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Digital Scholarship: Share

The University Libraries' Digital Scholarship initiatives.

Sharing Scholarship

As scholars, when we research, we usually want many people to know about that research. The Missouri State University Libraries provides BearWorks so that MSU faculty research can be more visible on the Internet. BearWorks is also the repository for many graduate theses, a publishing platform for MSU publications, and institutional documents such as program reviews. In addition, the library can provide help and/or guidance for digitization projects, navigating copyright, and preserving research outputs.

The MSU Digital Collections initiative is a project of MSU’s Special Collections and Archives. The primary purpose of Digital Collections is to make accessible the material housed in Special Collections. Generally this involves on-site digitization of physical materials, however, it can include born-digital material. Digital Collections is a research tool that provides access to numerous archival collections. Some of the those include work from MSU faculty members.

Share scholarly works

The MSU Libraries provide the following places that faculty, staff, and students can deposit their scholarly works and data.

BearWorks

BearWorks is the institutional repository for Missouri State University, a record of scholarship, research, and publication at the university. It contains full text of publications, graduate theses, MSU reports and documents, as well as a record of faculty publication.

  1. How do I get my publications into BearWorks?
    1. Faculty should enter their work in Digital Measures Insight and it will be added to BearWorks.
      1. For coauthors that are MSU students, be sure to include if they are a graduate or undergraduate. This is the "if a student, what is his/her level?" drop-down box below the author name fields.
      2. Remember to update status after final publication. Only works that have a status of "published" in Digital Measures are added to BearWorks.
      3. If the title or publication information changed after initially entered in Digital Measures, please update it to the final, as-published information.
    2. Students and staff whose publications are not co-authored with a faculty member can contact bearworks@library.missouristate.edu about submitting their work.
  2. Can center, institute, or departmental reports be included in BearWorks?
    1. Yes, institutional repositores include all material created or published by the University. Born-digital and legacy paper reports can be accommodated. Contact bearworks@library.missouristate.edu to discuss options and possibilities.
  3. We have an in-house refereed publication. Can it be included in BearWorks?
    1. Yes. BearWorks can structure content as volumen/issue/article or just about any other format journals may use.
    2. BearWorks also has a submission tracking and review work flow, including double blind review, for journals and similar publications. Contact bearworks@library.missouristate.edu to discuss options and possibilities.

MSU Libraries Digital Collections

There are a number of MSU faculty who have donated materials that are part of their work and which also align with Special Collections acquisition guidelines. Examples of existing faculty-generated collections include:

  • Religious Lives of Ozarks Women (RLOW). Initiated by Lora Hobbs, this collection includes oral histories collected by students in REL 370: Women and Religion. The project is scheduled to be fully online by the end of 2020.
  • The Katherine Lederer Ozarks African American collection. This includes Dr. Lederer’s research collections compiled over 40 years in the Ozarks. The materials were gifted to Missouri State University on Dr. Lederer’s death.
  • Census data compiled by Byron Stewart (faculty emeritus). Mr. Stewart’s work brought together census data for Springfield and Greene County focusing on the racial makeup of the community.