Civil Rights Digital Library

The Atlanta Journal Consitution noted on April 27 "the Civil Rights time machine" .

In GALILEO the "more >>" describes "The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) as a vehicle that promotes an enhanced understanding of the Civil Rights Movement through its three principal components:

a digital video archive delivering 30 hours of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Civil Rights Movement by aggregating metadata from 75 libraries and allied organizations from across the nation instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process

The CRDL links to primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. The CRDL features a collection of more than 30 hours of unedited news film from the WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany, Ga.) television archives held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. These moving images—about 450 clips--cover a broad range of key civil rights events, including the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (1957); the Atlanta Temple bombing (1958); Atlanta sit-ins (1960); Freedom Rides (1961); desegregation of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech (1961); the Albany Movement (1961-1962); desegregation of Ole Miss (1962) and University of Alabama (1963); and Americus Movement (1963, 1965); Birmingham demonstrations (1963); among many other topics.

CRDL is a partnership among librarians, technologists, archivists, educators, scholars, academic publishers, and public broadcasters. The initiative receives support through a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services."

THE CRDL is accessible through GALILEO and on its own CRDL site. Learn from the past to prevent errors in judgement in the future!

Pictures on the desk

I read about using digital photo frames for PR. I bought a digital photo frame and an inexpensive digital camera. It's fun to take the pictures, save them to an SD card and load the frame. Visitors stop and get entranced with the show.

New books, old books, patrons reading, location shots....

Changing the "show" each week is very easy to do. I placed the frame on the front desk. It greets patrons as they enter!

Finished the Terrible Two's

The View turns three today!

Three years of commenting on the resources available through the North Metro Technical College library!

It's Cinco de Mayo and the view from the library is most entertaining. The celebration is being set up in the Lobby right outside the glass doors for a grand time to be had by all!

Pinata, games, food, and music. Even a talent show put on by the students. What fun! I have a front row seat.

And the winner is

Atlanta poet edged out of 'Out Loud' contest....

"Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, said the contest seeks to bring poetry to life. "Poetry was originally an oral art ... great words, powerfully spoken," Gioia said. The program "starts with the idea that poetry is to be experienced," he said. "We want to help restore the pleasure to poetry."

There's always next year! Congratulations to Elijah P. Orengo for making it to the finals.

One more step up the ladder

Georgia teen makes national poetry recitation!

Georgia's young poetry reciting champion has advanced to the final rounds in the national Poetry Out Loud recitation contest.

Elijah P. Orengo, 16, a sophomore at Westlake High School in Fulton County, emerged Monday as one of the top four poetry reciters in his region and will compete with 11 other students Tuesday night in the national finals........

-from the Atlanta Journal Constitution

They said it and they did it

Lexis Nexis had posted that on April 28 the look of their site would change. They didn't misinform us!

Go look
- they switched sides for the links
- more white space between lines
- where you used to have the links drop down when you selected Federal cases, now it goes to another page and there is a column headed by Federal Cases.

I'm going to show the Business Law class how to find information about businesses. I'm going to have to learn how to do it myself!

To access Lexis Nexis through GALILEO, you need to get the current password from your Georgia librarian. Be aware that some Georgia libraries do not have Lexis Nexis as part of their GALILEO offerings.

Better heard then read

Poetry seems to be best enjoyed when heard.

Todays AJC had an article about Elijah P. Orengo who will be particpating

in the finals of a versifying smackdown called Poetry Out Loud.

The Poetry Foundation notes:

Recitation and performance are major new trends in poetry. There has been a recent resurgence of poetry as an oral art form, as seen in the slam poetry movement and the immense popularity of hip-hop music. Poetry Out Loud builds on that momentum by inviting the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, spoken word, and theater into the English class.....

You may listen to previous years winners. Good luck to Elijah!

What a nice way to bring Poetry Month. to a close.

Civil Rights Digital Library

The Atlanta Journal Constitution had an article about the Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) initiative in Sundays edition.

The Press release information:

......is the most ambitious and comprehensive effort to date to deliver educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web.

