Al Harris Library

The library currently has no air conditioning. Before you visit, please read this: libguides.swosu.edu/facilities.

As always, you can visit us online at library.swosu.edu.

SWOSU campuses will be closed on Thursday, July 4, and Friday, July 5, in observance of Independence Day. We will reopen on Monday with regular hours. Enjoy the holiday, and stay safe! 🎆
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SWOSU hosted Lt. General Stacey Hawkins, Commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center headquartered at Tinker Air Force Base last week. General Hawkins and his staff were exposed to the SWOSU aerospace and defense-related programs including Computer Science, Engineering Physics, and Engineering Technology. They toured the Engineering Technology buildings and the Stafford Archives. SWOSU and the Air Force are working together to create pathways for our graduates to find civilian employment at Tinker AFB.

The AL Harris Library wishes to congratulate one of our staff, Ben Dressler who graduated at today's 2024 Commencement Ceremony. 🎓

The new hours for the May interim starting May 11th are as follows: Monday-Thursday 7:30am-4:00pm, Friday 7:30am-12:00pm, and Saturday-Sunday closed. We hope everyone did well on their finals. Congratulations to the graduates, good luck on all your future endeavors!

Yes, the Library is staying open this evening. We have plenty of study space for anyone nervous about the severe weather.

Our staff will be monitoring the weather and our TVs will be broadcasting weather coverage throughout the evening.

🚨 Attention Students, Faculty, and Staff 🚨
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Due to the forecasted potential of severe weather, ALL SWOSU campuses will close today at 4:00 p.m.
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Any evening in-person finals will be rescheduled and students will be notified by faculty of the change. Online finals and projects will continue as scheduled.
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The SWOSU library will remain open (finals hours) for students and serve as a severe weather shelter.
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SWOSU food services inside the Student Union and the Bookstore will remain open until 6:30 p.m.
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🚨 AS A REMINDER:
In the event of severe weather, the severe weather warning will be made via the sirens from the City of Weatherford. Tornado watches and warnings will also be monitored by the SWOSU Campus Police Department.
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The Weatherford campus has two severe weather shelters that are open to current SWOSU students, faculty, and staff members on campus. NO ANIMALS, EXCEPT FOR SERVICE ANIMALS, ARE ALLOWED IN ANY SWOSU SHELTER. Any questions should be directed to SWOSU Campus Police, ext. #3111 or 580.774.3111.
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⚡ SWOSU Shelter Locations⚡
- Al Harris Library Basement (enter through the west door)
- Old Science Building (enter through the east or west door)
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🔗 For a full list of SWOSU-specific severe weather and tornado precautions please click here: https://bit.ly/4dnACyd

You can watch Finding the Money in the final Kanopy Cinema Series of the Spring Semester for free starting on May 6th. There will be a Meet & Chat with the director on May 8th at 12:00 CT. Go here to register for the Meet & Chat: https://tinyurl.com/5n6cxked.

Don't forget the library is open for extended hours during finals! Come take advantage of the late hours to get some extra studying time, or reserve one of the group study rooms here: https://swosu.libcal.com/reserve/.

What better time than National Library Week to showcase our library staff. The library staff is the backbone of the library, without them, we would be unable to serve you the students, the faculty, and the SWOSU community. Allow us to introduce you to the library staff who work every day towards making our library the resource for you. Everyone

In celebration of National Library Week, we are conducting a survey. We are curious about what banned or challenged books you have read. You can find the survey here, https://swosu.libwizard.com/f/banned. Please fill out the survey and in the upcoming weeks, we will release the results of the survey. Everyone

For the SWOSU STEAM Meet held on April 6th, Librarians Phillip Fitzsimmons and Katherine Loving discussed what an archive is, and how to create subject headings to better locate materials. They used Apple's Translate app to demonstrate how Russian books in the archive can be translated into English. You can visit the Stafford Archives virtually at https://stafford.swosu.edu/, or call for an appointment at 580-774-7024.

In celebration of National Library Week, we will have an activity in the Student Union on Wednesday from 1:00 to 3:00. Learn how librarians find subject terms, which help you locate books, and how we are using technology to help us translate Russian materials in our archive. We also will have information on a newer database the library has. We hope to see you there! Everyone

NEWS || SWOSU Athletics & Al Harris Library Announce Preservation Partnership. READ MORE >> https://swosuathletics.com/news/2024/4/9/general-swosu-athletics-al-harris-library-announce-preservation-partnership.aspx Al Harris Library

This week is National Library Week, and we are kicking it off with Right to Read Day. Right to Read Day is a call to action for readers, advocates, and library lovers everywhere to stand up to censorship as a part of a national day of action. In the past few years, censorship has been a hot topic, and attempts to censor have skyrocketed. For more information go to this website, https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/2023-book-bans/, to learn more about the 65% increase in censorship in 2023.

Look for more about special displays and programs being held in the library this week for National Library Week!

General Stafford was the recipient of numerous honors and awards throughout his life. The following is a listing of those:

SPECIAL HONORS: Congressional Space Medal of Honor; Presidential Medal of Freedom; Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy; Harmon International Aviation Trophy (2x); Federation Aeronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal; American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Chanute Flight Award; National Geographic Society’s General Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy; Veterans of Foreign Wars National Space Award; National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees “Emmy” Award; Society of Experimental Test Pilots James H. Doolittle Award for Management; Rotary National Award for Space Achievement (RNASA); National Aviation Hall of Fame; National Astronaut Hall of Fame; the Aerospace Walk of Honor; the State of Oklahoma Hall of Fame; Oklahoma Commerce and Industry Hall of Honor; and selected as the Oklahoma Aviator of the Century.

