Author Archives: Fred Rowland

Pilgrimages and journeys

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I’ve always thought the idea of pilgrimage fascinating, as have many many others, since pilgrimage happens in a lot of religions and cultures. There’s even a two volume encyclopedia called Pilgrimage: from the Ganges to Graceland andmany books. If you do a search in GVRL, you can find articles on pilgrimage in Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, spanning most of the globe, even in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. And it’s been going on for a long time, back to the ancient world. In literature, think of Canterbury Tales andPilgrim’s Progress. Contemporary pilgrimage destinations that have ancient origins include Jerusalem, Mecca, Mount Shan (China), and the Ganges.

What I always associate with pilgrimage, sort of a romantic notion perhaps, is a spiritual / psychological transformation that takes place when you leave everything behind. It’s easier to change when your personal geography is changing every day. The physical and psychological sort of merge. It has quite an allure. Of course there’s always that reaching your destination and getting back part that can be problematic. (But I’m probably confusing a pilgrimage with an escape.) Here’s a nice overview article from the Encyclopedia of Religion on pilgrimage. Here’s an article on Sacred Places from the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Catholic Church defines pilgrimage as “generally a journey to a holy place undertaken from motives of devotion in order to obtain supernatural help or as an act of penance or thanksgiving.” I’ll bet that definition works for many religious traditions. But I don’t think pilgrimage needs to be thought of as strictly a religious phenomenon. Think of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus was set upon by fate and the gods on his homeward journey to Ithaca. Or think of Aeneas, fleeing from the carnage of Odysseus and the Greeks to found the city of Rome. Why did the ancients find journeys so fascinating? Or think of the pilgrims of England journeying from the “civilized” to the raw, innocent, and “primitive”. Richard Slotkin has written some interesting stuff about this. Or think of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, or Sheen in Apocalypse Now(or Brando, who could forget that?), or 2001: A Space Odyssey with Hal, Dave, and Frank.

Finally, I recently heard about two fascinating books by Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who has worked with a lot of Vietnam veterans. The first is calledAchilles in Vietnam, the second Odysseus in America. He uses the Iliad and the Odyssey to explain the journey of the soldier, first in the horror of combat and then on the long road home. It’s not easy.

—Fred Rowland

Some likely sources for the Six Day War

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There’s been lots of talk in the news the last few days on the Six Day War in 1967. Below are some sources you might use to find information. Just for the fun of it. Here are some quick overviews: Arab-Israel War (1967) ; Six Day War.

Databases–Articles

Historical Abstracts

Index Islamicus

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts 

Academic Search Premier 

AUL Index to Military Periodicals

Military and Government Collection

RAMBI: The Index On Articles in Jewish Studies look for articles on history and politics

JSTOR
Mixed Sources–Journals, books, policy briefs, case studies

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) great source if you haven’t looked at this before!
Primary Sources

New York Times Full Text (1851-2003)

Wall Street Journal Full Text (1889-1989)

(London) Times Full Text (1785-1985)

Digital National Security Archive

Oral History Online not a lot on Six Day War but some interviews with participants (a few with Abba Eban)


Encyclopedias

Encyclopaedia of Islam Online I’d use this mainly to find biographies and bibliographies

Encyclopedia Judaica mainly to find biographies of participants and bibliographies


Books

Diamond (Temple’s Library Catalog)

WorldCat


—Fred Rowland

Accessible Archives

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Accessible Archives is an incredible database of American primary source materials from the 18th and 19th century. There are two main sections of content, the first is of 19th century histories of Pennsylvania counties—dozens of them, the second of newspapers. You might already be familiar with some of the newspapers.

