During this spring semester, the Libraries' faculty and staff are focused on planning for and making purposeful changes. With the help of graduate assistants, Outreach Librarian Mitch Fontenot will conduct focus groups with undergraduate students to learn more about how the Libraries serve them and how we can do better. Subject specialist librarians will be polling faculty across campus to get current information about what needs for library resources are going unmet.

With the holidays behind us, we have resumed work on our "Roadmap to the Future" for the Libraries' facilities. Architect/consultant David Moore spent an intense four days, December 16-19, meeting with everyone who works in the Libraries' buildings to learn about their workspace needs. He returned to campus for a second concentrated work session, January 27-28, to present preliminary ideas and get more input from more stakeholders on campus. Visit the Libraries' blog for more information about his visit.

The Libraries continue to support LSU Discover, the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) mandated for SACS-CoC reaffirmation of accreditation. Devoted to enhancing undergraduate research, LSU Discover has already helped us forge new connections between the Libraries and the division of Student Life and Enrollment, and we look forward to strengthening those ties as we prepare for the launch of the QEP in fall 2014.

This year will bring new leadership to the Libraries: we look forward to welcoming a new Dean during 2014. The search is moving forward, with Gaines Foster, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, chairing the committee. Updates will be posted to the Libraries' blog. Other searches are forthcoming. We also look forward to welcoming a new Web Development Librarian, a new librarian for Education Resources and Online Learning, and a new Science Librarian.

With all these changes afoot, we welcome your suggestions about what else we can do better. Email me (esmyth@lsu.edu) or drop off your written suggestions in the suggestion box at the Research Desk in 141 Middleton.

Elaine Smyth

Interim Dean

The 1981 LSU Men's Basketball Team: Rudy Macklin (#40), Dale Brown (standing third from right), and current head coach Johnny Jones (center, holding ball).  Photo courtesy of Steve Franz, LSU Sports Information

Rudy Macklin played at LSU between 1976 and 1981, going on to play in the NBA, first for the Atlanta Hawks, then for the New York Knicks. Macklin is one of only four men's basketball players to have his jersey retired by LSU. Under coach Dale Brown, he led LSU to the Final Four in 1981, and was the 1981 SEC Player of the Year. Macklin retired from basketball to become a banker in Baton Rouge. He is also involved in the Louisiana Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Coach Dale Brown retired from LSU in 1997 after twenty-five years as men's basketball coach. Leading teams to seventeen consecutive non-losing seasons, and to fifteen straight national tournaments, Coach Brown was named SEC Coach of the Year or runner up nine times, and was twice named National Basketball Coach of the Year. In his retirement, he has made numerous public appearances, speaking to groups of all kinds.     

Join us as expert interviewer Jim Engster explores Hoops and History with two LSU legends.

Thanks to tireless Friends of the LSU Libraries volunteers, the Book Bazaar has been a popular annual event in the Baton Rouge community for nearly forty years, providing important support to the Libraries.  The next Book Bazaar will take place March 20-22 in the 4-H Mini-Farm and Nelson Memorial Buildings on the LSU Campus.  

The annual event began in the spring of 1976 under the oaks near the LSU Union. This first sale was a trial run, but after raising $500, the Friends were convinced it was a viable way to support the LSU Libraries. Less than six months later, they held the second bazaar at Bon Marche Mall, raising an impressive $7000.

Members of the Friends of the LSU Libraries never looked back, and the sale continues to grow each year. When the group needed storage for donated books, the "Book Barn" was born. Originally housed in Hill Memorial Library, the contents quickly outgrew the available space and the Book Barn moved to the basement of Middleton Library. Today, the Book Barn is located at 3555 River Road, where books are processed for the sale and text books are made available there year round in the Friends' Book Barn Bookstore.