Awards from NASA include Distinguished Service Medals (4x), Exceptional Service Medals (2x), and NASA’s Medal for Outstanding Leadership (one of the agency's highest awards). He served as the Chairman of the Operations Oversight Committee of the first Hubble Telescope Spacecraft Servicing and Repair Mission that corrected the design and manufacturing defect of the instrument, and he received NASA’s Public Service Award for the Hubble Telescope Service and Repair Mission for his tremendous efforts to help save the orbiting telescope.

Military honors include the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Distinguished Service Medal (4x), Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Command Pilot Astronaut Wings, the USAF’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and designated as a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

We hope you have enjoyed our posts this week learning about General Thomas P. Stafford. For more information visit our digital archive at https://stafford.swosu.edu/, or make an appointment to visit the physical archive by calling 580-774-7024.

Stafford left NASA in November 1975 to assume the command of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California. As part of his responsibilities, he also assumed the operational command of the Groom Lake Test Facility (better known as “Area 51”) in Nevada, the Hill-Dougway-Wendover Test Range in Utah, and the Parachute Test Facility in El Centro, California. During his tenure, he was responsible for the testing oversight of the F-15, YF-16, YF-17 (later to become the F-18), the A-10, B-1A, YC-14, YC-15, C-141B, Air Launch Cruise Missile, “Have Blue” (the first experimental stealth aircraft), and the safety and operations oversight of the Approach and Landing Test Program for the Space Shuttle.

Stafford was promoted to Lt. General in March 1978, and in May 1978 assumed the duties as the United States Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development and Acquisition, Washington, D.C. In addition to the standard duties of his position, in 1979, General Stafford personally initiated the development of the F-117A stealth fighter program. Stafford then wrote the initial design specifications for and started the Advanced Technology Bomber Development Program (later renamed the B-2A Stealth Bomber) even though no statement of need or requirements existed. He initiated the Advanced Cruise Missile program, designated as the AGM-129 Stealth Cruise Missile, and started the F-110 Afterburning Turbo-Fan Fighter engine program. He also initiated what would become the roadmap for the Advanced Tactical Fighter, which would become the F-22A Stealth Fighter. General Stafford retired from the Air Force in November 1979.

By the end of his military and NASA career, Stafford would become the first member of his Naval Academy Class of 1952 to pin on the first, second, and third stars of a General Officer. He flew six rendezvous in space; logged 507 hours and 43 minutes in space flight time, and wore the Air Force Command Pilot Astronaut Wings. He flew over 127 different types of aircraft and helicopters, four different types of spacecraft, and rode three different types of boosters into space. General Stafford was truly one-of-a-kind.

Stafford would become the first general to fly into space when he logged his fourth space flight as Apollo commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission in July 1975. In advance of the mission the ASTP team trained in Russia and the United States. Soyuz 19, carrying Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov, launched on July 16, 1975, at 12:20 UTC, followed by the Apollo at 19:50 UTC. After two days in space, the Apollo and Soyuz successfully docked, where the crews met and conducted both joint experiments and held press conferences. The spacecraft were docked together for 44 hours. The Soyuz returned to Earth on July 21st, and the Apollo remained in orbit until July 24th.

This mission would not only be the first international flight but also be a joint mission, resulting in a historic "first handshake in space" between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. This mission is now thought to be by historians as the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and for his efforts, Stafford was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

For the astronaut group for Project Apollo Stafford headed the mission planning analysis and software development responsibilities. He was the leader of the group that worked to formulate the sequence of missions leading to the first lunar landing mission. Stafford demonstrated and implemented the theory of a pilot manually flying the giant Saturn V booster into orbit and the procedure for the critical translunar injection maneuver.

In May of 1969, Stafford commanded the Apollo 10 mission to the moon, piloting the first Lunar Module into lunar orbit. Apollo 10 was the final full-scale dress rehearsal for a lunar landing that happened during the Apollo 11 mission in July. Stafford flew the Lunar Module to within nine miles of the moon's surface which helped set the landing ellipse for the first landing. He also performed the first lunar rendezvous, scouted surveillance on future Apollo landing sites, and verified all necessary elements of the lunar landing, without actually landing.

During reentry, Stafford and his crew were recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for reaching the highest speed ever attained by man, when the spacecraft reached a speed of 24,791 statute miles per hour or Mach 37. This ultimate speed record still holds today, and may not be broken until an astronaut returns from a mission to Mars.

On June 3, 1966, Stafford commanded Gemini IX, with Eugene Cernan, and performed a demonstration of an early-phase rendezvous that would become standard in later Apollo lunar missions, the first optical rendezvous, and demonstrated a lunar orbit abort rendezvous.
You can listen to a commentary on the launch here: https://dc.swosu.edu/staf_aud/1/.

General Stafford was selected among the second group of astronauts by NASA to participate in Projects Gemini and Apollo. He piloted the Gemini VI and his commander on board was Wally Schirra. Stafford performed the first rendezvous in space with the spacecraft, Gemini VII, on December 15, 1965. The two spacecraft kept station with each other, coming within feet apart, for approximately five hours. Gemini VI splashed down on December 16th, with recovery made by the USS Wasp.

Stafford helped to develop the techniques to prove the basic theory and the practicality of space rendezvous. You can listen to communication from Gemini VI Ground Control available in the Stafford Archives: https://dc.swosu.edu/staf_aud/10/.