February 2006 Archives
Researchers often ask me how to access history theses and dissertations. The tips in this post will help anyone easily find dissertations produced by history graduate students at Temple and other institutions. For works created under the auspices of Temple's History Department, use the Diamond catalog. A complete, chronological list of the nearly 300 Temple history dissertations cataloged since 1973 (newest to oldest) can be viewed by clicking here. To search within this list, perform a keyword search in Diamond as follows (copy/paste into Diamond):
s:"History -- Temple University Theses." AND [change to keyword of choice]
Sample Searches:
s:"History -- Temple University Theses." AND military
s:"History -- Temple University Theses." AND war
s:"History -- Temple University Theses." AND women
s:"History -- Temple University Theses." AND mexico
Note that in a Diamond keyword search, "s:" tells the computer to return only those records that match a specific subject heading, in this case "History -- Temple University Theses". This particular search will also include dissertations created under the auspices of the Art History Department (i.e. Art -- History -- Temple University Theses).
"Digital Dissertations is the definitive guide to more than 2 million doctoral dissertations and master's theses. Digital Dissertations help you identify more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America. The database also covers thousands of dissertations and theses from around the globe. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1861, and more than 55,000 new citations are added to the database every year" (UMI/Proquest).
Thousands of Digital Dissertation entries include 24-page previews of the full dissertation. Temple dissertations published since the early 1990s can be downloaded, for free, and in their entirety. The best way to find Temple history theses and dissertations in Digital Dissertations is to use the Browse feature. Choose Social Sciences and then scroll to the heading, History. Choose from General History, Ancient, Medieval, African, Middle East, Latin American, United States, etc. Narrow further by choosing "School" from the drop-down menu on the next page. In the adjacent text box enter "Temple University".
The Library is running two history-related database trials: Empire Online and Declassified Documents Reference Service (DDRS). Examine each database by clicking on its title (from this post), or by pointing your browser to the Trial Databases page. Both trials run through March 12, 2006.
Quick Overview: Empire Online will appeal to those working on European history and the Colonial and Early National Periods in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania; DDRS will interest those studying American history and diplomacy during the Cold War (compare to the Digital National Security Archive).
By 2007, this database will consist of "over 70,000 [page] images [but not OCR-scanned texts] of original manuscripts and printed material, 1492-1962, taken from libraries and archives around the world." The core of Empire Online consists of documents digitized from the archives of the British Library, the British National Archives (Kew) and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. To date, 463 documents have been imaged. The primary source material is supported by thirteen bibliographic essays written by historians. Each essay contains between 30 and 50 hyperlinks leading back into the primary source material. This unique arrangement means that Empire Online can be used very effectively to introduce undergraduate students to primary sources. Beyond its pedagogic value, Empire Online would no doubt delight faculty interested in easy access to a range of important primary documents in Empire Studies.
Empire Online does have its drawbacks. The most significant seems to be the lack of a full-text search engine for the primary sources. (The bibliographic essays are, however, full-text searchable.) While this problem is not fatal given the database's extensive indexing, it is a serious oversight. Sorely missed also is a side-by-side transcription of manuscripts. This is less of a concern when viewing images of printed sources.
Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS)
This is the online version of the long-standing print DDRS. (See the already-subscribed-to Digital National Security Archive for an example of a very similar database.) DDRS "users can query every document in the database for any name, date, word, or phrase. Searches can also be focused according to document type, issue date, source institution, classification level, date declassified, sanitization, completeness, number of pages, and document number. The database ranges from the years immediately following World War II, when declassified documents were first made widely available, through the 1970s. Nearly every major foreign and domestic event of these years is covered: the Cold War, Vietnam, foreign policy shifts, the civil rights movement, and many others." DDRS exists largely because thousands of researchers over the years have specifically requested the included documents from various presidential libraries. On the other hand, most of the documents available via the Digital National Security Archive were orginally made available through executive agency compliance with the 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The two databases, though similar in purpose, are therefore unique; both are worth checking out.
Please provide feedback -- favorable or otherwise -- on these databases to David C. Murray, History Librarian.
Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 provides digital access to more than 660,000 large-scale maps of more than 12,000 American towns and cities. In electronic form, Sanborn Maps take on much improved value over the microfilm versions of the same maps, allowing for greater flexibility of use and improved viewing possibilities. Users have the ability to easily manipulate the maps, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and layer maps from different years.
Sanborn fire insurance maps are the most frequently consulted maps in both public and academic libraries. These maps are valuable historical tools for urban specialists, social historians, architects, geographers, genealogists, local historians, planners, environmentalists, and anyone who wants to learn about the history, growth, and development of American cities, towns, and neighborhoods. They are large-scale plans containing data that can be used to estimate the potential risk for urban structures. This includes information such as the outline of each building, the size, shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures, location of windows and doors. The maps also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Seven or eight different editions represent some areas.
Textual information on construction details (for example, steel beams or reinforced walls) is often given on the plans while shading indicates different building materials. Extensive information on building use is given, ranging from symbols for generic terms such as stable, garage, and warehouse to names of owners of factories and details on what was manufactured in them. In the case of large factories or commercial buildings, even individual rooms and the uses to which they were put are recorded on the maps. Other features shown include pipelines, railroads, wells, dumps, and heavy machinery.
Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years.
The intellectual achievements of the Classic Period Maya civilization (c. 250 - 900 C.E.), including the development of a complex, fully functional writing system capable of expressing human speech, continue to fascinate and inspire contemporary observers. Scribes carved or painted glyphs onto limestone stelae, fine polychrome pottery, and other media. They also wrote in bark-paper books, only four of which survived the ravages of time, a jungle climate, and the Spanish Conquest. Fortunately, numerous texts of considerable length remain, as for example the famous riser text on Copan's Hieroglyphic Staircase.
The Classic Maya writing system was well established by 250 C.E. Maya archaeologists and epigraphers have recently discovered a new set of inscriptions at the site of San Bartolo that pushes back the existence of Maya writing hundres of years, to a time referred to by scholars as the Preclassic Period. The discovery is a major breakthrough, not least of which because it suggests that early Maya polities might have been as complex, from a socio-political standpoint, as those that existed during the later Classic Period. Such evidence has been mounting for at least two decades. The precise relationship between the Maya writing system and other Mesoamerican scripts, like the ones that evolved independently in Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, is not well understood.
The tortuous process of decipherment of the Classic Period texts has occupied scholars' attention for roughly the past fifty years. As a result of their hard work, the ancient Maya have finally emerged from the shadows of prehistory. Obtain more information about this exciting discovery at Mesoweb.
--David C. Murray
