Day: October 28, 2013

Trial: Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1, 1718-1876

Posted on by dorner

The Library has arranged a trial of the online database Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1, 1718-1876. This resource was created in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society and will provide access to “more than 150 years of Caribbean and Atlantic history, culture and daily life. Featuring publications from 22 islands, Caribbean Newspapers will provide complete facsimiles of every available issue, including eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, obituaries and other news items. Most of these newspapers were published in the English language, but a number of Spanish-, French-, and Danish-language titles are also provided. Countries represented include Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nevis, Puerto Rico, St. Bartholomew, St. Christopher, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, and the Virgin Islands. Also found within this resource are newspapers from Bermuda, an island not technically part of the Caribbean, but situated on shipping routes between Europe and this region and integrally related to its history.”

Readex just released this product and will be adding content each month. The trial provides access to the first release and will run through 11/30/13. Please send your comments on the value and usefulness (or not) to me or post them here.

The link will take you to a list of resources we get through Readex and you can find Caribbean Newspapers in the section Archive of Americana.

SCP Monthly Update

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

SCP monthly update

October 2013

Last month there were only a couple of significant serial distributions, for Open Access serials (121 titles) and SuperStar (77 titles). The major monograph distributions were for the Alexander Street Press Classical music library (2385 titles), SuperStar (289 titles), Wiley (163 titles) and IEEE (109 titles).For our two DDA pilots, the CRC Press ENGnetBASE DDA selections now total 184 titles and the Airiti DDA offerings comprise 520 titles. Note there have already been 14 Airiti titles purchased. The vendor records for these purchased titles will be replaced with OCLC records.

Until next month ?

Vendor visit: Gale (more info)

Posted on by UC Berkeley Library

Additional info about the visit from Gale representatives on Tuesday, October 29 at 4pm in 251 Doe (Librarian’s Office conference room):

“Rob Hoyer and Vince Vessalo of the Gale Digital Collections team of Cengage Learning will be presenting an overview of and update on their newest and most popular historical archives, including both new and flagship products such as NCCO (parts 5-12), Sabin Americana, The Associated Press Archives, Indigenous Peoples – North America, Chatham House, Liberty/Listener/Punch Magazines, Slavery/Anti-Slavery (parts 2-4), and many more. Come hear how these valuable resources relate directly to your subject areas, how they benefit the entire UC community from researchers to staff to students to faculty, and how they can be used in the library, the classroom, and the home environments.”

Featured Book: Writing History in the Digital Age

Posted on by dorner

The Library has on order a print copy of Writing History in the Digital Age, a born-digital book also freely available from the University of Michigan Press. The Press’s web site describes how this book came into being:

 “Writing History in the Digital Age began as a “what-if” experiment by posing a question: How have Internet technologies influenced how historians think, teach, author, and publish? To illustrate their answer, the contributors agreed to share the stages of their book-in-progress as it was constructed on the public web.

 “To facilitate this innovative volume, editors Jack Dougherty and Kristen Nawrotzki designed a born-digital, open-access, and open peer review process to capture commentary from appointed experts and general readers. A customized WordPress plug-in allowed audiences to add page- and paragraph-level comments to the manuscript, transforming it into a socially networked text. The initial six-week proposal phase generated over 250 comments, and the subsequent eight-week public review of full drafts drew 942 additional comments from readers across different parts of the globe.

“The finished product now presents 20 essays from a wide array of notable scholars, each examining (and then breaking apart and reexamining) if and how digital and emergent technologies have changed the historical profession.

“Jack Dougherty is Associate Professor of educational studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is collaborating with students and colleagues on a public history web-book titled On The Line: How Schooling, Housing, and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and Its Suburbs, which has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 “Kristen Nawrotzki is Lecturer at the University of Education in Heidelberg, Germany, and Senior Research Fellow in the Early Childhood Research Centre at the University of Roehampton in London, United Kingdom.”