By 1983, the Book Barn was processing 50,000 books annually and the Book Bazaar was earning more than $30,000 each year. In 1984, the Friends were given access to LSU's 4-H Mini-Farm for the sale, and with continuing support from the LSU AgCenter, the current Book Bazaar fills the Mini-Farm as well as the Nelson Memorial Building on the LSU campus.

The largest sum raised to date was $85,000 in 2010, and no less than $63,000 has been netted in recent years. One of the goals of the founding Friends group was to establish an endowment for the LSU Libraries, which was accomplished. In 1974, the LSU Libraries' Endowment stood at $15,000. Today, the value of the endowment is greater than $1.8 million. Monies earned at the Book Bazaar have steadily added to the value of the endowment. 

Experience this sale yourself! Plan to attend the 2014 Friends of the LSU Libraries Book Bazaar on March 20, 21 and 22, 2014 in the 4-H Mini-Farm and Nelson Auditorium on LSU's beautiful campus. You won't be disappointed!

What is the difference between the Libraries' Discovery search and the online catalog? 

Screenshot from Discovery showing a variety of search filters

Discovery is a user-friendly method of searching LSU Libraries' online catalog along with the full-text of many of our journals and ebooks. Discovery simplifies the search for materials on a topic: instead of one search for books in the Libraries' catalog and then another search for articles the databases, one time-saving search achieves both results. 

Discovery has filters for search results. For example, filters are useful to narrow results by publication date, limit results to articles published in scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, search only for materials that have the full text online, or to limit results to specific languages or source type.

The LSU Libraries' online catalog includes details about ebooks, print books, journal titles, and government information, but it cannot search the content of the books and journals, and it does not include the full text of books and articles.  

Discovery searches the online catalog but also across individual journal article titles, the full text of articles when available, book chapters in ebooks, online government information sources, and news articles from magazines and newspapers that are part of the Libraries' electronic subscriptions.

The Discovery tutorial provides an introduction to the resources and questions about Discovery, can be directed to the LSU Libraries Research Help Desk at (225) 578-9433.  

A native of Franklin Parish, La., Foster served as a state senator (1880-1892), governor (1892-1900), and United States senator (1900-1913), and he was an active participant in local and state Democratic politics. During his career he focused on outlawing the Louisiana Lottery Company, supporting sugar growers, flood control, and the regulation of railway rates. Many of these issues gained national attention, in part thanks to his efforts. After Foster lost his bid for re-election to the Senate in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him collector of customs in New Orleans. He died at his home on Dixie Plantation in 1921. His grandson Murphy "Mike" Foster followed in his footsteps, serving as governor 1996-2004.

The recent donations come from the estates of Routh Trowbridge Wilby and Elizabeth T. Henslee, sisters who were granddaughters of Murphy J. Foster. The group originating from Routh Wilby will be added to family papers she donated in 1998.

The new Wilby materials, which date approximately 1881-1921, include correspondence received by Foster during his terms as governor and U.S. senator. Topics include patronage appointments, sugar policy, flood control, state and local politics, and commutation of sentences. Also found are speeches (among them his inaugural address), some personal financial records, and scrapbooks that contain clippings about his career, the lottery, the state constitution, and budget surpluses, as well as letters and financial statements related to state eleemosynary (charitable) institutions.

The materials from Elizabeth Henslee's estate include a cache of correspondence from Foster's years as senator and associated ephemera, a cased ambrotype (an early type of photograph) of him as a young man (about 1875), and a photograph of Rose Ker and Murphy Foster. In addition, the group contains items more directly related to Elizabeth T. Henslee and her family. Among these are albums of family photographs (circa 1920s through 1940s), newspaper clippings, and a small group of 20th century political ephemera that she collected, including promotional material for Mike Foster, Edwin Edwards, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. 

"Of course it's well-known that Louisiana has colorful politics, and the time spanning Foster's tenure in his various offices was no exception," said Curator of Manuscripts Tara Laver. "Shifting alliances, challenges to the balance of power, and political maneuvering among the 'Bourbons' [a term for Democrats who sought to roll back social, economic, and political changes wrought during Reconstruction] and other factions within the Democratic party that opposed them characterized the time, and these activities are reflected in the correspondence found in these wonderful new additions."

THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF "EQUAL": INTEGRATING LSU

On Exhibition January 21 - March 29, 2014 in the Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall 

Clipping from Daily Reveille, 1953 A. P. Tureaud, Sr. and Jr., upon latter's impending registration as LSU's first African-American undergraduate.

An interactive listening station presents a timeline and interviews, with personal, eyewitness narratives describing the 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott, experiences with breaking color barriers on the LSU campus in the 1950s and 1960s, and East Baton Rouge civil rights activities from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Visitors are encouraged to speak with staff about their own experiences in Louisiana during the Civil Rights Era. Contact LSU Libraries Special Collections if you are interested in donating original materials, such as letters, photographs, oral histories or ephemera, to help LSU Libraries build a more complete, inclusive representation of this era within its collections.

The Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections (LLMVC) is recognized as one of the nation's premier repositories of historical documents materials relating to the antebellum plantation, Civil War, and Reconstruction South and includes the papers of individuals and families, records of plantations, merchants and financial institutions, and the files of political, social, and labor organizations. Also rich in materials related to the political history of the region, LSU Libraries Special Collections continue to collect materials related to the region's social, economic, political, cultural, literary, environmental and military history.

Hill Memorial Library is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. When classes are in session, the library is open Tuesday evenings until 8 p.m. During the week, paid parking is available at the Visitors' Center, Memorial Tower and Mike the Tiger's Habitat. For more information, visit the LSU Libraries Special Collections website  or call 225-578-6544. 

When LSU Student Government requested an easier way for students to reserve study rooms, we listened.  After reviewing available products this fall, Middleton Library implemented LibCal from SpringShare. Reserving spaces in Middleton Library is quicker and easier now, without library staff mediation.  

Eleven "Group Collaboration Spaces" and two "Presentation Practice Rooms" in Middleton Library are available to students with reservations.  To learn more about these spaces, and to make a reservation, see http://www.lib.lsu.edu/circ/studyrooms.html.  

Two-hour consultations with librarians can be scheduled through LibCal too, through the "Ask Us!" link on the Libraries' website.  Beginning this semester, students and others seeking in-depth research assistance from a librarian can book a consultation with a subject specialist (see next article).   

LibCal will also allow faculty members to self-book the electronic classrooms in Middleton Library (rooms 230B and 230C).   More information on the electronic classrooms, including a reservation link, can be found here: http://www.lib.lsu.edu/classroom/index.html.   

Thanks to Student Government for assisting with the subscription price in the first year!  

CONSULTATION ROOM AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH HELP
Multi-Purpose Room Serves Users with Disabilities

LSU Libraries recently converted an existing space in Middleton Library to create the Consultation Room. Located in room 141, the Consultation Room offers a place for librarians to provide in-depth research support to students. Students can request one-on-one or group consultations with their subject librarians when they need assistance in selecting and refining research topics and in developing strategies for identifying, locating, and evaluating resources for research.    

This multi-purpose space is also technology-enabled to support users with disabilities. The Consultation Room includes a wheelchair-accessible computer equipped with software and tools for users with visual disabilities. The workspace includes a CCTV enlarger for document magnification, a computer with software including JAWS for screen reading, MAGic for screen magnification, and Duxbury DBT for Braille translation, and a Braille printer.  

The Consultation Room is open during the hours the Research Desk is staffed. This redesigned space supports LSU Libraries' commitment to providing physical spaces for students to engage with information and create new knowledge.  

The papers of Dr. Dupuy Anderson, World War II veteran, dentist, and civil rights activist, are now available for research in Hill Memorial Library. 

