The semester is almost over, which means papers are due and final exams are looming. It’s not unusual to feel stressed out this time of year. The good news is that the GSU Library is here to help you cope with that stress and make the best of your finals!  

Beginning Monday, December 9th to Friday, December 13th, 2019 from 10am to 5pm, the library will host fun and stress-reducing activities. We’re offering unique daily activities like make-your-own trail mix and yoga, plus relaxing week-long opportunities like coloring and a meditation zone.

All Week Long (Dec. 9 – Dec. 13)

Classic TV shows such as The Office will be streaming in Classroom 2 (Library North 2).

Center your thoughts with aromatherapy, white noise, and low lighting in the Meditation and Relaxation Zone in the Colloquium Room (South 8).

Coloring, origami and puzzles will also be available all week on Library North 1, South 2, and South 8.

Monday, December 9 – Everything is Awesome!

Make your own trail mix
When: 10am & 2pm
Where: North 1 & South 2

Play with LEGOS
When: All day
Where: North 1

Tuesday, December 10 – Pop-tarts & PJs

We’ll bring the snacks to you!

Wednesday, December 11 – Wednesday Zensday 

Relax with a yoga class
When: 11am, 11:45am, 2pm, 2:45pm
Where: South 8 – Colloquium Room

Thursday, December 12 – Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Work together to color giant poster
When: 10am-5pm
Where: North 1 & South 2

Help us solve the “World’s Largest Crossword Puzzle!”
When: All day
Where: South 2

Friday, December 13 – TGIF…AF

Continue to enjoy coloring, origami, and jigsaw puzzles
When: All day
Where: North 1, South 2, & South 8

The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) announces a new digital exhibit created and curated by the ASERL Special Collections Interest Group. This collaborative online exhibit recognizes 400 years since the arrival of the first Africans sold into bondage in the English Colonies. This date, in 1619, is regarded as the beginning of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in North America.

The exhibit, “Enslaved People in the Southeast,” was curated by a team of nine archivists and contains more than 100 items related to American slavery and its after-effects. Items in the exhibit include auction records and other bills of sale, plantation records, materials from the abolitionist movement, and photographs and other items from the Jim Crow South.

“As a major research institution in the Southeast that holds extensive photographic collections, Georgia State University is committed to sharing those resources to shed light on the long ‘hidden’ history of slavery in all of its forms, noted Christina Zamon, Head of Special Collections & Archives at Georgia State University.  “Our most visible contribution is a series of photographs documenting convict leasing, a 20^th century iteration of slavery in the Southeast.  We hope that by sharing this information it will inform and inspire future generations to avoid the mistakes of the past and seek to advance equality and justice for all Americans.”

Founded in 1956, ASERL is one of the largest regional research library consortia in the United States, serving 38 institutional members in 11 states.  By working together, ASERL members provide and maintain top-quality resources and services for the students, faculty, and citizens of their respective communities.

All items in the ASERL online exhibit can be found at https://bit.ly/2JETOLF.  Additional items may be added to the exhibit in coming months.

On Friday, October 18, the University Library welcomed Ginneh Baugh, Vice President, Strategy & Knowledge Development, United Way of Greater Atlanta to Data in the ATL.

#DataInTheATL is a speaker series hosted by Georgia State University Library that connects the university community with prominent members of the Atlanta data community. Invited speakers show the importance of data science in making informed decisions and how they use data analysis and expertise in their daily work.

Baugh shared with attendees the steps taken by the United Way of Greater Atlanta to develop the Child Well-Being Index, a collection of data and interactive map that the community can use to assess how its children, the families that support them, and the community that surrounds them, are doing.

The index gave United Way a tool to measure child well-being.  Examining an assortment of data, including a family’s financial stability, housing cost burden, the percentage of mothers without a high school diploma, percentage of low-weight births, students exceeding third-grade reading standards and high school graduation rate.

“If we’re going to embark on data analysis, it has got to be useable by people,” Baugh said.

“I have to be able to introduce people to something new then I have to be able to help connect the dots as to how this information can be used.”

[Speaking directly to students in attendance] “If you can convert data into knowledge you’ve got the skill set that people need.”

For more on Baugh’s Data in the ATL talk, take a moment to watch the video above.

[Watch Video]

Click here to learn more about Data in the ATL and to see a list of upcoming speakers

“An oral history interview generally consists of a well-prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format.”
-Donald Ritchie, Doing Oral History

Oral histories can include official interviews with important figures. They can include family histories, and they can document the ways that communities or neighborhoods have grown and evolved over time. Oral histories can also provide a history for under-documented communities, when no official records or narratives exist.

While published accounts and archival records can tell you “what happened,” oral histories can tell you how decisions were made in order to facilitate events and what it felt like to watch, participate in, or be affected by these events. They can provide an insider’s perspective, and they often provide multiple, sometimes competing narratives. Awash with memory, personal interpretations, humanity and emotion, they can make history come alive.

Archivists at Georgia State University have a long history of documenting communities through oral histories, and on Saturday, December 7, from 1:00-4:30 pm, they will share their knowledge and advice during a new Oral History Project Planning 101 workshop.