The CRDL promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement trough its three principal components:

1)a digital video archive delivering 30 hours of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement
2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by aggregating metadata from 75 libraries and allied organizations from across the nation
3) instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

The centerpiece of the site is a collection of more than 30 hours of historical news film held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. These moving images—about 450 clips--cover a broad range of key civil rights events, including the following:

- desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (1957)
- the Atlanta Temple bombing (1958)
- Atlanta sit-ins (1960)
- Freedom Rides (1961)
- desegregation of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech (1961)
- the Albany Movement (1961-1962)
- desegregation of Ole Miss (1962) and University of Alabama (1963)
- the Americus Movement (1963, 1965)
- Birmingham demonstrations (1963)
- many other topics

The video archive covers both national figures and local leaders. There is more than two hours of film related to Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr.
King’s role in the Albany Movement is documented extensively, including clips of speeches at mass meetings, his arrest by local police, press conferences, and his visit to a pool hall to urge local African Americans to adopt non-violence in achieving change in Albany. Among the clips is coverage of King’s reaction to President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his funeral in 1968.

In addition to the news film, the digital library includes related collections from 75 libraries, archives, and museums across the nation.
Most are original documentation of the period, such as oral histories, letters, diaries, FBI files, and photographs.

A partnership with the online New Georgia Encyclopedia is a key component, providing concise, authoritative articles on events and individuals associated with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, supplemented by images and multi-media files.

The CRDL initiative includes a special site for teachers, called "Freedom on Film" (currently in development) that relates civil rights stories from nine Georgia towns and cities, along with related news film, discussion questions, lesson plans, and related readings. Freedom on Film is being developed by University of Georgia faculty and students, along with scholars from other institutions.

The Civil Rights Digital Library receives financial support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Different hours

Just added "Different Hours" [PS 3554 .U49 D54 2002] by Stephen Dunn to the catalog. I was skimming the Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems and stopped at The Hours -

Worst was to live by somebody else's time,
the hours scheduled for him, smudged
with clarity and motives not his own.......

Struck me as a powerful truth- living by someone else's schedule is never fulfilling. The ability to have flexibility in life and work is so pleasing. It allows one to "feel" in charge of the effort being made.

LION Literature Online in GALILEO has over 200 poems written by Stephen Dunn. LION provides an easy way to get a poetry break during the workday when your hours are set by somebody else's time....

The password to use GALILEO off campus (at home or work) is available from your Georgia librarian.

It sounds like Spring

The sounds of Spring sports - the crack of the baseball, the pounding of the hoofbeats, the whoosh of the golf ball - all bring a smile to the lips after a long winter. If you want to bone up on your sports trivia as you share the joy of Spring sports - The The LibrarianInBlack refers to the Sports Illustrated archive (vault) where one may search for sporting information!

I did a search for Arnold Palmer (I like golf - not to play but to watch) and found 518 articles, 18 photos, 13 covers and 161 videos.

Yes, there is an advanced search feature (as noted by Gary Price at the Resource Shelf), you need to do a simple search first, then the "refine your search" boxes are available to limit your search by decade or date.

This wouldn't be the View from the Library without a reference to GALILEO....you can read Sports Illustrated articles (back to 1992) through EBSCOHost Academic Search Complete, ProQuest and LexisNexis.

I found this information by using the new Journals A-Z tab, typing in Sports Illustrated, then clicking on the title. I was taken to a search box where I could click on the link to the three resources (there was a search box that took me right into Lexis Nexis when I typed in Arnold Palmer).

Both ProQuest and EBSCO allow you to create an "alert" that will send you an e-mail when the new issue is added to the database.

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

Pictures, colors, options, oh my

You've read my moaning about the plain look of Ebsco. They have announced they are changing their interface (must be the season). Here's a Flash demo of the new look.

To use Ebsco products at home through GALILEO you will need the current password, which you may get from your Georgia librarian.

