Montevallo Ghost Stories

February 6, 1908 Birmingham Age-Herald

For most, Halloween is a time for ghost stories and folklore. The University of Montevallo is no different. Our campus has many stories, sightings, and unsettling accounts of massacres, deadly accidents, and other macabre events. Each year, during fall semester, Carmichael Library is inundated with curious, adventure-seeking students interested in these spooky tales. Eager paranormal enthusiasts may be happy to know that Condie's door is on display near the Ask Here desk. Additional displays offer information on this tale, other campus ghost stories, and the history behind the folklore.     

Main Hall

Packets of UM Ghost Stories are available for check out at the circulation desk. 

For more information on the history behind some of these stories, please visit the Milner Archives page on Facebook. Please "like" the page and receive updates on this and other bits of Montevallo history.

  

Introducing the Virtual Reference Shelf

Carmichael Library's new Virtual Reference Shelf organizes online reference titles by academic subject to make it easy for you to start research.  The resources are reputable titles from Oxford Reference, but their online format makes them easily searchable. 

Need to brush up on your Foucault?  Try A Dictionary of Critical Theory.  Need quick facts about Brazil?  Look at A Guide to Countries of the World.  Having trouble picking a topic for your U.S. History paper?  Browse The Oxford Companion to United States History.

Find the Virtual Reference Shelf under "Resources" on the Carmichael Library Homepage.  Happy searching!

There's an App for That! EBSCOhost on Android & iPhone

Hey!  Did you know that EBSCOhost has an app for iPhone and Android? Here are the steps to set it up:

1. Go to any of Carmichael Library’s EBSCOhost databases (i.e., Business  Source Complete) and scroll to the bottom of the page and click the link “New: EBSCOhost iPhone and Android Applications”
2. Enter your email address and submit, you will then receive an email from EBSCOhost with further instructions
3. Make sure your mobile device is connected to the University’s wireless and then open the email on your device
4. Download the app and then click on the “authentication key” link in the email. The app should open and you can begin searching and saving articles!

Carmichael Adds Films on Demand

Adding to a growing collection of online streaming audio and video resources, your campus library has acquired Films on Demand, a multi-disciplinary collection of some 6,000 titles. The Films on Demand collection includes quality video content from over 30 publishers including PBS, Meridian, Cambridge Educational, the BBC, National Geographic and more. In addition to the material already available in this database, about 600 titles are added annually. Most of the videos in the Films on Demand collection are closed-captioned.

To gain access to Films on Demand, students, staff, and faculty may go to the A-Z Databases and Resources List on our website. We'll be posting more details on how to use this new collection in the weeks ahead. In the meantime you find the answers to some questions at the On Demand Help Center. Also, feel free to direct technical questions about this database to me, Jason Cooper.

Happy viewing!

Instruction Workshop Series: Managing Research with Zotero

Citation is easily the least-loved step in the research process.  It can feel mechanical and tedious after the creative, enriching experience of developing a research question and reading and writing about it.  Luckily, there is Zotero: a free tool to help you collect and organize citations, choose the correct citation style (APA, MLA, etc), generate different types of citations (footnotes, bibliographies, etc), and even collaborate with classmates and colleagues. 

Carmichael Library is presenting a Zotero workshop on Tuesday, October 16 at 5 pm in the EBSCO Classroom.  Come learn how to install and use Zotero for your research projects.  No RSVP is needed.  Contact Lauren Wallis or Andrew Battista with questions.  We hope to see you there!

Founders' Day, October 12, 1896

It's that time of year again. Founders' Day is upon us and, this year, the Annie Crawford Milner Archives and Special Collections looks back on the earliest days of the Alabama Girls' Industrial School. With an old college building (Reynolds Hall), Lyman Hall (now Saylor House), a "healthy, epidemic free climate," an offer of free coal, and list of other enticements, Captain Henry Clay Reynolds and Judge Edward Sherman Lyman were able to sway Governor William Calvin Oates and the newly appointed Board of Trustees to consider Montevallo as the location for this new school. At the June 24, 1895 Board meeting, Montevallo "wins" the school on the 13th round of voting, narrowly defeating Jasper. Julia Tutwiler is named president.

