Of her 22 years at Brandeis, Bessie K. Hahn can definitely say she has kept the Brandeis University Libraries ahead of the curve! Riding the wave of the computer revolution, the information age explosion, and library automation developments, the Brandeis Libraries have entered the 21st century poised to take advantage of all the new millennium has to offer.

Throughout her tenure Bessie’s unwavering aim has been to provide the best possible services to the Brandeis community. Whether developing staff or developing collections, whether implementing new services or installing new technologies, her goal was always to meet the needs of the students, faculty and staff.

Bessie was immediately faced with a major challenge her first years at Brandeis - completing the design and construction of the Leonard L. Farber Library. Plans for the new library were nearly complete when Bessie was appointed Director of the Libraries, and construction was scheduled to begin in six months. Bessie immediately involved herself in the project, reviewing floor plans, service areas, and office space - and helped to ensure that the completed Farber Library would meet the needs of the Brandeis community for decades to come.

You could say that "building things" has been a theme of her career at Brandeis! From physical space (including the Farber Library, and the Robert D. Farber University Archives, the computer cluster on Level one of the Farber Library, and the electronic research centers in the Goldfarb and Gerstenzang Libraries) to new services (including electronic reserves, the Brandeis Model of Reference Services, and 24/7/365 online research assistance) to information resources (in 1996 the Libraries acquired our one millionth print volume), Bessie has led the University Libraries in building a tradition of innovation and service.

The one great constant during Bessie’s leadership has been change. Under her management the Libraries learned to anticipate and embrace change, never settling for the status quo. This attitude is evident in the management structure of the Libraries. Defining an organization chart for the University Libraries is a bit like trying to nail jelly to a tree! Don’t expect to find a staid hierarchy here. Bessie was quick to take advantage of the skills and experience found in her staff, and to reorganize the Libraries to make the best use of those skills and experiences to meet the needs of the Brandeis community. A fluid organization is a flexible organization. Today the University Libraries are flexible enough to maintain both our innovation and our service orientation in the face of declining budgets and staffing.

Bessie’s great partner in all her accomplishments has been the Brandeis University National Women’s Committee. Bessie forged a strong alliance with the Women’s Committee, making many long-time personal relationships along the way. The Committee’s support of the Libraries, and in particular their support of Library Technology, has helped to keep the University Libraries on the cutting edge of electronic resources and services. In 1998 the Women’s Committee celebrated their 50th anniversary by announcing the endowment of a chair for the University Librarian. In 2000 Bessie was appointed the first Brandeis National Women’s Committee University Librarian.

On July 1, 2003 Bessie will be appointed the first Brandeis University Librarian Emerita. True to form, she leaves the University Libraries to create a new role and challenge expectations. Change is in the air, and, thanks to Bessie, the Libraries are prepared to welcome the challenges to come!

The ERes Electronic Reserves Service, offered by Brandeis Libraries since 1997, is being replaced by WebCT in order to integrate all aspects of course management into a single interface. Effective Fall semester 2003, WebCT will be the sole platform for any electronic reserve materials.

The Brandeis University Libraries is partnering with Information Technology Services (ITS) to achieve a smooth migration from ERes to WebCT and to provide continuing support for WebCT as the course management system for Brandeis.

The principal advantage to users, both faculty and students, is a single interface that integrates all course materials. Faculty can post and manage course syllabi, homework assignments, online quizzes, as well as electronic reserve readings all in one place. Similarly, students need only log in to WebCT to find all the materials related to their courses.

As with any technology change or upgrade, there is a learning curve involved. To assist faculty in this transition, the Libraries and ITS will offer classes, one-on-one sessions, and troubleshooting by phone. In addition, there will be ongoing support, especially for more advanced applications such as streaming audio and video. Watch for upcoming announcements about classes.

Since WebCT will be the only option available for electronic reserve reading, we encourage faculty to plan ahead and allow some extra time to set up their Fall courses. Faculty who have already used WebCT will simply need to learn basic scanning. Faculty who have not yet incorporated WebCT into their teaching may find this a great time explore the full potential of WebCT, in addition to setting up their electronic reserve readings.

Both the Libraries and ITS are available to answer questions and provide assistance. Contact Janet Hill, Brandeis University Libraries (jhill@brandeis.edu, 781/736-4693) or Dave Wedaman, Information Technology Services (wedaman@brandeis.edu, 781/736-4548) for more information. Or, consult the WebCT web site at http://web.brandeis.edu/pages/view/Instructional/CourseManagement for more details and announcements.  

