September 2006 Archives
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week (September 23-30). Banned Books Week is an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, celebrating the freedom to read and the freedom to choose what we read - even if the ideas or opinions expressed in the books are unpopular, avant-garde, or unorthodox. The event also serves as a reminder to Americans to not take this precious freedom for granted.Reports of banned or challenged books abound. From local school libraries and rural public libraries to large, metropolitan libraries, books deemed innapropriate are pulled off the shelves from view and access. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the twentieth century have been challenged or banned.
Additional information on (previously) challenged or banned titles is included below.
Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2005
Most Challenged Books, 2000-2005
The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, 1990-2000
Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Authors, 1990-2004
Google Book Search: Celebrate Your Freedom to Read
TU Libraries’ Urban Archives Department, in collaboration with Scribe Video Center, presents a screening and public panel discussion of community oral history projects.
When: Monday, October 9th from 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Where: Temple University Libraries, Paley Library Lecture Hall
The panel will focus on the Precious Places Community History project, a documentary video model developed by SCRIBE that places humanities scholars and videomakers with community groups to produce community histories that focus on significant public spaces that define a particular city neighborhood. Since 2004, over 30 community groups throughout the Philadelphia region have participated in this project and created short documentaries.
The distinguished panel includes: Louis Massiah, Executive Director of Scribe; Jamese Wells, Precious Places project coordinator; Dr. Rickie Sanders, a consulting project humanities scholar and Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University; John Pettit, a consulting project videomaker, facilitator and the assistant archivist of the Urban Archives at Temple Libraries; and two members of community groups that participated in the project.
The discussion will include the process of creating a community oral history, and the role of the community and public archives in creating community histories. Panel members will also look at how to make use of resources for historiography within neighborhoods, and the role of humanities scholars and independent videomakers in community settings. The panel will also invite questions and discussion with the audience.
Three eight-minute Precious Places documentaries, completed in 2006, will be screened in the course of the panel presentation:
* Youth and the Houston Center: Growing Up Together, by United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia
* Unhushed!, by the Still Standing Project of Camden
* Villa African Cólobo by Grupo Motivos of Norris Square, North Philadelphia
An exhibit of Philadelphia neighborhood images from the Urban Archives’ vast photograph collections, as well as products developed by Scribe, will be on display. A reception will follow the panel discussion.
This program has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Please RSVP by Wednesday, October 4th.
For additional information, please contact the Urban Archives at 215-204-5750 or email urban@library.temple.edu .
When: Monday, October 9th from 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Where: Temple University Libraries, Paley Library Lecture Hall
The panel will focus on the Precious Places Community History project, a documentary video model developed by SCRIBE that places humanities scholars and videomakers with community groups to produce community histories that focus on significant public spaces that define a particular city neighborhood. Since 2004, over 30 community groups throughout the Philadelphia region have participated in this project and created short documentaries.
The distinguished panel includes: Louis Massiah, Executive Director of Scribe; Jamese Wells, Precious Places project coordinator; Dr. Rickie Sanders, a consulting project humanities scholar and Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University; John Pettit, a consulting project videomaker, facilitator and the assistant archivist of the Urban Archives at Temple Libraries; and two members of community groups that participated in the project.
The discussion will include the process of creating a community oral history, and the role of the community and public archives in creating community histories. Panel members will also look at how to make use of resources for historiography within neighborhoods, and the role of humanities scholars and independent videomakers in community settings. The panel will also invite questions and discussion with the audience.
Three eight-minute Precious Places documentaries, completed in 2006, will be screened in the course of the panel presentation:
* Youth and the Houston Center: Growing Up Together, by United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia
* Unhushed!, by the Still Standing Project of Camden
* Villa African Cólobo by Grupo Motivos of Norris Square, North Philadelphia
An exhibit of Philadelphia neighborhood images from the Urban Archives’ vast photograph collections, as well as products developed by Scribe, will be on display. A reception will follow the panel discussion.
This program has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Please RSVP by Wednesday, October 4th.
For additional information, please contact the Urban Archives at 215-204-5750 or email urban@library.temple.edu .
Are you planning to gather your own data? Do you have graduate students who are planning to gather their own data?
The Social Science Data Library (SSDL) presents its fall seminar series: How to Collect Your Own Data: Surveys, Interviews and Focus Groups.
Three hands-on seminars will take place on
* Friday, September 29th from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
* Friday, October 27th from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
* Friday, November 17th from 2:00pm tp 4:00pm
On Friday, September 29th, the practical issues of survey development and implementation will be discussed, including:
* Sample selection
* Data collection methods (paper surveys, web surveys, phone surveys, etc)
* Survey instrument development
* Pre-testing
* Data collection
* Hiring and training interviewers
* Integration of data collection with planned analysis
* Analytical techniques and reporting results
Peter Mulcahy, Manager of Institute Operations for Temple's Institute for Survey Research will conduct these workshops together with SSDL staff. To register or to request more information, send an email to ssdl@temple.edu. Please let your graduate students know about this opportunity. Those registering should include name and affiliation with Temple (educational status, department, college or school, email address, and phone number). Registrants planning to develop surveys should also include a short description of the topic of the survey. Seminar location information will be sent following registration.
