General Summary: Develops and coordinates Columbus-Lowndes Public Library information services and programs for adults, emphasizing services that respond to adult lifelong learning and self-directed continuing education. Team leader for adult nonfiction collection development—selection, retention, weeding, and establishment of new collections/formats to anticipate and meet the information needs of adults served by this library. Serves on the management team.
Education:
Master’s Degree in Library Science from an ALA-accredited library school preferred; Bachelor’s Degree and documented customer service and management experience required; interest in pursuing (or enrollment in) an accredited MLS, a plus.
Necessary Knowledge, Ability, and Skills:
- Experience with goal setting and project management
- Strong computer skills
- Experience or ability to network with community service organizations in the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library service area
- Accept the American Library Association’s: Code of Ethics; Freedom to Read Statement; and Freedom to View Statement
- Teamwork, sense of humor, work ethic, willing and able to provide supportive, ongoing on-the-job training to nonprofessional staff, core belief that public libraries are an essential public service
Salary: Not enough, but the usual public library fringe benefits of life insurance, health insurance, personal and major medical leave. Participation in professional associations encouraged.
Interested in more information, or an application? Email Alice Shands, Director. ashands@lowndes.lib.ms.us
Following written directions is part of the applicant evaluation process.
Posted: May 24th, 2012
The Department of Library Science is seeking applications and nominations for a nine month, full-time, fixed-term faculty position in the College of Education, East Carolina University to begin August 13, 2012. Rank and salary: Commensurate with qualifications.
Responsibilities will include: Teaching assigned sections of Library Science courses, serving as a member of the library science department faculty; participating in planning for departmental goals and objectives and efforts for accreditation, and serving on departmental and College of Education committees; and, advising students and providing advising support.
Minimum qualifications include: (1) An MLS/MLIS from an American Library Association accredited program; (2) Demonstrated potential for excellence in teaching and leadership in library science; and (3) evidence of eligibility for a North Carolina license as a media coordinator.
Preference will given to candidates with: (1) Experience teaching library science or related courses; (2) Experience teaching online courses; (3) Experience advising students, especially graduate students; (4) Active participation in professional associations, including ALA divisions and state library associations; (5) Experience as a school media coordinator or public library professional; and, (6) Experience using library and distance education technologies.
Candidates must submit the following documents online at www.jobs.ecu.edu (1) a letter of application describing academic background, specific skills, and experiences relevant to the position, including professional development with teachers and (2) a current vita.
Candidates also must submit (1) a copy of all transcripts, and (2) three current letters of reference to: Dr. Gail Munde, Search Chair, Department of Library Science, College of Education, Mailstop 172, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858.
Finalists will be required to demonstrate practices in online teaching of library science, or related classes; and, be prepared to discuss their experiences and philosophy of teaching. Screening will begin June 6, 2012 and continue until position is filled.
Official transcripts required upon employment. For more information, visit the College of Education website at www.coe.ecu.edu
East Carolina University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action University that accommodates individuals with disabilities.
Individuals requesting accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) should contact the Department for Disability Support Services at (252) 737-1016 (Voice/TTY).
Proper documentation of identity and employability is required at the time of employment.
Posted: May 22nd, 2012
The East Baton Rouge Parish Library seeks a dynamic and experienced director with demonstrated leadership skills and professionalism, relevant library experience, excellent communication skills, and the vision and talent to take the system to the next level of excellence to better serve the community. The East Baton Rouge Parish Library System, nationally recognized as one of the top library systems in the nation, provides public library service for the City of Baton Rouge and the Parish of East Baton Rouge. Serving a population of more than 436,265 in the metropolitan area, the system consists of a Main Library and 12 branches, plus one under design and two under construction, including a new Main library. The library has a collection of 1.8 million items, and a staff allotment of 543 (379 FTE), and an annual circulation of 2.3 million. The library is funded by a ten‐year 11.1 mill property tax that generates an estimated $38 million annually for the operation and maintenance of the existing system as well as a pay‐as‐you‐go capital improvements program. The tax is to be renewed in 2015.
