Van Pelt and Opie Library Blog

Bryophyte Ecology is the result of more than a decade of research, collaboration and composition by Professor Emerita Janice Glime and many contributors and photographers. The five volume work is unique not only as the most recent comprehensive reference on bryophyte ecology, but because it is “open” to the world. Bryophyte Ecology  was initially self-published on the web and is now accessible on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech. Moving the work to Digital Commons ensures long-term preservation and easier access. Additionally, the work reaches top slots using any search engine.

Professor Glime’s goal in creating an open work “was to reach a broad audience in an affordable format with lots of illustrations and a readable style.” Bryophyte Ecology has been used as a textbook, reference source, and field guide. It contains many color photographs, information on physiological ecology, bryological interactions, methods of collection and various uses of bryophytes as well as question sections throughout to facilitate learning.

Discover the world of bryophytes at http://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/bryophyte-ecology/

Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech, the university’s digital repository, is a platform for storing, sharing and showcasing research and educational resources. To learn more or to consider adding your own work contact digitalcommons@mtu.edu.

The Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech dashboard and personalized author dashboards contain more than just download counts. They also provide a variety of usage statistics that can be refined by specific date ranges. For example, the readership distribution map shows where in the world users are when they access content. In March 2017, 6 works were downloaded from Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech by users in Fiji. Carly Kratz’s dissertation entitled “Impacts of Climate Change in Soil Microorganisms in Norther Hardwood Forests” is one of those works and was downloaded 3 times.

Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech is a service of the Van Pelt and Opie Library. To learn more about the repository and SelectedWorks contact: digitalcommons@mtu.edu.

Leading up to finals and the last day of the semester, the library will be open extended hours this week and next.

Wednesday, April 19: Open 24/7

Thursday, April 20: Open 24/7

Sunday, April 23  – Wednesday, April 26: Open 24/7

Steve Lehto’s Michigan Notable Book, Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow tells the story of the man who tried to start his own car company after World War II. He promised an advanced car at an affordable price but his enterprise was shut down before he could build more than 51 cars. Was he merely trying the impossible or were there darker forces operating against him?

Please join us for a presentation by Mr. Lehto on Monday, April 10th, at 4PM in the East Reading Room of Michigan Tech’s Van Pelt and Opie Library. Opportunity to purchase this book will be available before and after the talk. Refreshments will be served.

Steve Lehto has written a dozen books and has a weekly column at RoadandTrack.com. This is his fourth Michigan Notable book.

The Friends of the Michigan Tech Library will have a used book sale and free hot chocolate and cookies in the lobby of the Van Pelt and Opie Library. They will also have copper mining scene notecards and Michigan Tech blankets for sale.

Saturday, February 11, 11AM – 4PM.

Please join us for a presentation by travel grant recipient Gabe Logan at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, November 15 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus. This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Logan will discuss the Labor Sport Union and its influence in the iron ranges of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. From 1928 through 1935 the United States Communist Party developed the Labor Sport Union. This athletic organization united left wing politics and athletics in an alternative vision of sport and society. The LSU drew much of its membership from the urban cities whose immigrant populations sought recreation beyond the schools and company teams. However, the LSU also found an appreciative audience in the rural iron ore region of Lake Superior. This presentation explains the significance of the LSU in the region and how its members embraced the “red sports” ideology.

Gabe Logan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History and the Director for the Center of Upper Peninsula Studies at Northern Michigan University. Logan’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Tech Archives has partnered with the FMTL to help scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the archives.

For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at (906) 487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/.

Please join us for a presentation by travel grant recipient Gordon Andrews at 4:00 pm on Thursday, November 3 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus. This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Andrews will discuss unionization efforts at the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford Motor Company was the last of the “Big Three” automakers to unionize. There were serious attempts to organize beginning in the 1930s, but it was not until the workers at the Rouge plant organized a sit-down strike in 1941 that they were successful. The “Industrial Colossus on the Rouge” employed over 100,000 workers, and once organized, it became the largest local in the nation. The presentation will address the parameters of UAW Local 600’s history, from its leadership role in organizing the successful unionization of Ford Motor Company, to the myriad ways in which Local 600 impacted the quality of life, and also the politics of its membership over a half-century. An integral part of that story is understanding the relationships among labor and resources from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the way those affiliations inform what we know about the organization of Ford, especially as employees confronted a brutally oppressive system in the hopes of establishing democracy in the workplace.

Gordon P. Andrews is an associate professor in the Department of History at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan. He has taught at the secondary and post-secondary levels since 1986, and his research fields include history education, modern United States history, and 20th-century labor history. His recent publications include, Undoing Plessy: Charles Hamilton Houston, Race, Labor and the Law, 1895-1950 (Newcastle upon Tyne, London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014), Collaboration and the Future of Education: Preserving the Right to Teach and Think Historically, New York: Routledge, 2015, co-authored with Wilson Warren, and James Cousins.

Andrews’ research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Tech Archives has partnered with the FMTL to help scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the archives.

For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at 906-487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/.

On Thursday, October 20, the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library will hold their annual meeting from 4:30PM – 6:00PM in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library.

Following a brief business meeting at 4:45PM, Jonathon Robins, assistant professor of global history in the Social Sciences department at Michigan Tech, will present a talk on his first book, Cotton and Race Across the Atlantic: Britain, Africa, and America 1900-1920.

In 1902, British business launched an ambitious program to transform Britain’s African colonies into major cotton producers, in the hopes of ending Britain’s century-long reliance on the American South for raw materials. In Cotton and Race Across the Atlantic, Jonathan E. Robins explores the complex history of this British project, which brought European industrialists, African-American scientists, and African kings together to reshape the ways in which millions of African farmers worked. Robins will present an overview of the book, and discuss how his work in a number of very different archives and libraries shaped his writing process.

Robins is a historian of commodities, examining the connections between agriculture, industry, and consumers around the globe. He has published articles and book chapters on food history, agriculture, colonialism, industrial organization, and consumerism.

This event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served.