Annual list of Best Historical Materials selected by RUSA’s History Section experts

BOSTON—The annual list of Best Historical materials was announced by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Book and Media Awards Ceremony at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston on Sunday.

The list recognizes the evaluation and effectiveness in coverage of historical resources in all fields of history and promotes enhanced availability of historical works and information. Published in Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ), these sources are selected by the Historical Materials committee that seeks to improve the usefulness of bibliographies and indexes in the field of history and shared among bibliographers, indexers, publishers and professional associations.

The list includes:

NPSHistory, Harry A. Butowski and Randall D. Payne

http://npshistory.com/

The National Park Service Electronic Library at: http://npshistory.com/ is a portal to National Park History and curates historical documents, videos, and other e-resources that inform visitors of a comprehensive view of the NPS (National Parks Service). The portal, while not the the official .GOV site, provides what the site creators describe as an “American history textbook”(http://npshistory.com/about_us.htm). The value of the NPSHistory site is that it provides images and documents in a hierarchical, directory-file structure under the link “Digital Library” that is sub-divided by kind of documentation and includes: books, periodicals, brochures, and reports/studies.

Digital Irish Famine Archive. Jason King.

http://faminearchive.nuigalway.ie/

Arguably the worst famine to occur in 19th century Europe, the Irish Famine was also known as the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1849. The Archive is simple and easy to navigate. Its holdings have been divided into four sections, each containing the aforementioned accounts. Each section contains downloadable PDF’s and summaries accompanied by images related to the tragedy. Overall, the Archive will be an excellent resource for high school and college students in need of primary and secondary sources about the efforts made to help the Famine’s emigrants to Canada.

Free People of Color in Louisiana, LSU Libraries

http://lib.lsu.edu/sites/all/files/sc/fpoc/

Free People of Color in Louisiana is an NEH funded project that brings together disparate archival collections of personal and family papers, documenting the lives of people of African descent who were either born free or who escaped from slavery and lived freely in the United States, prior to 1865. The site is designed to facilitate easy access to the original catalog records and finding aids for the collections from their source libraries and archives, while presenting the digitized documents together on one searchable platform. The project represents an ambitious collaboration among its contributing institutions and will be of remarkable value to legal, cultural, social, and political historians and scholars of the U.S. and of the Atlantic World more broadly.

Wooster Digital History Project, College of Wooster

http://woosterhistory.org/

Presented by the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, the Wooster Digital History Project combines resources from the college’s own Special Collections, the Wayne County Historical Society, and the Wayne County Public Library to provide a variety of online resources on the town’s history.  Included are app-based walking tours, exhibits on topics such as settlement, agriculture, social movements, and civic development, and a town map with locations linked to pages on the site.  The four tours can be viewed via either web or mobile sites. This easily navigable, appealing site provides an excellent example of well-presented local history.

The Best Historic Materials selection committee consists of Matthew J. Wayman, Penn State Schuylkill, chair; Martin Firestein, Harper College; Susan L. Malbin, American Jewish Historical Society; Sue A. McFadden, Indiana University East; Kathleen M. Monti, Harrisburg Area Community College; Alexa L. Pearce, University of Michigan; Paul Victor, Jr., Eastern Washington University; and Mary Wilke, Center for Research Libraries.

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers’ advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need. Learn more about RUSA’s Book and Media Awards at www.ala.org/rusa/awards.

Multimedia & Technology Reviews selected as 2016 Louis Shores Award winner

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, has selected Multimedia & Technology Reviews as the recipient of the 2016 Louis Shores Award, which recognizes outstanding book and media reviewing for libraries.

The Louis Shores Award recognizes an individual reviewer, group, editor, review medium or organization for excellence in reviewing materials for libraries.

Multimedia & Technology Reviews targets projects, products, events and issues within the broad realm of multimedia and technology as they pertain to arts scholarship, research and librarianship. Under the auspices of its parent organization, the Art Libraries Society of North America, the work of Multimedia & Technology Reviews has proven it to be a true leader in the field of reviewing. The publication is an expert source, reviewing a wide selection of subjects and formats, offering opportunities and guidance in writing reviews to librarians, MLIS students and a broad range of volunteers. Multimedia & Technology Reviews displays a strong commitment to providing reviews that librarians can use to learn about, examine and discuss multimedia tools that are being developed in the ever-changing world of technology.

Multimedia & Technology Reviews offers incisive, objectively written critical reviews for a variety of free multimedia resources. Additionally, the publication itself is readily available online, making the reviews freely accessible to anyone involved in developing library media collections.

