@library.edu the newsletter of the Swarthmore College Library
Fall 2010 Vol. 13, no. 1
New online resources available at the library by Amy McColl
September 16, 1843 issue
The Library recently acquired these new online resources covering a wide range of subjects and formats, from historical newspapers to Congressional information: Contemporary Literary Criticism CLC provides detailed profiles of novelists, playwrights, and other writers, and includes excerpts of published criticism of their works. CQ Almanac Full-text information on all major U. S. federal legislative activity, including detailed commentary on issues, legislators, and controversies. CQ Global Researcher Offers full-text reports on vital world issues, including social, political, environmental, health, and peace and conflict issues. Dictionary of Literary Biography This classic print resource is now available in its entirety online. Encyclopedia of Human Rights This encyclopedia offers comprehensive coverage of all aspects of human rights theory, practice, law, and history. continued on page 5
Streaming music and video collections growing by Donna Fournier The Library is excited about some fantastic new collections of online streaming video and music. Combined with previously purchased collections, the college community is now able to stream about 5,000 videos and some 54,500 music recordings. New to us are Ethnographic Video Online, Dance in Video, Opera in Video, Contemporary World Music (all from Alexander Street Press) and Films on Demand (Films Media Group). Besides providing extremely convenient playback, these collections all contain some kind of supplemental content, such as directors’ notes, field notes, performer interviews, album liner notes, dictionaries, glossaries, and study guides. The products also offer the user some great tools, such as the ability to link directly to permanent urls, create video clips, create playlists, share links with friends, and stream content continued on page 4 to a mobile device.
from Dance in Video
Gandhi letters form new online collection by Barbara Addison
M.K. Gandhi and his first letter to Reginald Reynolds, October 28, 1929, page 4.
The Peace Collection has digitized its Gandhi Correspondence Collection, consisting of 33 letters written by Mahatma Gandhi between 1926 and 1946. The centerpiece of the collection is the 20 letters written by Gandhi to and about Reginald Reynolds (an English Quaker active in the Indian independence movement) during a crucial period in Gandhi’s life and in modern Indian history: the Salt March and the beginning of the 1930 Indian civil disobedience campaign against the British empire. While organizing the transcription and digitization of the collection, Barbara Addison, the Peace Collection’s technical services librarian, realized that, to be properly understood, the Gandhi/Reynolds correspondence required context and interpretation. Her resultant essay includes links to transcriptions and images of each letter, and to archival photographic, sound and newsreel resources. A finding aid to the papers of Mohandas K. Gandhi is available on the Peace Collection’s web site.
Online photograph exhibit features many images from Laos By Anne Yoder Dispatch News Service International (DNSI) was formed in Saigon in 1968 by American Michael Morrow and other freelance writers and photographers to provide Westerners with a deeper understanding of the people, problems, and cultures of Asia. The DNSI Washington (D.C.) office opened in 1969 and focused on news of Indochina, Southeast and East Asia, and Latin America. Morrow and others went undercover in Laos and elsewhere in Indochina to document for Western audiences the previously unknown upsurge of the U.S. military presence in the region, and the people - including many refugees - who were affected by the expansion of the war. DNSI suspended operations in March 1973. The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is the repository for the records of the DNSI. This collection includes hundreds of images, dozens of which are in photograph form. Most images, however, were saved only as negative strips, which are very difficult to view. When archivist Anne Yoder realized the beauty and historical importance of these negatives, which were virtually hidden from scholars, she decided to scan them for public access. These 543 images, along with any information known about them, may now be viewed online through the Peace Collection’s website. Of particular significance are those of the Meo (Hmong) people of Laos, in their homeland. Many other groups and persons concerned about the devastation caused by the Vietnam War have given their photographs to the Peace Collection. A complete list is available. 2
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Meo tribe refugee, Sam Thong, Laos photographer: Carl Strock (Negative 246)
@library.edu Editors: Pam Harris, Terry Heinrichs, Annette Newman Thank you to all who contributed to this issue. Email: libnews@swarthmore.edu Swarthmore College Library 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081
Journal article access – subscribe or pay per view? by Barbara Weir Starting last fall, students and faculty finding relevant articles from one particular publisher were presented with this screen prior to opening the pdf:
What’s going on and why? To realize cost savings and provide better service to students and faculty, the library purchased “payper-view” access (sometimes called “pay by the drink”) to the current content of the almost 1500 journals published by Wiley. We first identified a number of high cost/low use Wiley journals to which we subscribed and canceled them for 2010. A portion of the $65,000 saved went toward the purchase of “tokens,” costing $10.50 each, which are used to access the articles. During 2009-10, 1577 tokens were used, many for articles from journals which previously had been requested frequently on interlibrary loan. While there are tradeoffs (we no longer own the content of the journals we canceled for 2010- ), the contents of journals to which we didn’t subscribe are open to our students and faculty. The journals accessed most were: Ecology Letters – 50 Molecular Ecology - 41 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry - 35 European Journal of Neuroscience - 30 Restoration Ecology - 30
International Journal of Eating Disorders - 28 Global Change Biology - 27 The Journal of Comparative Neurology - 25 American Journal of Primatology - 20 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences - 20
A total of 13 tokens were used for the 46 journals we canceled, at a cost of $136.50. Sometimes it pays to pay by the drink!
