June 24, 2009
What We’re Reading: June 25, 2009 Edition
In the news this week, the AHA has sent a letter of concern to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, historian Gerhard Weinberg wins an award from the Pritzker Military Library, and the Library of Congress adds its one-millionth page to its Chronicling American project. We also link to an article on the future of university presses, selling dollars to make dollars, and a new collection of four Frederick Douglass speeches. Finally, we link to two bits of fun: more photos in the “Looking Into the Past” series and wise recommendations from the Book Seer.
- American Historical Association Letter to President Dmitrii Medvedev
On June 17, 2009, AHA Executive Director Arnita Jones sent a letter to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, expressing concern on behalf of the American Historical Association over the recent creation of a Commission to Counteract Attempts at Falsifying History to Damage the Interests of Russia. See the full text of the letter here (PDF). - Historian Gerhard Weinberg Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
Historian and AHA member Gerhard Weinberg has won a $100,000 Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Pritzker Military Library. The award will be presented on October 24, 2009 at a gala in Chicago. - Read All About It: Magnificent Milestone
Congratulations to the Chronicling America project—a historical newspaper site developed by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities—which just added its one-millionth page last week. - New Features on Google Books
Google announces some new and improved features to its Book Search. Meanwhile, the library community is still trying to get a handle on the potential ramifications of the proposed Book Search settlement. - Change or Die?
University presses are on the ropes, the monograph may be an endangered species, and students who think phone books are museum pieces are all a clamor for easily accessible electronic resources. Reporting from the Philadelphia meeting of the American Association of University Presses on these sorts of challenges are Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed and Jennifer Howard for the Chronicle of Higher Education. - South Carolina Is Seeing How Far Some Civil War Cash Can Go
Save your Confederate dollars, the South will rise again! Or, at least they will become valuable collector’s items. The New York Times reports that the South Carolina Department of Archives and History has made over $200,000 selling off old money in the last two years. - Smithsonian Folkways African American Legacy series
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, and in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture is putting together and reissuing African American music and oral histories. On June 23rd, they released a collection of four Frederick Douglass speeches read by the late actor Ossie Davis.
Don’t forget that you can often link to free or open access versions of Chronicle articles. You could have used this link, for instance, instead of the above one:
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=dbs8PwzbQNrbzWrHcKwqKrjpcsdV9vsc
— Sterling Fluharty Jun 24, 10:29 PM