As Louisiana’s Capital City, greater Baton Rouge is the largest city in Louisiana. With both a vibrant urban environment downtown and small, friendly neighborhoods surrounding its core, Baton Rouge is a great place for both families and singles to live, work, and play. It is the home of Louisiana State University, Southern University, Baton Rouge Community College, a thriving medical community, a booming film and television industry, and an internationally‐known biomedical research complex. Located on the Mississippi River, the city has a temperate climate and is in the heart of a historically rich and diverse area with access to a wide variety of cultural and sporting opportunities. For details on the Library, City, Parish and area see EBRPL Links.
Responsibilities. Under the direction of the Library Board of Control, the Director is the chief administrator of the library system and has oversight responsibility for operating and maintaining the existing system, including financial management, management of library personnel, and for planning and managing the construction of new libraries. The Director must provide visionary leadership for the creation, development, and implementation of innovative service and cutting edge technology, develop effective and positive working relationships with city and community leaders, as well as build a constructive relationship with members of the media. See the EBRPL job description for illustrative examples of general responsibilities and duties.
Qualifications. An ALA‐accredited MLS or MLIS degree; five years of supervisory management and financial experience as a Director and/or Assistant Director in a medium to large library system; and certification by the Louisiana Board of Library Examiners. (Legislation has been introduced to allow a new director appointee one year in which to acquire this certification.) The ideal candidate should have demonstrated high standards of professional and personal ethical conduct, have excellent communication skills, possess the ability to work effectively with the Library Board, city administrators and staff, have experience in planning and constructing libraries, and provide visionary leadership that is grounded in the realities of proven public library service and budget constraints. The Director is expected to provide a leadership role within the Library, the community, and the library profession. The Director serves as the official representative of the Library. Prior successful experience reporting to a governing board is highly desirable. Additional qualifications, skills, abilities and requirements can be found on the official job announcement at the EBRPL job description.
Compensation. The position offers a competitive starting salary above $100,000 (commensurate with qualifications and experience) and an attractive benefits package.
For further information, contact Bradbury Associates/Gossage Sager Associates via email or call 816-531-2468. Apply via email with a meaningful cover letter and resume as Word or PDF attachments to Dan or Jobeth Bradbury. The position closes July 15, 2012.
East Baton Rouge Parish Library is an Equal Opportunity Employer – and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin or non‐job related disability
Posted: May 21st, 2012
Whitt, Jan. Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.
Lanham,MD: University Press of America, 2010.
152 pp. $23.00 (paperback)
During the Civil Rights era, Hazel Brannon Smith and a half dozen other journalists risked both life and livelihood to report the news during one of the most divisive times in American history. For Mississippians familiar with the work of the late Dr. Arthur J. Kaul, a longtime journalism professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, you probably need no introduction to names such as Ira B. Harkey and Hodding Carter, Jr. because Kaul wrote and spoke of them frequently. For everyone else, you must read Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism to understand why these and other courageous journalists are worth remembering. Kaul wrote about Smith in Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Newspaper Publishers (1950-1990) and in a chapter in The Press and Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement. It was Kaul’s work that first drew the author of this book, journalism historian/professor Jan Whitt, to the Hazel Brannon Smith story. Whitt said Smith is “a metaphor for life writ large, for a world in which we believe in ourselves, advocate for others, and support journalism that is fair, balanced, socially responsible, and revolutionary.”
Hazel Brannon Smith did not set out to become a crusading journalist. Instead, she dreamed of living a quiet life as a small town newspaper editor with a husband and a family. In 1936, after finishing journalism school at the University of Alabama, Smith borrowed three thousand dollars to buy a small weekly newspaper in Durant, Mississippi. She worked hard, made the paper profitable, and a few years later bought a second newspaper (The Lexington Advertiser) in Holmes County which was 70 percent African American. Up until 1954, Smith was a product of her upbringing, believing like most whites at that time that segregation was good for both races. After the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. the Board of Education, Smith faced tremendous pressure to join the Holmes County White Citizens’ Council in their support of segregation. When she refused to join them, the White Citizens’ Council rallied against Smith and even started a rival newspaper, the Holmes County Herald, aimed at driving her out of business. When she said those immortal words, “I’m no lady, I’m a newspaper woman,” Smith closed the door on her deeply conservative past and on passivity. For the next decade, Smith kept up her editorial duties in the face of tremendous pressure and threats from segregation supporters. In May 1964, Hazel Brannon Smith was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her editorials in the Lexington Advertiser.