Read this on the early Quakers in Delaware County from Ashmead’s History of Delaware County, 1884:

“THE only hamlet in Pennsylvania which had received a distinctive name that was known to persons in England at the time Penn acquired title to the territory was Upland, and that that had done so was doubtless due to the fact that Robert Wade had already made it his home. He being a Friend in communication with members of that religious sect in the mother-country, that circumstance directed the attention of the Quakers, “a society,” says Acrelius, “that the realm could well spare,” to the little cluster of rudely-fashioned dwellings on the banks of the Delaware. Hence Friends (whom, fortunately for the United States, could be spared from Europe to plant on this continent those seeds of political truths and religious liberty which, germinating, have grown into a nation on the maintenance of which the future continuance of constitutional representative government on the earth largely depends), or Quakers, as popularly known, desiring to flee from persecution and ignominy at home, gladly availed themselves of the liberal conditions which Penn offered to persons anxious to leave England, and particularly did the latter meet the approval of those people whose poverty had been largely produced by reason of the heavy fines imposed on them simply because of the religious sentiments they maintained.”

The newspapers included in Accessble Archives include the Pennsylvania Gazette (the NYT of the 18th century), seven African American newspapers of the 19th century, a bunch of small Delaware County newspapers of the 19th century, and finally a genealogical catalogue from 19th century Chester County. Below is an 1854 advertisement for different sorts of buggies, you know, as in horse and buggy.

March 10, 1854
DELAWARE COUNTY REPUBLICAN

“Advertisement
READY MADE CARRIAGES. – The subscribers have now on hand at
their Coachmaking establishment at Media, an assortment of
ready made vehicles, comprising one Germantown Wagon, a Jenny
Lind, three trotting Buggies, and one three post Boat Wagon,
which they offer for sale on reasonable terms. Also, several
second hand wagons of different kinds for sale. The
subscribers are constantly making to order, and have for sale
all kinds of vehicles now in use. Having none but good workmen
in their employ, they are able to turn out their work in the
best manner, and on terms as reasonable as any other
establishment in the county. Both the undersigned are
practical mechanics, and persons who purchase their work may
depend on its being as represented. Jobbing of all kinds, and
repairing done at short notice. DERRICK & FRYER.”


—Fred Rowland

Lesbian Herstory Archives Subject Files

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I am pleased to announce a major acquisition on microfilm, the Lesbian Herstory Archives Subject Files. This is a huge collection of 150 reels of microfilm. An additional reel provides a guide to the collection. The Lesbian Herstory Archives started in 1974 at a time when gay men and lesbian women began actively and vocally and sometimes militantly organizing to demand and defend their right to an equal place in American society. A newsletter of the Archives in 1975 explained:

“The Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather and preserve records of lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives. The process of gathering this material will also serve to uncover and collect our herstory denied to us previously by patriarchal historians in the interests of the culture which they serve…”

The intention from the start was to represent the lives of all lesbians which meant that the Archives itself would have to be very diverse and open to both mainstream and specialized publications as well ephemera. In 2004 the “Archives housed 20,000 volumes, 12,000 photographs, 400 special collections, 2000 periodical titles, 3000 organizational and subject files, thousands of feet of film and video footage, art and artifacts, musical records and tapes, posters and t-shirts, buttons, and personal memorabilia…”

The Subject Files of the Archives are a subset of the complete Archives. The selection process for the Subject Files is based on “relevancy, rarity, and research need”. Items need to be relevant to lesbian history and life in America, rare enough that they are not likely to be easily found elsewhere, and fill a genuine research need of writers and scholars. Since this collection represents a slice of American life during the late 20th and early 21st centuries any number of departments and programs will benefit from it.

If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the microform readers in Paley Library, let me know and I can help you get set up. Often people need a gentle push when working with microfilm.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

—Fred Rowland

Online Thesaurus Linguae Graecae

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The Online Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) contains almost the whole corpus of Greek literature in full-text from the age of Homer through the fall of Byzantium in 1453 AD to the Ottoman Turks. This scholarly tool has very quickly become essential for studying Greek history, literature, and philosophy. Since its origins classical studies has been strongly influenced by language and linguistics. TLG allows researchers to examine Greek at both a broad and a fine-grained level. Scholars can effortlessly search across the database to look for word frequencies and unusual words, concepts and phrases, or they can examine just a single text. You can limit your search to specific centuries, use abbreviated subject and geographic categories, or search a selected group of texts. Using one of the many kinds of Greek fonts, you can not only retrieve texts but also input searches in Greek font. It’s very cool.

