Archive for 2008
The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded the Mississippi Library Commission (MLC) a $100,000 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Grant to conduct an intensive, in-residence workshop for mid-level public library staff in Mississippi. Over the three year grant period, ninety (90) public library staff members will participate in MLC’s Librarianship 201 Institute. Participants will be selected through a competitive application process.
The first Institute will be held February 2-6, 2009 in Jackson and will be conducted in partnership with the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET). The Institute will cover topics in public library advocacy, management, ethics, and technology. Nationally recognized scholars and practitioners of library science will share both theoretical and practical aspects of librarianship with participants. Participants will establish bonds that enhance librarianship in small and rural communities throughout the state.
According to Sharman Bridges Smith, Executive Director of the Library Commission, “Librarianship 201 is the next step in ‘growing our own.’ Mississippi has a rich heritage of public library service. Through Librarianship 201 and other continuing education programs for public library personnel provided by the agency for public library personnel, the future will be strong as well. We are pleased that IMLS recognized our efforts and plans for ensuring all Mississippians have access to quality public library services.”
First Lady Laura Bush announced the President’s multimillion dollar support of an initiative to help bolster the library profession in 2002. Since then, IMLS has helped fund the education of 3,220 master’s degree students, 186 doctoral students, 1,256 pre-professional students, and 26,186 continuing education students. In 2008, the program awarded $20 million to 31 of 90 applications received. To learn more about the program or IMLS, visit www.imls.gov.
For more information on the Librarianship 201 Institute or other Mississippi Library Commission programs and services, visit www.mlc.lib.ms.us or call 601-432-4111.
Submitted by
Jennifer Walker
Library Consultant
Mississippi Library Commission
Posted: October 8th, 2008
Millsaps College Library is pleased to announce three recent personnel
changes.
Rob Stephens, Millsaps 2008, is the new Circulation Supervisor. Rob
worked in the Library for two years as the late night student supervisor
and is now responsible for circulation, reserves, and audiovisual
technology.
Ben Newell is the new Periodicals Assistant, replacing Rocky Madden who
retired in June. Ben comes to us from the Madison County Public Library
and works in serials, cataloging, acquisitions and collection
management.
Ryan Roy is the new Public Services Librarian, replacing Larry Madison
who retired in May. Ryan, also a Millsaps grad, has worked in the
Library since 1999 as a student and staff member. He completed is
master’s degree from USM and now is responsible for reference and
library instruction.
Posted: October 7th, 2008
Find CEU Information HERE.
Posted: October 3rd, 2008
Registration extended through Friday, October 10
Forms can be found at here.
Posted: October 3rd, 2008
For an eighth year, Mississippi State University Libraries hosted an e-resource symposium for information professionals working in libraries across the Southeast. Sponsors of the symposium included Mississippi State University Libraries, the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), EBSCO Information Services, and Serials Solutions.
Held at Mitchell Memorial Library on August 8, 2008, this year’s symposium, titled “Play Your Cards Right!” provided the approximately one hundred attendees with insights and knowledge that will help enable them to overcome the many challenges of managing e-resources in libraries.
The symposium featured four presentations given by leading innovators in the field of e-resources and libraries. Jane Burke, Vice President and General Manager of Serials Solutions, delivered the symposium’s keynote address, “The OPAC is Dead: Managing the Virtual Library.” Jane presented some controversial ideas in her presentation, including putting an end to serial checkin and bibliographic instruction. She fired up the audience as she talked about trends in access and management of library e-resources. Subsequent presentations were given by Dan Tonkery (EBSCO Information Services), Maria Collins (North Carolina State University), and Emily Alford (Michigan State University).
Article-length write-ups of each of the symposium’s presentations are to be published in an upcoming issue of The Serials Librarian. Audio recordings of the presentations, along with the presenters’ PowerPoint slides and handouts, are accessible at http://library.msstate.edu/eresource/schedule.asp.
Submitted by
Jean Sibley
Serials Librarian/Assistant Professor
Mississippi State University Libraries
Photo by Jim Tomlinson.
Dan Tonkery, Jane Burke, and Maria Collins pose for a photograph during lunch.
Posted: October 1st, 2008
York, Joe. With Signs Following: Photographs from the Southern Religious Roadside.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
67 pp. $25.00 (hardcover)
Signs of a religious nature are familiar to anyone living in the South, and flipping through this book will garner smiles of recognition. Reading the accompanying introductions by Charles Reagan Wilson and photographer Joe York, though, will make you turn a fresh eye on the photographs featured here, as well as the roadsides you travel.
