SUMMER 2022 | VOL. 9, NO. 1
SHARING INTELLIGENCE MTSU’s Makerspace and service groups join forces to make innovative use of technology
Middle Tennessee State University library.mtsu.edu Summer 2022 | Volume 9, No. 1 DEAN Kathleen L. Schmand EXTERNAL RELATIONS Clay V. Trainum DEVELOPMENT Paul Wydra EDITOR Drew Ruble ASSOCIATE EDITOR Carol Stuart DESIGNER Sherry Wiser George SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE MARKETING SOLUTIONS Kara Hooper UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHERS Cat Curtis Murphy, James Cessna, Andy Heidt, J. Intintoli CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Nancy Broden CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Clay V. Trainum, Gina K. Logue CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Priyanka Modi, Maggie Strahle UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT Sidney A. McPhee UNIVERSITY PROVOST Mark Byrnes VICE PRESIDENT FOR MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Andrew Oppmann 910 copies, printed at Pollock Printing, Nashville, Tenn. Designed by Creative Marketing Solutions
0422-0597 / Middle Tennessee State University does not discriminate against students, employees, or applicants for admission or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, age, status as a protected veteran, genetic information, or any other legally protected class with respect to all employment, programs, and activities sponsored by MTSU. The Interim Assistant to the President for Institutional Equity and Compliance has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies and can be reached at Cope Administration Building 116, 1301 East Main Street, Murfreesboro, TN 37132; Christy.Sigler@mtsu.edu; or 615-898-2185. The MTSU policy on nondiscrimination can be found at mtsu.edu/iec.
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Cover photo by Andy Heidt Table of contents photo by J. Intintoli
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Dean’s Letter Books and Bytes
Library’s collections evolve and revolve through digital databases and classification conversion
Room Service
Study spaces named for donors who help library and students thrive
Places and Perspectives
Library collaborates on digital history project about African American communities
Sharing Intelligence
MTSU’s Makerspace and service groups join forces to make innovative use of technology
Unshrouding the Mystery Ancient artifact explored by expert in library-sponsored event
Atrium Notes
News and notes from inside Walker Library
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DEAN’S LETTER
From the Desk of Dean Schmand My first year as dean of the James E. Walker Library was remarkable. As you can imagine, there is quite a lot to learn about an organization during the first year, and I know that there is still more learning ahead for me. Initially, I had conversations with library staff and faculty, then scheduled conversations with colleagues across campus, including college deans, vice presidents, program and center directors, and more. Each of these interactions presented a picture of the amazing work happening in support of student success as well as potential future opportunities and partnerships. Additionally, I met with some amazing MTSU alumni and friends of the library and heard more about their individual experiences. Several changes to library services and spaces emerged from these discussions. From experience with lending equipment at my previous institution, I worked with Library Technology to expand available equipment for checkout to students. For the Fall 2021 semester, we
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extended the checkout period for laptops from only four hours to three days. We also added some existing Makerspace technology into the circulating equipment pool, and we purchased more digital cameras and audio recorders to loan. Additionally, we made some changes involving study spaces and furniture around the building before students returned in the fall. It was clear early on that the faculty, staff, and student employees working in Walker Library are committed to creating an exceptional user experience for everyone across MTSU. Throughout the pandemic, they navigated working remotely, designing new online support services, and then returning to campus with new protocols and modified working and learning spaces. Faculty, staff, and students remained resilient, adaptive, and successful in handling the multitude of changes and challenges they faced.
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500 Grand Plans
Developing a shared vision for Walker Library was an established goal upon my hire at MTSU.
After reviewing previous planning documents from the library as well as the University’s Academic Master Plan and Quest 2025 priorities, I recruited several library faculty and staff to serve on a library strategic planning team.
During the fall semester, the team created questions to gather feedback from the MTSU community. We received more than 500 student responses to a survey and tabling exercise!
We held conversations with deans, program directors, research centers, and the Student Government Association. We are now in the process of revisiting the library’s mission, vision, and values. This spring, the strategic planning team worked with library faculty and staff to draft action items and goals for the coming four years. Look for more details after July 1.