Imagine the riches this collection contains: the Presocratics with their focus on the natural world, the Platonic dialogues with their emphasis on ethics and morality, and Aristotle’s wide-ranging and multidimensional gaze. The Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. The writers of the Hellenistic period when Greek learning spread to most of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds. The four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, plus the Acts of the Apostles and the letters. Ancient Hebrew wisdom transmitted through the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures. And don’t forget the apocrypha, like the Gospel of Thomas, Epistle of Barnabas, and the Apocalypse of Daniel. Or the Greek Fathers, or the commentators on Aristotle like Alexander of Aphrodisias.

This is a great scholarly collection and the Temple University Libraries is happy to bring it to faculty, students, and staff.

—Fred Rowland

Library Prize Winners Interviews

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On April 27th, 2007, the awards for the 2006-2007 Library Prize for Undergraduate Research were presented to the winners and honourable mentions. In the weeks following, Fred Rowland, one of Temple’s reference librarians, spoke with the three winners and their faculty sponsors about the prize winning research. These discussions were recorded and are now presented as three audio files (10-12 minute long mp3 files, 2.5-3MB each):

Joseph Basile on his “Ending the ‘Inhuman Traffic’: The Role of Humanitarianism in the British Abolition Movement.”
With Dr. Travis Glasson.
[ensemblevideo contentid=Bn4c1ZnB5ESwh8drQCZ2YQ audio=true]

iTunes U link (for downloads)

Clay Boggs on his “The Jews and the Pharisees in Early Quaker Polemic.”
With Professor David Watt.
[ensemblevideo contentid=ZxhI6Ix2v02nXZ1XuWJmDQ audio=true]

iTunes U link (for downloads)

Matthew M. Rodrigue on his “Rethinking Academia: A Gramscian Analysis of Samuel Huntington.”
With Professor Kathy Le Mons Walker.
[ensemblevideo contentid=xUfuIsTGgkG_stZ0_lYHnQ audio=true]

iTunes U link (for downloads)

Whether you are a faculty member or student, keep the library prize in mind for next year!

(You can subscribe to our podcast feed for future audio content from the Temple University Libraries.)

SAGE Journals Online

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The Library has added the SAGE Journals Online to its subscriptions. The SAGE Full-Text Collections are award-winning, discipline-specific research databases of the most popular peer- reviewed journals in Communication Studies, Criminology, Education, Health Sciences, Management & Organization Studies, Materials Science, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Urban Studies & Planning published by SAGE Publications and participating societies. This database includes more than 246 journals, 240,000 articles, book reviews, and editorials, with all the original graphics, tables, and page numbers. The Collections provide researchers and students with a research environment that is easy to use and complete with the most up-to-date content and backfiles back to volume 1, issue 1. —Al Vara

Two Major New Business Resources

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The library has added two new business resources to our database collection:Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage and Global Insight.

Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage is a major addition to the databases that support company-and-industry research. This database is especially important as Standard & Poor’s is already phasing out their print publications. In the future, almost all of their titles will be in digital formats only.

This database is useful for more than purely business research. The inclusion of the Mutual Fund Reports in the package allows for extensive research of and comparisons among mutual funds. The Standard & Poor’s Register of Corporations, Executives and Directors facilitates extensive research for job hunters, with information on public and private companies. A separate glossary is included and an excellent “Learning Center” that covers the basics of investing, has a retirement tutorial, and covers current tax issues.

Almost all of Standard & Poor’s (traditionally) print publications are included in the database. One of the most important components is the Industry Surveys, and the Global Industry Surveys – which we have not had before. Additional products that we have not had before include the mutual fund profiles and several news letters.

NetAdvantage recently added Compustat Excel Analytics and Compustat International Fundamental Reports with five (5) years of extensive data and charts that can be downloaded directly into Excel.