Anderson graduated from McKinley High School, Baton Rouge's earliest African-American high school and anchor of the city's black community for much of the twentieth century. He received a B.S. degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge, and a D.D.S. from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Anderson enlisted in 1941 and served with the U.S. Army Air Force, rising to the rank of major. He participated in the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, ran for mayor of Baton Rouge in 1960 (when African Americans did not run for such offices), and filed suit to desegregate the undergraduate division of Louisiana State University. His daughter, Dr. Freya Anderson Rivers, was one of six African-American undergraduates to integrate LSU in 1964.

Rivers brought the collection for curatorial review while in town to keynote "Blacks in the Red Stick," a symposium held by the LSU African and African American Studies Program in March 2013 in Hill Memorial Library, where Special Collections is housed.   Curator Tara Laver had contacted Dr. Rivers several months before to inquire about such papers after the Libraries received a copy of her autobiography Swallowed Tears: A Memoir (2012).

"We are so pleased that Dr. Rivers chose to entrust her father's collection to us to preserve," said Laver. "They really help fill a void in our holdings that we are working to fill." The papers date from 1935 to 1996 and include personal photographs, speeches and printed items from his run for mayor-president, and correspondence, printed items, and other documents related to his community service, professional activities, and involvement in education and social issues and desegregation of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System and LSU.  Oral histories conducted with Anderson and Rivers in the 1990s under the auspices of the T. Harry William Center for Oral History are also available.

Luana Henderson, a library associate in Manuscripts Processing, organized and cataloged the Anderson papers. For a full description of the collection, see the finding aid. 

If you or someone you know has historical documents related to the history of Louisiana or the Lower Mississippi Valley and would consider donating them to be available for research through Special Collections, please contact Laver at 225-578-6546 or tzachar@lsu.edu.

LSU Libraries collaborated with the University of Louisville Libraries and geographer Dr.Don Davis and historian Dr. Carl Brasseaux to mount a digital collection of unique Louisiana images from 1943-1950. The digital collection, Louisiana Images from the Standard Oil Collection, University of Louisville includes more than 2100 historical images of people and places near Standard Oil sites throughout Louisiana.

"Bayou Sale Survey Party" Standard Oil (NJ) Collection, Photographic Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville

"I was enthusiastic when Dr. Davis and Dr. Brasseaux approached me about this collaboration," said Elaine Smyth, interim dean of Libraries. "The images reveal so much about what Louisiana was like in the 1940s. There's a wealth of information about people and places that have changed enormously since the photos were taken. The research value of the collection is high, but there is also a lot of human interest. Those were transformational times for Louisiana."

The images are part of a larger Standard Oil New Jersey Collection located in the Photographic Archives at the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections. This project was directed by Roy E. Stryker, a former head of the U.S. Farm Security Administration hired by Standard Oil for a public relations documentary project. The project's aim was to document the benefits of oil on everyday life in the United States. Stryker employed eleven principal photographers and their work is still recognized as one of the finest documentary projects ever undertaken. A portion of this 100,000+ image collection focuses on Standard Oil operations in Louisiana.

The photographs are a unique look into the culture surrounding the burgeoning oil and gas industry in South Louisiana. On display are images of pipelines and drilling operations, canals and rivers, pump houses and bridges, as well as Standard Oil employees and the laboratories, refineries, rigs, plants and other places where they worked. There are many images of the cities and towns around Standard Oil operations and a selection of production shots taken of Robert Flaherty's 1948 movie Louisiana Story.

The University of Louisville Libraries generously shared existing digitized Louisiana images from the collection with LSU Libraries and allowed Davis and Brasseaux to visit the UL archives to digitize additional Louisiana images from the collection. Using an image list provided by Louisville, the LSU Libraries Digital Services department organized and uploaded the Louisiana images to the Louisiana Digital Library. "This has been a great collaboration," noted Gina Costello, head of Digital Services. "Through the work of two libraries and two researchers, an important collection has been made freely available to everyone on the Internet."