The Surprising MSU Library

Remember Ulysses Grant from your school days? He was the Union General whose victories included the Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. His presidential papers now reside in the Mississippi State University Library - 170 miles northwest of Vicksburg. Grant's return to the south was engineered by John Marszalek, a MSU faculty member and Civil War historian.

We met with the University librarian in the Stennis/Montgomery Room. The room was filled with memorabilia, which we had too little time to examine. Pictured here is a reproduction of the expanded GI bill authored by U.S. Representative Montgomery,the Montgomery of the Stennis/ Montgomery Room. Colleagues was signed the reproduction along with congratulatory messages.I did not know that such mementos of major legislative victories existed. I wonder if current legislative victories marked by rancor are similarly immortalized.

Before we left we visited the John Grisham room. We were behind schedule - so it only got a glance. A grave injustice on our part. I was anxious to get to our next meeting so I was a bit relieved that the Templeton Music Museum was locked. Not seeing the collection of instruments and phonographs was our loss.

As we left I stopped to check out the flower arrangement - it was real. I had seen arrangements all over campus. Apparently they come by way of the University's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. North Carolina State has a Department of Horticulture and a terrific arboretum but no concentration in floral management or a University Florist shop.