The Governor and Board

Tutwiler and a small faction of Trustees wanted to open the doors in fall 1897 while the majority of Board members aimed for 1896. The vote to open sooner rather than later caused Tutwiler to resign her position. Meanwhile, Captain Reynolds worked tirelessly to recruit faculty and secure housing for potential students. At the September 18,1896 meeting, Reynolds presented the Board with a slate of faculty members for consideration. The candidates were quickly approved and Reynolds was asked if he'd like to serve as president. Less than a month later, the Alabama Girls Industrial School opened its doors.

To see more photos and to keep up with happenings in the archives, please visit our website and "like" our Facebook page.

Editing with SlideRocket: Open Workshop

There are several classes across the University of Montevallo community this fall that are doing some kind of video project.  For example, students in SOC 240 Social Problems are investigating several issues, like quality of fast food and bad driving, while students in COMS 102 are filming themselves as they deliver a "big ideas" talk in the vein of TED Talks.

Making great videos is like any other form of composition.  The process requires you to think about how you want to structure your evidence, how you can reach an audience, and how you will choose to present information.  It's good to get as much practice with principles of editing as possible, no matter which software or platform you end up using.

This Tuesday evening, October 9 at 7:00 PM, the Carmichael Library will be hosting a video editing workshop in the EBSCO Classroom on the ground floor.  The workshop is open to anyone who is interested in video production.  Mike Price of the Digital Media Lab will be featuring ways to develop content and make dynamic videos with SlideRocket.  Some classes have been invited to use SlideRocket, while others may plan to use different editing software.

You are welcome to bring your own computer, or you can use the computers we have in the lab.  Regardless of what kind of video you plan to make, you will learn something in this workshop.  We hope to see you there.

Historical Life Raft Debate, October 9

The Historical Life Raft Debate is a separate event from the annual Founders' Day Life Raft Debate. For those interested in UM's original Life Raft Debate, this event will take place on Founders' Day, Thursday, October 11, at 7:00 p.m. in Palmer Hall.

Since 1998, The Life Raft Debate has been a University of Montevallo and Founders' Day tradition. Out of this has grown a new student-led event that will take place in Carmichael Hall on Tuesday, October 9, at 8:00 p.m.

For the uninitiated, we take this explanation of the tradition from the official Life Raft Debate website:

In the Life Raft Debate, we imagine that there has been a nuclear war, and the survivors (the audience) are setting sail to rebuild society from the ground up. There is a group of academic-types vying to get on the raft, and only one seat is left. Each [speaker] has to argue that his or her discipline is the one indispensable area of study that the new civilization will need to flourish. At the end of the debating, the audience votes and the lucky winner climbs aboard, waving goodbye to the others. 

Each [speaker] gets to give an introductory account of his or her discipline, then give a brief rebuttal to the others, and, finally, the audience votes all but one panelist off.

This year, a Historical Life Raft Debate will feature five student actors who will argue for a historical figurehead. The disciplines and historical figures represented will be:

• English, Jane Austen
• Mathematics, Alan Turing
• Psychology, Wilhelm Wundt
• Philosophy, Baruch Spinoza
• Science, Nikola Tesla

Student speeches will contain both facts and inaccuracies. The audience will be given transcripts of the debate and must first determine which information is true or false before they can vote for their discipline/historical figure.

Students in attendance will also be invited to present a short argument for their personal discipline.

Harbert Writing Center Consultants in the Library

The Harbert Writing Center is teaming with Carmichael Library, the Learning Enrichment Center, and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs to pilot an effort to provide extended hours for the Writing Center's services here in Carmichael Hall.

Get Writing Help Tonight

@ your library

Today, October 2^nd from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m., consultants from the Harbert Writing Center will be available on the ground floor of Carmichael Library to work with students who are working on papers. Consultants can advise — and love to advise — writers at any stage of their writing processes.

Related on our blog:

• Harbert Writing Center hours for Fall 2012