Peace Collection gets grant to preserve old films by Wendy Chmielewski In the 1950s the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the country’s oldest religious peace organization, produced several short educational films on techniques of non-violence and direct action. Leading peace activists, such as A.J. Muste, André Trocmé, and Martin Neimoller, starred in these films, speaking about their own work against war. The techniques of non-violent action advocated in these films directly inspired U.S. civil rights activists, anti-war and anti-nuclear advocates around the world, and advocates of democratic government in Eastern Europe. These films are now extremely rare, but the Peace Collection owns copies of five of these films. This summer, the Peace Collection received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to save these films, repairing the original 16mm stock and creating new digital formats so these films will be accessible to modern audiences. The Peace Collection received a similar grant from the NFPF a decade ago to save the only remaining film footage of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. The films should be on DVD by the end of this year.
gets new look Tripod, the tri-college library catalog, reached its 20th year anniversary in June and got a new look to mark the occasion. The new layout aims to better present information, allowing students to more easily evaluate materials and to discover new ones. Highlights of the changes include: Author information: Records include brief author biographies, publication history, summaries of popular works, and widely held titles about the author. Citations: To supplement Tripod’s existing citation export function, records include formatted APA, Chicago, and MLA citations. Contents: It’s now easier to access links (when available) to first chapters, book excerpts, and video clips of film titles. Reviews: Reviews from The New York Times, 2007 to present, are now available, in addition to the Choice Reviews Similar Items: Ways to locate similar items in Tripod are highlighted, from browsing subject headings to short lists of other editions and related titles. @library.edu Fall 2010
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Streaming music and video collections growing continued from page 1
We hope that you enjoy exploring these resources and look forward to helping faculty and students incorporate this viewing and listening into course work. Please contact us at librarian@swarthmore.edu with any questions or problems. New resources: Films on Demand streams over 4,000 videos in the humanities and social sciences from the Films Media Group, parent company of Films for Humanities, long recognized as the finest producer of educational film. Ethnographic Video Online streams over 400 films and will number around 1,000 upon completion. Covering every region of the world, the collection features the work of many of the most influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, including interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, and study guides. Dance in Video streams some 400 videos of ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance. Included are classic performances, experimental works from upand-coming dance troupes, documentaries by and about leading choreographers, and videos on dance training. Opera in Video streams over 150 important opera performances, captured from Opera in Video on video through staged productions, interviews,
Book collectors awarded prizes Winners of the A. Edward Newton Book Collection Competition are: Meredith Firetog ’10 (first place) for “Tangled up in Bob Dylan”; Myles Dakan ’10 (second place) for “Notes Almost Divine: American Shape Note Hymnody”; Ben Goossen ’13 (third place) for “A history of the future: the literary evolution of science fiction.” They received their awards and discussed their collections at a reception in April.