Upon my arrival in January 2021, the library was in the midst of two major projects:
• The transition from cataloging materials in the Dewey Decimal system to Library of Congress (LC) classification, which is more commonly found in academic libraries across the U.S. It involved shifting more than 800,000 printed books. Over 15,000 volumes were moved to the second floor and cataloged in LC. As additional items are borrowed, they will be re-cataloged upon return in LC. As you’ll see in this issue, managing the library’s collections is a complicated bit of work, but fundamental to the curricular and research support of faculty and students. • Implementation of a new open-source library services platform, FOLIO, which had a July 2021 “go-live” date. While FOLIO serves as the “back-end system” to the library’s work, this project represents a fundamental change in how library faculty and staff
do their jobs every day. FOLIO is the leading edge of library automation because of its open-source development, but also because of the community behind its evolution. We look forward to contributing to this project and benefiting from the collective development behind it.
As you can see, planning played a significant role in my first year. I worked with Walker Library’s leadership team to implement operating plans that reflected existing priorities as well as writing reports that illustrated the library’s accomplishments in advancing the institution’s goals. You’ll see some of the data we collected that conveys the impact of the library’s services, collections, and spaces for students and faculty in this issue. Last August, I held a kickoff event for a yearlong strategic planning project (see accompanying sidebar). We’ll be announcing details of our plans soon. Kathleen L. Schmand, Dean of James E. Walker Library
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BOOKS& Library’s collections are constantly evolving and revolving, from expanding online offerings to restocking the stacks by Clay V. Trainum
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Susan Martin (center) at open house
When you walk into Susan Martin’s office, you can’t help but be struck by the number of books you’ll find. There’s a cartful, a small stack on her desk, and even more on the tables around her desk. It’s a scene that is unsurprising for the person tasked with overseeing the Collection Development and Management Department at MTSU’s James E. Walker Library, but to reduce the collection to only physical books does a great disservice to the depth of the offerings available from the library. That’s not to say that the library isn’t fully loaded with books. There are more than 600,000 physical volumes on offer within the building. But as universities have grown over the years, the demands of the digital library have grown as well—a trend that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We have to focus on journal subscriptions, and we’ve seen an incredible increase in the need for streaming media. We see six-figure usage in streaming, in particular. It’s used in classes; it’s used in research. We have a very large online presence,” Martin said. “Things have been kind of going this direction for a while, but the pandemic pushed it over the edge,” she added. “Everyone was at home. Everyone was teaching remotely, and having streaming options was very important, especially to our students from the College of Media and Entertainment, who use it a lot. But we also have a film
studies program in the College of Liberal Arts, and then you get into fields like social work or on the medical side, and those training videos are very important too. It’s not just that it helps for working remotely; it also prevents what previously could have been a bottleneck if we were to work through course reserves with physical copies.” While the library has enjoyed increased numbers from remote users, the digital landscape hasn’t always been easy for Martin to navigate. To ensure that the library is providing an optimal level of service to the 300+ majors offered by the University, a team of library liaisons works its contacts across campus to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks. “We have to be all things to all people, and there are times when maybe we can’t immediately meet a need,” Martin said. “Especially with journal subscriptions. We have to track the usage of our materials, and this is where the subject liaisons come into play. They can talk to faculty to make sure S U M M ER 2 0 2 2 7
A Class Act Two years of hard work will help make MTSU’s James E. Walker Library a more efficient academic resource. Walker Library Dean Kathleen Schmand and MTSU Provost Mark Byrnes cut a ribbon on the library’s second floor Oct. 21 to symbolize the library’s transition from the traditional Dewey Decimal system to the Library of Congress system of classifying library materials. “It means that faculty coming from other institutions and students that are coming into the campus and using the collections will have a much easier time in finding the resources that they need,” Schmand said. While the work continues, the staff can celebrate the culmination of a process that had been anticipated for decades and began in earnest in summer 2019. “We brought in a consultant to look at the stacks to see how we could actually have two systems simultaneously until it’s all converted over,” said Susan Martin, the library’s chair of Collection Development and Management. Library personnel made more room by weeding out old materials that weren’t being used much anymore. Professional movers then assisted with the actual physical relocation of some 564,000 books to the fourth and third floors, where faculty, staff, and students reclassified them, placing new designations on the spines and entering them into the library’s computer system.
