A picture is worth....

(you know how much)...so check these out!

Community Art in Atlanta, 1977-1987: Jim Alexander's Photographs of the Neighborhood Arts Center from the Auburn Avenue Research Library consists of fifty-five documentary photographs of the Neighborhood Arts Center (1975-1989) that capture significant African American-centered cultural and community events in and around the Atlanta-based organization, a brainchild of the late mayor Maynard Jackson.

This body of images documents a visit to the Center from the legendary Romare Bearden, as well as Atlanta-area outreach projects, arts festivals, and social demonstrations that took place during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Taken by photographer, community activist, and Neighborhood Arts Center staff member Jim Alexander, these photographs demonstrate the Center's service commitment and its promotion of urban community arts.

This collection is part of the Digital Library of Georgia.

Does anything really change?

Through GALILEO the Baldy Editorial Cartoons: The Clifford H. Baldowski Collection can be accessed:

The collection at the Richard B. Russell Library contains 6,740 pen and ink drawings and 2,460 velox. The digital database opens with approximately 2,500 cartoons from the collection. Clifford H. Baldowski, known by the pen-name "Baldy," depicted the local, national, and international news of his day in the editorial pages of the Augusta Chronicle, Miami Herald, and Atlanta Constitution. His work is a rich source for those studying political reorganization in Georgia and the growth of Atlanta as well as the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, the Vietnam conflict, Middle East tensions, and Watergate.

I did a search for elections and went down memory lane! Things really never do change.

You get the password to use GALILEO at home from your public librarian.

Voting is a priviledge

Georgians are voting today as part of the Super Tuesday primaries. I was there at 7:05 standing in line to excercise my right to vote.

What resources are in GALILEO that might shed light on the election process from the African-American perspective?

The Auburn Avenue Research Library Finding Aids

database consists of guides to archival and manuscript collections held by the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, a special library of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. The library's primary source materials document the experiences of African-Americans in Atlanta, the Southeastern region, and throughout the nation.

Using the advanced search boxes, with the terms elections and voting brought up two items.

One is the Julian Bond collection:

The collection covers the period from 1969 to 1996 and contains correspondence, organizational and institutional material related to the Voter Education Project, Political Associates, and The Southern Elections Fund, stationery, clippings, newsletters, political ephemera, articles and a book written by Julian Bond as well as items relating to the African American political life and Constance Curry's history of race relations and integration in Sunflower County (Miss.), Silver rights.

This is part of the deep web- finding out where this collection is housed is near about impossible on Google. I used "inventory of the Julian Bond papers" (which is the exact title)- zip, nada. I used Julian Bond collection Georgia - lots came up but not this specific resource.

Knowing where to search for information is sometimes harder than actually finding the facts!

Your Georgia Librarian can give you the current password to use GALILEO at home.

Let me entertain you

GALILEO offers links to the Digital Library of Georgia, where you can find this treasure:

The Blues, Black Vaudeville, and the Silver Screen, 1912-1930s

consists of selected correspondence, financial records, contracts, and advertising materials from the theater's records found in the Charles Henry Douglass, Jr. business records at the Middle Georgia Archives, which document the amusements available to Macon's African American population, and the business dealings of this African American entrepreneur from 1912 to the 1930s.

The bulk of these selected records feature the period between 1920 and 1929, and describe the sporting events, vaudeville, and films brought to the theater, as well as the efforts to ensure its financial success. Handbills and booking correspondence document Georgia-based fighters such as Tiger Flowers and Texas Tanner who sought to fight at the venue in 1927.

Douglass and Ben Stein, a white businessman who assumed ownership of the theater between 1927 and 1929, were affiliated with the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.), a vaudeville circuit. This gave them access to bring prominent acts to Macon's African American community, such as well-known blues musicians Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, comedians Butterbeans and Susie, as well as musicals, revues, and sacred theater.

When not hosting live acts, the Douglass also exhibited a wide variety of sound and silent motion pictures. Selected records feature race films (movies made specifically for African American audiences) of producers such as the Norman Film Manufacturing Company and Oscar Micheaux.

The selections highlight other Southern African American theaters, such as the Palace Theatre in Valdosta, Georgia, Liberty Theatre in Columbus, Georgia, and the Liberty Theatre in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The most fun is to browse through the authors list and find the circulars used to advertise upcoming productions!