Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

October 16, 2009 – 11:56 am

The new site is open for business. 

Hosted by Emory University the project is the, “culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. The Voyages website itself is the product of two years of development by a multi-disciplinary team of historians, librarians, curriculum specialists, cartographers, computer programmers, and web designers, in consultation with scholars of the slave trade from universities in Europe, Africa, South America, and North America. The National Endowment for the Humanities is the principal sponsor of the project, and it is an Emory University Digital Library Research Initiative.”

Take a look…http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces

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Foreign Dissertations

July 22, 2009 – 12:49 pm

There is a new place for Mason researcher’s to find foreign dissertation.  As a member of the Center for Research Libraries you now have access to their dissertation collection.

Here is a brief description:

The collection ranges from the mid-1800s to the current day. It includes dissertations from more than 115 countries. Germany, with 276, has the largest number of institutions represented. More than 80 languages are represented in the collection. The breakdown by language is as follows: 66 percent German; 16 percent French; 6 percent English; 2 percent Dutch; 1 percent Latin and Swedish; and less than 1 percent for each of the other languages.

The collection includes 120 dissertations from Nobel laureates and a sizable number by notable scholars such as Saint Edith Stein (1891–1942), the German-Jewish philosopher, Carmelite nun and Auschwitz victim.

To search the collection click here.

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Featured Resource: Chronicling America

July 10, 2009 – 1:58 pm

Ever try to find publication information on newspapers or journals published in Colonial America?  It just got a whole lot easier…Welcome to Chronicling America, providing enhanced access to America’s historic newspapers. This site allows you to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To visit the site click on: Chronicling America

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Mason Metafinder (History)

June 20, 2009 – 3:40 pm

We’re very close to the ‘official’ launch of the Mason Metafinder…a federated search system operated by University Libraries.

Happily, this research portal has served as the development testbed for the service so we’re able to offer the system to our users as an early preview.   Metafinder (History) searches a cluster of sources important to researchers in American Colonial and Revolutionary History:

• American History & Life
• JSTOR
• Early American Imprints (Series I, 1690-1800)
• Early American Imprints  (Series II, 1801-1819)
• The American Memory Project (Library of Congress)
• Arts & Humanities Search
• Historical Abstracts
• Google Scholar
• The Library of Virginia
• The National Archives website
• MARS (Mason Archival Repository Service)
• Mason’s Library Catalog
• Virginia Heritage (Archival Collections in Virginia)
• WorldCat
• OAIster

We’ll present more details on how to make best use of the Metafinder in your research as we get closer to our “official” deployment.  For now, I’ll just suggest you try a couple of searches in the “Search Mason Metafinder (History)” box you see on the right side of the page.

It is important to realize that the Mason Metafinder does not return every matching record  from every source.   That would take far too long.

Instead, the system queries each source and collects up to a few hundred matches (based on the speed with which the source responds).   Duplicates are then purged and the resulting list of matches is sorted based on internal relevancy algorithm.     Since multiple sources are being queried real-time, you’ll notice that results trickle in as your search is running.   Be sure to hit the “Include these Results” button which will appear as a new group of results are ready for display.

Wally Grotophorst in our Digital Programs and Systems Division is heading up the Metafinder project.  He will be happy to answer any questions you have about the system’s operation (wallyg at gmu.edu)

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Colonial & Revolutionary History Portal

October 13, 2008 – 11:46 am

This portal is currently under construction.  When completed, its main purpose will be to help graduate and Ph.D. students locate and utilize primary sources in Early American History.

The portal will contain sources pertaining to all aspects of life in Colonial America through the Revolutionary Era.  The date range is roughly 1619 to 1825.

The sources are a mixture of Mason Library databases and online digital collections.

The title is temporary as are the various widgets shown at left.

Melissa Johnson will serve as curator of this portal.

mjohnsh@gmu.edu

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