Happy Birthday Charlie Darwin!

It's easy for me to remember that February 12th is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. My mother's birthday is also on February 12th. I guess you could say that I think of the day as my mother's birthday, and it also happens to be Lincoln's birthday.

Old Abe Charles Darwin, the naturalist responsible for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Darwin has had an indirect influence on my life. My hometown is Dayton, Tennessee. Dayton was the site of one of the several 'trials of the century,' the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. The trial was a test case to challenge a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. The trial became the biggest event in Dayton's history, and subsequently gave the town the nickname of 'Monkeytown,' as many a huckster and tonic salesman descended upon the town, selling shaved chimps as the missing link. The trial attracted the likes of WGN radio, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan. The liberal arts college in Dayton, Bryan College, was named for Bryan.

Note: to view some of the links in this post, you may need to get the current Galileo password. You can get the password from your Georgia librarian.

Happy Birthday Mom!

JWF

As long as we're talking about Lincoln

Lincoln's birthday celebration brings to mind the Civil War, which brings to mind Veterans, which brings me to Ancestry.com adding records (I feel like a Laura Numeroff story "If you give a librarian ....").

Today's Genealogy Insider by Diane Haddad noted the addition of a number of resources to Ancestry. The one that caught my eye pertains to Georgia.

Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia includes more than 60,000 records documenting pension applications Confederate soldiers and their widows filed in Georgia. (Search these free on the Georgia State Archives Web site.)

You may access Heritage Quest at home with your public library GALILEO password - yes the public library offers slightly different resources in GALILEO - ask your public librarian)

-kls

Happy Birthday, Mr. L

I wonder if Abe had any idea the impact he would make on history when he was a boy, a young man, or even as a middle aged President? It seems 'everyone' is running specials, writing articles, and blogging about the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Britannica has been blogging about Mr. Lincoln for a few days. They posted a YouTube that someone compiled of 'all' the pictures of Mr. Lincoln! Fascinating.

I went to GALILEO and selected Lexis Nexis Academic to look through the transcripts.

...I typed "Abraham Lincoln" in quotes
......Limited my search to TV and Radio Broadcast transcripts
........Limited my search to the previous week

110 results were displayed. Read all about it - using Lexis Nexis Academic in GALILEO.

-kls
You may get the password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

Learning new things

Research Strategies : Finding your Way through the information Fog [Z 710 .B23 2008] by William B. Badke has arrived.

The book is at the circulation desk where the librarians are reading and learning. My favorite quote so far is found on page 13 - "Not all information is equal."

Trying to teach anyone that 'good enough' may not be really 'good enough' is hard. Google and Wikipedia are so easy to find - using the library resources that are protected by passwords sometimes 'feels' quite difficult.

I shared with one class the true story- a student called the library last week and said "I've spent hours on Google and can't find an article for my class". Biting my tongue, I asked "Did you look in GALILEO"....OH

I'm hoping Mr. Badke has a hint or tip that we can share to help students remember to use the library databases!



-kls