Author: dorner
EVENT Bancroft Roundtable: Land, Wealth and Power: Digitizing the California Land Case Files, 1852-1892
November 17, 2022 | Noon | Register via Zoom
Presented by Adrienne Serra, Digital Project Archivist, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, with an introduction by Principal Investigator Mary Elings, Interim Deputy Director, Associate Director, and Head of Technical Services, The Bancroft Library
In 2021, The Bancroft Library launched a large-scale digitization project to preserve and provide online access to more than 127,000 pages of California Land Case Files dating from ca. 1852 to 1892. These records tell an important story about the use and distribution of land, as well as social and legal justice in California following statehood in 1850, when all Spanish and Mexican land grants holders were required to prove their land claims in court. A lengthy process of litigation followed, which resulted in many early Californians losing their land. The Land Case Files are heavily used by current land owners, genealogists, historians, and environmentalists to understand the land, its uses, and ownership over time. The digitization project, Land, Wealth and Power: Private Land Claims in California, ca. 1852 to 1892 (Mary Elings, Principal Investigator), was awarded a 2019 Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices grant. Digital Project Archivist Adrienne Serra will discuss the collection and the project, including the challenges of preparing and imaging fragile materials under pandemic restrictions, and plans for future community engagement projects.
See you there! As always, this talk will also be recorded and added to our Youtube channel.
Best,
Christine & José Adrián
Christine Hult-Lewis, PhD
José Adrián Barragán-Álvarez, PhD
Bancroft Library Roundtable Coordinators
Resource: Bancroft Roundtables online
The Bancroft Library has updated its website with links to online presentations of most of the past Bancroft Roundtable events. These include:
September 16th
Expanding Access to WWII Japanese American Incarceree Data Using Machine Learning
Presented by Marissa Friedman, Digital Project Archivist, The Bancroft Library
Watch online on YouTube
October 21st
A Good Drink: In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits
Presented by Shanna Farrell, Interviewer, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library
Watch online on YouTube
November 18th
The Photographs of the Northwest Boundary Survey, 1857 to 1862
Presented by James Eason, Principal Archivist, Pictorial Collection, The Bancroft Library
Watch online on YouTube
Event: Documenting the Japanese American Incarceration through Narratives and Data. June 2
Documenting the Japanese American Incarceration Through Narratives and Data
June 2 | 2-4 p.m. | Doe Library, Morrison Library
In person and online: ucberk.li/bancroft-symposium
Hosted by The Bancroft Library, Berkeley Library
The event is posted in the UC Berkeley Events Calendar here.
Session 1: Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project: Is Healing Possible?
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
This session explores the Oral History Center’s ongoing Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project that documents and disseminates the ways in which intergenerational trauma and healing occurred after the U.S. government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. This project examines and compares how private memory, creative expression, place, and public interpretation intersect at the Manzanar and Topaz prison camps in California and Utah. This panel will include discussion with interviewers, and it will feature conversations with a clinical psychologist and specialist in intergenerational trauma who advises on the project and leads healing circles for narrators, as well as a narrator who was interviewed for the project.
Roger Eardley-Pryor, Interviewer, the Oral History Center
Shanna Farrell, Interviewer, the Oral History Center
Dr. Lisa Nakamura, clinical psychologist and Topaz descendant
Ruth Sasaki, Topaz Stories Editor
Amanda Tewes, Interviewer, the Oral History Center
Session 2: Giving Data Back to the Community through Computational Scholarship: Two Case Studies Focused on Japanese American Incarceree Records from World War II
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
This session brings together two in-process projects that are working to encourage computational and ethical access to collections and data. Presenters from The Bancroft Library and Densho will discuss their projects related to records surrounding the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II. The intersectional and positional work of these projects highlights the importance of building new partnerships outside of the archives to create new content and implement community co-curation models to support on-going inquiry, knowledge-building, and exploration around this topic, with implications for vulnerable communities today.
Mary Elings, Interim Deputy Director, The Bancroft Library
Marissa Friedman, Digital Project Archivist, The Bancroft Library
Brian Niiya, Content Director, Densho
Geoff Froh, Deputy Director, Densho
Vijay Singh, CEO, Doxie.AI
These events will be recorded.
Funding for this event was made possible, in part, by grants from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program and The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation.
Covid Protocols
We ask that participants comply with all health and safety guidelines and protocols recommended by UC Berkeley. This includes wearing a mask while indoors.
All Audiences
bancroft@library.berkeley.edu, 510-642-3781
If you require an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please contact Amber Lawrence at libraryevents@berkeley.edu or 510-459-9108 at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.
Primary Sources: Accessible Archives
The Library has an ongoing subscription to Accessible Archives, which provides access to valuable newspaper content, county histories, early periodicals, books, and pamphlets. The collections can be browsed or searched (though the search interface is fairly clunky).
The most recent additions to Accessible Archives include:
- African American Newspapers, Part XIV: The Canadian Observer, 1914-1919
- Invention and Technology in America: American Inventor, 1878-1887
- America and World War I: American Military Camp Newspapers, Parts I and II
Primary Sources: Soviet Woman Digital Archive
The Library has acquired the Soviet Woman Digital Archive, an online source for the full run of Soviet Woman magazine.
Published initially under the aegis of the Soviet Women’s Anti-Fascist Committee and the Central Council of Trade Unions of the USSR, in the aftermath of WWII in 1945, the Soviet Woman magazine began as a bi-monthly illustrated magazine tasked with countering anti-Soviet propaganda. The magazine introduced Western audiences to the lifestyle of Soviet women, their role in the post-WWII rebuilding of the Soviet economy, and praised their achievements in the arts and the sciences.