The following products are in NetAdvantage:
Bond Reports Company Profiles; Corporation Records Fund Reports (more than 14,000 mutual funds are included); Industry Surveys (back to 1998) with Trends and Projections (back to April 1999); Global Industry Surveys (back to 2004); The Outlook (back to 1996); Register – Executives and Directors; Register – Private Companies; Register – Public Companies; Security Dealers of North America; Stock Reports

The Global Insight database was formed by the merger of DRI (Data Resources, Inc.) and WEFA (Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates), combining two well-respected financial and economic information services. It has recently integrated into its package the World Markets Research Centre (WMRC), enabling it to combine same-day analysis and risk assessment of more than 200 countries and industry and market analysis into a single database.

Global insight provides “comprehensive economic and financial coverage of countries, regions, industries, and markets” in a single platform. Historical country-specific data dates back to 1970 and forecasts predict 25 years into the future. Please use Internet Explorer as your browser to access the Excel spreadsheet downloads in the database.

For countries it provides “economic analysis, data and forecasts; political analysis; regulatory analysis; tax laws and impacts; operational conditions; security risk analysis”. This is the first database that we have been able to acquire that provides country risk analysis and forecasting.

Its collections of economic and financial data, updated daily, include “global economic data; global financial data; U.S. economic data and press releases; energy data; industry and sector data; forecast and analysis”.

Global industries covered are: Automotive Industry; Energy Industry; Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Industries; and Telecommunications.

Fields of study supported by the Global Insight database include all departments within the Fox School of Business, Advertising, Political Science, International Health, Geography, and Law.

—Barbara Wright

African American Experience

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The Library is pleased to announce online access to The African American Experience. The resource is described as:

The widest-ranging and easiest-to-use online collection on African American life ever assembled, The African American Experience is the definitive electronic research tool for African American history and culture from one of the most respected publishers in the field. The two primary goals: to provide rock-solid information from authorities in the field, and to allow African Americans to speak for themselves through a wealth of primary sources. Drawing on over 300 titles, and designed under the guidance of leading librarians, this database gives voice to the black experience from its African origins to the present day.

It includes:

*Brand new material from major multivolume print reference sets, such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States, Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights, African American Religious Experience in America, and Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture
*A deep backlist of reference books and monographs, many now available in electronic format for the first time
*A vast collection of hundreds and hundreds of primary documents: manuscripts, speeches, court cases, quotations, advertisements, statistics, and other papers
*Over 4,000 interviews with former slaves—the WPA slave narratives—from the acclaimed The American Slave: A Composite
*Autobiography, now re-indexed and for the first time fully searchable
*Sixty-seven Negro University Press texts from the late 1700s to the early 1970s—classics in black scholarship.

Enjoy! —Al Vara

POIESIS: a full-text philosophy database

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Much of the scholarly communication in philosophy takes place in small journals run on a shoestring out of academic departments, scholarly societies, and associations. Although there’s a lot to be learned from philosophy, there’s not much money in it unless you leave it to, say, get a law degree. Online resources are rather slim compared to many other disciplines. But there are some good ones turning up and the Temple University Libraries is working to make them available to faculty, staff, and students.

Our most recent new resource is Poiesis, a full-text database that makes many of those small underfunded philosophy journals available online. To my knowledge, it’s the only full-text database that narrowly focuses on philosophy. In order to have access to the online editions in Poiesis, a library has to also hold a print subscription to the journals as well. Temple subscribed to around forty new philosophy journals this year in order to bring Poiesis to the campus.

Here’s a list of the journals available through Poiesis. From the Temple web site, Poiesis can be accessed from the All Databases or the Arts and Humanities list. Individual titles are available through Journal Finder. Poiesis currently contains 50 journal titles for a total of 2200 issues and 330,000 pages. Eventually it should contain 100 journal titles. The primary users of this database will be philosophy faculty and students, but there is also relevant content for students of related disciplines like religion and literature. The interface of this database is a bit quirky and takes a bit of time to get used to, so better start using it today! Please contact me with any questions.

Our other new electronic resources for philosophy are the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Cambridge Companions Online. All together these three new resources make philosophy research at Temple quicker and easier.


—Fred Rowland