

Our MU Student Center Digiprint Center will be open Christmas week as follows:

Open Monday December 23.

Open until 11:30 am Tuesday December 24.

Closed Wednesday December 25.

Open Thursday December 26 and Friday December 27.

Project will digitize collection from Robben Island Museum, the prison that held Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, among others

Columbia, MO, Dec. 6, 2013 — With the passing of Nelson Mandela this week, preserving and documenting the many facets of his life will be crucial as future generations learn about his impact and carry his legacy into the future.

In the spirit of sharing Mandela’s achievements with future generations, the University of Missouri College of Education has signed an agreement with the University of Western Cape (UWC) in Capetown and Robben Island Museum, South Africa, to begin a joint project preserving the thousands of historical papers, photos and other items related to the political prisoners who were held at Robben Island.

“This is a rich collection of materials that chronicles the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the development of the new constitution in 1996, the birth of the new nation, and a country that affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom,” said Thomas Kochtanek, associate professor in the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies.

Robben Island is where many political prisoners, including Mandela, were incarcerated for opposing Apartheid and the regime that held power within South Africa from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Other prisoners included former Archbishop Desmond Tutu and South African Constitution author Albie Sachs.

The project is an effort to make the Robben Island resources more widely available to scholars, students and the public around the world. Scholars, archivists and researchers from the MU College of Education’s School of Information Science & Learning Technologies and from the University of Missouri Libraries, in conjunction with archivists from the Robben Island Museum, will digitize selected materials and make those available via a dynamic web site dedicated to the project.

“While the loss of Mandela has saddened everyone, Mandela’s legacy of reconciliation and forgiveness, towards the vision of the ‘rainbow’ nation, will live on in this way,” said Daniel L. Clay, dean of the MU College of Education. “The University of Missouri is very proud to continue our working relationship with the University of Western Cape, which began 27 years ago, when the formal agreement was the first ever between a U.S. university and a non-white South African University.”

“The University of Missouri mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela, a man whose sacrifice and dedication to freedom inspired a spirit and strength that should never be forgotten,” Kochtanek said.