Google Newspaper Archive Collection

It seems once you land find one archive the rest sort of wander over to great you. On Google News there is a collection archive of scanned newspapers from various dates, cities and countries.


There are newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s as well as through the depression era and the 1960s in the US. Some of the newspapers only contain one issue and others have a full collection of publication.

It really is entertaining to read some of the early issues of various newspapers. The Covington Journal mission is to "cover politics, literature, education, agriculture and the news of the day."

You can perform a keyword search to find topics of interest. Keep in mind that usage and terminology has changed over time.

For example, suffrage was used in connection with slavery and then freed men and women. It later became a term connected to woman's suffrage. The term womens liberation came into use much later.

If you are looking for historical comparisons today's hot topics this is one of the places you should considers investigating.

No Love Lost at the Library

It's Valentine's Day and I've managed to drag myself out of the house into the library. I've been coming here most of winter intersession and expected today to be the same as most of this past month, pretty empty. So imagine my surprise to be lucky enough to find an empty computer terminal.

Everywhere today it's impossible not to see signs of Valentine's Day. Many bemoaning why is this holiday once again upon us. So thinking in terms of a librarian-to-be, I decided to make this my research topic of the day before settling down to my studies. I did a little research last week to see if we had many books in the Shatford library on this topic when constructing a book display. As expected, a search didn't yield many on this topic so I had to get a little creative in my search. My favorite book that I'd discovered awhile back when doing other book displays was:

Kissing: everything you ever wanted to know about one of life's sweetest pleasures by Andrea Demirjian, so I had to add this along with the other books on making home-made greeting cards, the history of chocolate and more. For film lovers, you may be interested in picking up The great romantic films by Lawrence J. Quirk. A classmate had picked up an ARC copy of And the rest is history : the famous (and infamous) first meetings of the world's most passionate couples by Marlene Wagman-Geller at ALA's Mid-Winter conference. This book is not on display as I will admit the ARC copy is not very picturesque at all, but it did prompt me in finding some books on famous couples. In my search, I found interesting books on Antony & Cleopatra and Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo. If you're interested in the history of Valentine cards, take a peek at The Valentine and its origins by Frank Staff.

Here's an interesting and amusing article I found, Valentine's Day : From ancient saints to candy hearts that sheds a little light on the history of this holiday. This is my tribute to this holiday whilst wearing my "Librarians Have a Heart" t-shirt that I snagged at ALA's Mid-Winter conference in January.

AFRO Archives - African American Newspaper

There are web sites that have open newspaper archives but it has been hard to find a collection of historical African American newspapers on-line. That situation is improving thanks to a partnership between the AFRO American newspapers and Google.

The AFRO Archives allows visitors to read and examine newspapers from various time periods. The archives can tell you what the important news items of the day, commentary and opinion and a text snapshot of the goods, services and products being targeted to readers of the newspaper.

I read a few of the early papers and I was surprised about seeing the railroad schedules listed for the various rail lines. I made me wonder about the importance of the railroad in terms of employment and receiving goods from other places.

I could also get a sense that some of the issues that make the news today have historical connections. When reading the paper it is important to remember that this is a view into the thoughts and attitudes of the past. It took a moment to understand that the whitecaps mentioned in a news story referred to member of the Klan.

You can browse the archive or you can enter a search term to find articles that contain key words. When I entered "library" I was presented with articles about libraries trying to open or trying to prevent from being closed.

One of the articles that I read from 1947 wrote about the work of the YWCA in helping to open the library to all citizens except colored children under 16.

This is the beginning stage of the archive, more newspapers from the AFRO American newspaper chain need to be added. This is a neat research tool that libraries and schools and history buffs can enjoy and use.

Patrons support their libraries!

News articles from UK

Library clears its shelves in protest at closure threat: Users urged to take out full allowance of library books in campaign to keep Stony Stratford branch open.
Maev Kennedy , guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 January 2011

and Hawaii
Big human chain helps small town library in Kapaau: Nearly 2,000 volunteers lined up on the Akoni Pule Highway on Saturday to form a human chain, so they could pass the thousands of books – or huki puke, in Hawaiian – over a mile and a third down the road to their new library.
http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2010/10/25/video-big-human-chain-helps-small-town-library-in-kapaau

The Library Radio Network

I'm a big fan of audio and video podcasting so this is an excellent idea. The Library Radio Network allows users to listen on-line or download the programs to the mp3 or media device.

For those of us on mobile devices you can visit http://kiesermanmedia.podbean.com/mobile to stay in touch with the program. (Watch your data rate folks if you are not on an unlimited plan.)


From the announcement I received:

We are pleased to announce a new online news source for librarians called The Library Radio Network (TLRN) which will debut on February 15th.

TLRN will feature library news you can use as well as fascinating interviews with library leaders from throughout the world.

TLRN will also feature a monthly radio magazine called Library Perspectives, which will be a hosted hour-long downloadable program using the NPR format featuring interviews and segments on libraries and librarians.

This can give folks in the library biz a chance to make their case for the importance of libraries, what they are doing, what works and what needs to be re-visioned.

Sacramento Valley Chapter of REFORMA Offering Scholarships to Drexel’s Graduate School

From: http://sacramento.drexel.edu/about-drexel/announcements/reformaScholarships/
SACRAMENTO, CA., January 3, 2011 — The Sacramento Valley Chapter of REFORMA has announced it will award up to three $10,000 scholarships for its members to attend Drexel University's Center for Graduate Studies in Sacramento.
The Drexel/California Gold REFORMA Leadership Scholarship can be applied toward tuition for the master's degree program in Library and Information Science offered at Drexel's Center for Graduate Studies in Sacramento.
Download theDrexel University/California GoldREFORMA Leadership ScholarshipInstructions and Application [PDF]

David Hoffman and Thoughts About Libraries

This is a TED video presentation by filmmaker David Hoffman. In 2008 a fire destroyed his books, photos, negatives and home.

From the TED biography page:

Documentary filmmaker David Hoffman has been capturing reality for almost 4 decades, following his wide-ranging interests and turning them into films for PBS, The Discovery Channel, A&E, National Geographic.

This is his presentation on converting his loss into a positive experience. Which begs the question; are libraries important enough to the society to save? If we believe that then what are we doing to help the general and politicized public understand why it essential to maintain a vital public library system?

This man is a collector. What he lost cannot be replaced. Libraries are living collections of what we believe to be essential information for a community to have access to and use.

What will the community lose if the doors are allowed to be bolted shut?