Late wife

English is such a delightful language with nuances and opposing meanings for a word that make it hard to pin down exactly what someone means. With "Late wife" [PS 3551 .N4155 L38 2005], Claudia Emerson has written one of those nuanced titles - is the wife not on time, is she deceased, is she the past wife....which late is she?

Amazon.com notes

Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In Late Wife, a woman explores her disappearance from one life and reappearance in another as she addresses her former husband, herself, and her new husband in a series of epistolary poems. Though not satisfied in her first marriage, she laments vanishing from the life she and her husband shared for years. She then describes the unexpected joys of solitude during her recovery and emotional convalescence. Finally, in a sequence of sonnets, she speaks to her new husband, whose first wife died from lung cancer. The poems highlight how the speaker's rebeginning in this relationship has come about in part because of two couples' respective losses.

Ms. Emerson's poems are clear, poignant, revealing - the late wife begins anew - April is poetry month- look at life from a different perspective - the perspective of a poet.

Open Vault

WGBH Boston has opened the vault on their collection of television shows! Open Vault "provides online access to unique and historically important content produced by public television station WGBH for individual and classroom learning. The ever-expanding site contains video excerpts, searchable transcripts, a select number of complete interviews for purchase, and resource management tools.".

Their Top Picks include Lucille Clifton reading the poem Turning as part of the show Poetry Breaks.

"Poetry Breaks," conceived by Leita Hagemann Luchetti and co-produced by Luchetti and WGBH New Television Workshop, is an ongoing series of over 100 thirty-second to four-minute spots presenting internationally known poets reading their work on location. These have aired individually on WGBH and public television stations across the country. The Workshop collaborated with Luchetti until its closing in 1993, at which point the works became co-productions of Luchetti and the larger WGBH Foundation.

Thanks to Sybil Finemel, Library Director MLIS.CIO., Contributor, lii.org, Librarians' Index to the Internet Virtual Reference Desk Volunteer
24/7 OCLC Reference Librarian for noting the Open Vault on LM_Net.

Nothing stays the same

It is the beginning of the quarter. I'm enjoying showing students the new GALILEO. It is easier to find articles with the search tab and steps 1-3.

The Business Law class uses Lexis Nexis Academic which is not included in the search list. As I prepare to meet a second time with Business Law, to show some tips and tricks of Lexis Nexis - I realized there is a little box at the bottom right, noting Lexis Nexis will change its interface on 26th April 2008.

LexisNexis Academic is getting a new look on April 26, 2008. The improved design is part of an ongoing global effort to improve ease of use for all LexisNexis users.

It feels like they just changed their format (and I'm struggling with finding information in the latest incarnation - though I keep taking the workshops)

It's a test to see if I can keep learning!

Remember you get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

Rolling, rolling,

Rolling down the river.... the tune just popped into my head as I was reading Sidney Lanier's poem Song of the Chattahoochee. The link takes you to LION in GALILEO.

It is National Poetry Month. We have the "Poems of Sidney Lanier" [PS 2205 .A2 L35 1999] on the shelf. It, too, has the Song of the Chattahoochee. I read the poem and created a .wav file with a link in the Poetry Reading section.

Someday, I'll learn how to create mp3 files....someday. I'm feeling quite pleased with my simple .wav!

To access GALILEO (and LION) at home, you need the current password which is available from your Georgia librarian.

It sounds like

In honor of National Poetry month, I'm trying to create audio files of Poetry Reading. I'm learning.

April Showers

Bring May flowers

April is poetry month. From the sublime to the ridiculous, poetry trips off our tongues. We have Poetry for Dummies [PN 1042 .P579 2001], which sounds simplistic but....it is described in Amazon this way:

Sometimes it seems like there are as many definitions of poetry as there are poems. Coleridge defined poetry as “the best words in the best order.” St. Augustine called it “the Devil’s wine.” For Shelley, poetry was “the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.” But no matter how you define it, poetry has exercised a hold upon the hearts and minds of people for more than five millennia. That’s because for the attentive reader, poetry has the power to send chills shooting down the spine and lightning bolts flashing in the brain — to throw open the doors of perception and hone our sensibilities to a scalpel’s edge.

