You’ve heard of Sally Ride, right?  Ever heard of Jerrie Cobb or Wally Funk?  Probably not.

If you relish true tales of feisty women underdogs and lost episodes in American history, come listen to author Martha Ackmann talk about the brave women who were the “Mercury 13.”  Secretly tested in 1961 with hopes of being the first American women in space, these female pilots (in skirts, heels and white gloves per the time period) were stopped from flying into space by the “old boys’ network” at NASA and on Capitol Hill.

The Soviets sent a woman, Valentina Tereshkova, up in a rocket in 1963, but Sally Ride would not break the American stigma until 20 years later.

The public is invited and no ticket is needed.

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 @ 7:30 p.m.

Gaines Chapel, Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College

A reception and book signing will follow the lecture and Q&A.

Need more info?  Call 404-471-5277 or see http://libguides.agnesscott.edu/merc13.

Agnes Scott alumnae, community friends, students, staff and faculty:

Bring your lunch and join us for a book club-like discussion of The Mercury 13 by Martha Ackmann (before her talk on campus Nov. 5)!

• Tuesday, Oct. 27
  
• Noon – 1:00pm
• McCain Library Terrace (or in McCain 211 if it’s raining)

Students – if you would like some individualized research guidance, and

Faculty – for a librarian to work with your class before an assignment, or for your own research needs:

Contact Casey Long, User Education Librarian, x6343.

If you’d like to read his books, we have two in our collection:

The audacity of hope

Dreams from my father

There also are  eight that pop up if you do a keyword search on his last name in the SOPHIA catalog.  Enjoy!

We’ve just subscribed to Oxford language dictionaries online, covering Chinese, French, Italian, German, Russian and Spanish:

http://0-www.oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com.sophia.agnesscott.edu/

McCain Library recently subscribed to the Alexander Street Press database American History in Video.  American History in Video provides the largest and richest collection of video available online for the study of American history, with 2,000 hours and more than 5,000 titles to be included on completion. The collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and the presentation of historical events over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. This release now includes over 1400 titles, equaling approximately 440 hours. Forthcoming are new videos from PBS, WGBH, and California Newsreel, plus additional years of Universal Newsreel.

The resource is accessible on the library’s A-Z Database List.  Off-campus or on a personal laptop, you will be prompted to enter your name and ASC ID number.

Canadian short-story author Alice Munro has emerged victorious from a clash of the world’s literary giants to win the £60,000 ($94,900 U.S.) Man Booker International prize. The 77-year-old writer was picked from a lineup of towering international talent that included V. S. Naipaul, Mario Vargas Llosa, Peter Carey, and Joyce Carol Oates. The prize is granted once every two years in recognition of a living author who has made an outstanding contribution to world literature.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/27/alice-munro-man-booker-international-prize

This week the library relocated 2 short term use computers to stand-up height carrels in the McCain Library lobby.  We moved the display case to the top of the spiral stairs, so now it’s handy to look up a book or DVD right as you enter the building’s main floor.  Enjoy!

Fri., May 1

8:00 am – 12:30 am**

**Circulation & research services end at 6 pm; building open for quiet study until 12:30 am.

Sat., May 2

9:00 am – 10:30 pm**

**Circulation & research services end at 6 pm; building open for quiet study until 10:30 pm.

The library now has access to three new databases via GALILEO.

Here is some additional information about these resources and their
availability through GALILEO:

ArchiveGrid
Availability: Currently, on site only.

ArchiveGrid provides Online access to nearly a million
descriptions of archival collections owned by thousands of
libraries, museums, historical societies and archives worldwide.
ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching for historical
documents, personal papers and family histories held in archives.

CAMIO (Catalog of Art Museum Images Online)
Availability: Currently, on site only.

CAMIO (Catalog of Art Museum Images Online) provides access to
high-quality art images from around the world contributed and described
by leading museums, all rights-cleared for educational use. Every work
in CAMIO is represented by at least one high-resolution image and a
description. Many have additional views of the work, sound, video and
curatorial notes. CAMIO art images span the following categories:

• Photographs
• Prints
• Sculptures
• Paintings
• Decorative arts
• Posters
• Costumes
• Utilitarian objects
• Jewelry

OAIster (pronounced like Oyster)
Availability: On-campus and Remote

OAIster is a union catalog of more than 19 million digital resources
from over 1,000 organizations developed by the University of Michigan
and harvested using OAI-PMH (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for
Metadata Harvesting). Digital resources in OAIster include items such
as:

• Digitized (i.e., scanned) books and articles
• Born-digital texts
• Audio files (e.g., wav, mp3)
• Images (e.g., tiff, gif)
• Movies (e.g., mp4, quicktime)
• Datasets (e.g., downloadable statistics files)