The combination of forward-thinking coverage of emerging trends and its inclusive approach to gathering reviewers with a variety of skill sets and disciplinary backgrounds make Multimedia & Technology Reviews a unique and welcome addition to the library reviews landscape.

Multimedia & Technology Reviews will be presented with the Louis Shores Award at the RUSA Achievement Awards at the 2016 American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

The winner was selected by the Louis Shores Award committee, whose members include Lucy M. Lockley, chair, St. Charles City-County Library District, Missouri; Emily Hamstra, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Edward Kownslar, Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas; and Sarah Barbara Watstein, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina.

Reference experts announce annual Outstanding Reference Sources list for adults

BOSTON – The most noteworthy reference titles published in 2015 have been named to the 2016 Outstanding References Sources List, an annual list selected by experts of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of ALA. The list was announced today at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston.
The Outstanding Reference Sources Committee was established in 1958 to recommend the most outstanding reference publications published the previous year for small and medium-sized public and academic libraries. The selected titles are valuable reference resources and are highly recommended for inclusion in any library’s reference collections.
The winners are:
“Black Stereotypes in Popular Series Fiction, 1851-1955: Jim Crow Era Authors and Their Characters” by Bernard A. Drew. McFarland & Company, Inc.
“Civil War Biographies from the Western Waters: 956 Confederate and Union Naval and Military Personnel, Contractors, Politicians, Officials, Steamboat Pilots and Others” by Myron J. Smith, Jr. McFarland & Company, Inc.
“The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature” Dino Franco Felluga, editor. Wiley Blackwell.
“Modern Genocide: The Definitive Resource and Document Collection” Paul R. Bartrop and Steven Leonard Jacobs, editors. ABC-CLIO.
“The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary” by David and Ben Crystal. Oxford University Press.
“The Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean” by Scott Weidensaul. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
“The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives” Scott C. Martin, editor. SAGE.
“Weird Sports and Wacky Games Around the World: From Buzkashi to Zorbing” by Victoria Williams. ABC-CLIO.
“Women’s Rights in the United States: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Issues, Events, and People” Tiffany K. Wayne, editor. ABC-CLIO.
“Worldmark Global Business and Economy Issues” Miranda Herbert Ferrara, editor. Gale.
The Outstanding Reference Sources selection committee consists of Annie Fuller, St. Louis County Library, chair; Adam Jackman, Pierce County Library; Kathi Woodward, Springfield-Greene County Library; Jessica McCoullogh, Connecticut College; Shelley Arlen, University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries; Kara Krekeler, University City Public Library; Paul Walker, Bluffton University; and Laura Birkenhauer, Miami University.
The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers’ advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need. Learn more about RUSA’s Book and Media Awards at www.ala.org/rusa/awards.

Dr. Florita Bell Griffin named recipient of Zora Neale Hurston Award for promotion of African-American Literature

BOSTON— Dr. Florita Bell Griffin, Creative Director of ARC Communications, LLC, a Texas-based Visual Art Communications and Publishing Company is named as the 2016 recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Award, an annual achievement award administered by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association and sponsored by HarperCollins Publishers.

The Zora Neale Hurston Award Committee has selected Dr. Florita Bell Griffin in recognition of her outstanding leadership and tireless efforts in promoting literacy and African American literature through the creation of the Little Flower® literacy project. The Little Flower® project works to improve youth literacy, self-esteem, and imagination through the use of art, artistic media, and African American literature (storytelling).

Little Flower® utilizes African American Literature, educational products, film, paint, sculpture, transmedia, performing arts, photography, music, mobile games and even the wildly popular Minecraft game platform to inspire children of all ages to read.

Little Flower®, the project’s namesake and storybook heroine, is a young African-American girl growing up during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement.  A vocal anti-bullying advocate, Little Flower® uses her sharp mind, big heart, and even bigger imagination to inspire and organize  her ever expanding circle of multi-cultural friends to address the problem of bullying in their school.

The Zora Neale Hurston Award honors an ALA member who has demonstrated leadership in promoting African-American literature. Dr. Griffin will be honored at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Dr. Griffin will also receive a $1,250 monetary prize to fund travel expenses to the ALA Annual Conference, two tickets to the United for Libraries author events: The Gala Author Tea and The Laugh’s On Us, two complete sets of Zora Neale Hurston’s books and audiobooks and a beautiful personalized plaque.

Dr. Griffin was selected by the Zora Neale Hurston Award committee: Deborah Abston (Chair), Arizona State University; Janice Derr, Eastern Illinois University; Sue K. Dittmar, St. Charles City-County Library (Mo.); Cynthia Sorrell, University Of Maryland.