• Fall 2024 Message from the Dean school Dean's Communication

  September 16, 2024

  Please allow me to extend a hearty welcome to you all as we enter the new academic year! I hope that the summer months provided a chance to recharge and relax. The MSU Libraries is happy to see our students back on campus, and I wanted to take a moment to share some important updates as we look ahead to an energetic semester.Fall semester hours: The MSU Libraries Main Library is typically open 24 hours per day on Monday through Thursday, with later opening and earlier closing times on the weekends. The Business Library located in the MSU College of Law Building is regularly open from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. Monday through Thursday, with modified weekend hours. Please note that for safety and security purposes, all students, staff and faculty are required to scan their MSU ID to access the MSU Main Library building between 10:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. on Sunday – Thursday. A complete schedule for the MSU Libraries hours is available here.Special Collections closing/move to 3-East: This past August, the MSU Libraries Stephen O. Murray & Keelung Hong Special Collections began the process of relocating to the third floor of the Main Library’s East Wing. To accommodate this exciting and necessary move, which includes hundreds of thousands of delicate and valuable materials, access to the MSU Libraries’ Special Collections will be closed for about 16 weeks beginning Monday, Aug. 12. For more information including timely updates, please visit our Move to 3-East page.We are looking forward to supporting your learning and research needs this fall (and in all seasons)! As a reminder, if you are unable to find an answer on our website or would like to speak to someone in person, we are available at our information desks as well as by phone at (517) 353-8700.With warm wishes for a productive semester,Neil Romanosky, Ph.D. Dean of LibrariesView All News Articles

  
• MSU Libraries yearbook digitization project makes 128 years of MSU history publicly accessible online

  October 14, 2024

  Elise Jajuga

  EAST LANSING, Mich., Oct. 2024 – Michigan State University alumni will now be able to access campus memories from across the globe as the MSU Yearbook collection at the MSU Libraries has recently been digitized, with 128 class albums from 1877 onward available online.The completion of this project was made possible in large part by a fundraising campaign initiated in Spring 2022 to support the MSU Yearbook Digitization Project. Donors contributed nearly $27,000 toward the digitization of the MSU Yearbooks within the University Archives and Historical Collections (UAHC), supporting the creation of high-resolution, long-term digital scans of every volume of the MSU Yearbook since its first iteration as a class album in 1877. The scans also have searchable text online, allowing those accessing the material to search for specific names, events or other items that existed on campus since the time when MSU was known as the State Agricultural College. MSU Libraries Director of Development Caitlyn Perry Dial spoke to the importance of this project for campus as well as the greater Spartan community. “Our mission in seeing this project completed was to help alumni revisit their cherished memories and provide insight into the Spartan spirit that helped make Michigan State University what it is today,” she said.While the MSU Libraries engaged Backstage Library Works to digitize the bulk of the MSU Yearbooks in the collection, UAHC Archivist Jennie Rankin said that about 20 yearbooks were kept at the MSU Libraries for digitizing in-house. Rankin, who marshalled the MSU Yearbook Digitization Project, explained that class albums that were “too old, too fragile or one-of-a-kind” received digitization treatment at the Libraries. The in-house process to digitize these yearbooks takes on average between three and six months, Rankin said, in part because of the cross-collaboration involved from various Libraries units. “Accessibility was a really important piece of this project, and in talking to the Backstage folks, we realized that we would have to offer more support on that end, which meant bringing in the Libraries’ Accessibilities Unit alongside our Digital Imaging Services team.”Rankin also noted the value in having MSU Yearbooks immediately available for research purposes, and especially for those looking for more information about their time on campus than might be provided by a commencement program or student directory. “Most students might be mentioned in the yearbook, commencement program and student directory, but that’s about the extent of information you’re going to find,” Rankin said. “Many reference requests we receive at UAHC involve people researching information about a family member that attended MSU. With the yearbooks digitized, people can see for themselves if their family member attended, when and if they were involved in any sports or clubs. The MSU Yearbooks are one of our ‘go-to’ reference items when it comes to family research questions and by having them online, alumni and family can share that information with anyone from the comfort of their home, without having to travel to East Lansing.”To view the MSU Libraries’ MSU Yearbooks Collection, visit the digital repository. To learn more about supporting initiatives and programming at MSU Libraries, visit the online giving page.View All News Articles

  
• MSU Libraries receives $1M in congressional funding to support digitization of early WKAR film footage

