FREEBIES! DATABASE TRIALS!

Thanks to Lori Northrup for providing the material for this posting.

I hope that heading got your attention. What term works better, do you think?" "Freebies? Or "database trials?"

Whatever your preference, we're glad you're reading this, because the University Library is hosting many trials at the moment, and we’d love your feedback. On our database trials page at http://samford.libguides.com/trials, you’ll find collections of ebooks, article databases, image databases, databases of films and music, and more! There’s a tab on the page that links to surveys about each product.

There is a survey for each trial. The surveys are short. We are genuinely interested in your feedback and would really appreciate hearing from you. Let us know what you think of these resources, especially as they relate to your respective disciplines.

Getting your feedback helps us to be better informed as we search for resources that will meet your needs and those of our students. Thank you for your assistance.

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Black History Month is coming to an official end, but the study of history never ends, and thanks to resources such as the Library of Congress African American History Month collection, we will never run out of interesting avenues to explore.

The Library of Congress African American History Month collection provides an endlessly fascinating array of historical photographs, an online exhibition from the Smithsonian Museum of African Art titled "African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting," and online exhibits of materials related to arts and culture, civil rights, government & politics, religion, and sports.

Click here to read about the history of African American History Month and the work of Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) and the first Negro History Week in 1925.

Note, in particular, a link to the extraordinary collection of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, who over the span of 40 years collected a variety of important documents, rare artifacts, and works of art, such as an early version of the Emancipation Proclamation to correspondence between Malcolm X and Alex Haley.

The Kinsey collection includes items such as an 1854 letter, written by one A.M. Crawford, the owner of a young slave named Frances, offering her for sale. (This letter can be viewed at the top of this posting. Click on the image to enlarge it.) The letter states: "She is the finest chamber-maid [sic] I have ever seen in my life." In the letter, Crawford goes on to say: "She does not know that she is to be sold. I could not tell her. I own all her family." Crawford is aware of the heartbreak the separation will cause, but his only concern is for making the sale and avoiding a "distressing leave-taking." The proceeds from the sale are earmarked for the construction of a new stable.

This year's theme for African American History Month, chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, was "African Americans and the Civil War." (See http://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/about.html). This theme "...honors the efforts of people of African descent to destroy slavery and inaugurate universal freedom in the United States."

The Association "...urges all Americans to study and reflect on the value of their contribution to the nation."

SAMFORD NOBEL PRIZE BIG READ

With thanks to Bryan Johnson of the English Department, who is responsible for the text reproduced here:

"Please join us for the spring 'Samford Nobel Prize Big Read.' To refresh your memory, in fall semesters we read a work by a past Nobel Prize winner in literature, and in the spring we take on the newest laureate, announced in October."

"This semester we’ll read Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat
(2002)...The Feast of the Goat concerns chiefly the downfall of a Latin American dictator and the specific experiences of different agents of that downfall. As Walter Kirn writes in his NY Times review, Vargas Llosa gives us 'the lowdown on organized evil in high places.'"

The bookstore will be ordering fifteen copies of the novel. Dr. Johnson will hold spots for the first fifteen people to email him (bmjohnso@samford.edu). The discussion group will meet on Wednesday, April 6 at 3:00, Brooks 105.

Source: Dr. Bryan Johnson

DATABASE TRIAL: SMALL BUSINESS REFERENCE CENTER ™

We have yet another great trial to tell you about: the Small Business Reference Center™, providing "up-to-date information on relevant topics from starting a company, operations management and sales to growing or rescuing a business. The database contains nearly 400 full-text periodicals and over 450 full-text reference books." Available until 6/30/11.

INTERNATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS CENTER AND MUSEUM, GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

In January 2010, the New York Times wrote a review of the new International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is housed in the very same Woolworth building, the same "mundane luncheonette," where four 17-year-old freshmen at the all-black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down on Feb. 1, 1960 and attempted to order some food

That simple act in the American South set off "....[one of the] greatest political movements of the twentieth century...a cataclysmic social transformation."

Read about it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/arts/design/01museum.html

DR. PERCY JULIAN - "FORGOTTEN GENIUS"

"Against all odds, African-American chemist Percy Julian became one of the great scientists of the 20th century."


There is a wealth of information about the work of Percy Julian on this PBS website based on the NOVA series that featured Julian's story and work: this PBS website.
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Dr. Percy Julian was born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama into a family "...that believed absolutely in education." (Source http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-02-02-watchlistenread_x.htm?csp=34)

He was a talented student, but at that time the city provided no public education for black students after eighth grade. He persisted in pursuing his education, however, and was admitted to DePauw University in Indiana as a "sub-freshman," taking remedial classes to make up for the foundational courses denied him in Montgomery's public system. In 1920, he graduated first in his class with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

He became a chemistry instructor at Fisk University, and in 1923 received a fellowship that took him to Harvard to complete his masters degree. Subsequently, he again taught at the university level before traveling to Austria to obtain his PhD in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1931.

He returned to DePauw to continue his research. His original interest was investigating plant products, especially traditional medicinal plants such as the African calabar bean. In 1935, in collaboration with Josef Pikl, he first synthesized from this plant a chemical called physostigmine, or esserine, which had properties allowing for the treatment of glaucoma by reducing pressure inside the eyeball. This brought him international scientific acclaim, but DePauw would not offer him a professorship.

Perry was interviewed at DuPont and numerous other chemical companies, all of which rejected him once they learned that he was black. He was eventually offered the position of Director of Research at The Glidden Company, a paint manufacturer now part of Imperial Chemical Industries. At Glidden, he was supervising white chemists ten years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line.

He devised methods for using soybean protein to improve water-based paints, and as a central ingredient in the fire retardant Aer-O-Foam. Just as significantly, Perry and his Glidden team discovered that soybean protein could be used to make human hormones. They developed a method for bulk manufacturing of these hormones, which lead to the production of drugs that prevent miscarriage.

He also discovered new and more cost-effective methods for synthesizing cortisone, a drug that relieves the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. In 1948, the Mayo Clinic had announced the discovery of cortisone, but it was difficult to produce. Julian focused his gifts on this challenge, and by October 1949, his team had created a synthetic cortisone substitute, equally effective and much less expensive, since natural cortisone had to be extracted from the adrenal glands of oxen and cost hundreds of dollars per drop, while Julian's synthetic cortisone cost pennies per ounce.

Julian held more than 100 chemical patents, wrote scores of papers describing his work, and received dozens of awards and honorary degrees. He founded The Julian Laboratories, Inc., with labs in the U.S. and Mexico, and worked to hire as many qualified black chemists as possible. (Both laboratories were purchased by Smith Kline French in 1961).

In 1951, Julian and his family moved to Oak Park, Illinois, becoming the first black family to live there. His house was firebombed twice (events that my parents recall and mentioned to me when we were discussing Dr. Julian). But the community was largely supportive of him and a community group was established to defend the family. (Source: http://www.sayitwithme.com/blackhistoryfacts.htm). The Julian family became "a focal point" for civil rights work in Oak Park. (Source: http://www.oprfhistory.org/explore_local_history/hometown_legends/science/percy_julian/default.aspx)

Ned Heindel, former president of the American Chemical Society stated:
"If you look at Percy Julian's career, you can say, if this man had not been black, he could have been a chaired professor at any Ivy or Big Ten institution...The breadth of his understanding of chemistry, and his fire in the belly to produce so many results in such a short period of time, this is Nobel Laureate stuff."(Source: http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=18843)