WKU Libraries Blog

WKU Libraries is proud to announce the acquisition of a new online resource: 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 on completion. The collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. This release now provides 4,163 titles, with videos from new partner Media Rich Learning, and much more, equaling approximately 1,027 hours.

American History in Video has just been named a Library Journal 2009 Best Reference, in addition to being named earlier as Booklist Editors’ Choice: Reference Sources 2009 winner. The collection received a starred review in the November 15, 2009, issue of Booklist, which called it “highly recommended for any library that serves students of American history.” Library Journal also gave the collection a rave review in the August 15, 2009, issue, calling it a full 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 with a rating of “resoundingly recommended.”

WKU students, faculty and staff can access the resource directly from on campus, or by first logging into our proxy server when off campus.

Check out another of WKU Libraries’ new resources, Education Index Retrospective.

Education Index Retrospective provides a vast record of important education literature in a format easily searchable, with indexing of more than 800 periodicals and yearbooks. Find information on societal trends affecting education, for example segregation, multiculturalism, feminism, economic developments, and more.

• Accurate, detailed, cover-to-cover indexing of over 800 periodicals, many of them peer-reviewed.

• Includes the full text of Wilson Library Bulletin from 1914 to 1983, including PDF page images.

• Cites some 850,000 articles, including book reviews.

WKU patrons can access the Education Index Retrospective and thousands of other electronic resources via our Database Page.

After 22 years of dedicated service with the Department of Library Public Services, WKU, Dr. Gay Perkins is beginning a new chapter in her life: retirement. Employees of the WKU Libraries gathered today in Room 100 of Cravens Library to celebrate her achievements. She has really been an achiever. She had already served on 26 Task Forces and Committees by the time she was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994, including two terms on the University Graduate Fellowship Committee and on the Advisory Committee to the Vice-President. By 2002 when she was promoted to Professor she had won the UL Research and Creativity Award in 2001, been published in the profession’s leading research journal, helped found and edit the award winning The Western Scholar, and masterminded the University Libraries first “Client Survey.” Dr. Perkins has been an inspiration for all of us, and her departure will be greatly missed. But we sincerely wish that as she enjoys her retired life, she map out a strategy chocked full of new adventures.

Photo Album

“My pen is always freer than my tongue. I have written many things to you that I suppose I never could have talked.” — Abigail Adams, 1775

North American Women’s Letters and Diaries is the largest collection of women’s diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, brings the personal experiences of some 1,325 women to researchers, students, and general readers.

The uses for the collection will be many and varied. For historians, sociologists, students of literature, researchers in genealogy, and others, North American Women’s Letters and Diaries will prove a dramatic new resource. These diaries bring us much more than the personal. They provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves. We can see how frequently they attended church, how they viewed their connection to God, and how they prayed. We can explore their relationships with lovers and family and friends. William Matthews, an early scholar in this field, observed:

“I believe the diary to be a unique kind of writing; all other forms of writing envisage readers, and so are adapted to readers, by interpretation, order, simplification, rationalization, omission, addition, and the endless devices of exposition . . . [diaries] are in general the most immediate, truthful, and revealing documents available. . .”

The collection includes some 150,000 pages of published letters and diaries from individuals writing from Colonial times to 1950, including more than 6,000 pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn from more than 600 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, much of the material is in copyright. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous. It includes some 300 biographies to enhance the use of the database.North American Women’s Letters and Diaries aims to cover all published material and as large a number of unpublished materials as copyright and cost will allow. The contents have been selected from the bibliographies listed below as well as other sources.

~Alexander Street Press

North American Women’s Letters and Diaries is a new database available from WKU Libraries. This database adds enormous material to the WKU Libraries sources for women’s studies, history, and related fields. The database can be accessed from on campus or from off campus, once you log into our proxy server.