Reference books may be borrowed McCabe and Underhill reference books now can check out for one day to faculty, staff, and students. They are not renewable or holdable and have $1/day overdue fine. 4
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and documentaries. The collection, which will number about 250 on completion, presents an overview of the most commonly studied operas in music history. Performances cover the full range of operatic composition, from the Baroque to the 20th century. Contemporary World from Contemporary World Music Music streams about 5,000 albums from such world music labels as Arhoolie Records, Blue Flame Records, Celestial Harmonies, Fantasy, Lyrichord, and Rounder Records. Ongoing resources: Naxos Music Library currently streams about 44,000 CDs from over 50 record companies with an average of 500 new recordings added to the collection each month. The strength of the collection is in Western art music, but there is also world music, jazz, film music, and rock music. Resources offered by NML include synopses of operas, a pronunciation guide for composer and artist names and a glossary of musical terms. Naxos Music Library Jazz currently streams about 3,800 CDs representing over 7,000 jazz artists. Smithsonian Global Sound streams about 2,800 albums of music, spoken word, and natural and human-made sounds from the published recordings owned by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and the archival audio collections of Folkways Records. It also includes music recorded around Africa for the International Library of African Music (ILAM) and material collected on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies. DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) streams over 2,500 albums of American music recordings by New World Records and CRI Records, among others. The collection covers folk, opera, Native American music, jazz, 19th century classical, early rock, musical theater, and contemporary music. Variations Digital Music Library streams about 550 CDs owned by Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. This is a homegrown collection used for streaming course reserves and other from Ethnographic Video Online popular recordings.
New online resources available at the library continued from page 1
Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Provides a compendium of some 2,100 articles across a diverse range of disciplines including, but not limited to, history, anthropology, ethnography, folklore, law and jurisprudence, linguistics, sociology, politics, philosophy, religious studies, women’s studies, art history, literature, film studies, material culture, and biographies of notable persons. Guide to Reference Edited by former Haverford College Librarian Bob Kieft and with contributions by Swarthmore’s College Librarian Peggy Seiden and Music and Dance Librarian Donna Fournier, Guide to Reference is a selective guide to the best reference sources, organized by academic discipline. Historical New York Tribune Provides comprehensive coverage of the New York Tribune, with full text and complete page images from 1841-1922. Historical Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal (1889-1992) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. Illustrated London News Full-text access to the entire run of the world’s first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, with coverage from 18422003. International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest The goal of this online reference work is to provide a comprehensive examination of modern-era revolutions, uprisings, and protests, with special attention to the important contributions of the subjugated, disenfranchised, and ideologically motivated people behind these actions. Serial Set extension Barbara Kingsolver The U.S. Congressional Serial Set contains the reports, (from the Dictionary documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of of Literary Biography) Representatives. Coverage will soon extend through 1994.
Mellon Grant recipients participate in panel at ALA by Meg Spencer The Mellon Librarian Recruitment Program wrapped up last year, and a panel discussion highlighting some of the program’s success stories occurred at this summer’s American Libraries Association (ALA) annual conference in Washington, D.C. Organized by Science Librarian Meg Spencer, the panel consisted of five students who participated in the project; they have all gone on to pursue library degrees. Monika Rhue, library director at Johnson C. Smith University (Charlotte, NC) moderated the panel. The program, “Recruiting Undergraduates to the Library Profession: A Mellon Success Story,” was well attended, and the panelists and audience participated in a lively discussion on how to encourage undergraduates to consider librarianship as a career. Swarthmore’s panel participants included Jen Thompson ’08 (Mellon Intern 2006), Daisy Larios (Swarthmore Mellon Library Fellow 2007-08), and Corey Baker ’07 (Mellon Scholarship recipient).
Panel participants Neely Terrell and Daisy Larios @library.edu Fall 2010
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Ed Fuller retires after 35 years of reference questions by Annette Newman Ed Fuller, reference librarian, retired from his 35-year career at Swarthmore College at the end of June. Since 1975, Ed has done much more than answer questions. He has served as temporary social sciences librarian, government documents librarian, special collections librarian, and video librarian. In addition, as a test proctor, he has shepherded countless numbers of future lawyers, teachers, MBAs, and medical students through the anxiety laden hours of standardized tests. Perhaps Ed’s greatest legacy, in terms of direct contributions to the library, is the video collection. When then College Librarian Michael Durkan asked him to start collecting videos around 1980, he began with the purchase of the BBC Shakespeare collection which was on ¾” tape and a single viewing station - a video deck and a television. He developed the original viewing areas and video classroom and essentially ran a one-man library – taking responsibility for videos from selection on through processing and circulation. He will be remembered as a lover of fountain pens, for his endless supply of puns, and good humor.