Social Science Data Library
Temple University
(215) 204-5002
ssdl@temple.edu
The Social Science Data Library (SSDL) presents its fall seminar series: How to Collect Your Own Data: Surveys, Interviews and Focus Groups.
Three hands-on seminars will take place on
* Friday, September 29th from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
* Friday, October 27th from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
* Friday, November 17th from 2:00pm tp 4:00pm
On Friday, September 29th, the practical issues of survey development and implementation will be discussed, including:
* Sample selection
* Data collection methods (paper surveys, web surveys, phone surveys, etc)
* Survey instrument development
* Pre-testing
* Data collection
* Hiring and training interviewers
* Integration of data collection with planned analysis
* Analytical techniques and reporting results
Peter Mulcahy, Manager of Institute Operations for Temple's Institute for Survey Research will conduct these workshops together with SSDL staff. To register or to request more information, send an email to ssdl@temple.edu. Please let your graduate students know about this opportunity. Those registering should include name and affiliation with Temple (educational status, department, college or school, email address, and phone number). Registrants planning to develop surveys should also include a short description of the topic of the survey. Seminar location information will be sent following registration.
Social Science Data Library
Temple University
(215) 204-5002
ssdl@temple.edu
TU Libraries is currently trialing a new research database, Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present.
Orlando is a comprehensive database devoted to six centuries of women's writing in the British Isles. Biographical and critical accounts for over 1,000 women are provided, including 850 British women. Select non-British or international women writers, and British and international men, whose writing was an important, sometimes a shaping, element in a particular writing climate are also included.
In addition, the database offers "entries on authors' lives and writing careers, contextual material, timelines, internal links and bibliographies. Entries are tagged, enabling searchers to focus not only on author, date and place but also on such issues as genre, intertextuality, and relations with publishers."
Additional information about Orlando can be found via the Guided Tour.
The trial will last until October 20th. Questions or comments about the research database can be directed to devoek@temple.edu.
The ERIC website and search interface has been redesigned for ease of use and improved readability. Access to the ERIC collection remains unchanged. For further details, see the ERIC News article.
The TU Libraries Special Collections Department is sponsoring a rare book viewing and informal discussion of Walt Whitman's 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass on Wednesday, October 4th at 4:00pm in the Special Collections Reading Room of Paley Library.
The viewing is free and open to the Temple community.
To learn more about Walt Whitman's life and works, see The Walt Whitman Archive.
TU Libraries is currently trialing a new electronic resource, Cambridge Collections Online.
Cambridge Collections Online is an online collection of the popular Cambridge Companions print series, a collection of introductory essays aimed at student readers to orient them to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics and periods. Coverage includes The Complete Cambridge Companions (221 titles), The Cambridge Companions to Literature and Classics Collection (135 titles), plus The Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture (86 titles). Over 2,000 essays are searchable and available in PDF format.
Additional information about Cambridge Collections Online can be found via the Guided Tour.
The trial will last 30 days. Questions or comments about the electronic resource can be directed to devoek@temple.edu.
America in the 1930s examines the various cultural media of the period, including radio programs, films, journalism, exhibitions, architecture, literature, and art. The On the Air portion of the website includes audio snippets from classic radio programs of the era, such as Amos 'n' Andy, Little Orphan Annie, Jack Benny, Dick Tracy, and The Lone Ranger. A complete day of radio programming from WJSV (now WTOP), Washington, D.C., for September 21, 1939 is also available and includes the day's music, advertisements, soap operas, and news. A number of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential radio addresses are also included as well as the complete broadcast of Orson Welles' famous 1938 radio program, The War of the Worlds.
JSTOR, the electronic journal database, has added The Yearbook of English Studies to its collection. Published by the Modern Humanities Research Association, the first 32 volumes of the journal (1971-2002) are available in full-text.
Two other relevant titles - Feminist Studies and the International Journal of American Linguistics - have been updated so as to include any previously missing issues.
Call for Papers:
Teaching Audience: Theory and Practice
Brian Fehler (Tarleton State University), Elizabeth Weiser (Ohio State University-Newark), and Angela Gonzalez (Texas Christian University) invite scholars in rhetoric, composition, literacy, and communication studies to contribute to the collection Teaching Audience: Theory and Practice. Considerations of audience have been important in our disciplines at least since Aristotle's Rhetoric, and this collection aims to open a space for discussing how scholar-teachers theorize and teach audience in first-year and advanced writing and communication courses. In particular, this collection will address such questions as:
* How does our teaching of audience vary from first-year to advanced classes? How does the teaching of audience contribute to other pedagogical goals-such as multiculturalism, service learning, writing in the disciplines, etc?
* How do we put into practice in the classroom our theorizing about audience? What do our students already know about audience that we can make use of in the classroom? How can historical studies of audience and reception contribute to our teaching?