The author draws from scholarly research, journalism, literature, and film to illustrate the times in which Smith and others lived. Whitt writes, “Ultimately, I am drawn to the story of Hazel Brannon Smith because she was privileged and flawed; because she was a Dixiecrat who change her mind about segregation; because she exhibited tenacity in the face of mounting opposition; because she committed heroic acts, sometimes in spite of herself; and because she deserves to be remembered in the company of Medger Evers, William Faulkner, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who shattered previous ways of understanding prejudice and its impact on a race of people in Mississippi.”
Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism is not a biography of Hazel Brannon Smith, but instead it is a tribute to her, as well as to her fellow editors, including Ira B. Harkey, Jr. of Pascagoula’s Chronicle and Hodding Carter, Jr. of the Delta Democrat-Times. These individuals are worth remembering for their courage and conviction during some of Mississippi’s most tumultuous years. This book is both an introduction to Hazel Brannon Smith and the Civil Rights era in Mississippi. It is also an ancillary collection for teachers of media history and women’s studies. The author has compiled some of the best research about white editors during the Civil Rights era.
This book is recommended for public and academic libraries, as well as high schools with journalism instruction. This book is also of interest to libraries with Mississippiana collections or with a focus on the Civil Rights era.
Angie H. Balius
Proctoring specialist
University of Southern Mississippi
Posted: May 18th, 2012
White, Neil, ed. Mississippians.
Taylor, MS: Nautilus Publishing Company, 2010.
240 pp. $45.00 (hardcover)
Let us be clear, Mississippians is not a reference book. The brevity of the biographical entries on famous and not-sofamous residents of the Magnolia State will never become a resource for dates or detailed information. Most of the almost- 200 profiles are limited to one page; a photograph typically dominates two-thirds of that space. At times, a sum total of four or five sentences comprise the biographical sketch.
The volume instead is an entertaining coffee-table book guaranteed to stoke the pride of any Mississippian and provide plenty of trivia fodder. Editor Neil White writes, “I love to encounter strangers who know little of our state – especially those who believe the oversimplified, often sensationalized, reports from Mississippi. Nothing is quite as gratifying as rattling off a list of notable, accomplished Mississippians.”
The book is divided into ten categories: Mississippi Icons; Movies, Television & Stage; Sports; Music; Writing & Literature; Innovators & Visionaries (entrepreneurs, civil rights activists, educators, politicians, scientists); Journalists; Little-Known Mississippians; People to Watch; and Colorful Characters. The latter chapter in particular demonstrates a decidedly North Mississippi bias that is perhaps natural in book published just outside of Oxford (unless perhaps one subscribes to the belief that most of the state’s colorful characters just happen to live in that area). All the individuals or groups profiled came to prominence in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, and Mississippians contains a relatively good balance in matters of gender and race.
The publisher anticipates producing an expanded and updated edition every year, promising that the second edition will incorporate Mississippians in the fields of religion, politics, business, and the visual arts. Readers of the first edition are provided with an email address to make their own nominations.
Those libraries with a general readership or a collection development policy that includes Mississippiana may wish to add the book to their holdings.
Leigh McWhite
Political Papers Archivist & Assistant Professor
University of Mississippi
Posted: May 18th, 2012
Waldrep, Christopher. Jury Discrimination: The Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and a Grassroots Fight for Racial Equality in Mississippi.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
328 pp. $44.95 (hardcover)
Jury Discrimination: The Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and a Grassroots Fight for Racial Equality in Mississippi is one of twenty works in the Studies of the Legal History of the South series. The work is arranged into six chapters, with four appendices that provide detailed information on the southern states in regard to local discrimination and information concerning the members of the House of Representatives and their stance on the Fourteenth Amendment.
