Revisiting Great Literature With Penguin Classics on Air

“Penguin Classics On Air” is an online radio series devoted to the discussion and exploration of some of Penguin Classics’ more than 1400 titles from many eras, cultures and regions of the world. The program is hosted by Penguin Classics Editorial Director Elda Rotor and features in-depth conversations on new, timely and rediscovered classics between Elda Rotor or Classics editor John Siciliano and scholars, translators, or experts of a specific Penguin Classic.

The show wraps up with Associate Publisher Stephen Morrison offering a sampling of the Classic by reading the first pages from one of the works discussed. In addition, each episode of “Penguin Classics On Air” features a review by Alan Walker, Senior Director of Academic Marketing, on one of the Classics he’s recently read, as he fulfills his mission to read one Penguin Classic by an author per letter of the alphabet from A to Z.

As a sample of the goods, take a look at The Birth of Knickerbocker: Washington Irving’s A History of New York. Elda Rotor interviews Betsy Bradley, the introducer and editor of Washington Irving’s A History of New York , Irving’s popular first book is an early nineteenth century satirical novel of colonial New Amsterdam. It follows the fictional historian Diedrich Knickerbocker as he narrates the development of New York cultural life—from the creation of the doughnut to the creation of Wall Street. Alan Walker introduces listeners to The Emigrants by Gilbert Imlay and Stephen Morrison offers up the opening to Washington Irving’s beloved story “Rip Van Winkle.” in his segment, “First Pages.”

CBS News To Feature New Netherland Project

CBS News Sunday Morning will feature the New York State Library’s New Netherland Project as part of a story on the Quadricentennial of Hudson’s discovery of the river that bears his name on Sunday, July 5th. The segment will be aired between 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. and will feature an interview with New Netherland Project Director Dr. Charles Gehring.

One of the most unique history projects in America, the New Netherland Project provided the documentation and inspiration for Russell Shorto’s recent best seller, &#8220The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America.&#8221

A program of the New York State Library, the New Netherland Project has been working since 1974 to translate and publish the official 17th-century Dutch colonial documents of one of America’s earliest settled regions. Originally created under the sponsorship of the New York State Library and the Holland Society of New York, the New Netherland Project has been supported by the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) and the New York State Office of Cultural Education. Translated documents and other work by the New Netherland Project can be accessed at www.nnp.org.

Also based on the work of the New Netherland Project, the exhibit &#8220Light on New Netherland&#8221 is the first to introduce adults and children to the scope of the 17th century colony of New Netherland. Previously on view at the State Museum in Albany, the exhibit will tour the regions once encompassed by New Netherland, appearing at venues to include the GaGa Arts Center in West Haverstraw, New York- the Museum of
Connecticut History at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford- the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities in Cold Spring Harbor, New York- Federal Hall in Manhattan- and the FDR Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.

The book &#8220Explorers, Fortunes, and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland&#8221 further explores the history of America’s earliest colony with a collection of twelve essays. Designed to appeal to a general audience and scholars alike, the book features an opening chapter by Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan & the Forgotten Colony that Shaped
America. The book was published by the New Netherland Institute, formerly Friends of New Netherland, and Mount Ida Press in April 2009. To purchase the book online or by check go to http://www.nnp.org/

Newspaper Vital Records Index Reaches 50,000 Entries

Bob Sullivan of the Schenectady Digital History Archive at the Schenectady County Public Library has announced that the organization’s obituary index has passed the 50,000-citation mark. The index includes scattered records from Schenectady newspapers before 1822, more complete coverage from 1822 to 1858, some later 1800s, 1902, 1993 to mid-1995, and Dec. 2005 to date. Some other papers from neighboring areas are also included from 2005 to date including regional papers such as the Saratogian, the Gloversville Leader-Herald and the Glens Falls Post-Star. Also available are some years of the Hamilton County News, the Business Review, the Jewish World and the Evangelist.

Most of the newspapers are available in the collections of the Schenectady County Public Library or the Schenectady County Historical Society. See &#8220What Newspapers Are Included?&#8221 and &#8220How May I Obtain Copies?&#8221 at the top of each obituary page for more information about specific dates and holding libraries.

The index can be accessed here http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/vitalrecords/

Outstanding New York Newspaper Source Now Online

The Library of Congress has launched the beta version of a new online searchable newspaper collection, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/. The site currently contains newspapers from 1880 to 1910 (more are coming) plus a directory for newspapers published in the United States since 1690 (a look there turns up over 11,000 New York newspapers). Results from Essex County include 85 newspapers once published there.

Research Buzz has all the tips on searching, but suffice it to say that along with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle online, and Northern New York Library Network’s vast online collection of Northern New York newspapers, online New York history research just got a whole lot better. The Library of Congress site includes papers that have heretofore been unavailable for free. These include New York City / National papers The Evening World, Horace Greeley’s The New York Tribune, and the The Sun, plus other major dailies from across the nation.

I took a look at some one of my favorite historical topics, the Adirondacks. The collection includes reports from Adirondack travelers, social notes from local resorts, and hundreds of advertisements like the one above by the Delaware & Hudson Railroad from 1908. Genealogists are going to find a lot of great stuff here, as well as political historians, and folks interested in the creation of the Adirondack Park, the 1903 and 1908 fires, and a lot more like a long report on the 1900 New York Sportsman Show, including the Adirondack Guide exhibit photo shown here.

New Additions to Online Newspaper Archive

Additional content from two newspapers has been added to the Northern New York Historical Newspapers site at http://news.nnyln.net. The Plattsburgh “Press-Republican” coverage has been expanded to 1998, with a starting date of 1942. The newspaper’s own indexed archive takes over with 1999. The Saranac Lake “Adirondack Daily Enterprise” has been expanded to 2007, with a starting date of 1948. It can be searched by itself or as part of the Franklin County group search.

