Meet MLC Monday: Amy LaFleur

Elisabeth Scott

Reference and Social Media Librarian

Meet Amy LaFleur, Reference and Archives Librarian at the Mississippi Library Commission! Amy assists patrons with reference questions, whether by phone, text, mail, or in-person. She has also taken on the task of organizing MLC's archives collections. Amy holds a bachelor's degree in English from the Mississippi University for Women, a master's degree in English from Mississippi State University, and a master's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Amy began working here in January of 2022. She says that so far, her favorite part of working at MLC is the atmosphere. "Everyone is friendly and works together." When asked about the positive things that libraries accomplish, Amy replied, "I love libraries because they allow patrons access to materials and programs they might otherwise miss. Also, libraries provide an excellent atmosphere for research and learning." 

Amy loves to read, but claims to be a picky reader. She says, "I typically like a good thriller or horror novel that moves quickly, but I will ready anything that holds my interest." Some of her favorite authors are Grady Hendrix, Edgar Allan Poe, Ian McEwan, Kealan Patrick Burke, Kate Morton, and Marisha Pessl. (We had to stop her from listing more, so we're pretty sure we can go to her for great book recommendations from now on.) When she's not whipping us into shape at MLC or relaxing with a good book, you can find Amy in her kitchen. She loves baking and learning new recipes, especially hunting down elusive gluten-free recipes that actually taste good.

A Letter from your Friendly MLC Intern

Rose Pendleton

Archives Intern

 

Dear Reader,

My name is Rose and I am currently working towards a master's degree in Library and Information Science and a graduate certificate in Archives and Special Collections at the University of Southern Mississippi. As part of the program, I had to do an internship at a library with a special collection or an archival records repository. For my internship, the Mississippi Library Commission was gracious enough to be my host facility. 

These blue vinyl discs were used with a Gray Audograph
machine to make recordings. They were introduced in 1945.

 

The staff was very friendly and generous with their time and assistance. I learned a lot about processing and handling archival items on both a physical and a digital scale, preparing metadata to be accessed by digital collections, and even a little bit of cataloging! I found a lot of amazing photographs and correspondence, from photos of Cicely Tyson and Eudora Welty, to early printing and recording items like stereotypes and audographs.

The project I worked on during this internship was to identify, document, and rehouse correspondence and construction documents that were kept in-house in the archives. In the end, there were 106 boxes in total. I felt very accomplished to be able to finish such an undertaking during my time here. One of my favorite parts of working on this project was to be able to watch a library grow on paper: from humble beginnings as a plot of land to a fully realized and constructed library!

As part of the curriculum of the class, I was tasked with maintaining an online blog with weekly update posts about my progress and what I found that week. You can check it out at: hurricanerose.wordpress.com.

All the best,

Your friendly MLC intern

A Letter from Your Friendly MLC Archivist

Miranda Vaughn

Reference/Archives Librarian

Dear Reader,

Don’t you just love when your favorite hobbies and interests collide? Today’s letter is all about two of my favorite things: libraries and film.

Movie poster for
The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag

The state of Mississippi is famous for birthing some of the world’s great artists and entertainers, but did you know that our beautiful landscape has been featured in a number of films over the years? One of those films is The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag (1992). This movie stars Penelope Ann Miller, who has been in dozens of movies over the years, but who I will always affectionately remember as the teacher and love interest of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. Miller plays the title character, Betty Lou Perkins, a small-town librarian who finds herself caught up in a murder mystery adventure after she and her loyal Boston terrier discover a gun near the river. This screwball comedy also features well-known actresses Julianne Moore and Alfre Woodard. 

Front page news for The Greenwood Commonwealth

The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag was filmed in Oxford, Greenwood, Clarksdale, and parts of Louisiana. Filming in these areas provided a great opportunity for locals to work in character roles and as extras, as well as work behind-the-scenes. It also provided a great opportunity for the Mississippi Library Commission to feature some our assets as props for the movie. According to an agreement between then Library Services Director, Sharman Smith, and Set Director, Meredith Charbonnet, we loaned the production 

Check out this movie
stationary from our archives.