New applications programmer at tri-co libraries Chelsea Lobdell, the new tri-co library applications programmer, will be managing the high level technical work on library applications web development, customizations, and maintenance. Her first two projects will focus on improving tri-co’s current in house subject portal and investigating new discovery layer options for Tripod. Chelsea has a BS in Computer Science from Muhlenberg College and is currently completing the MS in Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. At Muhlenberg’s Trexler Library, she spearheaded the committee that was in charge of investigating open source options for dynamic research tools to be incorporated on the library’s website. In her previous position as a junior web designer at JEM Computers, she was responsible for multiple websites and projects, from conception through implementation, and maintenance for small local businesses.
staff news
Library welcomes new employee
Staff perform after hours
by Barbara Weir
by Terry Heinrichs
Sarah Hartman-Caverly joined the library’s technical services department in July as the serials and electronic resources specialist. A graduate of Haverford College with a BA in Anthropology, she is currently working on a dual masters degree in Library Science and Information Science at Drexel University. Most recently, Sarah held the position of library assistant for serials at Bryn Mawr College. As a member of the Tri-College Technology Advisory Group, she worked on the Mobile Tripod project and the Tripod bibliographic record redesign project. We are very excited to have Sarah on board and look forward to her contributions to new projects and services. Sarah replaces Jackie Magagnosc, who moved to Ithaca, N.Y. in April.
Three library staff members who perform in community theater were featured in the summer issue of “The Gathering,” the campus faculty-staff newsletter. Margaret Brink, serials and access specialist at Cornell Library, focuses on singing opera. She recently performed in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore with the Savoy Company in Philadelphia. Linda Hunt, access and lending services specialist at McCabe Library, has been an actress, stage manager, and director for several local theaters. This spring, she will direct the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar at the Narberth Community Theatre. Kerry Kristine McElrone, interlibrary loan specialist at McCabe Library, performs with the City Theater Company in Wilmington. She appeared as Sally Bowles in their production of Cabaret and most recently as Celia in As You Like It with the Arden Shakespeare Gild.
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Rare Book Room New artist books acquired by library by Anne Garrison Good Girls Don’t Eat Sweets Amee J. Pollack Limited edition of 10 (1999) Amee J. Pollack creates mixed media work and artist books that explore gender issues through a whimsical perspective. Good Girls Don’t Eat Sweets is comprised of 18 quite realistic (and delicious) looking chocolates made of clay, housed in a red candy box. Each clay chocolate opens up to reveal a filling of text, rather than the caramel or coffee cream one might expect. The texts offer pithy commentary on the role of chocolate in a woman’s life such as “I’ll just have one so I won’t binge” and “it’s that time of month.” Pollack received her MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and has taught printmaking and bookbinding in New York. Her works are held by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Smithsonian, the Getty Research Institute, and numerous libraries and universities. Atlas of Punctuation Heidi Neilson Limited edition of 100 (2004) Heidi Neilson is an artist and graphic designer based in New York City. Her work is held in many university libraries and public collections. The Atlas of Punctuation displays the distribution of all end-of-sentence punctuation for 14 books. According to Neilson, “the punctuation for each book is consolidated to a single sheet, as if everything about the book, except the punctuation was removed, and then flattened to a single plane. The books contained in the atlas are representative literary classics that convey a quality of space and scale in the imagination.” It is oddly beautiful and nonchalantly informative about the books it represents. To see, graphically represented, the prevalence of question marks in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, or the dearth of any punctuation whatsoever in Gertrude Stein’s The World is Round, is to understand these literary masterpieces in a wholly new way. Alphabet of Extinct Mammals D. R. Wakefield, Chevington Press Limited edition of 55 (2009) This is an exquisitely beautiful book comprised of 27 printed color etchings of extinct mammals. D. R. Wakefield, is a sculptor, printer, fine-press printer, and at one time pressman, typesetter, and master printer for Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press. The meticulously detailed etchings were printed on a 19th century star wheel engraving press and the text set by the artist and printed on an early Ullmer and Watts Albion Press. In addition to being a lovely book, the text is edifying, as one can learn curious facts about long extinct animals such as the Goliath White Toothed Shrew and the Madagascan Pigmy Hippopotamus. @library.edu Fall 2010