Poetry For Dummies is a great guide to reading and writing poems, not only for beginners, but for anyone interested in verse. From Homer to Basho, Chaucer to Rumi, Shelley to Ginsberg, it introduces you to poetry’s greatest practitioners. It arms you with the tools you need to understand and appreciate poetry in all its forms, and to explore your own talent as a poet.....

And you know what Mayflowers bring?....

yes, it's Pilgrims.

Fulbright Scholar

The "big" school systems (Board of Regents, etc) regularly have Fulbright Scholars, in the Technical College System of Georgia Patrick Blessinger is the first!

His recognition as a Fulbright Scholar and his experiences abroad will not only serve his students very well, but also the entire Technical College System of Georgia, said TCSG Commissioner Ron Jackson.

“The TCSG is pleased that one of our own received the Fulbright grant. It’s a tremendous honor for Patrick and a point of pride for us,” said Jackson. “He’s an example of the consistently outstanding caliber of 6,000 instructors who teach and assist the 140,000 students of the TCSG. It’s exciting to consider the myriad opportunities that Patrick will have to share his experiences with others, especially students, throughout our system.”

We do have outstanding faculty and programs in the TCSG (and at NMTC). Our mission is to prepare students for work. Patrick is doing that with his Marketing program!

More things change

I used the Oxford English Dictionary just this week to look up April Fool! Serendipity led this e-mail from Art Lowe at OED (through Karen Monton at GALILEO) to arrive with the suggestion that one take a quick look at the description of the major changes that are taking place. Vendors must have the Spring cleaning urge too!

*MAJOR CHANGE IN CHOICE OF REVISED WORDS PUBLISHED ONLINE! * .

The sequence of revised entries published online since March 2000 has proceeded from the letter "M" to "quit shilling" (representing between a fifth and a quarter of the dictionary). According to that model, the present publication batch would include words from "quits" to somewhere early in the letter "R".

But after several years of steady alphabetical publication, editors of the OED have decided a change was necessary. The latest update departs radically from the former model, in that its 2,116 entries consist for the most part of key English words from across the alphabet, along with the other words which make up the alphabetical cluster surrounding them.

From now on, the editors will alternate between these two models each quarter, with the next publication range (in June 2008) continuing from /quits/, and the subsequent one (September 2008) presenting a further range of major words and their associated alphabetical clusters.

The main purpose of this change is to revise, much earlier than would otherwise have been the case, important English words whose meanings or application have developed most over the past century. Some of these key words are, as one might expect, among those often looked up by readers of the OED.

Looking for titles

I really like the new interface for GALILEO. I'm looking forward to showing the SCT 100 (Intro to Computers) classes how it works! Ebsco is also changing how they present information to users.

NoveList is explaining their changes via their NoveList Notes. They did say "Please share by forwarding to any other colleagues who would benefit from this content."

We know that the new version of NoveList not only has a different look, but sometimes requires you to re-think how to use our product. We apologize for any inconvenience or extra time it has taken you to navigate this new version. We are committed to supporting you in this transition and while NoveList has a new look, we remain committed to supporting you in your work with readers and to delivering the best possible product to help you in that important work.

These 8 tips are from the March 2008 NoveList Notes:

1. Tour NoveList

Select this link from the "My NoveList" section to access the Training Help page with training and support materials that will help smooth the way to maximum use of this version of NoveList. In addition to a five-minute animated presentation that provides an overview and basic navigation tips of this version's home page and search results ("Tour NoveList"), there is a Quick Start Guide and Help Sheets on Series, Printing and Searching. Based on the feedbacks we received, we are also developing a training PowerPoint that you can use with your colleagues.

Also, check out our New Release Notes FAQ linked from the Spotlight section of the homepage which addresses some of our most asked questions that have come up with the release of the new interface.

