The City College Library is hosting

a well-traveled exhibit that offers a revealing look at the sixteenth

president of the United States. A proj-ect of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, San Marino, California’s Huntington Library, the American Library Association, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Forever Free; Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation, is on display through April 7 in the Cohen Library Atrium.

Exhibit Themes

The exhibit looks at Lincoln’s presidency beset by the contentious existence of slavery and a ruinous Civil War. Forever Free examines the times leading up to and following Lincoln’s term in office, as well as the years therein. Starting off with “Young Lincoln’s America,” the exhibit then touches on “The House Dividing,” “War for the Union and Freedom,” and, finally, “Legacies.” Accompanying the main exhibit, and on the lighter side, is a small exhibit from the Gilder Lehrman Institute entitled, Looking at Lincoln: Political Cartoons from the Civil War. Drawn from newspapers of the time, these cartoons help viewers see Lincoln’s presidency through the eyes of everyday people living through it.

Further Information Available

For those viewers wishing to explore in depth the issues touched on by the exhibit, an accompanying brochure will point them to Web sites sponsored by the Library of Congress, the University of Michigan, and the University of Maryland.At these various sites they’ll find Lincoln’s papers, his collected works, and a documented history on Emancipation.

Related Events

The Cohen Library is offering a series of lectures that will focus on topics related to Lincoln’s presidency. The first by CCNY history professor Harriet Alonso at the exhibit’s opening reception on March 2 offered a lively recounting of her book Growing up Abolitionist; The Story of the Garrison Children, the 2003 winner of the Kuehl Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy.

March 16 featured Professor Peter Field, a CCNY Visiting Professor of History from New Zealand, speaking on “Who Freed the Slaves?” Columbia University professor Eric Foner, author of 21 books, lectures on “Lincoln & Emancipation” on March 23. Winding up the series on March 30, the prolific author of 23 books on Lincoln and the Civil War, Harold Holzer, will speak on “Lincoln at Cooper Union.” A reception will follow each of the lectures and speakers will be available for book signings. (See the calendar on the back page for details.)

Partners in Sponsorship

The City College Library is one of nearly 100 institutions that will host Forever Free. The original list of 40 venues has been expanded by 60 sites through 2010. The library sponsors all events associated with the current showing of the exhibit in collaboration with CCNY’s Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and its Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean.

City College Library of The City University of New York

no.72 (n.s.) Spring 2006

Spotlight on Lincoln

2 Spring 2006

From The Desk Of The Chief Librarian

Perhaps you all noticed some weird things in the online catalog when searching CUNY+ at the start of the

semester. Maybe one time you clicked the CUNY+ link and went to the City College catalog. Possibly the next time you visited and clicked the link you went to the CUNY catalog. We certainly have had this and other odd occurrences hap-pen since mid-January, and have been working diligently with CUNY to try and get the catalog back to normal. It isn’t yet perfect, but is improving steadily. The cause of all this—a software upgrade. But not just any software upgrade, one that moved the CUNY+ catalog two full releases (or versions) forward. A single release move is a big project, but a double release move is near insanity. Yet, we could not wait any longer for the extra features now available in the catalog that we didn’t have before. Many of these features make it easier for us to present the catalog to you, but some are features you can take advantage of for yourself! The most obvious of these is the New Booklist. You now have a way to see what we’ve bought in your area of interest recently. There are several ways to go about finding this out:

1. From the Guided Search screen—that’s not the first screen you see when you open up CUNY+, you have to choose it from the yellow line of options on the screen—you can type in keywords and then click the “New Books” box (bottom right). CUNY+ will retrieve all the “new” titles added within the last 6 months to our collections under that subject/keyword.

2. You can also see all the “new” titles added to the collection by using the Command Search Screen—another one you have to choose from the yellow line of options. In the box, you type WNB=nbl to get all the new titles added to our col-lections in the last 6 months. This is a “rolling” 6-month list. At the end of every month, the oldest month will

drop off and the new one will be added.

Just keep in mind that “new” in this case means not only books published in 2005 or 2006 that we acquired, but also older books that are “new” to our collections.

******* Cohen Library had a busy winter intersession. Perhaps you noticed that the ‘E’s and ‘F’s—United States general and local history—are gone from the first floor and now found on the fifth floor. The fifth floor space, recouped when the Center for Teaching and Learning moved to new quarters elsewhere in NAC, has been arranged to add more shelving and more seating for quiet study. A small amount of additional shelving will be added, probably this summer. Moving the ‘E’s and ‘F’s is just the first step. This summer we plan to put more of the collection together, as we consolidate all bound journals/serials/periodicals on the first floor.

And in other facilities news, the library electronic classroom will be moving out of 1/217A. A new library electronic classroom space will be constructed in the 1/340 suite, effectively dividing that space into 2 large classrooms. Sadly, the library is losing the Hungry Mind Café as well. That space will become the new home of the Dominican Studies Institute Library and Archives in the near future.

*******

Comments, suggestions and feedback regarding the library’s services are always welcome and should be addressed to me by calling x7271, sending email to prgcc@sci.ccny.cuny.edu, or by drop-ping by NAC 5/333 (Cohen Library).

