LRS-V?

LRS-V is the Library Research Seminar-5: Integrating Practice and Research. The conference is organized and hosted by the iSchool at Maryland and major sponsors include the American Library Association's Library Research Roundtable, the Institution of Museum and Library Services, the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, and OCLC.

The main purpose of this event is to "bring together a diverse community of scholars from academia and practitioners from libraries and archives who are interested in research that informs policy-making, decision-making, and best practices." The seminar's schedule is full of exciting offerings, ranging from archives and librarianship in the age of Web2.0 to information dissemination through graphic novels. One featured speaker, Anne S. MacLeod, will offer a presentation on modern art influences found in picture books for children.

How does this conference relate to Carmichael Library? Recently, I was fortunate enough to receive a fellowship to attend. From October 6th-9th, I plan to sit in on many of these presentations and hope to be inspired to broaden my own research activities and forge stronger connections with Montevallo's research community. Over the next two weeks, I'll use this blog to share my LRS-V thoughts and experiences.

I also encourage you to take a few moments and check out these related blog posts.

The New England Journal of Medicine

The New England Journal of Medicine has provided free electronic access to their content, back to the first article in the year 1812. According to their website:

"The more recent part of the archive from 1945 through 1989 is presented in an HTML format similar to that used for current issues, with full text, tables and figures, PDFs, and tables of contents. The older archive from 1812 through 1944 contains tables of contents plus PDFs of individual articles. The entire archive is fully searchable. This is possible because every page of the Journal was first scanned, using high-resolution technology to produce PDF files, which were then read, using optical character recognition, to produce the HTML. Tagging and indexing according to specialty were done by computer algorithm and Medline tags as far back as they were available. These processes are not perfect, and readers may find some errors that have been missed, especially in the older content. The entire archive consists of 8498 issues with 486,434 pages and 145,969 articles with 75,649 images.

Click here to have a look at the index.

Coffee Shop Opening!

Carmichael Library's Coffee Shop, Ollie's Simply To Go Café, will open on Friday, September 24, at 9 a.m.!

Hispanic Heritage Month 2010

September 15^th marks the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. This national observance began in September 1968, when Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to proclaim National Hispanic Heritage Week. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan expanded the observance into a monthlong celebration taking place between September 15^th and October 15^th.

I have long wondered why this observance begins in the middle of a month and runs through the middle of the next month. September 15^th was chosen as the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Additionally, two more countries celebrate their independence around the same time. Mexico celebrates its independence on September 16^th and September 18^th marks the date of Chilean independence.

We've selected a few websites and reference materials from the Carmichael collection to recognize this national observance.

Reference Works

• Lehman, Jeffrey. Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Ref. E184.A1 G14 2000
• Meier, Matt S. and Margo Gutiérrez. The Mexican American Experience: An Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. Ref. E184 .M5 M4535 2003
• Meyer, Nicholas E. Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Americans. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. Ref. E184.S75 M49 2001
• Navarro, Sharon Ann and Armando Xavier Mejia, eds. Latino Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Ref. E184.S75 L3557 2004
• Oboler, Suzanne and Deena J. González, eds. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Ref. E184.S75 O97 2005
• Stavans, Ilan, and Harold Augenbraum, eds. Encyclopedia Latina: History, Culture, and Society in the United States. Danbury, CT: Grolier Academic Reference, 2005. Ref. E184.S75 E587 2005
  

Web Sites

• Hispanic Heritage Cultural Tour - From the Smithsonian Institution, an exploration of historic pieces in the museum collection plus quizzes and activities
• Hispanic Heritage in the Americas - An Encyclopedia Brittanica collection of biographies, speeches, images, and other documents
  
• Hispanic Heritage Month on Biography.com - Featured biographies, photos, a trivia game, and more
• National Hispanic Heritage Month - Hosted by the Library of Congress, this site links to audio, video, and historic documents

Photo credit: "Mexican Independence Day celebration, La Habra, (Sept. 16) 1920s."
Photo courtesy of Orange County Archives. Creative Commons license.

Announcing the 2011 Book Review Competition

Enter the annual Book Review Competition!

Deadline: February 15, 2011
Winners will be announced on Honors Day, April 13, 2011

September 7, 2010 marked the start of the 2011 Carmichael Library Book Review Competition. The Competition was established in 1982 to foster student interest in critically reading and evaluating a recent work of fiction or non-fiction. Winners of the competition receive an award certificate with a monetary prize, and they are recognized at the Honors Day ceremony in the spring.

For full details on competition rules, check out our Book Review Competition web page. Happy reading and good luck!

An Evening of Montevallo History

Eclipse Coffee & Books will host Montevallo Memories on Thursday, September 9th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. To celebrate the re-release of Eloise Meroney’s Montevallo: The First One Hundred Years, Dr. Mike Mahan will serve as the moderator of a panel of long-time Montevallo denizens who will share their memories of their home town. Audience members are invited to share their memories as well or ask questions of the panelists. Speakers will include Carmichael Library's own Barbara Belisle, as well as J. A. Brown, John Kirby and Bill Plott. Copies of the Meroney book will be available with proceeds to benefit the Montevallo Historical Society.

Also, if local history is your thing you won't want to miss the current gallery exhibit at Parnell Memorial Library, Montevallo Downtown "Over the Years." The exhibit is curated by Becky Bolton Crisswell and will remain on display through October 20^th.