Smith Library Research Articles

Legislate, Educate, Integrate: Three Steps to Help Teenagers Coexist with the Internet

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2024 asked students to recommend guidelines that we should establish concerning teenagers’ use of technology to ensure their personal safety and privacy. Essays have been edited for length.

Integration, Regulation, and Collaboration: Three Steps to Combat Climate Change

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2023 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the issues surrounding climate change.

A Climate Action Blueprint

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2023 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the issues surrounding climate change.

Dear Government, Take Action against Climate Change

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2023 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the issues surrounding climate change.

The Proper Role of Government in Response to the Current COVID-19 Pandemic

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2022 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the current coronavirus pandemic. This is the third-place essay.

Everything in Moderation

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2022 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the current coronavirus pandemic. This is the second-place essay.

Finding the Balance

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2022 asked students to consider what the proper role of government should be in responding to the current coronavirus pandemic. This is the first-place essay.

Our American Nightmare: The Anachronistic Disaster of the Electoral College

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2021 asked students to offer their opinions on whether the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness, or if it is more important than ever given the country’s current deep political polarization. This is the first-place essay.

Collection Objects from the Digital Occupy Archive

The Occupy Archive’s Collection Objects is a dataset of more than 400 digitized primary source materials from the global Occupy movement, openly available at DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/6V9ZF . From 2019–2020, a team of research assistants, librarians, and Dr. Heather Hurwitz digitized over 1,200 pages of manuscripts and ephemera collected by Hurwitz at Occupy movement protests and meetings from 2011–2018. The team established a taxonomy of descriptive metadata and applied it to each object to facilitate searching, viewing, and downloading the data. Accompanying the dataset, the archive includes teaching tools and research guides to facilitate reuse. Funding statement: The Occupy Archive was created during the course of Hurwitz’s Freedman Fellowship at Case Western Reserve University’s Kelvin Smith Library. The Freedman Fellows Program is generously funded by the Freedman Fellows Endowment, established by Samuel B. and Marian K. Freedman, and supported by additional Case Western Reserve University campus partners.

The Hobby Lobby Case and Arguments around an Equal Rights Amendment

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2019 asked students to assess the arguments for and against an Equal Rights Amendment.

Putting Textbooks in Students’ Hands

ABSTRACTRecent studies show that many students do not buy textbooks due to rising and prohibitive costs. There are a number of solutions for the textbook cost crisis, but it may take years for these solutions to take effect. One way the Joseph F. Smith Library at Brigham Young University – Hawaii chose to address this issue was to implement a course-textbook reserve program so that students who could not afford to buy textbooks could still have access to them. Student survey comments are extremely positive, and most faculty members support this initiative.

Democracy Needs a Free Press

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2018 concerned the importance of a free press. This is the first-place essay, written by Cassidy Lessner.

<em>Forging the Future of Special Collections</em>, edited by Arnold Hirshon, Robert H. Jackson, and Melissa Hubbard.

Forging the Future is a new collection of essays by some of the most prominent special collections librarians, curators, rare book dealers, and collectors currently working in the field. Originating from presentations given at the National Colloquium on Special Collections, the book explores the current and future concerns of special collections. The 2014 conference was organized by the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University, and the editors of this volume include Associate Provost and University Librarian Arnold Hirshon, 2013–2014 Distinguished Visiting Scholar Robert H. Jackson (also a rare book collector and coeditor of the 2007 Book Talk, a clear predecessor of Forging the Future), and Team Leader of Scholarly Resources and Special Collections Melissa Hubbard.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2017 High School Essay Contest: High Society

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2017 was, How would you address the current lethal drug epidemic? The essays have been edited for length.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2017 High School Essay Contest: Knowledge Is Power: Preventing Drug Use through Education

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2017 was, How would you address the current lethal drug epidemic? The essays have been edited for length.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2017 High School Essay Contest: Crusade against the Drugs, Not the Users

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. The essay prompt for 2017 was, How would you address the current lethal drug epidemic? The essays have been edited for length.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2016 High School Essay Contest: The Ideal Prospective President

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. As it was a presidential election year, the 2016 essay prompt asked students to reflect on their ideal candidate for president.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2015 Student Essay Contest: Xenophobia and Amnesty

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. In this issue, we feature the three prize-winning essays as the Marga­ret Chase Smith Essay. The 2015 essay prompt asked students to weigh in with their opinions about what current U.S. immigration policy should be in light of the historical backdrop of alternating cycles of welcome and wariness toward foreign­ers. In the third place prize-winning essay, Taylor Plourde describes the pattern of xenophobia that has often permeated American attitudes about immigrants. She discusses some of the ways forward to dealing with the current situation of immi­grants who have come illegally into the country.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2016 High School Essay Contest: Qualities of the Ideal President

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. As it was a presidential election year, the 2016 essay prompt asked students to reflect on their ideal candidate for president.

Margaret Chase Smith Library 2015 Student Essay Contest: Reforming the United States Immigration Policy

Each year the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsors an essay contest for high school seniors. In this issue, we feature the three prize-winning essays as the Margaret Chase Smith Essay. The 2015 essay prompt asked students to weigh in with their opinions about what current U.S. immigration policy should be in light of the historical backdrop of alternating cycles of welcome and wariness toward foreigners. Second place prize winner Rachel Kocik discusses some of the many benefits immigrants bring to the United States, while acknowledging that there are still some knotty legal problems that need to be resolved.