What began as a search for biscuits resulted in the revelation that one’s expression of religious belief in the South deserved more exploration, particularly evangelical Protestantism’s “Great Commission” to bring people to God. The contention here is that the advertising methods generally used for any of the innumerable products of modern living have been intentionally adapted for use in the marketing of salvation. It is a persuasive claim, one that is hard to deny once you have read the text, perused York’s spare black and white photographs, and hit the road yourself.
Wilson and York frame the photographs with compelling discussions of the connection between the road and religion in the South, along with interviews of people connected with the signs in the book. The photographs themselves depict wide-ranging religious expression, from simple graffiti to slick marquees and neon. York’s aesthetic sensibility and appreciation of visual wit come through in the juxtaposition of simple religious expressions with blatantly commercial objects and his judicious use of perspective, angle, and repeating patterns in composing his photographs.
With Signs Following is a thought-provoking book that could provide a jumping-off point for further study of the subject. It is recommended for all academic and public libraries.
Diane DeCesare Ross
Curator of Manuscripts, Archives, and Digital Collections
University of Southern Mississippi
Posted: October 1st, 2008
Urgo, Joseph R. and Ann J. Abadie, eds. Faulkner’s Inheritance: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 2005.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
178 pp. $50.00 (hardcover)
This book is a collection of nine essays presented by William Faulkner scholars at the Thirty-second Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference in 2005. Editor Joseph Urgo, former English department chair at the University of Mississippi, in his introduction defines the inheritance theme. He reminds readers that Faulkner inherited little financially, but much from his Mississippi culture. He took this inheritance and, with his genius, gave it voice for successive generations to analyze, criticize, and contemplate. Some of his bequest is examined in this collection by looking at the influences on his fiction. These influences are family history, Jim Crow laws, contemporary fashion, popular culture, and literature.
These essays are written in a scholarly style, and sometimes the reading is tedious. However, serious students of Faulkner’s fiction may discover new insight into Brother Bill’s world. Biographical information, such as the importance of his relationship with his alcoholic wife Estelle and with his religious caretaker Mammy Callie, is absorbing. An outstanding essay “Faulkner’s Blues Understanding” contains biographical information as well as Faulkner’s understanding of the blues as the medium of communication between blacks and whites.
Race and its power of alienation resulting in violence is a familiar Faulkner subject. In several essays, this theme is analyzed through the character Joe Christmas from Light in August. By examining this disinherited man caught between the black and white worlds, these essays evoke feelings of compassion, confusion, and anger. This power of race segregation, described as the Veil in W.E.B. Dubois’s The Souls of Black Folks, is suggested as an influence on how Faulkner created Joe Christmas.
In the concluding essay, Faulkner biographer Jay Parini encourages the fascinated reader who often struggles with the novelist’s fiction. He writes, “Faulkner had a great tolerance for inconsistency, and it has driven many a scholar to his or her grave – those scholars who wish for an ideal order that is.” This view, also shared by contributor Noel Polk, author of Reading Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, makes reading this collection worthwhile for the layman. Illustrations, photographs, and an index also render this collection more readable. I highly recommend Faulkner’s Inheritance for academic libraries and public libraries with a strong Faulkner collection.
Diane Moore Elliott
Librarian (retired)
Cleveland High School
Posted: October 1st, 2008
Tucker, Judy H. and Charline R. McCord, eds. Growing Up in Mississippi.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.
203 pp. $25.00 (hardcover)
Before their collaboration on Growing Up in Mississippi, Tucker and McCord met in 1996 at a Eudora Welty festival. Their collaboration previously resulted in the publications Christmas Stories from Mississippiand several editions of Christmas Stories from the South, which also focus on Mississippi life and southern culture.
In Growing Up in Mississippi, Tucker and McCord provide thirty essays by notable, still living Mississippians, such as former Governor William Winter, blues great B.B. King, NFL great Jerry Rice, and former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Fred Banks, that highlight small-town Mississippi life and other aspects of childhood in the South that influenced the development of the successful authors. For instance, Banks describes how his education in Canton influenced his development in a positive manner. Gov. Winter talks about the pets he had and how they shaped his development, while news anchor Maggie Wade Dixon explains how children’s play and parenting has changed since she grew up in Mississippi. The shared stories also reveal the unique nature of southern life for African Americans during the era. King talks of how his Uncle Jack was always singing to ease the burden of hard labor and stress.
Some of the essays are original to the collection, while others are reprinted or excerpted from previously published works. All of the essays, however, offer insight into the unique experiences of the thirty successful adults while they lived in small towns and communities in Mississippi.