• 14 busts of authors
  
• 3 dark wood tables
• 4 metal book trucks
• 3 wooden book trucks
• 1 atlas stand
• 1 CBI stand
• 1 library ladder
• 3 kick stools
• 5 single-faced shelving – 5 sections
• 1 AV projection stand
• 8 double-faced wood shelving – 8 sections
• 2 USPS corrugated plastic mail containers
• 3 metal rolodexes
• 3 metal card-size file boxes
• 10-15 brown cardboard film boxes
  

 

 

In return, In the Bag Productions donated $3,000 worth of microfilm cabinets to the Library Commission. 

Same author busts, same microfilm cabinets? We think so!

To watch the trailer for The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag, click here.

All the best,

Your friendly MLC archivist

A Letter from Your Friendly MLC Archivist

Miranda Vaughn

Reference/Archives Librarian

Dear Reader,

Today’s letter is all about stereotypes and cliches. No, not those stereotypes and cliches. Well, sort of. Let me explain.

A stereotype (also called a cliché) is a plate of metal used for making copies of prints. First developed in the 1700s in Europe, these plates were traditionally used for printing newspapers. Stereotypes were created from a “mat,” which is essentially a papier-mache mold containing the print that is to be turned into a stereotype. The dried mat was then used to cast the stereotype from hot metal. These metal plates were made primarily of lead and tin and were used on linotype machines or “slug-casting” machines to make the newspaper copies. Stereotypes made it possible to send casts to multiple printers, thus making more copies in less time. 

Purser Hewitt was a notable Mississippi journalist who worked for the Clarion Ledger for
47 years and retired as executive editor in 1973. He was appointed Chairman of the Mississippi
Library Week Committee in 1958 as part of the first annual National Library Week. Pictured here
is the mat containing his image, his image as a stereotype, and the final image in the
Mississippi Library News article featuring the announcement of his role as Chairman.

 

What does this printing technique have to do with the MLC archives? During the mid-20th century, the Library Commission printed Mississippi Library News, a quarterly journal produced by MLC and the Mississippi Library Association. Since stereotypes were commonly used in printing during this time, MLC used this printing technique to make copies of Mississippi Library News in house. Our archive has a number of stereotypes and mats of photographs used in these newsletters. We also have bound copies of Mississippi Library News to which you can compare these stereotypes. Mississippi Library News is no longer in print and has been replaced by the Mississippi Library Association’s Mississippi Libraries journal.

During the 1970s, more modern printing techniques began replacing stereotypes. Today, we are seeing a shift toward digital printing techniques as well. Despite the rapid changes technology brings, I’m sure there are printing and photography connoisseurs out there who can appreciate our little collection of stereotypes. 

I think it’s only appropriate to end a letter about clichés with an actual cliché: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Don’t you agree?


All the best,
Your friendly MLC archivist

A Letter from Your Friendly MLC Archivist

Miranda Vaughn

Reference/Archives Librarian

Dear Reader,

Today’s letter is all about an archaic little contraption from a simpler time when gas prices were only a few cents and speed limits were a new concept. They started as “traveling libraries,” but you may recognize them by their more common name: bookmobiles.

Before their work with the state government to establish the Library Commission, the Mississippi Federation of Women’s Clubs (MFWC) established traveling libraries across the state. These traveling libraries were meant to reach those who did not have access to public libraries, as much of Mississippi was rural and did not have public libraries when MFWC was first founded in the late 1800s. Once the Library Commission was formed in the 1930s, it was tasked with not only setting up public libraries in every single county, but it also took over the traveling library services. Over time, these traveling libraries came to be affectionately known as “bookmobiles.”

It took several decades to establish public libraries in all 82 counties, so MLC sent out bookmobiles to give a library experience to Mississippians who did not have access to public libraries. Based on memos from the 1950s, it seems that these bookmobiles reached several thousand people in the counties where they were used. Unfortunately, these bookmobiles were in use during times of segregation and often did not offer services to the Black population. However, in some counties they were sent to “Negro schools.” Coahoma County, for example, serviced nearly 3,000 Black students per year at segregated schools in the early 1950s.

