This summer marks a historic milestone as the United States celebrates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In honor of this momentous anniversary, the Dick Smith Library invites the community to experience a new temporary exhibit, Texas America250, on loan from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC).
Featuring historically significant “Texas Treasures” from the state’s collections, Texas America250 encourages visitors to explore the rich and complex story of the Lone Star State over the past 250 years. From the era of Spanish missions to the innovations of the space race, Texas has played a vital role in shaping the nation’s landscape, culture, economy, and identity.
This engaging exhibit offers a unique opportunity to reflect on Texas’s contributions to American history while celebrating the people and events that have defined the state.
The scene of the crime, with bags of evidence available for Tarleton State sleuths to examine
One of the Dick Smith Library’s newest programs, taking place between now and the end of April 15th, is an immersive little murder mystery that can be tackled either solo or with friends.
The setup: a murder has been committed at the Dick Smith Library. The Dean of the Tarleton State Universities’ Libraries was found in front of the library administration office, poisoned. At the start, all that Tarleton’s amateur detectives (aka YOU) have to go on is a packet containing a letter, a coroner’s report, a crime scene photo, and statements that several suspects made to the police. By the end of this mystery, however, sharp sleuths will have traveled to multiple areas of the library in order to examine additional physical evidence and dig up details that point to the murderer and their motive.
Overall, this is a short and fun diversion that takes anywhere from 15-30 minutes, depending on how well you already know the library. If you do end up needing some help, the QR code at the start of the packet leads to hints as well as a form where you can submit your conclusions (and learn whether or not you were right!).
Now get out there and solve the mystery before time runs out!
Nothing good to stream? Feeling burned out on scholarly articles and textbooks? Or maybe you just need an audiobook for your next long drive? Try Libby!
Libby is a free app that lets you access many of the library’s eBooks and audiobooks right on your own device. Most of the library’s non-academic materials can be found in Libby, but you’ll also discover a solid selection of nonfiction and scholarly titles.
Some of my favorite reads have come from exploring the Libby app, such as:
Getting Started with Libby
Libby is incredibly easy to install and use.
1. Download the App
Install Libby from your device’s app store. Look for this icon:
2. Sign In With Your Library Card
Once the download finishes, Libby will ask whether you have a library card. Select “Yes, I Have a Library Card.”
3. Search for Tarleton State University
Click “Search for a Library.” Type Tarleton State in the search bar. You should see this screen:
4. Sign In
Click “Sign In With My Card,” choose Tarleton State University, and you’ll be sent to Single Sign-On if you aren’t already logged in on that device.
And that’s it—you’re ready to borrow!
Borrowing Books
You can borrow up to 10 items at a time.
The loan period is 21 days.
If a book is already checked out, you can place a hold, and Libby will notify you when it becomes available.
Need more time? You can renew items as long as no one else has them on hold.
Using a Kindle?
Good news! Most titles offer a Kindle version. Just select “Read with…” and choose Kindle. Libby will redirect you to Amazon to complete the checkout. Note: You’ll still manage your loan within the Libby app.
Need Help?
If you have questions or run into any issues, feel free to reach out at [email protected].
Be honest. When you walk through the doors of the Dick Smith Library, what’s the first thing that catches your eyes? Is it the cool artwork up the stairwell or archival display case of Mr. Dick Smith himself? Is it the amazing book displays with carefully chosen titles, or perhaps you gravitate to that one author you already love? We all have our bias in picking up books, and making judgment calls based on appearances when those split-second decisions happen.
Here at the Dick Smith Library, we challenged that habit during Library Lovers Week in February with a fun and creative event: “Blind Date with a Book.” This was actually our fourth time running this event, and it has quickly become a favorite for students and staff alike!
It’s Okay, Bias Is Hard to Beat
Think of it like scrolling through a streaming service. You probably skip over movies with posters you don’t like, in spite of an amazing plot line. I am here to tel you that the same thing happens with books too. Sometimes that weird cover of a sword or a plain text title in funky lettering is just not enough to make you even consider taking it off the shelf.
This natural tendency to prefer things that look familiar is a tough habit to break, and it can keep us from discovering great new things.
So We Hid Them So You Can Pick Blindly
Our solution? We played matchmaker! Instead of just wrapping the books, we created fun “dating profiles” for them. The covers and titles were completely hidden, so you could only judge them by their personality.
There was a real buzz of excitement near our front desk as students browsed the profiles, trying to choose their perfect match. On the front of each wrapped book, we only wrote a few intriguing clues about the story inside, just like other libraries do for this event. For example:
Image created by the Tarleton State University Library for our “Blind Date with a Book” event. 2026
Each profile gave just enough information to get you curious. For example, Book #15 was described as a “slice-of-life story following a cute couple” from Tokyo, with interests in Manga and Romance.
Meanwhile, Book #23 was a bit more mysterious: a paranormal romance from Chicago looking for a roommate. Its profile cheekily warned, “Just try not to leave bags of blood in the shared fridge, okay?” with interests including Slow Burn Romance and Forced-Proximity.
