We Still Need Old Newspaper Databases

I am writing an abstract of When Money Was In Fashion: Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, and the Founding of Wall Street by June Breton Fisher for my next readers' advisory book. In these abstracts of biographical books, I include birth and death years in parentheses by the subjects' names in the abstracts. Because Fisher never actually states the birth date in her tribute to her grandfather (which I am including in a list of biographies written by friends or family), I have had to do a little research.

I resisted looking first at Wikipedia. Instead I tried the biographical databases from both Gale and EBSCO. Neither even includes Goldman, which I found interesting. Fisher suggests that her grandfather (son of Goldman Sachs founder Marcus Goldman) was written out of most corporate histories because he vocally supported the German cause during World War I. He also did not appear in The Encyclopedia of World Biography, the World Book Encyclopedia, or the Funk and Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia. So, I returned to Wikipedia, where I found Goldman mentioned without dates. Then I just tried a general search of the Internet without luck.

Remembering my roots as a reference librarian, I logged into the New York Times Historical 1851-2006 database, to which I have access as a library card holder of the College of DuPage. There I found an article and an obituary for Henry Goldman stating that he was born September 21, 1857.

It still helps to have authoritative sources.

"Ready Reference Collections: A History" by Carol A. Singer

A trend in popular nonfiction books is the microhistory in which authors tell in detail stories about specific products, such as salt or toothpicks. Invariably topics are hooks that intrigues readers who then learn about much more than they are promised by the modest sounding topics. I feel the article "Ready Reference Collections: A History" by Carol A. Singer in the Spring 2010 issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly is in this same spirit. It sounds like a small topic - what reference tools have librarians kept close at hand to answer client questions quickly. But the article does more, bringing in the history of the librarian-client relationships, of database access, of reference books on CD-ROMs, of Internet resources, of search engines in service of reference librarians, and of the demise of the printed reference book.

In any other publication than Reference & User Services Quarterly, I suspect many reader would bypass the article, but luckily it is placed where many reference fanatics will spot it. I read with recognition. The article really sums up my professional career. While I was never at a library that could afford the higher priced resources that Singer mentions, I used many of the mainstream reference titles and services, including the World Almanac, Dialog database searching, and CD-ROM towers. I nodded my head as she told about the super-sizing of ready reference collections in busy libraries. I remember a library around 1994 with a huge desk that had three columns of reference books blocked off from client-access. Reference statistics were kept high just by making the clients ask for the books.

What jumps out at me is that with many online resources and clients helping themselves, the print ready reference collection has now returned to its origins, a few items useful for answering questions quickly. The criteria for selecting these items may have shifted slightly (what is better in print than online), but the small shelf close at hand looks familiar to an old reference librarian.

Singer's article has not yet appeared on the RUSQ website, but watch for it there in the future.

Readers' Advisory Online Demonstartion by Sarah Statz Cords

Sarah Statz Cords asked me to pass along that she is presenting on Friday, June 13, a web-based demonstration of Readers' Advisory Online, which includes content from her The Real Story: A Guide to Nonfiction Reading Interests and books in the Genereflecting series from Libraries Unlimited. If you would like to learn about the online source, register quickly by emailing Laura Calerone at laura.calderone@lu.com.

Here is the official notice:

Sarah Statz Cords, from Madison Public Library, Wisconsin, author of The Real Story, and associate editor for the Reader’s Advisor Online, will be offering a web-based demonstration Friday, June 13, 2008 at 1PM EDT / 10 AM PDT (noon central time). Attendees will view the training via the web and will call a conference number to enable full participation in the training. Spaces are limited ­ please register ASAP! You may reserve a seat by emailing laura.calderone@lu.com. Confirmation of registration and access instructions will be sent by email

http://www.readersadvisoronline.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/06/webinar-demo-for-readers-advisor-online-tues-may-20/