  October 04, 2024

  Elise Jajuga

  EAST LANSING, Mich., Oct. 2024 – The Michigan State University Libraries was recently awarded a Congressionally-Directed grant through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in the amount of $1 million to support a unique digitization project that will ensure the preservation of early Michigan public television footage for years to come.The $1 million award will go toward highly specialized digital media preservation equipment as well as the creation of a dedicated media preservation lab, which will be used to restore and digitally preserve MSU Libraries’ historical media collections. This specific project will focus on the archive of early public television at MSU, which dates back more than 70 years to when WKAR-TV first aired on East Lansing’s television broadcasting channel 60 on Jan. 15, 1954. WKAR-TV is the second oldest continuously operating public television station in the country, and the oldest east of the Mississippi River. It is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to East Lansing and owned by Michigan State University under the WKAR Public Media umbrella.MSU Libraries Associate Dean for Research Engagement Terri Miller said she was approached about the grant by the Federal Relations team within MSU Government Relations over a year ago when Miller was interim dean. She emphasized the intention behind highlighting the historical media collection project for the award submission. “Our Media Preservation faculty selected this film for preservation and digitization because of both MSU’s deep roots as the state university of Michigan and the alignment with MSU’s ideals as the nation’s premier land-grant institution,” Miller said. “The programming on the reels emphasizes both the rural agricultural heritage of the state as well as its industrial strengths. WKAR is such an important part of broadcast history and the history of Michigan itself, so bringing these reels back to life and sharing them with the world is an exciting project that the Libraries are uniquely qualified to do.  Our media preservation faculty are incredibly knowledgeable, and the new equipment made possible by this grant will allow them to do this really important work in a way that is accessible to all. When completed, this project will provide a fascinating window into early television history, as well as a glimpse of Michigan everyday life in the 1950s. We are thrilled that our congressional delegation shares our enthusiasm for this project with this support.”MSU Libraries Head of Media Preservation Sarah Mainville is ecstatic about the impact of the award on both the WKAR film digitization project and the media preservation possibilities for future initiatives. “Preservation goes beyond digitization, and that was something that I wanted to stress during the application process,” Mainville said. “Because once we digitize the film, we're going to continue to have to take care of it. Digital files are vulnerable, and in addition to thinking about how to preserve them, we have to consider the best way to provide access. If people don’t see this stuff and use it, then it’s not really preservation, because it doesn’t exist to most people. So there is also an access piece that is important to ensuring people will be able to see materials we digitize and otherwise preserve.”Along with the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, which is the largest academic voice library in the U.S. with over 100,000 hours of spoken word recordings dating back to 1888, the University Archives & Historical Collections (UAHC) at MSU Libraries is home to a vast array of film archives. The UAHC has nearly 300 film reels within the WKAR early public television archive. According to Audiovisual Archivist Matthew Wilcox, each of these 16 mm reels has between 550 and 1100 ft. of film equaling approximately 15-30 minutes of content. Wilcox will be working to digitize these films with Media Preservation Specialist Melanie Goulish, who, along with Mainville, comprise the MSU Libraries Media Preservation Unit. The film currently scans in real time, but Wilcox noted that in addition to the time it takes to digitize the 15-30 minutes of content is the work necessary to prepare the digitized file for distribution, which can take an hour or longer. The grant will allow the Media Preservation team to work on the films much more quickly with support for an additional film scanner, which could also potentially improve resolution in the digitized files.The WKAR early television archive also includes kinescopes produced prior to the advent of the first commercially successful videotape format, the 2-inch quadruplex videotape, in 1956. Wilcox explained that the process of recording the early 1950s kinescopes began with the filming of an educational program at the WKAR studio, which was then played back onto a television monitor; this monitor would also have a 16 mm camera pointed at it, recording the moving images and audio onto the film. This process allowed the studio to make copies for distribution across additional television networks. Wilcox said that WKAR initially began creating kinescope content in the early 1950s in anticipation of going on the air in 1954, and that he has seen films in the collection dating as far back as 1952. Two of the 12 kinescopes within the early WKAR collection that Wilcox has already digitized include a film currently available online called “La Fiesta Mexicana” (1958), featuring music by musician, composer and MSU Professor Emeritus H. Owen Reed. This piece, Wilcox noted, is often used by the Spartan Marching Band, while the film itself is actually a televised staged performance including costumes and dancing. The second kinescope is an episode of an early 1950s program called “Country Crossroads” (1953) where the host brought in a Michigan state representative to help him understand the laws of deer hunting.Wilcox said he hopes that the digitization project will have a large impact on not only scholars of early modern television, but on those who might be looking to connect with the past on a more personal level as well. “I’m hoping that by making the films more accessible, the collection will be more than just a novelty,” he said. “I’m hoping that it will benefit film studies or students who want to learn about the early history of television. I’m hoping that researchers not just locally but across the country can benefit from the performances throughout the materials. I’m also hoping that people have memories about maybe their dad who really loved this program, or their grandfather who appeared on this show, and then they never thought they’d see it again. And then now you've got it available.”Dean of Libraries Neil Romanosky shared his excitement about the grant, noting the importance of preserving this piece of our state’s history along with the University’s place within it. “The support that this congressional grant will provide toward the digitization of our WKAR early television archive is incredibly significant, not only because it is helping to preserve the very first public television programming to air in Michigan, but also because it demonstrates how essential the role of MSU is to our state’s history and future.”View All News Articles

  

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