This workshop will take place at Georgia State University’s Clarkston campus and is free and open to the public. Registration is required, and space is limited. See below for the details or visit the library’s event page.

Oral History Project Planning 101

Do you have an idea for an oral history project but need help developing a plan? Attend this workshop presented by Georgia State University Library’s Special Collections & Archives to find out what steps you need to take to shape your idea into a viable project. We’ll share what’s worked for us (and what hasn’t), review key decisions you should make before starting, and help you create a project plan.

Attendees and archivists from a past oral history workshop

THIS WORKSHOP INCLUDES:

• Small group breakout sessions
• Personalized advice from Georgia State University archivists
• Hands-on interviewing practice
• Discussion of ethical & legal issues
• Preservation & storage tips
• Equipment recommendations & more!

Hands-on interviewing practice.

DATE:

Saturday, December 7th, 2019, 1:00 PM-4:30 PM

LOCATION:

Georgia State University Library
Clarkston Campus, Building CL
555 N. Indian Creek Dr.
Clarkston, GA 30021

Room: LRC 4180

REGISTRATION:

Register here: https://lib.gsu.edu/ohw

CONTACT US:

For more information contact us at 404-413-2880 or archives@gsu.edu

Want to find out about similar events? Visit the Special Collections & Archives website and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Thank you and we hope to see you soon!

-The Special Collections & Archives team

Sprawling of Atlanta: Visualizing Metropolitan Area Change, 1940s to Present

ATLANTA—”The Sprawling of Atlanta” is an interactive Web map created by Georgia State University Library that enables researchers, students and the public to visualize the extensive built environment and demographic changes that have occurred throughout the metropolitan region from the 1940s to the present. The project provides aerial imagery overlays of the five core metropolitan counties – Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton, documenting eight decades of growth and change in our region. Also included are census tract-level population and housing data, providing additional context to these visualizations. Among the changing patterns revealed are the dramatic growth of the suburbs, decline in agricultural areas, decline and rebuilding of the urban core and shifting racial and housing patterns. Joseph Hurley, data services and Global Information System librarian, and Katheryn Nikolich, Ph.D. candidate in History, led the project, with assistance from Georgia State Honors College student assistant Carson Kantoris.

https://lib.gsu.edu/sprawling-atl

Credit

Hurley, Joseph A., and Katheryn L. Nikolich, “The Sprawling of Atlanta: Visualizing Metropolitan Area Growth and Decline, 1940s to Present,” Georgia State University Library, accessed [current Month Date, Year]

Questions? Contact our Digital Library Services at digitalcollections@gsu.edu.

Data in the ATL is a speaker series hosted by Georgia State University Library that connects the university community with prominent members of the Atlanta data community.

Invited speakers show the importance of data science in making informed decisions and how they use data analysis and expertise in their daily work.

On Friday September 20th, the university library welcomed Yanni Loukissas, Assistant Professor of Digital Media, School of Literature, Media & Communication at Georgia Tech. 

Loukissas is the author of All Data Are Local (MIT Press, 2019).  In his book, he argues that practitioners (in academia and beyond) who want to make sense of unfamiliar data must begin to think in terms of data settings – defined by the contexts in which data are made and used – not simply data sets. 

While The term data set implies something discrete, complete, and portable, Loukissas believes academics should approach data sets with an awareness that data are created by humans and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the instruments at hand, for audiences that are conditioned to receive them. 

[Watch Video]

Click here to learn more about Data in the ATL and to see a list of upcoming speakers

The Georgia State University’s Dissertation Library Travel Award, which grants doctoral students with financial assistance to support their research travel, helped Ph.D. student Shana Latimer travel to Texas to gather research for her dissertation topic titled, Disambiguating Dystopia: Readjusting the Critical Lens on Twentieth Century Dystopian Literature.

Latimer visited Texas State University for the Cormac McCarthy archives and the University of Texas at Austin for Kazuo Ishiguro’s archives because her dissertation discusses McCarthy’s book The Road and Ishiguro’s book Never Let Me Go. Fortunately, the two archives were only 45 minutes away from each other, allowing Latimer to navigate between both spaces during the trip.

Latimer’s academic interest in this research area is derived from a passion with dystopian literature, particularly because of the way it engages with society, culture, and politics and how it applies to the real world.

Her favorite part of the research trip was seeing the authors’ commentary, first drafts, and editorial notes.  Latimer felt a personal connection with their literature, and she believes that it helped create a different understanding of the author than if she had read a formal interview or literature by the authors. It was also through this experience that Latimer says her writing confidence grew, even the way in which she viewed her work was elevated from the trip.  

Latimer hopes that her dissertation will provide a better understanding of the world. She says, “Dystopian literature engages with socioeconomics, politics, religion, and culture at large. It can provide warnings about potential dangers to society.” She adds, “It can also perpetuate stereotypes so she hopes those who are reading her dissertation will think a little bit more carefully about the world in which we live.”

The Dissertation Travel Award is only possible through the support of library donors. To support scholars like Shana, give to the Library Research Award Fund (020061).

Article written in collaboration with Tess Havash