Additional Information:
The magazine covered issues dealing with economics, politics, life abroad, life in Soviet republics, women’s fashion, as well as broader issues in culture and the arts. One of its most popular features was the translations of Soviet literary works, making available in English, (and other languages) works of Russian and Soviet writers that were previously unavailable. An important communist propaganda outlet, the magazine continued its run until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Primary Sources: Books of Modern China & Picture Gallery of Chinese Modern Literature
The Library has recently acquired Books of Modern China (1840-1949), 中国近代图书全文数据库, a collection of more than 120,000 Chinese books published in Mainland China. Many of them are unique titles and are only available through this digital collection from the Shanghai Library.
The Picture Gallery of Chinese Modern Literature (1833-1949), 图述百年—中国近代文献图库 contains more than one million images that have been collected from books, periodicals, newspapers, and old photos held by the Shanghai Library.
These resources have been added to the History: Asia guide.
TRIAL: Mass Observation Project
Until April 28, 2022, the Library has trial access to the Mass Observation Project. Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders’ aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.
The Mass Observation Project consists of directives (questionnaires) sent out by the Project and the responses gathered. They address topics such as the Falklands War, clothing, attitudes to the USA, reading and television habits, morality and religion, and Britain’s relations with Europe. Broad themes covered include current events, friends and family, the home, leisure, politics, society, culture and the media, work, finance and the economy and new technology.
EVENT: Getting your book published open access: a panel discussion with Springer Nature and UC Berkeley
Are you a scholarly author interested in publishing a book, but unfamiliar with how to find an editor or press? Have you considered publishing that book open access and want to understand your open access book publishing options?
Springer Nature and UC Berkeley invite you to join us for a virtual panel discussion.
Hear from a panel of Springer Nature Open Access Books Editors in both STM and the Humanities, and a recent author about the process of getting your manuscript published.
You’ll come away from this discussion with practical advice about opportunities at UC Berkeley to publish open access books with Springer Nature, and guidance for submitting and revising your work, writing a book proposal, approaching editors, signing your first contract, and navigating the peer review and publication process.
While the event is focused on supporting UC Berkeley authors, it is open to all, as other institutions may be interested in entering into open access book agreements with publishers.
When: Monday, 14th March 2022; 11am-12:15pm PDT
Where: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VhjMRxIhQ3CmhYuPDv0nGw
RSVP: Please click on the link above to register and you’ll receive a Zoom link to join on the day.
— — — — —
Just FYI, here are a few of the UCB authored/edited books made available OA through the agreement so far. There are several more in the works.
- Natasha Distiller – Complicities: A theory for subjectivity in the psychological humanities
- Jean Walrand – Probability in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Joan DeJaeghere, Erin Murphy-Graham – Life Skills Education for Youth
Trial: Black Life in America
Until March 15, the Library has trial access to Black Life in America, This resource consists of two parts: BLA (1704-1877): Arrival in America Through Reconstruction and BLA (1878-1975): Jim Crow Through Civil Rights. Both series are comprised of articles from over 20,000 mostly American, but some international newspapers about all manner of Black life in America.
Primary Sources: Digitized records recently added to the NARA catalog
The National Archives and Records Administration recently added new sets of records of digitized items to its catalog.
Warden’s Notebook Pages, 1934 – 1963 (Alcatraz)
These looseleaf notebook pages contain basic summary information about, and an identification photograph (frontal view of face), of each inmate. In some cases collateral material, such as disciplinary reports or news clippings, are also included. Some of the information in these records is incorrect when compared with the more extensive inmate files. Several warden’s notebook pages are not extant, although accompanying disciplinary reports filed with the notebook page are sometimes available. The records were also microfilmed in 1978 by the Bureau of Prisons. The microfilmed version includes some/all of the “missing” original pages. These pages have been printed and interfiled among the original records. The records may be restricted due to privacy concerns. Register numbers 1 through 900 have been screened and are open for research.
Boulder Canyon Project Histories, 1948 – 1966
This series contains histories, which include photographs, data tables, maps, and technical drawings, that describe projects authorized under the Boulder Canyon Project Act, namely Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam), Boulder Power Plant, located on the Colorado River, and the All-American Canal, all Bureau of Reclamation projects. The histories include information on project construction, operation, and maintenance, including the installation of power plant machinery. The records document the creation and construction of Boulder City, Nevada, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Photographs Relating to Federal Aviation Facilities, 1946 – 1972
This series consists of photographs relating to the Federal Aviation Administration’s area operations and facilities throughout Alaska. These locations and facilities include the Aleskya Oil Pipeline, Mt. McKinley or Denali, Merrill Field, Elmendorf Air Force Base, Akiak, Amchitka, Cordova, Fairbanks, Iliamna, Kodiak, Metlakatla, Nenana, Nome, Portage, Skagway, Juneau, Tanana, and Wrangel.
Information Cards for Inmates of the Langenstein-Zwieberge Concentration Camp, ca. 1947 – ca. 1947
This series consists an index to inmates of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp. Each index file includes the inmate’s name, date of birth, nationality, and prisoner number. Files of deceased inmates are marked with a cross. The index, originally created by the German authorities in charge of the camp, is in German.
Intelligence Files, 1946 – 1953
The Intelligence Files include charts, graphs, correspondence, memorandums, reports, and printed materials and is comprised of four subseries. The Central Intelligence Files subseries consists mostly of daily summaries of the military situation in Korea from June 1950 to January 1953, with references to political and economic issues, cease-fire negotiations, and communist propaganda. Also in the subseries are intelligence memorandums concerning Europe, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, Israel, Yugoslavia, and China.