The increased content of these two newspapers join over 40 titles with a total of more than 1,620,000 pages on the NNY Historical Newspapers site. The site is provided free of charge to the public by the Northern New York Library Network (NNYLN) in Potsdam.

While it is always fun and interesting to search decades back in the older newspapers, the more recent years make it easy to go back and check facts or clear up if something was remembered correctly.

For instance, with a few clicks through the Plattsburgh paper readers can be reminded of the “Champlain hires engineers for flood mitigation” story from Sept. 11, 1998 which read, “With $46,000 promised from Clinton County, the Champlain Village Board voted recently to hire Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratories to build a flood-mitigation system in the Great Chazy River.”

Those going through the Saranac Lake paper can see the December 27, 2007 edition reported the following: “The Mountaineer’s 12th annual Adirondack International Mountaineering Festival is coming up on the weekend of Jan. 11, and there are still openings in some of the ice climbing, avalanche and snowshoeing clinics.”

The Northern New York Historical Newspapers website averages well over one million searches every month.

SUNY Albany Puts Old Student Newspapers Online

Peter Bae’s Clio’s Room blog has announced that SUNY Albany’s Special Collections and Archives has put copies of the university’s newspaper from 1916 to 1985 online. Currently you only have the option to browse the papers via pdf, but they are working on a full text search.

You can find them online at:
http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/studentnewspapers.htm

Looks like a great resource, particularly for the history of student activism, education, youth culture, and more.

AHA Announces New Fellowship in Digital History

In 2009, George Mason University and the American Historical Association will offer the first Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship for Innovation in Digital History. This award was developed by friends and colleagues of Roy Rosenzweig (1950–2007), Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of History and New Media at George Mason University, to honor his life and work as a pioneer in the field of digital history.

This nonresidential fellowship will be awarded annually to honor and support work on an innovative and freely available new media project, and in particular for work that reflects thoughtful, critical, and rigorous engagement with technology and the practice of history. The fellowship will be conferred on a project that is either in a late stage of development or which has been launched in the past year but is still in need of further improvements. The fellow(s) will be expected to apply awarded funds toward the advancement of the project goals during the fellowship year.

In a 1-2 page narrative, entries should provide a method of access to the project (e.g., web site address, software download), indicate the institutions and individuals involved with the project, and describe the project’s goals, functionality, intended audience, and significance. A short budget statement on how the fellowship funds will be used should be attached. Projects may only be submitted once for the Rosenzweig Fellowship.

The entry should be submitted by e-mail to [email protected]. Questions about the prize and application process should be directed to [email protected]. The deadline for submission of entries is May 15, 2009. Recipients will be announced at the 2010 AHA Annual Meeting in San Diego.

The City Concealed Explores Forgotten NYC Locations

The idea is a simple one: Take viewers to historical locations around New York City that are either off-limits to the general public, or are otherwise difficult or impossible to see. Then post them to the web.

Being an old city, New York has hundreds of overlooked locales to explore. The City Concealed produces about 2 videos a month. They’ve previously shot a boat tour of Newtown Creek, the tombs & catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery, an eccentric rock sculptor on the furthest reaches of Staten Island, and the abandoned buildings of Brooklyn’s sprawling Navy Yard.

The latest episode is Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel

You can submit a location idea here.

SUNY Albany Offers New History and Media MA Degree

The University at Albany’s Department of History has introduced a new 36-credit History and Media concentration to its Masters program, allowing students to learn and apply specialized media skills — digital history and hypermedia authoring, photography and photoanalysis, documentary filmmaking, oral/video history, and aural history and audio documentary production — to the study of the past. The History and Media concentration builds on the Department’s strengths in academic and public history and its reputation as an innovator in the realm of digital and multimedia history.

Among the History and Media courses to be offered beginning in the fall of 2009 are: Introduction to Historical Documentary Media- Narrative in Historical Media- Readings and Practicum in Aural History and Audio Documentary Production- Readings and Practicum in Digital History and Hypermedia- Readings in the History and Theory of Documentary Filmmaking- Readings in Visual Media and Culture- Introduction to Oral and Video History- Research Seminar and Practicum in History and Media.

Instructors in the History and Media concentration will vary but will include a core faculty including: Gerald Zahavi, Professor- Amy Murrell Taylor, Associate Professor- Ray Sapirstein, Assistant Professor- Sheila Curran Bernard, Assistant Professor.

For more information, contact Gerald Zahavi, [email protected] 518-442-5427.

Virtual Field Trips for Home Schoolers


Check out the website MeetMeAtTheCorner.org which provides virtual field trips for home schoolers ages 8-12. Short videos provide educational and informational “tours” of various landmarks from a child’s point of view via 3 to 4 minute video pod casts. Each episode offers suggested readings and follow-up activities, including the opportunity for kids to submit their own complementary videos, as well as lesson plans for the home school parent. Through these video pod casts, the site creates a community of children who learn the art of self-expression and storytelling through video. New virtual field trips are added every two weeks- participation is free.

Recent videos have included New York City historic and cultural landmarks like Broadway and the Forbes Museum, and a bird watching expedition in Central Park. Recently posted was a program featuring folk singer Linda Russell’s celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River.

This month they will also celebrate Children’s Authors and Illustrators Week and travel to Colorado for an interview with the Director of the Money Museum. Amanda ( age 9) learns about the invention of money and how to begin a collection of state quarters, Presidential dollars and the new Lincoln pennies commemorating the 200th Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

Later in the Spring, shows feature children interviewing authors and illustrators, an astronomer about worldwide celebration of the 200th anniversary of the telescope, a team of Air Force cadets who care for the Academy falcons, a working cowboy, a man who raises and races homing pigeons, and the yo-yo champion of the United States.