Children in contemporary society may not experience the small-town or rural Mississippi existence of their predecessors, but this book offers young people and adults a chance to explore the past and how upbringing and small-town southern life influenced the development of a number of successful adults. The book is also a great option for those whose roots are in the South and who can relate to a former time and way of life. Thus, the book potentially provides an opportunity to educate and teach young adults about southern life and culture in a different era, and provides a chance for adults to relive a former time whose values and influences they may relate to. As such, public libraries, high school libraries, and college libraries should consider purchasing the book.
William L. Bahr
Assistant Director
Pike-Amite-Walthall Library System
Posted: October 1st, 2008
Kellum, Jo. Southern Sun: A Plant Selection Guide.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.
141 pp. $25.00 (paperback)
Many Southerners who have dabbled in gardening know firsthand that choosing plants hardy enough to withstand long hours of harsh summer sun can be difficult. In Southern Sun: A Plant Selection Guide, author Jo Kellum provides a straightforward guide to help readers select plants that thrive in the South’s hot summer sun. Kellum, a landscape architect who has written about garden design for Southern Living magazine, draws from her extensive knowledge and experience to create an easy-to-follow book that includes many recognizable plants, as well as some surprises that may not be as commonly known.
Kellum selects plants that are low-maintenance and she emphasizes the distinction between morning sun and afternoon sun because certain plants may thrive in one setting but not the other. The presentation of Southern Sun is easy to follow and the details about each plant are helpful without being overwhelming.
The book is organized into chapters on bedding plants, shrubs, trees, ground covers, and vines to help readers easily locate plants and plan their gardens. Within each chapter, Kellum devotes several pages to each plant and includes excellent photos and a list of basic growing information, such as size, growth rate, water needs, and growing zones. She also includes a detailed narrative about how to grow the plant with important tips on maintenance.
Southern Sun is appropriate for gardeners of all experience levels, but it will be especially helpful for those contemplating their first landscaping project or those who are new to the South. Kellum’s presentation is clean and straightforward, so it will not overwhelm beginners, but she provides enough description about each plant to appeal to experienced gardeners. This book is highly recommended for public libraries.
Laura Capell
Digitization Librarian
University of Southern Mississippi
Posted: October 1st, 2008
Helferich, Gerard. High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta.
New York: Counterpoint, 2007.
308 pp. $25.00 (hardcover)
Through Gerard Helferich’s writing, one follows a modern day cotton planter for a full year. His subject, Zack Killebrew, first cousin to Helferich’s wife, Teresa, farms 1,700 acres outside the small town of Tchula within the Mississippi Delta. One-thousand acres are for cotton, the rest set aside for soybeans and corn. Some of the acreage is prime two-inch-deep soil known locally as ice cream.
The book’s format is fresh and alternates between present, work-a-day Killebrew and historically knowledgeable Helferich. Readers join Killebrew and his trusty lab Duke in his white pickup as he plants genetically modified seeds, fends off weeds and insects, deals with field hands, and harvests hurricane beaten cotton. Then Helferich shifts into four-wheel drive and goes off road to introduce topics such as slavery, the 1927 flood, sharecropping, the Civil Rights Movement, and Southern politics. After the historical perspective, it is back in the cab with Killebrew at the wheel as he frequently stops to fix irrigation pivots, replace tractor tires, check insect traps, and extinguish module fires.
Two major concerns all planters face are crop prices and weather. As of the printing of this book, government subsidies offset any low prices for American cotton; unfortunately, one cannot control weather. During Killebrew’s 2005 season, his cotton is pummeled by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The resulting damage is substantial with arrested development and defoliation during the first storm and wet and dirty cotton after the second. All is not dire, for Killebrew blows off steam with various southern activities. Not only is the reader treated to two seasonal hunts, deer and dove, but a whole lesson in the art of catfish hand-grabbing, or noodling.
Guest critic for The New York Times Book Review, Dale Maharidge, wanted to hear more about Killebrew’s employees and pending divorce. Helferich faces the social and economic problems of the South with honesty and directness through examples of both disgruntled employees Ben and Charlie and a contented Willie Waters. As for the divorce, it involves two people growing apart and not cotton growing in between. This reviewer feels these topics are adequately covered.
From the moment the soil is broken until the last fiber is woven into jeans, this book is a comprehensive look at cotton through a family owned and operated business. It is highly recommended for all types of Mississippi libraries.
Maggie Moran
Public Service and Reference Librarian
Northwest Mississippi Community College
Posted: October 1st, 2008
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