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that we have the necessary journals and databases available to our students.” None of this is to downplay the need for that physical collection, but times have certainly been changing over the past two years. “We are far more of a practical library now,” Martin said. “Our collection is getting better, and the first thing I was tasked with when I got here was our switch from Dewey Decimal to the Library of Congress classification system. That gave us the opportunity to weed our collection, which hadn’t happened for a long time.”
We are far more of a practical library now.
At first, it may seem a little counterintuitive for a library to remove books from the shelves, but it actually serves as a vehicle to improve the holdings and experience for faculty and students, sometimes in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.
“The weeding process gave us the chance to examine things and determine if they’re still relevant to the curriculum or
Distilling the Past
research,” Martin explained. “In some cases, they just might not be relevant, period. With some materials, they’re good for a long period of time, and it doesn’t go bad. You’ll see that with literature and history, and in some cases, the older material is relevant because you can look at it and identify trends. However, there are other things that continually need to be refreshed. Legal information needs to be refreshed. Medical information needs to be refreshed. A lot of business material sometimes requires an update. We had to get rid of a lot of the chaff. We’ve trimmed the collection down, and while it is a little leaner, we’re doing better to support the ever-changing needs of our constituency.
If you’re not specifically looking for Special Collections, it can kind of sneak up on you. Nestled in the corner of the fourth floor of the building, you’ll find an area that houses centuries of history, mostly from around Tennessee. This part of the building contains some of the most exclusive and rare offerings that the library has, and its most recent collection has proved exciting.
The Distilling, Fermenting, and Brewing Collection has moved from a narrow initial focus based around wine and the state of Tennessee to a broader approach, encompassing Prohibition and the temperance movement, as well. “Liquor and its production doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” said Susan Martin, who serves as the library’s chair of Collection Development and Management. “We have a very robust History Department here, and the story of Tennessee whiskey is also the story of Tennessee. Prohibition and temperance were powerful forces that existed in Tennessee, and you can’t look at one specific part and ignore some of the others.
“In addition to that, what happens in our region affects us. What happens in our nation affects us. Even in the case of Tennessee whiskey, it’s not like whiskey started here. It began overseas and then came here and changed over time before you got to the Lincoln County Process that we know now. So we couldn’t just collect in Tennessee; we have to go beyond that.”
“We do still hold on to some historic materials, especially as it relates to our Special Collections, but it’s a difficult balance to strike,” she added. “We have a finite amount of space and a finite amount of resources, and we want to make sure that we do what we can to meet the needs of everyone.”
And go beyond it, they have. Because it’s not only books that exist in the collection. There are a variety of other materials that serve to tell a story that maybe cannot be conveyed by text alone. These items, typically referred to as ephemera, offer fleeting snapshots of moments in time. “The ephemera is actually the richer thing, the stuff that people don’t pay attention to,” Martin said. “You think about campaign buttons and how collectible they are now, sometimes simply because of the visual elements. So we look at stamps and how they have the history behind them. “Postcards are kind of the same way. Some of the Prohibition postcards we have now are actually quite clever. They were the internet memes of their time, either poking fun at or supporting Prohibition. We’ve also been collecting revenue stamps, which is how people would show taxes had been paid for a particular barrel of beer or whiskey, making it a legitimate purchase. We also look for advertisements, too, because they speak to a time and place.” The collection serves as a valuable resource for MTSU students, especially those from the relatively nascent Fermentation Science program, offering an up-close view of the history of their studies. S U M M ER 2 0 2 2 9
Room Service
Study spaces named for donors who help library and students thrive
Walker Library is one of the busiest academic buildings on campus on a given day, and a number of the library’s biggest supporters have pledged to help the MTSU library keep pace with the needs and demands of today’s college students. In recognition of those commitments, Walker Library has been naming study rooms throughout the building.
