Ellington

Hinds Community College President Clyde Muse and Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum signed an agreement on Wednesday, March 20, to join the Mississippi Library Partnership.

Established in 1993 as the Golden Triangle Regional Library Consortium, the partnership consists of 60 public and university libraries that share resources and an integrated management system for cataloguing and tracking books.

The partnership holds more than 3.1 million books across all of its member institutions. Patrons can search the databases of all MLP libraries and request books from any member library, and then pick them up at the nearest member library.

Hinds is adding 130,000 titles to the MLP from across all of its campus libraries. The Hinds Community College library system includes the Jackson Academic and Technical Center Library; the George M. McLendon Library in Raymond; the Nursing and Allied Health Center Library in Jackson; the Learning Resources Center in Pearl; the William H. Holtzclaw Library in Utica; and the Vicksburg Library at the college's Vicksburg Campus.

For more about the Hinds Community College library system, visit libguides.hindscc.edu. For information about the Mississippi Library Partnership, go here.

UM Receives CVS Grant for Tobacco-Free Campus

The CVS Health Foundation recently gave the University of Mississippi an $18,000 grant in support of the university's plan to implement tobacco-free campus policies, which include limiting e-cigarette use.

CVS has partnered with the American Cancer Society and nonprofit tobacco-control organization Truth Initiative to give a total of $1.4 million in grants to 82 schools around the United States so far. The grants are part of Be The First, a five-year, $50 million CVS Health initiative to increase the number of institutions that prohibit smoking, and e-cigarette and other tobacco product use on-campus.

A release from UM states that conventional cigarette smoking among high-school students has fallen by almost 50 percent since 2011, but e-cigarette use has grown among young people, with 2.8 million young adults between age 18 and 24 using them.

UM first adopted a campus-wide smoking ban in 2013. The university prohibits smoking at all times on all locations on campus, including university-owned facilities, properties and grounds. The university also offers services to assist people who are trying to quit smoking.

For more information and a full list of colleges taking part in the CVS initiative, go here.

Charles H. Templeton Ragtime and Jazz Festival at MSU

Mississippi State University will host the 13th annual Charles H. Templeton Ragtime and Jazz Festival at the Mitchell Memorial Library from Thursday, March 28, to Saturday, March 30.

The festival will begin on Thursday with the sixth annual Gatsby Gala at 6 p.m. in the library's main lobby. The event includes a fashion show with 1920s apparel that MSU School of Human Sciences fashion design and merchandising students designed, and that MSU Fashion Board members will model. Jeff Barnhart, a pianist from Mystic, Conn., who has served as artistic director of the festival for six years, will perform at the event. The gala is free to attend, and the university encourages guests to dress in 1920s-inspired outfits.

The festival will have daytime museum tours, talks, educational seminars and "meet the artists" segments in the Charles H. Templeton Sr. Music Museum at Mitchell Memorial Library March 29-30. Musicians will also perform ragtime, early jazz, blues, swing and early rock music at 7:30 p.m. in the main-stage theater at McComas Hall on both days. The 2019 festival performers include Dave Bennett, Larisa Migachyov, Hal Smith and Martin Spitznagel.

During the Friday concert, MSU Libraries will also present MSU senior music education and instrumental major Quinlan X. Gray of De Kalb, Texas, with the Keyone Docher Student Achievement Award. The award is named for a former MSU junior music education and piano major who died of cancer in 2014.

General admission tickets good for all festival events are $65 each. Visitors can also purchase a Friday-only ticket for $35, which is good for all Friday events including the evening concert. There are also Saturday-only tickets for Saturday's events and concert. Tickets for the Friday and Saturday concerts only are also available for $15 each. Admission to all festival events is free for MSU students with a student ID, and discounts are available for senior citizens and retired MSU faculty and staff members.

For information or to register for the festival online, visit MSU's website, call 662-325-6634 or email [email protected].