The challenge was simple: pick a “date” based only on its profile. No cover art or popular author names to sway your decision. It was all about trusting your curiosity.
The Big Reveal
And it was successful as several books were borrowed by students! I hope that students were excited while choosing their mystery books and unwrapped them to see what they got. It was all about the fun of discovery and the surprise of finding a hidden gem.
“‘Blind Date with a Book’ gives readers a great way to try something they never would have chosen otherwise, and that’s exactly where the fun is in the event,” said Megan Gilpin, an outreach coordinator at Penn State University, in an article for Penn State News.
Library Lovers Week was a great reminder that some of the best stories are found when we step outside our comfort zone. So the next time you’re looking for something to read, we challenge you to try it. Pick up a book you’d normally ignore. Read the first page, and don’t judge a book by its cover.
Tarleton’s scholarly community is rich with unique perspectives and vibrant stories. The Friends of the Dick Smith Library are excited to host the Tarleton Author Talk series, which is an excellent opportunity for published authors to present their research and interact with Tarleton students and faculty about their book.
The next featured author is Kelli Martin, discussing her book, Homicide in the hood: Murders that Haunt a Small Town Girl. Kelli is a Tarleton alumnus and has taught at several Texas higher educational institutions. A string of murders in her hometown of Granbury in Hood County inspired Kelli to enter the field of criminal justice, and writing her book was a great effort towards finding important answers to long-unsolved crimes.
From the Amazon book description, “Growing up in this quaint, picturesque town was not what people might think. Women in the 1980s were being murdered in the hood and no one was being arrested. People were scared and began locking their doors. A convicted rapist was running loose, peeping in the author’s window, and stalking her. These events in childhood and the murder of a friend and co-worker in 1990 had a profound impact on Martin and her choice to enter the field of criminal justice. All these years later she wrote this book Homicide in the Hood: Murders that Haunt a Small Town Girl, in hopes of these cases finally being solved. The unsolved cases covered is this book are now being worked by law enforcement.”
All events in the Tarleton Author Talk series are free and open to the public, held in the Dick Smith Library. Kelli Martin will be speaking about her book on Tuesday, February 10th at 1:00pm in the library’s Multipurpose Room. With no reservation necessary, show up and learn more about some fascinating crime stories that can hit close to home, and how the criminal justice field works to solve them!
Just a few of the 60+ works brought up during the No-Stress Book Club’s Fall 2025 meetings
Do you love reading? Have you ever thought about joining a book club but then didn’t for whatever reason? Or maybe you did join, but you found you just couldn’t keep up with it. You couldn’t find the time to finish the selected books, or the group kept choosing books that didn’t appeal to you. Instead of being fun, reading a book for the next meeting started to feel like a chore.
The Dick Smith Library’s No-Stress Book Club might just be for you, then. Led by librarians Melissa Cookson, Kim Gragg, and Heather O’Donnell, the group had its first meeting on September 16, 2025.
Unlike many other book clubs that choose a particular work for the whole group to read, the No-Stress Book Club picks a genre (or, in the future, possibly a topic or something else). Group discussion is then based primarily around works that attendees read, in full or in part, that somehow fit the genre being focused on.
What was the book about? Why did you choose it? What did you like or dislike about it? Your fellow attendees might decide they’d like to read it too, and you might find yourself intrigued by whatever they read. No worries on that account, because all attendees who are interested can sign up to receive emails with lists of the works mentioned at the meetings.
Above all, though, the most important things about this book club are that attendees 1) enjoy reading and 2) aren’t stressing about what to read. If you’re a newcomer to that month’s selected genre and can’t decide what to pick, we have a guide with various suggestions. You can also email librarians directly for help choosing something that might best fit your tastes.
Or, if you really can’t decide, just pick something off your pile of books you’ve been intending to read and don’t worry about whether it fits the month’s focus – we’ll all still be happy to hear about whatever it is you read. Format doesn’t matter either – feel free to listen to your pick in audiobook format during your daily commute, or bypass novels entirely and choose a graphic novel. Just have fun and come to the meetings to get to know other Tarleton readers!
This past semester, we have had the opportunity to have an intern working in our archives, digitizing one of our most used collections, the University Photo Collection. Join her as she explains the mission of the archives and the process she followed in digitizing some of the collection. All of the images in this blog are ones that she digitized during this process.
The Dick Smith Library at Tarleton State University houses a multitude of items. The most notable items are the books, periodicals, and digital resources available, but it also houses the Tarleton Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections. The goal of the archives is to curate and preserve materials relating to the history of Tarleton, Erath County, and the Cross Timbers region. These materials are photographs, manuscripts, rare books, serials, and the permanent historic records of Tarleton. While curating a collection is one topic to discuss and conservation another, the one that most people are curious about is the preservation of a collection.
Preservation comes in many forms. There is the preservation of physical items in climate-controlled environments, which necessitates the use of archival materials such as acid-free boxes, papers, and folders to separate items from one another. This keeps harmful acids and chemicals that leach over time from items and stops them from touching other items. These acids and chemicals damage and age items, and protecting them from this added harm keeps items intact for many more years than letting them sit stacked beside each other without acid-free barriers would. However, the most modern method of preservation is digital preservation.