Mississippi author, W. Ralph Eubanks, recalls his experience with bookmobiles in rural Mississippi at the end of the civil rights movement in this article. In 1955, an MLC bookmobile began servicing the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. According to a national newsletter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the bookmobile serviced six Choctaw schools in its first visit. The number of books checked out doubled on the second visit. The bureau was ecstatic!

Bookmobiles became less popular as more public libraries were built in rural areas. As rising maintenance cost clashed with available funding, Mississippi libraries began to slowly retire their wheels. By the late 1990s, most of the bookmobiles in the state were out of service. Lee-Itawamba and First Regional library systems kept their bookmobile services going. The Madison County Library System revived their bookmobile service in 2019.

The Mississippi Library Commission has offered a myriad of services over the years, but the bookmobile service is one that has sentimental value to generations of library users. It awakens the same nostalgia that comes from an ice cream truck or county fair – a sense of youthfulness and wonder. It is a book lover’s dream to have a library wherever they go. Maybe these archaic contraptions aren’t so archaic after all. 

All the best,

Your friendly MLC archivist

A Letter from Your Friendly MLC Archivist

Miranda Vaughn

Reference/Archives Librarian

 

Dear Reader,

This is the first in a series of letters I will be writing to you from time to time as I gleefully work my way through the hidden treasures of the MLC archives. I will be sharing interesting items, stories about the history of MLC, and any other interesting tidbits I may find on this “curiosity voyage.” First, I want to share with you a personal story about my first experience working in an archive, an experience which solidified my love for historic preservation and archival management. It’s a story of human connection found unexpectedly beneath a pile of yellowed papers.

Enjoy.

I’ll never forget the first time I cried in a library. No, I wasn’t reading a Nicolas Sparks book or doing my taxes. I was reading a letter from William J. Love, a WWI veteran and businessman from Columbus, MS. This letter was addressed to his friend and business partner and was written the year before he passed away. I discovered this letter after spending several months going through boxes of Love’s belongings – mostly letters, scrapbooks, some photographs, and business documents. Although he had been dead for over 40 years, I felt like I had come to know him while organizing the belongings he left behind. I had read multiple letters like this one, but somehow, this one seemed very final. His health was declining. I knew he would die the following year. Maybe he knew it too.

So I cried.

It was an unexpected side effect that sometimes comes with archival work. If you’ve ever worked in an archive, or if your library has its own local history department, you are probably familiar with the situation I described. A patron goes through their recently deceased relative’s attic. They bring in half-chewed boxes of documents and photos to donate to your collection. You quickly leaf through the items to get an idea of what is in them (and check for any varmints that may be hiding between the pages). Then, you add the boxes to the stack of other boxes from other deceased relatives that you hope to finish processing before the year is out. Or the decade. Or maybe just before you retire.

Photo of slides from the William J. Love Papers in the
Billups-Garth Archive, Columbus Lowndes Public Library

The process can become very monotonous very quickly.

Archivists bear a lot of responsibility when it comes to processing collections, especially those collections that come from private donations. Not only is it the job of the archivist to analyze every item that comes into their possession, organize boxes of materials, and create extremely detailed, searchable records of the items, but they are also responsible for taking proper care of belongings that have sentimental value to loved ones. For many private donors, an archive is the final resting place of a life that they cherished. For this reason, archivists have the responsibility of maintaining a sense of reverence when processing and preserving historical records.

It is easy to get caught up in the pressures of time constraints, cataloging and copyright issues, etc. and miss the opportunity to get to know the person(s) behind the collection. Archivists have a unique opportunity that goes beyond removing rusty paperclips and translating sloppy cursive. I like to tell people that I’ll never know what it’s like to cure cancer or invent some new technology that changes the world, but I do know what it’s like to see the look of pure joy on the face of the only daughter of a WWI veteran in Columbus, MS after I finished processing her father’s papers, allowing generations of researchers the opportunity to get to know her father the way I did.

Some would call it closure. Maybe a sense of peace. I like to think of it as another special service offered free of charge at your local library.

All the best,

Your friendly MLC archivist

P.S. If you are antsy with anticipation for my next letter, feel free to check out the MLC photograph collection made available through the Mississippi Digital Library.