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The library & the campus Reading on a summer morning by Meg Spencer Five weeks each summer, for an hour or so each morning, the usually peaceful Underhill Music and Dance Library is invaded by seven and eight year olds from the Chester Children’s Chorus, coming in to read with their volunteer readers. Since Donna Fournier became the music and dance librarian several years ago, she has welcomed the children and their readers into the library, providing a wonderful space to spend time reading, talking, and doing puzzles. I have been reading with CCC kids for eight summers. The first child I read with is now in high school. This year, my little girl’s name is Ashanti, who will be going into third grade in the fall. We read books on Rosa Parks and Marian Anderson, classic titles like Tar Beach and The Lorax, or some of my own favorites by Roald Dahl or Shel Silverstein. Sometimes she’ll read to me, sometimes I’ll read to her, and sometimes we’ll take turns, each reading a page or paragraph. And, at Ashanti’s insistence, we always read the final page together. It’s not always just about reading. Sometimes the hour can be an impromptu therapy session, when your child reveals she is sad because one of the boys in the choir said a mean thing about her, or she tells you about hearing the grown ups talking about the things going on this summer in the city of Chester where she lives. Or she listens in amazement when I tell her that I also sang Beatles songs when I was seven, and still know the words to the very songs that they are singing in this summer’s concert. So we sing them together to prove that I really DO know the words. We sit in the upper reading room of Underhill, looking out over Crum Woods, and I tell Ashanti about how I grew up playing in those woods. So we write a story about the two of us exploring a forest and coming across a tap dancing bear. We take turns writing paragraphs in her notebook, the story getting sillier as we write, and we finish, Ashanti collapsing into giggles. Then the hour is over, I get a quick hug and a promise to read again tomorrow. The Chester Children’s Chorus was founded 15 years ago by Associate Professor John Alston. For more information, including a schedule of upcoming concerts, go to www.chesterchildrenschorus.org.
Want to borrow a bike? by Alison Masterpasqua Student Council representatives have set up a Bikeshare program. McCabe library is helping by checking out the keys to the bikes as well as helmets and baskets. The plan started out late in the spring semester with five bikes, with plans to add more this fall. Lindsay Yanez, of Swarthmore Cycles, helped to purchase and maintain the bikes. The bikes were very popular during the last weeks of spring semester and were used frequently by students working on campus this summer.
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Sex, Action and Social Commentary: Pulp Magazines in America August 1 – September 17 curated by Hilary Traut ‘13 “The story is worth more than the paper it is printed on.” -Frank Munsey Published from the late 1890s till the 1950s, Pulp magazines dominated American newsstands and homes. A staple of entertainment, these cheap fiction magazines, printed on low grade “pulp” paper, delivered unique and ensnaring stories of all genres for all tastes - good or bad.But what is the legacy of the Pulps? Were they nothing more than the entertainment du jour - mere sensationalist “Sex, Action, and Adventure!” pandering to our cruder instincts? Or were they a much needed communal outlet for Americans to deal with the threat of terrifying wars, radical new sciences, shifting beliefs on morality, and dark predictions of the future.
Vegans, Vegetarians, Animal Rights & Where’s a Good Restaurant in Philly? August – September 22 2nd Floor This exhibit was curated by Catherine Wimberley, a practicum student from the Drexel MLIS program, and installed by Hilary Traut '13, the McCabe summer reference assistant. All of the cookbooks on display can be checked out from the library - and there are even more recipes to enjoy if you browse the TX call number range.
Losang Samten creates Tibetan Mandala September 6-11, 10:00 am - 4:30 pm, McCabe Library Lecture: “Tibetan Buddhism and the Art of Sand Mandalas” Thursday, September 9, 4:30 pm, Science Center 101 Renowned Tibetan scholar and former Buddhist monk, Losang Samten, will be creating a mandala, a sand painting, in McCabe Library. In his first visit to Swarthmore in 1997, he created “The Wheel of Time” over a five-day period. On the sixth day, the mandala was ritually destroyed and returned to the earth near the Crum Creek. The ancient Tibetan art form of sand painting uses colored powders to create a sacred image, or mandala. The circular representation of spiritual truths, the mandala is intended to be uplifting to those who view it, and to bless the environment to which it will be returned. Born in Tibet, Samten studied at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and the Namgyal Monastery, which is the monastery of the 14th Dalai Lama. He was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002 and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2004. Losang Samten is spiritual director of the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. This event is sponsored by the Buddhist Community at Swarthmore, the Interfaith Center, the Departments of Religion and Asian Studies, and a special gift from alumnus Arthur P. Johnson.