The Library Scene

Support the CCNY Libraries every time you shop

Whenever you have the urge for some e-commerce, click on the Ama-zon.com button located in the lower corner of the libraries’ Web site: www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/

Spring 2006 3

The Library Scene Spring 2006

Gift for the Architecture Library

The School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (SAUDLA) donated $7500 to the Architecture Library to supplement its acquisitions budget. This welcome gift allowed the library to expand its collection of recently published works in preparation for SAUDLA’s accreditation visit in February. Among the titles purchased are the ten-volume set, World Architecture 1900-2000: a Critical Mo-saic, presenting global architectural highlights of the 20th century; issues of the new architecture journal, 32 Beijing/New York; and a dozen volumes of the GA Houses series, published in Japan. The partnership between SAUDLA and the Architecture Library is a strong one, and the gift is much appreciated.

Provost Zeev Dagan welcomes CCNY history professor Harriet Alonzo shortly before her March 2 lecture, “To Fight or Not to Fight: The Antislavery Gar-rison Family and the Civil War.”

Professor Alonzo displayed a number of slides featuring archi-val photos from her book, Grow-ing Up Aboli-tionist: the Story of the Garrison Children, during her March 2 lecture.

Margaret Rose Wells, a member of the SEEK Department and a first-time quilter, stands by her vibrant, self-designed Harlem Quilt. Her quilt is one of many wonderful items in the City College Women Make Art exhibit on dis-play through March 30 in the Cohen Library’s fifth floor Archives Gal-lery.

The exhibit also offers this compel-ling 2005 entry by MFA student Miranda Small,Becoming the M Word, a mixed-media work, predomi-nantly oil on canvas.

Mother and Daughter, a haunting work by CCNY MFA student Marlene Smalling, is eliciting much attention at the Women Make Art exhibit in the library’s Archives Gal-lery.

Library Exhibits/Events 2006

is published by The City College Library, The City College of New York/CUNY138th Street and Convent Avenue NY, NY 10031Editor: Professor Judy Connorton jconnorton@ccny.cuny.eduPublication Committee: Professors Ching-Jung Chen, Claudia Lascar, & William GibbonsProduction: Nilda Sanchez & Rodolfo LeytonISSN 0069-4215

Library Contact Information650-7271650-7609650-7155650-7611-12650-8768650-7174650-8246650-8754650-7175

Chief Librarian Archives CirculationReference Architecture Music Science/EngineeringSlide Library/ArchitectureSlide Library/Art

Looking at Lincoln: Political Cartoons from the Civil War Era

A Gilder Lehrman Institute ExhibitionFebruary 13 – March 24, 2006

Cohen Library Atrium

Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation

A Huntington Library/Gilder Lehrman Institute/ALA ExhibitionFebruary 22 – April 7, 2006

Cohen Library Atrium

“Lincoln & Emancipation”Professor Eric Foner

Lecture, Discussion, Book Signing, Reception

March 23, 5:30 p.m.Cohen Library Atrium

“Lincoln at Cooper Union”Harold Holzer

Lecture, Discussion, Book Signing, Reception

March 30, 4:30 p.m.Cohen Library Atrium

Women’s History MonthCity College Women Make Art Exhibit

March 2006Cohen Library Archives Gallery

The Japan Connection: The 150th Anniversary of Townsend Harris’ Arrival

in JapanApril 10 - August 18, 2006 - Library Atrium

Create your blog now!

Ablog “is a Web site in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse

chronological order. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic.” (Wikipedia) Several factors have contributed to blogs’ popularity and growth over the last couple of years: 1. Blogs requires little or no knowledge of HTML. 2. Blogging software is inex-pensive—or often free—and easy to use. “Blogger” is a free service from Google (www.blogger.com) that lets you start a blog in five minutes by fol-lowing three easy steps: 1) create your account; 2) name your blog; and 3) choose your template. “Blogger” is flex-ible with custo-mizing templates and functions. 3. Web Hosting services are low cost—or often free. A Web host is a service pro-vider that places your Web site on a computer which is connected to the Internet. “Blog*Spot” is a free Weblog integrated with “Blogger.” 4. Blog directories (e.g., www.blogarama.com, www.bloghub.com) assure increased exposure for your blog. 5. Syndicating is another way to increase readership. Syndication means publishing the content of the blog in a standardized format (e.g., Really Simple Syndication, or RSS) so that other applications (e.g., Web sites, newsreaders, and other blogs) can read your posts and present them in the format they want. There is no minimum threshold for

how large an audience needs to be before communication becomes “mass” communication. Some blogs have had extraordinary influence. In February 2003 it was the ProMed-mail blog that first alerted the world to the severe acute respiratory syn-drome (SARS) outbreak in China. The ProMED-mail blog maintained by the International Society for Infectious Diseases, is a blog-reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemina-tion of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed. In 2003 Chinese authorities initially

denied the existence of SARS—an action that ultimately resulted in the infection of 8,000 and the death of at least 800 people before it was con-tained. In the case of the ProMED-mail blog a team of experts screen, review, and investigate reports before posting to the

network of over 30,000 subscribers in at least 150 countries. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (“Economists Join Blogging Frontier,” Aug 11, 2005) discusses how investors are turning to blogs for advice. One such blog is www.econbrowser.com, penned by James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a well-respected economist in the field. To get your own blog started, check out a basic tutorial at www.mtroyal.ab.ca/ADC/workshops/_student_tuto-rials/_assignments/student_blog/index_new.htm.

Claudia Lascar clascar@ccny.cuny.edu

Book SaleApril 4

NAC Rotunda10-4