James E. Walker family
“This program is a great support resource to help fund multiple projects in the library, from private donations from alumni and friends of the University,” said Paul Wydra, who serves as MTSU’s director of development initiatives. “There’s also a legacy aspect to it in getting a room named after them or a loved one, and then the donor can target their donation to specific aspects of the library, such as a scholarship or department.” One of the difficult aspects of fundraising for the library is that it doesn’t have its own graduates. Alumni who become donors later in life tend to support their MTSU colleges or departments rather than the library, regardless of the role it played in their educations. “One of the hopes we have from this program is that students will see names attached to these rooms and over time develop an understanding of the role that some of these donors are playing in their education,” Wydra said. “And then perhaps down the line at some point, after they’ve graduated and entered into another phase of their life, they may be willing to join in giving to the library.” The most recent gift was made by Jamell Walker and Jabrina Robinson, daughters of the late James E. Walker, whose name the library bears. Walker was president of MTSU from
Hanna and Don Witherspoon 10
1991 to 2000. One of his final major projects was the completion of the library, which opened in the spring of 1999 and was later named in his honor, in November 2001. Joining them in the library’s room-naming program this past spring was Judy Powell, who graduated from MTSU with a Master of Arts in Sociology. A former senior vice president and chief nursing officer for Murfreesboro-based National HealthCare Corp., Powell has been a supporter of the University for a long time, and she recently committed to the creation of a scholarship for Honors College students. The room will be named for her late husband, Joe, and her donation will go directly toward the further development of the Distilling, Fermenting, and Brewing Collection that is housed by Special Collections. In recent years, similar major gifts have been made by fellow longtime supporters Michael Humnicky and Don and Hanna Witherspoon. Proceeds from these commitments have helped the library establish several scholarships for student workers and create a student emergency fund that proved extremely important when services were shortened or suspended as the University dealt with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each study room is adorned with a plaque bearing the name of the donor, leaving a legacy to help students succeed through assistance from the library and its supporters.
To learn more: Contact Paul Wydra at 615-898-5329 or paul.wydra@mtsu.edu for more information about the room-naming program or other development opportunities with the library.
Judy Powell
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Places P ersp2ect3ives Library collaborates on digital history project about African American communities by Gina K. Logue
Long-lost history does not have to stay lost, as long as people are willing to work together to pinpoint the past.
Deed from Nelson Boals to Trustees of Union Hill Church, 1907 Tennessee State Library and Archives
Liza J. Miller headstone, Grand Junction Cemetery
MTSU Center for Historic Preservation
United Sons and Daughters of Charity Lodge Hall, Bolivar
MTSU Center for Historic Preservation
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College Hill School class, Columbia, Tennessee, 1915 University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center
Sanborn fire insurance map for Columbia, Tennessee, 1891, showing second location of Mt. Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church Library of Congress
St. Mark United Primitive Baptist Church, Spring Hill Tennessee Historical Commission
Partial list of schools from Report of Schools in Maury County, 1865 National Archives
“Places, Perspectives: African American Community-building in Tennessee, 1860–1920” is an ongoing project that combines the resources and expertise of James E. Walker Library with help from the Department of Geosciences, MTSU’s Center for Historic Preservation (CHP), and a dedicated group of community historians. After the Civil War, freed African Americans “quickly sought to create new physical spaces that belonged to them and reflected their values,” according to CHP Director Carroll Van West, who has documented buildings and sites across the state that bear witness to the formation of communities. “Besides homes for their families, they rushed to create three institutions in particular: churches, cemeteries, and schools.” The church, surrounded by homes and businesses, was usually the focal point and often doubled as the school building. Using West’s summary as a guiding principle, the “Places, Perspectives” pilot project is finding, researching, and mapping clusters of African American churches, cemeteries, and schools in four sample counties. These counties—Greene, Maury, Fayette, and Hardeman—represent the geography and demography of Tennessee from east to west.
