Category Archives: Library News

Talking about the Roman Wedding

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Professor Karen Hersch is the author of The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 (Temple catalog record).

I spoke with her on September 20 about her new book. We discuss ancient sources and modern scholarship. She explains the social, legal, and religious significance of the Roman Wedding and its similarities to the modern American wedding. The role of the Roman woman, the significance of the (mythic) Sabine women, and details of the wedding day are covered. The listener will come away with a much greater appreciation of the lives of women in the ancient world.

The first recording is a snippet from the full-length interview.  The complete interview appears directly below it.

Weddings, ancient and modern

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iTunes U link (for downloads)

Roman Wedding

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–Fred Rowland

Integrating the Library into Blackboard 9

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Temple University Libraries’ subject specialists create guides to library resources for general subjects as well as for specific courses and assignments. Faculty should contact Subject Specialists to get more information on these. Here is the Research Guides homepage.

Blackboard is a great place to make these guides available to students. View the Screencast below to see how easy it is to embed a library guide into your Blackboard course.

For more information, see Integrating the Library Into Blackboard.

TU Libraries switches to Refworks 2.0

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Refworks is the citation management program that the Temple University Libraries offers to the university community that makes it easier to store, organize, annotate, and output citations as bibliographies. On Monday, August 23, the Libraries’ switched over to the new Refworks 2.0 interface, which provides a more intuitive and efficient user experience. Anyone familiar with the first version of Refworks (now called Refworks Classic) should be able to make this transition with relative ease.  (The Refworks Classic interface will be available until December simply by clicking on the “Refworks Classic” link in the upper right corner of the Refworks 2.0 interface.)  As before, users can access Refworks 2.0 from the Libraries’ homepage under “Find Articles.”

Here are some of the improvements in Refworks 2.0:

  • Shortcuts that allow quick access to important features
  • Reduced menu bar that includes only the most important items
  • Tabs for quick access to (all) References, Folders, and shared folders

In Refworks 2.0 you don’t need to constantly shift from one page to another to perform simple functions as was often necessary in Refworks Classic.  The same great features are now easier to find and use.  Take a spin on Refworks 2.0!

Here’s a Refworks 2.0 preview. 

—Fred Rowland

 

Discussion with Temple Classicists: Part 2

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This is the second part of my conversation with Classics professors Dan Tompkins, Robin Mitchell-Boyask, and Sydnor Roy, which took place on March 18, 2010. We talked about the impact of new theoretical approaches on classics research, the effect of the Internet on interdisciplinary research, and new channels for distributing PhD dissertations.

Dan Tompkins received his PhD from Yale University in 1968 with a dissertation entitled Stylistic Characterization in Thucydides. Robin Mitchell-Boyask graduated in 1988 from Brown University with a dissertation entitled Tragic Identity: Studies in Euripides and Shakespeare. Sydnor Roy is a 2010 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation is entitled Political Relativism: Implicit Political Theory in Herodotus’ Histories.

Listen to Part II of the Conversation

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iTunes U link (for downloads)

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(Listen to Part I of our conversation.)

—Fred Rowland

Using LexisNexis Congressional

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I was recently reading this article, Wealthy Reap Rewards While Those Who Work Lose, and came upon this paragraph: “‘The nation’s jobs crisis is so catastrophic that, unless Congress acts on the scale of the New Deal, millions of Americans will experience extremely long periods of unemployment for many years ahead,’ Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, told a panel of the Committee on Ways and Means recently.” I wanted to read exactly what Lawrence Mishel said in his testimony before the Committee. This provided a perfect opportunity to use LexisNexis Congressional, which indexes (and often provides full-text to) committee transcripts and hearings. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Go into LexisNexis Congressional and click on the Advanced Search tab
  2. Make sure just the Hearings box is checked
  3. From the search dropdown box, select Witness
  4. In the search field type: Mishel, Lawrence
  5. Click Search And, Voila! You’ll get this citation: [Job Creation], CIS-NO: Not Yet Assigned, SOURCE: Committee on Appropriations. Senate, DOC-TYPE: Hearing , DATE: Jan. 21, 2010., CIS/Index

From there, it’s easy to find your way to the full-text. Watch this SCREENCAST to see how it’s done.