This history of jury discrimination sheds much needed light on the inevitable issues that surface when connecting justice and public opinion. This work provides the first detailed evaluation of jury discrimination and provides a detailed synopsis of the ideas of Americans about trial by jury. It is noted that the desire of southerners to retain all-white juries contributed to segregation and gave power to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The author details the plan that was set forth by Willis Mollison, an African American civil rights leader and lawyer, and that was carried out by Dabney Marshall, a white lawyer. With an ally in John Cashman, a newspaper editor who supported their efforts, Marshall won the case demanding the racial integration of juries in Mississippi. Waldrep details their unlikely collaboration and seemingly impossible success in their campaign against the all-white jury system in Mississippi. This success and its rarity are the heart of this work.
This publication is highly recommended for law libraries and is recommended for academic and larger public libraries for readers with a general interest in criminal justice, law, history, and civil rights.
Chameka Simmons Robinson
Instructor, Rowland Medical Library
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Posted: May 18th, 2012
Trethewey, Natasha. Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2010.
127 pp. $22.95 (hardcover)
“…I ask [audience members] what they remember when they hear the words Hurricane Katrina. Almost all of them say, ‘New Orleans,’ recalling the footage beginning the day after landfall, when the levees broke. Almost never does anyone answer ‘the Mississippi Gulf Coast.’”
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey has written her own answer to this question in an exploration of her family history, family relationships, and her personal history. Just as residents of the Gulf Coast returned after the storm to find what was left of their homes, their belongings, and their communities, Trethewey metaphorically digs through the debris to see what Hurricane Katrina has left behind and to find what was unearthed by the wind and flood waters.
In a manner reminiscent of Spike Lee’s documentary film, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Trethewey has divided her journey by time and place. Poetry and family photographs are interspersed with the narrative adding a deeply personal dimension that will leave even those who have grown up on the coast feeling like they are walking new paths on familiar shores.
Throughout the book we travel to the current Gulf Coast and then all the way back to Hurricane Camille. Trethewey, like Spike Lee, finds that much of the devastation to the African American community (and to the coast itself) began a long time before the hurricane. The historical, political, and industrial landscape shows a slow erosion of community, residential areas, and even marine life and wetlands starting as far back as the 1920s from casinos and increasing commercial development.
The reader meets members of Trethewey’s family, learning the most about her brother Joe, but will find in the end that all along they have been looking at Trethewey herself through different lenses. The motivation, the true drive for writing this book is one of self-discovery; in the individual, we find the story of many. “… [T]he destroyed public library is me as a girl…the empty debris-strewn downtown Gulfport is me…” The landmarks in the place where the author grew up have become part of her internal geography in a way that means telling the story of the Mississippi Gulf Coast has to mean telling her own story; and it is a story well worth reading.
This book is recommended for public and academic libraries.
Adrienne McPhaul
Reference/archives librarian
Hinds Community College
Posted: May 18th, 2012
Span, Christopher M. From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2009. 264 pp. $35.00 (hardcover)
From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse is centered on the debate over the control of and purpose of black schools. The book is also a thorough inspection of the political landscape and the policies of racial education in Mississippi.
The main argument is whether schools for freed slaves should establish those freedmen as citizens, equip them for freedom but as inferior manual workers, or devise another, altogether different, end result. The freed slaves perceived that schools they created for themselves would allow them to become independent, politically legitimate, and have some societal and economic flexibility. However, most northerners, who were helping the freed slaves, saw the freed people’s perception of their educated selves as impractical. The northerners fully expected the freed slaves to continue working, albeit under contract, for the very persons who had enslaved them. At the same time, the vast majority of white Mississippians argued against any educational opportunities for former slaves. Limiting his work to Mississippi from 1862 to the end of Reconstruction in 1875, Span proves that the freed slaves’ desire for an all-inclusive public education system plays a critical role in the political landscape and the policies of racial education in Mississippi during that time. It becomes abundantly clear that his purpose for writing From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse is for the reader to understand the significance of knowledge and literacy to the slave community, and how those who were once slaves became knowledgeable.