“We have mapped and documented 115 of these communities and more than 450 actual properties,” said Ken Middleton, MTSU digital initiatives librarian. Properties pinpointed on a map link to evidence of their location or history through 400 digitized primary sources already available in the “Places, Perspectives” companion digital collection (digital.mtsu.edu/ digital/collection/p15838coll17). Archaeologist Zada Law, director of MTSU Geosciences’ Fullerton Laboratory for Spatial Technology, uses geographic information system (GIS) technology to link historic data to places on the ground. “My interest is in elevating the cultural landscape of African American geography,” Law said. “I’m particularly interested in archaeological sites and recognizing them in cultural resource management studies.” Susan Knowles, a digital humanities research fellow at the Center for Historic Preservation, said historic maps, particularly from the Civil War period, have been highly beneficial. “Because Tennessee was occupied early, there are a lot of great Civil War-era maps where we were finding things that matched
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up with, say, newspaper advertisements for mustering of the U.S. Colored Troops in Tennessee,” Knowles said. Jo Ann McClellan, the Maury County historian, provided “boots on the ground” experience in the area in which she lives. McClellan is trying to establish an African American museum and cultural center there, and the work she has done on this project puts her closer to realizing that goal. “This is just going to be game-changing for the African American community once we establish this facility,” McClellan said. “I’m thinking that once we have this museum, we will use this information as a base for some of the exhibits. It’s going to open a lot of eyes, both in the Black and white communities.” In east Tennessee’s Greene County, Law, Middleton, and Knowles rented an 18-passenger van for a day out with older residents who shared memories at sites like Pruitt Hill and Chuckey and met with local family historians during a stop at the Bulls Gap Railroad Museum. Project participant Dravidi Pasha, a senior Information Systems major whose mother’s side of the family hailed from Fayette County in west Tennessee, appreciates the value of obtaining information from his oldest surviving relatives. His advice for budding genealogists is clear. “Appreciate and enjoy your elders and . . . interview your elders about their past experiences, their knowledge of the past, and their wisdom,” Pasha said. Pasha, who had already been researching his family history, was generous with his knowledge and eager to find confirmation of what he had learned. One ancestor in particular, a former enslaved worker named Nelson Bowles (sometimes spelled Boals), impressed him. “Upon the Union soldiers’ coming to raid the plantations and release the slaves, he actually joined the Civil War,” Pasha said. “He was enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops 59th Infantry Regiment, and I believe it was Company D.”
Pruitt Hill Church and steps of former school MTSU Center for Historic Preservation
Cedar Creek topographic map, 1935 U.S. Geological Survey
The project turned up a deed showing Boals sold land in1907 for the Union Hill Church in Gallaway and a record from 1878 where a woman of color, Susan Broomfield, deeded the same church its first location, Knowles added. One of McClellan’s favorite discoveries in Maury County was the story of Edmund Kelly, born into slavery in Columbia, Tennessee, who gave candy to boys at a school where he was working so that he could learn from them how to read. In 1843, Kelly co-founded and became the first pastor of the Mt. Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church in Columbia before leaving for a pastorate in Massachusetts in 1855. With a delegation of other African American ministers, Kelly met with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to gain permission to minister to escaped slaves who had fled to the North. His son, John, returned to Columbia in the early 1870s and became an influential educator. The project continues, a labor of love for a dedicated group concerned with education, preservation, history, and social justice. “We’re trying to be transparent in the way we map locations and cite our sources,” Law said. “We’re trying to think about the future. We want this to be a sustainable project. We want it to be a model that other people can build on.
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HELP OUT STUDENT WORKERS IN A BIND Give to the David Robinson or James E. Walker scholarship funds to assist student workers with college costs
Donate at library.mtsu.edu/give
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SHARING
INTELLIGENCE MTSU’s Makerspace and service groups join forces to make innovative use of technology by Clay V. Trainum
It’s always a welcome sight to walk into MTSU’s Makerspace during one of the informational tours. The creative technology space in Walker Library is abuzz with energy, as Valerie Hackworth and her team have demos set up and ready to go as far as the eye can see. On this day, the tour group is extra special: A cadre of service members from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division,
the goals of these individuals or groups? Oftentimes, you have to provide the chance to experience the space for them to discover what they can do with this sort of technology." The interactions usually prove mutually beneficial because groups that visit the library to learn about Makerspace's technology often bring new ideas. “With the 101st, I tried to prepare some things that may work with what I knew about their activities,” Hackworth said. “It turns into a very open idea-sharing environment, where everything is welcome and nothing is final. That’s one of the fun things about this space. “Everything is always in flux, and while they’re standing here talking about how they can use virtual reality, I’m now thinking about new things that I can present to classes and faculty because the application for something like virtual reality is so broad. Every time a group comes in and says, ‘We can use it for this,’ I store that away or write it down, so I can try to think how that could be used for another faculty member on campus.”