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Signing On ~ Creative Interventions and the Mobilization of the Imagination Library Exhibition: Lecture & Reception: Arboretum Installation:
September 21 – October 29 Thursday, September 23, 4 pm Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall September 20 - October 3
Trying to Catch Your Breath
Artist-in-residence and activist, Patrick “Pato” Hebert, brings his threedimensional installations and site-based works to campus. The artist writes, “My conceptual sculptures and installations are concerned with interpersonal ethics, the dynamics that operate in social sites, and a greater awareness of our spatial, temporal and emotional realities. Formally, I am often drawn to simple, vernacular materials while seeking to deploy them in surprising and poetic ways. In all of my sculptural work, whether based in objects, installation, language or performance, I am engaging with site and space as materials. My work also queries how an audience becomes a community, and whether shared social engagement might become more animated, channeled and wielded through art. I want to hone a praxis of strategic interconnectedness. I study the spatial dimensions of light, the personal and cultural meaning embodied in materials and place, the political challenge of indeterminacy, and the spiritual value of uncertainty. I hope that this work constitutes critical yet visceral sculpture and photography that is intimately compelling.” http://patohebert.com/home.html Sponsored by the William J. Cooper Foundation; Department of Sociology/Anthropology; Swarthmore College Library; The Intercultural Center; Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility; The Scott Arboretum
Pyre of Banned Books September 25 – October 2 2nd Floor Celebrate the importance of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting banned books from across the United States. Intellectual freedom is the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular. Banned Books Week stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them and recognizes the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers and members of the community who seek to retain these books in their library collections.
McCabe Library Fall Book Sale Family Weekend Friday, October 22, 12:00 – 5:00 pm - Open to Swarthmore College Faculty/Staff/Students and their families ONLY Saturday October 23, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm - Open to the Public Sunday October 24, 12:00 – 5:00 pm - Open to the Public
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Open Access Week October 18 – 24 This global event to promote free, immediate, online access to research is now entering its fourth year. It is sponsored by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. Look for more info this fall.
Quakers and Slavery, 1657-1865: An International Interdisciplinary Conference Conference: Library Exhibition: Keynote Address by Jerry Frost:
Thursday, November 4 – Saturday, November 6 November 1 - December Friday, November 5 - 5:30 pm Pearson Hall Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center
“Quakers and Slavery, 1657-1865: An International Interdisciplinary Conference” will be held in Philadephia from Thursday, November 4, to Saturday, November 6. It will be hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Swarthmore College, and Haverford College. The sessions at Swarthmore will be held on Friday, November 5, beginning at 10 am. The keynote address by Jerry Frost, Professor Emeritus of Swarthmore College, will be presented on Friday evening at 5:30. In 1657, George Fox wrote “To Friends beyond sea, that have Blacks and Indian Slaves” to remind them that Quakers who owned slaves should be merciful and should remember that God “hath made all Nations of one Blood.” His argument may seem far from radical today, but it initiated three centuries of Quaker debate and activism over the problem of slavery that would ultimately see Friends taking key roles in abolition and emancipation movements on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond. It was, however, by no means inevitable that Quakers would embrace antislavery. In the seventeenth century, and most of the eighteenth century, Quakers were divided on the issue, particularly in the British American colonies, with some denouncing slavery, and others owning slaves. In the following century, Quakers were more unified in their opposition to slavery, but encountered a range of spiritual, political, and personal challenges while taking their antislavery message to a wider world. This interdisciplinary conference aims to examine the history, literature, and culture of the Quaker relationship with slavery, from the society’s origins in the English Civil War up to the end of the American Civil War, with a focus on what David Brion Davis has called “The Quaker Antislavery International.” The sessions at Swarthmore College are being supported by a grant from the Cooper Foundation.
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Read the newsletter ONLINE at the library homepage: http://www.swarthmore.edu/library.xml and connect to all the linked sites in the articles
See all the past issues too! (Back to 1999)
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