Others have chronicled the trials of education in the South during Reconstruction, but Span’s work is seemingly the first compelling book to portray the drama of former Mississippi slaves’ quest for a public education. Although predicated upon astounding archival research, Span’s book can arguably serve as an ideal for those southern states who wish to chronicle black educational efforts. Therefore, those interested in African American history, Southern history, Reconstruction, and African American educational history will find this title most informative. From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse would be a wise purchase for any public or academic library.
Mantra Henderson
Interim director, James H. White Library
Mississippi Valley State University
Posted: May 18th, 2012
Payne, Elizabeth Anne, Martha H. Swain, and Marjorie Julian Spruill, editors.
Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives – Volume 2.
Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2010.
365 pp. $24.95 (paperback)
Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives – Volume 2 serves as a companion to Volume 1, published in 2003. The lives of Mississippi women in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries are portrayed through a collection of seventeen essays in Volume 2. Historians and scholars who contributed essays to these works pay homage to these notable women, many of whom are unknown to the general public. Both volumes are a continuation of the Southern Women: Their Lives and Times series, which includes women’s history in other states (i.e., Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia).
Openly discussed in this volume is how Native American, African-American, and white women challenged the societal and cultural restraints of their races, gender, and class. These Mississippi women struggled to achieve an academic education, to obtain custody of their children, to win the right to vote, and to own property. Other struggles included securing the right to serve on a jury and to work in a factory. In Mississippi, African-American women were not hired to work in factories until the late 1960’s.
In “Part Two: The Twentieth Century,” the essayists focus on how women’s lives were impacted by the modernization of the kitchen, rural electrification, social and service clubs, and civil rights activism. In fighting for civil rights, many women and their family members faced dire consequences (i.e., death threats, lynchings, and attacks from the Ku Klux Klan).
Beneficial to researchers are the explanatory notes and bibliographic sources at the end of each essay. Also included in the book are fifteen reprinted photographs and illustrations, brief biographical information about the twenty contributors, a selected bibliography, and an index. A map in the front of the book highlights the Mississippi counties that are focal points in the text.
The editors, who are university professors, contributed essays to the book. Elizabeth Anne Payne is a professor of history at the University of Mississippi; Martha H. Swain is Cornaro Professor of History Emerita at Texas Woman’s University; and Marjorie Julian Spruill is a professor of history at the University of South Carolina.
This book is recommended for academic and public libraries building collections of southern American history. It could also serve as an informative text for a classroom history assignment.
Lila Jefferson
Acquisitions Librarian
University of Louisiana at Monroe
Posted: May 18th, 2012
Owen, Renelda L. “When People Were Nice and Things Were Pretty”: A Culinary History of Merigold: A Mississippi Delta Town.
Mississippi: self published, 2010.
235 pp. $20.00 (paperback)
Renelda L. Owen’s book, “When People Were Nice and Things Were Pretty”: A Culinary History of Merigold: A Mississippi Delta Town, offers an excellent example of a thoughtfully written local history. By reviewing old cookbooks and interviewing local residents, Owen shows how food plays an important part in continuing local traditions. Although this book contains many recipes, it should not be classified as a cookbook. Instead, Owen uses recipes to show the cultural evolution of this Delta community.
Owen’s book is divided into three different sections. The first section focuses on recipes created during the 1920s. Owen explains how access to new products, such as peanut butter, cheap sugar, and canned items, changed local diets. This first section is Owen’s most adventurous in that she steps out of the church and ventures to the local hunt club to obtain recipes. By explaining how people cooked and preserved food without electricity, Owen successfully places Merigold into a larger historic context.
The second section explores the 1940s and 1950s. Owen focuses on the changes Merigold underwent during World War II. She explains how community cooks stretched ingredients by producing more casseroles and other specialty dishes. She adds texture to this section, and to the book in general, by using local terms for recipe measurements. Owen has a keen ear for speech, and she displays this talent throughout the book.
The final section shows how current members of Merigold continue to add to the town’s culinary evolution. Owen has written a solid local history that any Mississippi public library could find useful. More attention to citations would be helpful and including more recipes from outside the church (or possibly an African American church) would strengthen this book. Overall, though, Owen’s book provides a strong example of how to create a local history.
Jesse Kelley
Reference librarian
Mississippi Library Commission
Posted: May 18th, 2012
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