August 2006 Archives

As the Fall 2006 semester begins, the library welcomes all new students and faculty to Temple. We also welcome back all returning students and faculty.

The library has been going through a period of great change, and we didn't slow down during the summer. To hear the latest and greatest news, I recommend the following blog posts from the past few months:

New Photocopiers and Printers Run on Diamond Dollars

Consolidation of Science Libraries

Library Materials Moved to Depository

Zahn Library Closed

You may also want to browse through our New Electronic Resource Announcements or the list of New eResources.

And if you are looking for some recreational reading, don't forget about our Leisure Reading Collection.

If you have any questions feel free to Contact Us.

--Derik A Badman

ProQuest recently announced improvements to the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA). Significant enhancements include:

-- Faster, simpler searching via a Quick Search box
-- Easy bookmarking of content via durable URLs for reading lists and course web pages
-- Quick results review supported by hit-term highlighting in the full record display
-- Seamless emailing and printing records through a marked list
-- Easy saving of content and bibliographic records between work sessions through an individual MyArchive feature and citation software support

--David C. Murray

There are strong apocalyptic elements to each of the major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Among the events prophesied are things like the appearance of a messiah, huge cataclysms, a last judgment, and the end of the world. Given the current awful conflicts in the Middle East--home to these religions--and the religious passions involved, the following articles and books might provide some food for thought.

Apocalypse: An Overview // Eschatology: An Overview // Armageddon, battle of // Millennialism // Mahdi // Messiah // Antichrist // Judgment of the Dead // Revelation, book of // Shia: Imami (Twelver) // Jerusalem in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam // Prophecy // Isaiah

Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism // Left Behind Series // Rapture, Revelation, and the end times // Contemporary Muslim apocalyptic literature // The resurrection and the afterlife // Eschatological themes in medieval Jewish philosophy // The fate of the dead : studies on the Jewish and Christian apocalypses // On the road to Armageddon // The battles of Armageddon

Evangelical Solidarity with the Jews // Ideological Roots of Christian Zionism // The Legend of al-Dajjal (Antichrist) // Eschatology: Some Muslim and Christian Data // Time, Culture and Christian Eschatology // Bin Ladin: The Man Who Would Be Mahdi // Waiting for the Messiah // Romance Between Christian Right, Jewish Establishment Seems to Be Cooling Off // Farrakhan: This is time of doom // Jerusalem in Islamic fundamentalism

--Fred Rowland

A partnership between the Philadelphia City Archives and the for-profit Avencia, Inc. has resulted in the creation of Phillyhistory.org, a website that provides users with an extensive online photo archive, historic streets index, and index to print photographs held in the Archives. According to Avencia, the site now provides access to "more than 20,000 scanned historic images" of Philadelphia (Avencia.com).

--David C. Murray

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Kristina De Voe as a librarian on the Paley Library staff. Kristina comes to the Temple University Libraries from Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio. She received her Masters in English with a specialization in Rhetoric and Composition Studies from The Ohio State University and her Masters in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. While an undergraduate at St. Cloud University, where she double majored in English and History, she spent a summer studying at Oxford University.

Kristina will work in the Paley Reference and Instructional Services Department. She
will serve as liaison for collection development, reference, and instructional services for the following departments:

English
Broadcasting, Telecommunications, and Mass Media
Communications
Journalism

We are delighted to welcome Kristina to Temple University and Philadelphia, and to have her on our staff. She is eager to assist students with their information needs and to meet with the faculty in her subject areas to ensure that we are building collections to serve their research and teaching needs. Her email address is devoek@temple.edu and her phone number is 215-204-4583.

Larry P. Alford,
Vice Provost for Libraries and University Librarian

Over the course of the last year, Temple University developed new graphic standards for stationery and publications, and new branding and navigation standards for Temple websites.

During the past summer we prepared a new University Libraries website in order to incorporate the new University standards and to improve navigability and content.

We encourage all users to preview the new website which is slated to go live and replace the current website on Friday, Augst 25, in order to be up at the start of the fall semester.

Our prototype site is located at http://brodei.lib.temple.edu:8080

Library staff will continue to re-assess and work on the site after it becomes live. We intend in particular to look at use patterns, conduct useability testing, and continue to gather and consider comments from users and library staff. So we encourage you to review the site, begin to work with it, and consider what works and what might be improved or added.

Comments about the redesign should go to: web@library.temple.edu

Jonathan LeBreton,
Senior Associate University Librarian

Bertolt Brecht Manuscripts Discovered in Switzerland

Previously unknown manuscripts of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), influential 20th century poet and playwright, have been recently discovered in Switzerland and delivered to the Brecht Archive at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. The playwright with arguably the most influence in shaping modern theater in the twentieth century, Brecht is a controversial social critic while at the same time his works entertain. The year 2006 is “Brecht year”, with many venues commemorating 50 years since his death. An article about the discovery of the manuscripts is available from Deutsche Welle , as well as other articles on his life and works.

Some resources at Temple University Libraries on Bertolt Brecht include:

Works by Bertolt Brecht at Temple University Libraries

Works about Bertolt Brecht

Books at Temple University Paley Library
Both analyses and biographies.

*From “Contemporary Authors”
Nice works list, brief biography.

*From Grove Music Online
Brief biography emphasizing works put to music.

Criticism and Analysis

*International Index to the Performing Arts
A variety of sources including scholarly and popular press. Articles are full-text and full-image.

*JSTOR
Full-text articles from the Performing Arts, Language and Linguistics, and Music Collections.

*Literature Online (LION) – Bertolt Brecht, short biographies, links to articles with analysis, some full-text works.

*MLA International Bibliography – full-text articles on criticism and analysis. For more articles on Brecht, search the database MLA lists over 3,000 citations about Brecht.

*RILM - Criticism and Analysis about Brecht-Weill works in a database that is international in scope.

Internet Resources

International Brecht Society

Bertolt Brecht and the Epic Theater

“Bertolt Brecht: The Man Who Never Was” provides insight into the complexity of Brecht as a writer and a person.

* To access resources preceded by an asterisk off-campus, enter your AccessNet username and password.

-Anne Harlow

Welcome to the new Performing Arts Section to Temple University Libraries' blog! Here you will find all the latest news about resources in Music, Dance, and Theater available to the Temple University community, including new electronic databases, DVD's, audio resources, as well as books and reference sources.

Don't know what to do for the weekend? Check back for links to performances and arts activities in the Philadelphia area!

Feel free to comment on posts and to inform us of important resources and events.

Enjoy!

-Anne Harlow

The recently released version 4.1 of America: History & Life and Historical Abstracts includes:

-Cross-database searching between Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life
-User-friendly searching, including inverted author names and punctuation alternatives
-Ability for users to save search histories to a personal profile
-Natural language date searching, in addition to the traditional decade and century searching
-Speed improvements for faster searching
-A display option for expanding all of a user's search result records at once
-Addition of a "print-this-entry" option for each record in a search results display
-Ability to easily limit searches to English language entries only
-OpenURL-support for book entries in the Historical Abstracts database

--Brian Schoolar (Electronic Resources Librarian)