WordCat (Specifically, the FirstSearch version, and how to use it to find publisher, translation, etc. information)

Ok, first you want to go to FirstSearch WorldCat. There are also links to it on the English and Textual Histories guides.

WorldCat is a union catalog - what that means is that not only does it have the records from UTArlington library, it also has the records from many, many other public and academic libraries worldwide (over 32 million records).

FirstSearch refers to the specific interface. There are other ways to access WorldCat (for example there is a free public version) but the directions I am going to give apply specifically to the FirstSearch interface.


Link to video
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!

Octavia Butler's papers! (and other authors, in CA.)

This library sounds like it has a really impressive collection of authors papers and manuscripts! They just got Octavia Butler's which should be accessible in about a year. Octavia Butler is one of my favorite science fiction authors, but I can only read so much of her at a time, because it is so well written and sometimes depressing (sort of how I view Battlestar Galactica, though her works are much more internally consistent. Also, I finish books by Butler. I am stuck on season 4.5 of BSG, and apparently I am never, ever going to finish.)

The Huntington Library is in California, so that could be an issue and you have to submit an application but their collections look amazing. They have papers from Jack London, Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, and Charles Bukowski. If you can't make it out there, it looks like you can request reproductions here.

NARA Holocaust records online and NARA Ft. Worth

For the first time ever, over one million Holocaust-related records – including millions of names and 26,000 photos from the National Archives– will be available online.
The collection can be viewed here or here

After October, the Stories section will remain publicly accessible but not the entire archive. After October, you will need to be on a NARA computer to access them (there is a NARA facility in Fort Worth) and then they will become publicly accessible again in five years. See the full press release for details.

I have added these online resources to the Web Resources section of the history guide
My social bookmarking account can be found here

Information on National Archives Southwest Region in Fort Worth, Texas can be found on the Primary Resources Guide under the Government Documents tab

Via h/t framesofref

"Twitter is weird" ....& amazing

Twitter is weird. Some are using it to defeat dictatorships, and others are using it to tell the world what kind of sandwich they just ate.
Gail Simone

In this case, I think the weird combination of frivolous and important is what makes social media like Twitter amazingly useful in spreading information...or as Ethan Zuckerman puts it

Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.

Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.

........

With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. as a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on – the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.

...thus creating what he calls the The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism.


Another way of explaining twitter...