based at Fort Campbell along the Tennessee-Kentucky border, and the 18th Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has made its way to the library’s second floor. "Sharing our experiences and providing customized events is part of my job,” Hackworth said. “How can we use the library’s Makerspace resources to help accomplish
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This wasn’t the first time that the Makerspace has been a major part of the University’s commitment to those in uniform. The annual E-Tech Academy that features Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cadets from across the country has been a major part of the Makerspace’s summer programming, and it is set to continue once again this summer. CAP, the volunteer civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, has a cadet program for ages 12–18. During the Army contingent’s visit to campus last September, MTSU and the group announced a special five-year commitment to partner and encourage
education, innovation, and research collaborations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and other disciplines. “Innovation is a trademark of MTSU’s academic programs,” Provost Mark Byrnes said. “We take great pride in providing our students opportunities to gain hands-on experience and attain real-world knowledge. “We are excited to collaborate with members of the 18th Airborne Corps and the 101st Airborne Division to advance these goals. The possible benefits and outcomes from this transfer of knowledge hold great potential for both our national security and academic communities.” MTSU’s Makerspace provides students and faculty with access to robotics, electronics, laser etchers, virtual reality technology, 3D printing, and other resources for exploring, experimenting, and innovating. In large part because of the Makerspace, MTSU was ranked by Newsweek magazine as among the Best Maker Schools in Higher Education internationally in 2021, alongside universities such as Brown, Princeton, Yale, UCLA, MIT, and Cambridge. The non-ranked list, compiled in partnership with the publisher of Make: magazine and books, highlights institutions with innovative programs that demonstrate the ingenuity and community engagement that are hallmarks of the maker movement.
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More than 250 people crowded into Tucker Theatre this past spring as Walker Library teamed up with Jones College of Business to present Shroud Encounter, an in-depth exploration of the mysterious Shroud of Turin. The multimedia event was presented by international expert Russ Breault, who walked the audience through the historical significance of the cloth bearing the image of a 5-foot-10 bearded, crucified man with apparent wounds and bloodstains that match the crucifixion account of Jesus as recorded in the Bible. It is believed that the shroud is the most analyzed artifact in the world, and yet it remains a mystery. Shroud Encounter was brought to campus for the first time thanks to generous support from MTSU alumnus Robbie Rogers. In the program, Breault, who has been featured in documentaries broadcast nationally on CBS, The History Channel, and Discovery, discussed what is known about the cloth as well as what is still left to uncover. Breault also brought a life-size reproduction of the shroud, displayed in the lobby of Tucker Theatre, so the audience could get an up-close look at many of the details discussed throughout the program. 18
Ancient artifact explored by expert in library-sponsored event
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Inside Walker Library With its expert staff, dynamic collections, and electronic resources, Walker Library is the University’s hub for study and research. But the library is also the place where students come to mix and mingle, learn, and discover new ways to work together. The library also has an active exhibit and event program. In partnership with various University departments, student organizations, and local groups, Walker Library displays collections and historical objects and hosts cultural events and concerts. Here's a look at recent news and events.
MORE ROOM TO STUDY One of the most striking changes that Walker Library has undergone in the two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is the reorganization of several spaces throughout the building to better accommodate MTSU students, faculty, and staff. In addition to the furniture changes throughout the library, rooms have been reorganized, resulting in more dedicated study space as well as an expanded area for the library’s Digital Scholarships Initiatives team. In the spring, the library continued this progress by adding a video recording studio complete with a green screen and lighting setup as well as a fully-loaded podcasting studio.
MEETUPS AT THE MAKERSPACE After taking a break from in-person events for more than a year and a half, the Makerspace returned with its popular Open House and VR Night events in the fall semester. Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff flocked to the second floor as many reacquainted themselves with the space, enjoyed demos for equipment such as the 3D printer and the laser etcher, and in some cases, strapped on a headset to experience a virtual reality environment.