We are interested in papers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and ask that papers address one of the following categories:
* Teaching Audience: Papers in this category might address issues such as specific assignments; geographical and material limitations; World Wide Web communities/audiences; local community partnerships.
* Theorizing Audience: Papers in this category might address such issues as technology and audience formation; audience construction and identification; multicultural/multinational audiences; self as audience; multiple audiences; historical perspectives.
Our goal is to provide a forum for theorizing audience and to present practical ways to teach audience awareness in the classroom. We hope this collection will enrich our understanding of the ways in which audience is talked about and taught in classrooms across campus and will spark new dialogues regarding interdisciplinary scholarship on audience.
Please submit 500 word abstracts (MS Word attachments) to Brian Fehler at Fehler@tarleton.edu by September 30 (completed articles by January 15). The editors will respond to abstracts by October 15. Queries are welcome to the above email or to Elizabeth Weiser, weiser.23@osu.edu , or Angela Gonzalez, a.m.gonzalez3@tcu.edu .
Teaching Audience: Theory and Practice
Brian Fehler (Tarleton State University), Elizabeth Weiser (Ohio State University-Newark), and Angela Gonzalez (Texas Christian University) invite scholars in rhetoric, composition, literacy, and communication studies to contribute to the collection Teaching Audience: Theory and Practice. Considerations of audience have been important in our disciplines at least since Aristotle's Rhetoric, and this collection aims to open a space for discussing how scholar-teachers theorize and teach audience in first-year and advanced writing and communication courses. In particular, this collection will address such questions as:
* How does our teaching of audience vary from first-year to advanced classes? How does the teaching of audience contribute to other pedagogical goals-such as multiculturalism, service learning, writing in the disciplines, etc?
* How do we put into practice in the classroom our theorizing about audience? What do our students already know about audience that we can make use of in the classroom? How can historical studies of audience and reception contribute to our teaching?
We are interested in papers from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and ask that papers address one of the following categories:
* Teaching Audience: Papers in this category might address issues such as specific assignments; geographical and material limitations; World Wide Web communities/audiences; local community partnerships.
* Theorizing Audience: Papers in this category might address such issues as technology and audience formation; audience construction and identification; multicultural/multinational audiences; self as audience; multiple audiences; historical perspectives.
Our goal is to provide a forum for theorizing audience and to present practical ways to teach audience awareness in the classroom. We hope this collection will enrich our understanding of the ways in which audience is talked about and taught in classrooms across campus and will spark new dialogues regarding interdisciplinary scholarship on audience.
Please submit 500 word abstracts (MS Word attachments) to Brian Fehler at Fehler@tarleton.edu by September 30 (completed articles by January 15). The editors will respond to abstracts by October 15. Queries are welcome to the above email or to Elizabeth Weiser, weiser.23@osu.edu , or Angela Gonzalez, a.m.gonzalez3@tcu.edu .
Google now indexes historical news archives. Partnering with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, the Guardian, and the Washington Post, in addition to aggregators such as Factiva, LexisNexis, Thomson Gale and HighBeam Research, Google News allows users to search full-text historical news content going back 200 years. Available content is both free and fee-based.
To learn more, read "Google Debuts 200 Year News Archive Search" from Search Engine Watch.
Katie Couric's much anticipated debut on "CBS Evening News" Tuesday evening was fodder for Wednesday's news. Commentaries seemed to focus on the lack of newsiness of the day, in addition to Couric's attire and weight - presumably due to the recent Couric photograph snafu. See commentaries from select media below.While the Boston Globe deemed Couric and the program "competent and safe," The Washington Post declared the evening "a hit." Tim Goodman of The San Francisco Chronicle simply stated that Couric's 22 minutes was "different," hinting at the "softer," feminine aspect of the program. The Chicago Sun-Times also commented on the softness of the program, exclaiming that future news programs may be filled with 15 minutes of hard news and 15 minutes of soft news.
Julie Otsuka, author of When the Emperor Was Divine, will visit campus as part of Temple's Freshmen Summer Reading Project. Otsuka will speak with students about her book on Thursday, September 7th from 1:10-3:00pm in the Student Center, room 200. A book signing will immediately follow the talk.
The event is free and open to the Temple community.
For more information on Otsuka, plus reviews of her text, see the TU Libraries' subject guide.
The Freshmen Summer Reading Project provides "a common intellectual experience for entering students...bring[ing] students, faculty and members of the Temple community together for discussion and debate" over a shared text.
Rhetoric Society Quarterly (RSQ), the official journal of the Rhetoric Society of America, now accepts submissions exclusively via the Internet on its Manuscript Central website. To learn more, set up an account, or to view the status of manuscript submissions, go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rrsq.
Google now permits users to download and print free of charge all out-of-copyright titles included in its Book Search service. Previously, users were only allowed to read public domain texts online. The new option lets users download pdf files to their computers where they can then print out the entire books or use the file to conduct keyword searches.