I’m a night owl. OK, insomniac actually. For the sleep-challenged among us there’s little to watch on the tube after midnight. Yes, TiVos and DVRs have helped, and IPTV is just around the corner. But back in the early 90s, when I was a grad student at the University of New Mexico, those technologies were still a long way off. One show that took my mind off the fact that I couldn’t sleep was The Western Tradition, a 52-part lecture series covering the entire sweep of Western history from 3000 BCE to the current age and beyond. The series was produced by WGBH in Boston (c1989), and is now available for free on the Annenberg Media web site. The appeal here lies primarily in the person of recently deceased UCLA history professor Eugen Weber. The British-educated Weber delivers up engaging lectures in an over-the-top, highly mesmerizing, English accent. My local Albququerque public TV station would insidiously run these lectures back-to-back, thus contributing to my insomnia. After listening to lecture 9 on The Rise of Rome who could possibly resist lecture 10, The Roman Empire? —David C. Murray

In an earlier post I discussed the importance of integrating information literacy into the curriculum. Such integration is already occurring at Temple, not only in the new General Education curriculum but also in the overlap with competencies mandated by various academic departments. Below are listed several competencies developed by the History Department, after which can be found the analogous information literacy outcome(s). History Competency: Critically examines written materials and historical sources Information Literacy Analog (outcome 13): Recognizes social and cultural context in which information was created History Competency: Understands primary sources in their historical context Information Literacy Analog (outcome 6): Differentiates between primary and secondary sources History Competency: Formulates analytical questions about historical events Information Literacy Analogs (outcomes 1, 8, and 14): Identifies key concepts and terms; Identifies keywords, synonyms, and related terms; and particularly Incorporates information into knowledge base / Synthesizes main ideas to form new concepts and questions History Competency: Develops speaking and presentation skills Information Literacy Analog (outcome 19): Communicates product effectively (best medium and format for purpose, range of technology, communicates clearly in appropriate style) History Competency: Gains ability to use library and other technologically appropriate sources for research Information Literacy Analog (outcomes 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11): All five outcomes under Effective Information Access If you are a Temple faculty member, please consider formally addressing one or two information literacy outcomes in at least one course this year. It’s quite simple really; chances are you are addressing several outcomes already! The reference librarians are available to assist and support as desired. –David C. Murray

The Libraries are currently running trials to four history-related databases: British Periodicals; C19: The Nineteenth Century Index; House of Commons Parliamentary Papers; and Periodical Archives Online. I have received lots of positive feedback from faculty on the latter two databases, both of which appear prominently on the history resources “wish list” for 2006-2007. Periodical Archives Online is the full-text, online version of the old Periodicals Contents Index. It would be very helpful to receive feedback on C19: The Nineteenth Century. Can this database take the place of the currently-subscribed-to 19th Century Masterfile? For good or ill, The Masterfile has a relatively simple search interface. Please send your feedback on the usefulness of any of these resources to me at dcm@temple.edu. —David C. Murray

Background William Still’s Underground Railroad was first published in Philadelphia in 1872, and is considered by many historians to be the most important primary-source document available on the subject. As a consequence of its historical significance, Still’s book today is widely available in print, microfiche, and online (see, for example, the original 1872 illustrated edition from Quinnipiac University Library; or the 1878 revised edition at Project Gutenberg). Portions of the Underground Railroad are also available in two Temple-only Alexander Street Press databases: The American Civil War: Letters & Diaries and North American Women’s Letters & Diaries. For each letter writer in Still’s book, Alexander Street Press indexes the following: name; places of birth and death, if known; gender; nationality; race; ethnicity; religion; occupation; education level; school attended; political allegiance (Union or confederate); state of residence; military status and rank, if applicable; marital and parental status; and cause of death. It is easy to restrict a search to any combination of these fields (e.g. male letter writers from Pennsylvania who were Quakers). Temple Exclusive Temple University Libraries is pleased to make available the McGowan Index – Copyright 2003 by Temple alumnus, James A. McGowan — a new and wholly unique index to William Still’s important work. The focus here is on the runaways. McGowan’s database indexes name and alias (of runaway); day, month, and year of escape; city, county, and state of origin; gender; age; color; number of escapees in the party, including number captured if applicable; children in the party; ability of runaway to read/write; conductor name; party armed or unarmed; violence or no violence involved in escape; mode of escape; owner name; and estimated monetary value of runaway in and out of home state. The McGowan Index opens up new opportunities for research, and it beautifully complements the indexing done by Alexander Street Press. Note that page numbers refer to the 1970 Johnson Publications reprint of the Underground Railroad, not the original 1872 edition. All researchers, Temple and non-Temple alike, are encouraged to download the Index (350 K), which is in Excel spreadsheet format, from the U.S. Civil War Subject Guide. Using Excel filters, users can limit searches to a particular field or combination of fields. The McGowan Index may be used for educational purposes only. —David C. Murray

It’s been more than 140 years since the guns fell silent, but the U.S. Civil War apparently still has the power to provoke. According to this story in American Libraries Online, a thief recently stole two Civil War Era documents from an exhibition at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The article states that the library estimated the combined value of the two documents at only $400; other, more valuable items were passed over by the thief. Removed from the exhibition case were a confederate soldier’s furlough and the medical examination certificate of a slave. “Retired police captain Walt Hilderman, who loaned the documents to the library, said that the thief could have been motivated by controversy stemming from his split with the group Sons of Confederate Veterans…” “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” –Henry Miller —David C. Murray

ProQuest recently announced improvements to the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA). Significant enhancements include: — Faster, simpler searching via a Quick Search box — Easy bookmarking of content via durable URLs for reading lists and course web pages — Quick results review supported by hit-term highlighting in the full record display — Seamless emailing and printing records through a marked list — Easy saving of content and bibliographic records between work sessions through an individual MyArchive feature and citation software support —David C. Murray

Temple University Libraries has acquired Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial Edition (c2006). This resource is available not only online but as a 5-volume print work located in Paley Library’s 1st floor reference stacks. The Millennial edition is a greatly updated and expanded version of the previous 2-volume 1970 edition, which has been available both online and in print for many years. The online Millennial edition represents a major step forward in the researcher’s ability to gather and compare historical U.S. statistics. “It has now been expanded to include over 37,000 data series, which is three times more than the previous edition. This edition includes dozens of new topics including slavery, American Indians, and poverty” (HSUS Introduction, Cambridge Online). Topics are “placed in historical context by a recognized expert in the field. The fully searchable and downloadable electronic edition . . . permits users to graph individual tables and create customized tables and spreadsheets reflecting their own particular areas of interest” (ibid.). Additional features include: * Save your search criteria * Search within a chapter or volume * Bookmark tables or essays * Searchable term and contributor indexes * View tables in PDF or HTML format * Tables online include full documentation, sources, and footnotes * Select certain years or series of years to view, download, print, or graph * Download unrounded table data, for more detailed statistical analyses. * Enhanced table display features: jump to a certain table column (series), skip over blank data cells, highlight table rows and columns for readability * Toggle table sorting by ascending or descending year * Create and download colorful charts, graphs, and plots * Email a table or essay to a colleague –David C. Murray