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FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOMS As MTSU’s Constitution Week got underway in September 2021, Walker Library partnered with the Free Speech Center on campus to put together an exhibit showcasing the freedoms granted by the First Amendment. “Free to Be: the underappreciated, underknown and absolutely unprecedented First Amendment” was put together with MTSU’s own Ken Paulson and Emily Flood of the Free Speech Center. The panels were designed by student graphic designer Hien Phan.
Surveys indicate that about a third of Americans cannot identify a single freedom in the First Amendment. Just 2% can name all five.
REWARD FOR STUDENT WORKER Last fall, Walker Library was proud to award its inaugural Student Assistant Scholarship to Emma Lloyd, who currently works in the Womack Curriculum Collection. Lloyd, who is pursuing a Forensic Science degree, has plans to attend medical school. The aid from the scholarship gift will allow her to focus more on her research and internship activities that are necessary for graduation. “Emma has been with us for two years, and she has been a tremendous help,” said Victoria Frosheiser-Spurlin, who supervises Lloyd in the Curriculum Collection. “She is such a hard worker in both her classes and at work. She’s friendly, upbeat, and knowledgeable.
I know I speak for all of the supervisors in Curriculum when I say that we all enjoy working with her and are so proud that she’s been awarded this scholarship.” Lloyd credits the flexibility of working in the library as key to her academic success. “I am aware of many students who work at jobs that do not allow for flexible schedules and with managers who do not understand or respect the amount of time that succeeding in college takes,” she said. “I can make my schedule to allow time for homework, studying, and taking exams. I am never called in to work during a class, and I can take days off for finals if needed. This helps me do well in school, which will in turn help me get into medical school and succeed professionally.”
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ROLLING OUT THE WELCOME MAT As the campus returned to full capacity in summer 2021, Walker Library returned to its full commitment to numerous University events. CUSTOMS has been a staple of the library calendar for years as staff from Walker Library set up at the annual orientation sessions to welcome incoming students to campus—on some occasions for the very first time. Whether they’re just looking for a friendly conversation or have questions about what the library can do to help them in their studies, it’s a highlight of every summer. In addition, the library continues to be involved in various other events across campus, whether it’s serving to welcome students to the semester at an information tent the first week of the fall semester or setting aside time to do more extensive building tours with students from abroad or from the Honors College.
TRUE BLUE FLU SHOT CLINIC Walker Library once again played a pivotal role in the health of the MTSU student population as Student Health Services put together a pop-up flu shot clinic on the first floor. For the second consecutive year, the library proved a popular destination for the vaccination program, with more than 100 shots administered over the course of the day.
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POP-UP BOOK EXHIBIT The Womack Curriculum Collection and Special Collections collaborated in spring 2022 for a new exhibit highlighting the usage of three-dimensional and popup books in helping promote literacy. “Literacy in Motion: Using Moveable Books to Develop Children’s Reading Skills” ran through the entire semester. The fourth-floor exhibit featured a number of pieces from the Dimensional and Artists’ Books collection, which is housed in Special Collections. This collection encompasses examples of fine letterpress printing along with artists’ books that alter, question, or play with the conventional experience of reading or otherwise using the book.
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Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit 169 Murfreesboro, TN
JEWL Magazine James E. Walker Library 1301 E. Main St. MTSU Box 13 Murfreesboro, TN 37132
A LIBRARY FOR THE 21st CENTURY AND BEYOND James E. Walker Library delivers exceptional services in an environment that inspires learning and interaction, uniting the intellectual and social aspects of our University. Support from alumni and friends helps us to provide exceptional experiences for our students through the incorporation of technologically rich study spaces, an interactive writing center, over 600,000 physical volumes, a Makerspace, and almost 600 carefully selected databases and millions of full-text articles, e-books, streaming audio and video, and many more online resources for research. Visit library.mtsu.edu/give to make your online gift, or contact Paul Wydra at Paul.Wydra@mtsu.edu or 615-898-5329 for more information.
