New Resources Available
a. The Index to Current Urban Documents (ICUD) (Julia Gelfand, UCI)
Coordinated by Julia Gelfand, five campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego) have licensed the Index to Current Urban Documents (ICUD) [http://uclibs.org/PID/7547] as a Tier 2 resource. This is another example of the successful use of the “tiered” structure for acquiring shared content in which a subset of campuses identify a common need and, with some assistance with logistics from the CDL, negotiate multi-campus access.
Available as a web product since 2000, ICUD, from Greenwood Press, is a rich resource for state and local documents and information about particular cities and municipalities. Coverage is growing rapidly with wide US content and an increasing global scope; the product is updated quarterly. Particularly relevant for urban planning, urban finance, public administration and policy, urban sociology, and related topics, ICUD will be helpful to users who seek information from primary sources and original documents not usually found in other databases.
In addition to a web-based search engine leading to full-text documents, a year-end annual index will be issued in print and sent to all participating libraries. Earlier full-text documents are located at Berkeley on microfiche, previously acquired as a shared purchase.
b. Accessible Archives/Scholarly Resources (Joan Ariel, UCI)
The UC Women’s Studies / U.S. and British History Consortium, coordinated by Joan Ariel (UCI), recently negotiated substantially discounted Tier 2 access to four key full-text databases from Accessible Archives/Scholarly Resources <http://srch.accessible.com>:
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century. Beginning in 1827 with the Freedom’s Journal, the first Black newspaper in America, this database includes biographical material, essays and editorials concerning slavery and emancipation; social, political and economic observations; poetry and prose; advertisements and other representations of African American culture and experience in the 19th century (available to Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz)
Godey’s Lady’s Book. The first successful American journal for women, Godey’s began in 1830, circulated for nearly seventy years and included contributions from such celebrated writers as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. It was also noted for its handsome illustrations, which included hand-colored fashion plates, mezzotints, engravings, woodcuts, and ultimately chromolithographs. Godey’s provides a significant source for the study of women’s history, social history, textile studies, and material culture and literature (available to Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz)
The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1800. Considered the New York Times of the 18th century, Benjamin’s Franklin’s newspaper provides a unique first-hand view of the social, political and cultural history of colonial America, the American Revolution, and the New Republic. Also included is the full-text of such important writings as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Letters from a Farmer, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and The Federalist Papers (available to Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz)
The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective.
Drawing from both Union and Confederate newspapers published between November 1, 1860 and April 30, 1865, this database contains more than 12,000 articles and 700 maps. It covers 2,500 issues of The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury, and The Richmond Inquirer, encompassing descriptive news articles, eye-witness accounts and official reports of battles of the Civil War, but also including non-military social and cultural concerns of the day (available to Irvine, Los Angeles and San Diego).
Licensing for these resources was expertly handled by Sharon Farb, and assisted by Consortium member Ellen Broidy, both of UCLA. We thank them for their efforts.
c. American Civil War: Letters And Diaries Prototype
A functional prototype of The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries from Alexander Street Press has just been released (see CDLINFO January 10, 2001, Vol.4, No.1 [http://www.cdlib.org/news/cdlinfo/cdlinfo011001.html#2] for the initial licensing announcement).
This new full-text collection will eventually contain more than 100,000 pages of primary materials from the North and South, spanning the years from 1850-1870. The prototype now available has only about 12,000 pages, mostly by white Northerners. The regular release scheduled for late summer 2001 will expand to include coverage of African-American and Confederate writers.
During the test period, Alexander Street Press is seeking input from its online customers. Please feel free to preview the database and forward to them any feedback you may have.
Contact your campus Users Council member to get the necessary URL, password and login. Below is a list of Users Council members.
UC Berkeley, Bette Anton, banton@library.berkeley.edu
UC Davis, Bob Heyer-Gray, rheyer@ucdavis.edu
UC Irvine, Christina Woo, cjwoo@uci.edu
UC Los Angeles, Gabriella S. Gray, gsgray@library.ucla.edu
UC Riverside, Wally Babcock, wally.babcock@ucr.edu
UC San Diego, James Church, jchurch@ucsd.edu
UC San Francisco, Julia Kochi, kochi@library.ucsf.edu
UC Santa Barbara, Carol Gibbens, Gibbens@library.ucsb.edu
UC Santa Cruz, Frank Gravier, gravier@cats.ucsc.edu