Interviews: Library Prize Winners 2010

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Interviews with the winners of the 2010 Library Prize for Undergraduate Research are now available.

bermudez.jpgDonald Bermudez speaking at the Library Prize Awards Ceremony, May 5, 2010

Donald Bermudez – author of Keystone of the Keystone: The Falls of the Delaware and Bucks County 1609-1692 (History 4997) – and faculty sponsor Rita Krueger are interviewed by Adam Shambaugh

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hussey.jpgBrian Hussey speaking at the Library Prize Awards Ceremony, May 5, 2010

Brian Hussey – author of Setting the Agenda: The Effects of Administration Debates and the President’s Personal Imperatives on Forming Foreign Policy During the Reagan Administration (History 4997) – and faculty sponsor Rita Krueger are interviewed by Fred Rowland

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young.jpgCharise Young speaking at the Library Prize Awards Ceremony, May 5, 2010

Charise Young – author of African American Women’s Basketball in the 1920s and 1930s: Active Participants in the “New Negro” Movement (History 4296) – and faculty sponsor Bettye Collier-Thomas are interviewed by Fred Rowland

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For more information on this year’s winners and honorable mentions, go to the Winners page.

Refworks 2.0 beta available

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When you log into Refworks, you now have the option to try out the Refworks 2.0 beta version. Just click on the link in the upper right corner for “Refworks 2.0.” When using Refworks 2.0, you will have access to all the citations in your Refworks database. From Refworks 2.0, you can switch back to the traditional interface by clicking “Refworks Classic” in the upper right corner. Make sure you save any new work before switching between the two interfaces.

Refworks 2.0 preview RW2.jpg —Fred Rowland

Talking About Starbucks

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simon2.jpgTemple history professor Bryant Simon is the author of Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks, published by University of California Press in 2009. It describes how the Starbucks phenomenon reflects many of the social and cultural trends in American society and business. On March 24, 2010, he stopped by Paley Library to talk to me about his new book. He discussed the history of the company, the research methods he employed, the coffeehouse tradition, the shrinking of public spaces in America, and how we might renew our civic culture.

Listen to the audio of the interview

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iTunes U link (for downloads)

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—Fred Rowland

Discussion with Temple Classicists

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On March 18, 2010 I had the opportunity to speak with Classics professors Dan Tompkins, Robin Mitchell-Boyask, and Sydnor Roy. I wanted to understand how Classics research–and humanities research more generally–had changed in the course of the past few decades in the wake of broad transformations in academia, technology, and society.

Dan Tompkins received his PhD from Yale University in 1968 with a dissertation entitled Stylistic Characterization in Thucydides. Robin Mitchell-Boyask graduated in 1988 from Brown University with a dissertation entitled Tragic Identity: Studies in Euripides and Shakespeare. Sydnor Roy is a 2010 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation is entitled Political Relativism: Implicit Political Theory in Herodotus’ Histories.

We began by discussing their respective dissertation experiences: where they studied, what kinds of sources they used, the technology that was available, and the scholarly community that surrounded them. Since the three dissertations spanned the years from 1968 to 2010, the discussion revealed interesting similarities and differences in the academic environment over the past forty years. Below is Part 1 of our discussion. Parts 2 and 3 will follow.

Listen to the audio of the discussion, Part I

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iTunes U link (for downloads)

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—Fred Rowland

Discussing American Jewish History Research

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On September 9, in a ceremony at Sullivan Hall, over one hundred interested faculty, students, staff, friends, and members of the public celebrated the arrival of the Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center (PJAC) to Temple’s Main Campus. This 5 million piece collection is perhaps the best local Jewish archive anywhere in the country and finds an excellent home in the Temple University Libraries’ Urban Archives, a research center specializing in twentieth century Philadelphia. Another new arrival to Temple’s Main Campus, from its former Temple University Center City home, is the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. Both of these organizations will invigorate Jewish studies research at Temple University. On November 6, Sarah Sherman, Archivist for the Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center, and Lila Berman, head of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, sat down with librarian Fred Rowland to discuss the recent arrival of these two organizations. They discuss the long arc of Philadelphia Jewish history, the history of their respective organizations, and their roles in promoting research at Temple University. Interview (mp3; 28:24 minutes; 26 MB)