Database News for February 2005

This month, explore some of our many new resources for research in black history and culture. New this month is Black Short Fiction from Alexander Street Press. When complete this databases will bring together 100,000 pages and an estimated 8,000 works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present. The materials have been compiled from early literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors. Some 30 percent of the collection is fugitive or ephemeral, or has never been published before.
Currently, the database has the works of 19 authors, including Paul Laurence Dunbar and Ken Saro-Wiwa. Search by author, title, time period, place or topic.

Alexander Street also publishes several other important resources for African American studies, including Black Thought and Culture and Black Drama. When complete, Black Thought and Culture will provide approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art. The collection begins with the works of Frederick Douglass and is targeted to include the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ralph Bunche, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Houston Baker, Jesse Jackson, Ida B. Wells, Bobby Seale, and many others.
Search or browse by author, title, subject, year, topic, historical event, or by keyword in full text.

An exciting recent addition to the the Black Thought and Culture database is the Black Panther Party Newspaper. The Black Panther Party Newspaper is arguably the most important documentary source for studying the Black Panthers. It provides a weekly record of the development of the party, and it includes contributions from such eminent figures as Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, and Huey Newton. For the first time, the newspaper will be available in its entirety, in color and fully searchable.

 

 

Black Drama was conceived as a way to make the writings of leading African and African American dramatists more accessible. When complete, Black Drama will contain the full text of 1,200 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 100 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard-to-find, or out of print. James Vernon Hatch, the playwright, historian, and curator of the landmark Hatch-Billops Collection of black drama, is the project’s editorial advisor. Nearly a quarter of the collection will consist of previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Femi Euba, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

The African American Biographical Database contains biographical materials on African Americans from the 18th to the mid-20th centuries, drawn from several hundred biographical dictionaries and yearbooks. Here you will find obscure and even rare vertical file materials, church directories, slave narrative collections, and more.

In addition to these and databases for African American Studies, the Libraries have notable print collections for research in Black History. The SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) papers have recently arrived on microfilm. One of the most important civil rights groups in the late '50s and early '60s, SNCC was formed by student activists nationwide in response to the burgeoning student sit-in movement in 1960.The collection includes correspondence, project files, internal reports, and printed materials generated by the SNCC organization as it challenged racial barriers, faced internal crises, and sought a leadership role in the fight for desegregation, voter's rights, and black power. The Libraries have also recently acquired a complete set of indexes for the enormous NAACP (National Association of Colored Persons) papers set on microfilm. By using these indexes, researchers can identify pertinent microfilm reels from the thousands published thus far. NAACP papers can be obtained on Interlibrary Loan.

At the Center for Research Libraries you will find a large number of resources for Black Studies, including collections of the United Negro College Fund and various African missionary and resettlement organizations. And don't forget the important resources for African American history in the Libraries' Special Collections, such as collections from civil rights leader Daisy Bates, musician William Grant Still, and Oral History interviews from participants in the Little Rock Central High crisis.

During February, you can also access a free Black History Month web site with a number of resources published by Gale. Here you can read biographies of significant African-American individuals; take a Black History Month quiz, follow a timeline of events that helped shape African-American heritage, and explore African-American literature.

This month, try out these exciting resources from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). EIU has developed a range of services that provide continuously updated, comprehensive analysis on nearly 200 countries. EIU databases contain: events-based briefings, economic and geopolitical analysis, operating conditions and regulations, management strategies, risk assessment, industry trends, and economic forecasts and outlook. Databases in our trial include:

• Economist.com
  • Economist.com includes the entire print edition of The Economist magazine, offered in a usable, viewable, and printable format. The entire content of The Economist is available online by 6pm GMT on Thursday. Global coverage. Update frequency: Weekly
• ViewsWire
  • Delivers daily decision support for doing business in fast-changing world markets. Every day the ViewsWire highlights up to 250 key economic, political and market developments around the world and provides concise analytical briefings on the implications for business. Covers 200 countries. Update frequency: Daily
• RiskWire
  • Provides comprehensive timely analysis, forecasts, alerts and background data covering a wide range of risk factors in 60 major markets. RiskWire is designed to help you assess and plan to confront the risks of doing business around the world. The service is updated daily in response to events that affect our assessment of risk in a particular country. Covers 60 countries. Update frequency: Daily
• IndustryWire
  • Provides five-year forecasts and news analysis for eight key industries, along with relevant background information. IndustryWire covers the 60 major economies that account for more than 95% of world output and trade. The forecasts are based on the latest data and in-depth analysis of sectoral trends. Covers 60 countries. Update frequency: Daily
• Financial Times on ViewsWire
  • The Financial Times is a daily newspaper providing extensive global business news, commentary and analysis. Leveraging over 100 years of journalistic excellence and business intelligence, the Financial Times is the world's most authoritative source of news, data, commentary and analysis. It aims to provide global business news, data and analysis that are indispensable to executives, government influencers and opinion leaders around the world. Covers 200 countries. Update frequency: Daily

Trial Ends: 2/28/2005. Send your comments about Economist Intelligence Unit - EIU Databases to Donna DANIELS, librarian for Business and Finance. Or take our online electronic resources survey.

You are invited to a demonstration of Knovel on Tuesday, February 22nd.
There will be two sessions, both in Room 102 Mullins Library: at 9am and again at 1:30pm. All are welcome.

Knovel provides a searchable database of more than 650 handbooks and reference sources in science and engineering. Knovel covers subject areas such as:

• Adhesives, Coatings, Sealants & Inks
• General Engineering References
• Aerospace & Radar Technology
• Mechanics & Mechanical Engineering
• Biochemistry, Biology & Biotechnology
• Metals & Metallurgy
• Ceramics & Ceramic Engineering
• Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics & Toiletries
• Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
• Plastics & Rubber
• Construction Materials & Engineering
• Safety, Health & Hygiene
• Electrical & Power Engineering
• Semiconductors & Electronics
• Environment & Environmental Engineering
• Textiles
• Food Science

A complete list of current titles is available on the Knovel web site.
Off campus users may access the trial at this address:
http://0-www.knovel.com.library.uark.edu.

Trial Ends: 3/1/2005. Send your comments about Knovel to Patricia KIRKWOOD, librarian for Engineering and Mathematics.
Or take our online electronic resources survey.

The Libraries have recently added a subscription to the Ovid Nursing Collection II, which provides full-text access to eighteen key nursing journals from 1996 to the present. Researchers can search or browse the collection directly or follow links from the comprehensive CINAHL nursing index.