News & Notes

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by historian Phillip Hoose, tells the story of a courageous African-American teen who refused to give up her seat on a bus in March 1955 -- a full 9 months before Rosa Parks' same act came to symbolize the growing Civil Rights movement.

Colvin's story recently received the 2009 National Book Award in the category of Young People’s Literature. Read the story behind the book here.

Get Colvin's WHOLE story in the IMC: F334.M753 C6554 2009

Brill Science Library has their November Question of the Month up on their blog and in the library. Put your thinking cap on to win a $10 gift certificate to somewhere in Oxford!

1. What is the "rule of three" in awarding the Nobel Prize?
2. What are the three kinds of RNA (riboncleic acid) involved in the biochemical process of translation?
3. Provide a citation for a research paper about ribosomes which was:
• written by a Miami faculty member
• OR written by the 2009 Chemistry Nobel Laureate who earned his PhD in Ohio

Make sure you get your answers in by November 30th to be eligible for the $10 gift certificate to anywhere in Oxford (your choice)! To submit your answers, come on in to the Brill Science Library or fill in the form here and submit your responses to mulibrarytrivia@gmail.com.

The essays for My Learning Leaves: A Composition Contest for the Class of 2013 (sponsored by the Howe Center for Writing Excellence and the Office of Liberal Education ) are almost due. The deadline is December 1st. They are looking for projects from first-year students on ways their school experiences and learning goals align with, differ from, augment, and/or challenge those represented in the 2009 Summer Reading, Taylor Mali's What Learning Leaves. There are categories for Personal Compositions, Analytical Compositions, and You Name It. The prize for each category is $100. You could buy some nice Christmas presents with that money!

If you want to get inspired, we own several of Taylor Mali's poetry collections at King Library:

What Learning Leaves. King Library PS615 .M35 2002.

The Last Time As We Are. King Library PS3613.A4455 L37 2009.

Good Luck!

Silent Rave Flash Mob at King Library!

If you're looking for a unique way to celebrate Veterans' Day, American military service, or the civilian support of the military during times of war, you may be interested to learn that the World War II-era posters currently on display in the main stairwell of King Library are available for download -- for free!

The Government Information and Law department teamed up with the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and the libraries' Digital Initiatives department to create high-quality copies from the original World War II posters held at the Miami Libraries.

Because these posters have proven highly popular, and in some cases too popular -- you know who you are -- they've been placed online for easy and free access.

With a little help from the CIM lab staff, and for the standard printing fee, you can create your own life-sized World War II poster. With their stunning imagery, and still relevant messages, they'll be an excellent addition to your dormitory, office, or holiday stocking. Just don't take them off the library walls.

You can download the collection of World War II propaganda posters from this page, or by clicking the images in this post.

If you're curious about more cool Government Documents, stop by the GIL, or come to our Centennial celebration this Friday afternoon (See it on Facebook). We hope to see you soon!

On Monday November 9th I went to a sponsored Miami University Humanities Center talk called "Connected Histories" at Bachelor Hall. Professor Robert Shoemaker, 18th-century historian from Sheffield University, and Professor Tim Hitchcock of the University of Hertfordshire, spoke about digital repositories of 18th-century history funded by the British government that they have created especially for the sake of preserving "other" histories.

I thought the projects they spoke about were so fascinating that I wanted to share it.

Their finished project is called The Old Bailey Online. It's the proceedings of London's Central Criminal Court from 1674-1913. It's a fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. In addition to the texts themselves, the site provides historical background and information about related sources. There's even a trial of the day!

Some of their upcoming projects build on the ideas of connecting texts to related sources. One is called Plebian Lives and the Making of Modern Lives. It will use recent technical advances in the creation and analysis of multiple digital resources to create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London. It's going to allow users to register and add biographical information to a wiki, among other things.

The other is called Connected Histories, which is going to be a new community and website for aggregating digital resources in British History. It will point to sources like British History Online, the Burney Newspaper Collection, Parliamentary Papers, Charles Booth Online Archive, Collage, etc.

Perhaps the most exciting project will be a Firefox extension called Scrutiny. It will be used for entity recognition within research data. It will be able to scan web pages selected by individual users and highlight entities that it thinks will interest them. Users will be able to train Scrutiny to identify entities which are relevant to their field of research both by using pre-defined, subject-specific 'entity recognition files', and by refining Scrutiny´s understanding of their personal interests through an iterative process of accepting or discarding the suggestions which Scrutiny presents. Scrutiny will be developed using natural language processing, including `named entity recognition´ based on a Bayesian learning methodology.

I'll be honest I don't understand all the details (I got the above wording from their website), but Scrutiny will be designed to help researchers shift through the large number of documents now available digitally to find what is relevant to their research. The example they gave during their lecture was domestic violence. In the 18th century the term domestic violence didn't exist, but there were still cases of it (namely one spouse killing another). Scrutiny could be trained to find matches between one case that was definitely domestic violence and then other cases located in another collection.

The Old Bailey Online can be used now. The other projects should be finished in February or March of 2010. I'll keep you posted, especially as I hear more about Scrutiny!

This Friday the Miami University Libraries are celebrating 100 years as Federal Depository Libraries.

Government Publications have been received by Miami since the 1850's, and have always been a cornerstone collection of the Miami University Libraries. This Friday, you can join us for an event celebrating our Centennial as an official Federal Depository Library.

The Celebration is slated for 2:00 p.m., Friday, November 13, in Room 320 of King Library, and will include the presentation to Dean Judith Sessions of a plaque from the Government Printing Office commemorating this rare milestone. The event is open to all members of the Miami University community as well as to the general public. Refreshments will be served.

We encourage you to visit the range of special Government materials already on display in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections, and to enjoy the Government-published World War II propaganda posters lining King Library's main staircase.

Remember that to help decorate the GIL area for Friday, students, faculty, staff and their families can enter the GIL coloring contest. Read more about this activity in our previous post.

If you can't make the centennial event, you find find a few surprises awaiting you in the IMC/GIL throughout the day on Friday. We hope to see you there!

20 years ago today, the Berlin Wall, separating West and East Germany came down. This event was pivotal to the eventual fall of communism in Europe. Miami has been holding a series events over the past few weeks to remember this historic event, including a speech today at 12:30 by Josef Joffe, publisher of the German newspaper, Die Zeit (online). The speech will be held in the MacMillan Great Room.

King Library has some wonderful books on the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the legacy of that event. Come check them out!.

I love the title of this new book. It got you to check out this post, didn't it? Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasure (King Library Z1039.W65 H36 2008 ) is a collection of book recommendations for women. It's written by Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel, creators of The Book Babes blog. They cover over 500 books on topics including friendship, sex, finances, health, family, career, etc. Categories include "Babes We Love," "Ages and Stages," "Love, Sex, and Second Chances," and "Babes Without Borders." Each book listed has a short but helpful blurb. You'll find fiction and non-fiction (and even some poetry). You'll also find classics and best sellers. Based on one of their suggestions, I plan to pick up Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands: A Moral and Amorous Tale very soon!

From the Anthropology Department: The Department of Anthropology has teamed with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Film + Video Center to offer a four-day showcase of contemporary Native American cinema, November 4-6, on the Oxford campus. The Festival features award-winning documentaries and numerous short films that highlight the diverse stories, histories, and experiences of North American indigenous filmmakers, bringing to Oxford a rich offering of the best in Native cinema. Screenings are free and open to the public. Wednesday, Nov. 4, McGuffey 322, 4-6pm, Thursday Nov. 5, 4-6pm, Friday Nov. 6, MacMillan Hall.