Digital preservation will vary depending on the type of item being preserved. While digital-born items are the most common things created today, think photographs and emails, many older physical items can also be preserved digitally. This process is largely completed by scanning the item. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) shares guidelines for best practices for the digitization of items. These standards allow for best practices and best care for the items and their digital records. TSLAC’s recommendation is for images to be at 600 or better dots per inch (DPI) and for documents to be at 400 or better DPI. This is only one portion of the standards necessary for digital preservation. The other is metadata, or the information about the item. While a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture still has a title, a description, a creator, a date created, and so on and so forth. The DACS or Describing Archives: A Content Standard sets a set of rules for describing collections and allows for standardization across multiple materials.
The only thing left after establishing what is necessary to collect is to begin. Starting with the earliest images that exist about Tarleton in the University Archives Box 1 Folder 1, we took down the information about the item, identifier – the name of the item in the system, title -the name of the item, creator, date, folder, and so on, and then scanned each item from there. For the majority of the items in the collection, a flatbed scanner was adequate to digitize the majority of the images. For the items that are too large to fit on a standard scanner, a high-resolution camera and a well-lit room will suffice. This process, while simple, is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and when it is complete, there is a digital copy of these items that will potentially outlast the physical, so long as the preservation of the digital copy succeeds; however, digital preservation for digital items is a different topic to discuss.
The Tarleton State University Dick Smith Library is hosting two Classic Movie Nights on October 30th and November 6th! We will enjoy two timeless films and plenty of popcorn. But before the popping started, we had to make sure we were not breaking any copyright laws.
What is Copyright?
Copyright is a law that protects creators—like filmmakers, musicians, and authors—from having their work used without permission. Once an original work is fixed in a tangible form (like a film), it gains copyright protection under the laws of the country where it was created.
Owning a DVD or having access to a streaming service does not give you the right to show a movie to a public audience. Public screenings need a license because they count as a public performance. To keep things simple and legal, we decided to show films that are in the public domain: works which are no longer protected by copyright. Public domain films can be shared, remixed, or screened without paying fees or asking permission, and they often inspire new creative works.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
We chose Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero as one of our films. It entered the public domain because the copyright notice was accidentally removed during post-production. That means we can confidently show the original version without worrying about licenses or fees.
Yet even public domain films require that we take caution. Here is what we checked:
Public Domain Status: Confirm that the version being screened is truly public domain. Some remastered or colorized editions are copyrighted as derivative works. The original 1968 version of the film is widely considered public domain due to a copyright notice being omitted during release.
Trademark: Titles, logos, or even characters can still be protected under trademark law. We are only using content from the original film.
Music Rights: Original scores may have separate copyright protections. The soundtrack used stock music, which was generally in the public domain.
Attribution: Even if a work is in the public domain, it is good practice to credit the original creators. Many thanks to Gorge A. Romero!
Not every website labels movies correctly, so we verified our sources using trusted platforms like the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress to double check the film we selected.
Why It Matters
Libraries are all about sharing knowledge and entertainment, but we also must respect the rights of creators. By choosing Public Domain films, we can host a fun event. Additionally, we can teach people a little about copyright, and our patrons can learn about the protection that copyright offers.
While Copyright sounds complicated, it is about doing the right thing for the creators. If you are planning a movie night at school or in your community, consider Public Domain films. They are free, legal, and often have interesting stories of origin.
Do you want to learn more about copyright? Go check out Copyright.gov!
Otherwise come join us for popcorn and watch some classic films that have shaped cinema history!
The library is excited to welcome you all to the start of the Fall 2025 semester.
Looking for a fun way to kick off the semester and explore everything the library has to offer? The Dick Smith Library invites you to take part in Clash of the Colleges, happening August 20–22 during regular library hours. This exciting event is part scavenger hunt, part competition, and all about showing off your college pride while learning more about the resources and spaces available to you.
Bring your friends and set out on an adventure through the library as you complete challenges, discover new study areas, and unlock hidden gems you may not have noticed before. Along the way, you’ll earn points for your college. The more tasks you complete, the more points your college racks up and at the end of the week, one college will claim the ultimate prize: bragging rights for the entire year!
But that’s not all: once you finish your quest, you’ll even get the chance to design your own button as a keepsake of the event. Whether you’re a first-year student just starting out or a returning student who thinks you know the library inside and out, Clash of the Colleges is the perfect way to test your knowledge, bond with your peers, and have a little fun along the way. Don’t miss out on the chance to represent your college and be part of the competition!
Every summer for the past 9 years staff members from Tarleton’s Dick Smith Library have performed story time events at the Stephenville Public Library.
We call our troupe the Dick Smith Players.
What makes these events unique is we don’t just narrate stories, we act them out as well. For weeks before the event, we create costumes, props, memorize lines, figure out entrances/exits and other character movements.
It’s a lot of fun and we all get a lot of enjoyment from it. However, we aren’t just there to have fun. We also do it to share our love of reading with the children of the community.
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