2. Where Is My Favorite Search?

All searches--Author, Title, Describe a Plot, Series Name, Boolean and Article and List Search--can be done from the main search box on the homepage. You can just type the author name, title and/or subject term(s) in the Find box, and click the Search button. For power users, you can perform Boolean searches (AU Crichton AND TI Airframe) without clicking to the Advanced Search (or the Freehand Boolean Search found in the previous version).

As a side note, we found that our searching needed to be tightened up a bit after launch (thanks to many of you who sent us searching examples to look at). These changes are in effect and we encourage you to continue to send us examples when search results are not what you expected.
(I admire their being responsive to user input - KLS)


3. Searching Across All Content

Searching from a single search bar is a little different. When you enter an author or a title, it now searches not only the designated fields in the MARC record that make up our title database, but it also searches across all of our enhanced content (such as Series, Author Read-alikes, Book Discussion Guides, Grab & Go Book Lists.) Searching on "baseball" finds books related to baseball, as well as relevant items among the feature content, all of which is displayed in a tabbed Result List. The default tab brings you to the list of books retrieved by your search, but there will be additional tabs when your search finds relevant feature content.
The NoveList Tour contains a section on Results Lists and this new tabbed results feature.


4. Searching Styles and Approaches

The single search bar allows a tremendous amount of flexibility and accommodates a wide-range of searching styles. Whether you are a type-and-go searcher (like many of our Describe a Plot fans) or someone who appreciates the power of Boolean, all of these options are available to you from NoveList's home page. To learn more about searching in the current version of NoveList, you can consult the Help files or the Searching Tips Help Sheet contained in the Training page of Help.


5. Search Broadly and then Narrow Down Your Search

This concept was a mainstay of the previous version's Describe a Plot feature. When you are searching in the Basic Search box, your search terms will automatically be "ANDed." So for example, if you were searching by subject (or "Describe a Plotting"), for "women detectives New York" all of these terms would be joined with a Boolean AND. If you retrieve too few results, you can either reduce the number of terms you are searching on or re-enter your search terms separated with the Boolean OR operator ("women or detectives or New York"). If you retrieve too many results you can also narrow down your search using the Narrow Results By Subject feature to the left of your Result List. When you select a link from this column, the terms you selected will be added to your search and will work to reduce your results.


6. Browsing for Information

Many of you commented that in the previous version, you had difficulty remembering which home page tab the Book Discussion Guides or Author Read-alikes were behind. Now all of the customized feature content is accessible from the homepage organized by reading level:

Adults: 19 and above
Teens: 13-18
Older Kids: 9-12
Younger Kids: 0-8

All of the Explore reading lists have been updated and enhanced and are now called Recommended Reads. They are still organized by genre or topic as well as sub-genre or sub-topic.

In addition to the materials organized by reading level, we also have materials organized for adults who are Working with Kids. This section has content that teachers, media specialists, children's librarians and parents would like to access, grouped in a single area.

Finally, we have an updated Readers' Advisory section at the homepage.
If you haven't checked out the Genre Outlines yet, you are in for a treat. We will continue to enhance this and all of our feature content as we have in the past.

7. Browsing vs. Searching

In the old version, you did not have a choice. You searched the title database for books but had to browse various pages for any of the additional rich content such as Author Read-alikes or BookTalks.

If you are looking for an idea or don't really know the name of the item you are looking for, browsing may still be the right tool for you.

However, if you are looking for a specific feature such as the BookTalk for Stormbreaker, you can just enter Stormbreaker in the search bar.

Entering the title returns a tabbed Result List with all of the books and content related to your search. You can find the BookTalk you are looking for by clicking on the BookTalks tab, as well as explore all of the other content NoveList has relating to this title.

8. Fine-tuning Your Searches

NoveList's Advanced Search capability gives you even more flexibility and power when it comes to finding both books and NoveList's renowned lists and features. In addition to the limiters that were available in the old version, such as Lexiles, page numbers and publication dates, NoveList now offers limiters on author nationality and gender, as well as limiters to search titles with reviews and "NoveList Best" (all titles that are mentioned or featured in any of our features). Visit the Advanced Search Help page to learn more about how to use these limiters to find even more of the material you and your readers want to read.