The Brandeis University Libraries recently started subscriptions to two new full-text databases from EBSCO Host publishing: Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier . Both offer enhanced indexing, improved searching capabilities, and access to far more full-text scholarly journals than we have had in the past. The former EBSCO Host database will replace ProQuest, and the latter will replace ABI/Inform, which we had offered only as an index.

Academic Search Premier is a general-purpose scholarly collection providing massive full-text journal coverage for nearly every academic area of study, including the social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. Business Source Premier contains a plethora of full-text journals from the world's top business sources and is particularly strong in both management and marketing. Some notable titles include the Harvard Business Review, Industrial & Labor Relations Review, the Journal of Management Studies, and the Journal of Marketing Research (JMR). The database also includes country economic reports from the EIU. Additionally, Business Source offers a supplemental section named Regional Business News with daily updates.

With the addition of these two databases, our subscriptions to ProQuest and ABI/Inform will end this summer. Accordingly, if any durable links to full-text articles in ProQuest appear in any of your web-based syllabi or bibliographies, you should switch those links over to articles in Academic Search Premier. (Durable links are those that allow you to return again and again to a particular article.) Otherwise, links to such articles will no longer work once our subscription to ProQuest runs out.

--Jason Bernard, Reference Librarian

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Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory is now available electronically in the Libraries’ Electronic Resource Center (ERC). Ulrich’s, as it is commonly known, is a bibliographic database providing detailed, comprehensive, and authoritative information on serials published throughout the world. It covers all subjects, and includes publications that are published regularly or irregularly and are circulated free of charge or by paid subscription. This resource is great for finding journal publication information and for identifying which journals might be interested in publishing that article you just wrote.

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Now you can discover whether CHOICE has reviewed your latest book yet by using your office computer. ChoiceReviews.online provides Web access to the entire database of CHOICE reviews published since September 1988. The database is updated monthly, generally at mid-month, with reviews that will be printed in the next monthly issue of CHOICE. The newest reviews appear, arranged by academic discipline and broad cross-disciplinary topic, by clicking on the "Current Issue" link. And by using the Advanced Search option, you can retrieve a set of reviews that will give you an instant survey of what has been written recently on a particular topic.  

Construction of the Castle's Crenellations, 1928.

Erected in 1928, the Castle was the main building of instruction for Middlesex College, the medical and veterinary school that preceded Brandeis University. Designed by the founder of Middlesex, John Hall Smith (1872-1944), the Castle originally contained classrooms, labs, and lecture rooms. The building was eventually transformed into a residential hall for Brandeis students and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The Castle remains the oldest structure on the Brandeis campus.  

Are you looking for alternative news sources covering the war in Iraq? Do you want to use the same resources the CIA relies on to carry out their duties? Would you like your students to read alternative viewpoints?

The following headlines are from World News Connection, available on our Brandeis University Libraries’ database page.

Excuse me Rumsfeld
from Abha Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia, supported by Asir Governor Prince Khalid al-Faysal); editorial by Salih al-Shihi

It Does Not Seem Like a Picnic as They Expected
from Jedda Ukaz, (Saudi Arabia); editorial by Humud al-Badr, the secretary general of the Shura Council

Depleted Uranium Bombs Used in Five Cities
from Islamabad The Nation (Pakistan); report by Javed Rana

US Is Losing War of Images in Iraq
from Le Monde (France); editorial by Dominique Dhombres

World News Connection, brought to you by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Department of Commerce, has been monitoring foreign radio, television, and press reports for more than sixty years. Translated articles compiled from thousands of non-U.S. sources are available within 24 to 72 hours from original publication or broadcast.

The "Structured Searching" menu option is recommended as the most straight-forward way to search by topic, source or region. All articles and broadcasts are translated and the complete text is available.

For titles currently covered, listed by country, and more information about this resource see: http://wnc.fedworld.gov/sources.html

What do the Salem Witch Trials, Gettysburg, the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, the Valley of the Shadow, and studies of the changing demographics of a New York City block all have in common? All have been the focus of historical studies employing Geographic Information Systems technology (GIS), discussed in Anne Knowles' recent book, Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History.

Dr. Knowles, Assistant Professor of Geography, Middlebury College, spoke on campus on March 27th, using many examples from her book to illustrate the variety of GIS techniques now being used by historians. She opened with the words, "maps are seductive," and reminded users to use such a powerful tool wisely. While her words were cautionary, giving as an example the challenges posed by recording uncertainty in GIS projects, she also told of the many "Eureka" moments GIS can produce, making it possible to visualize previously hidden relationships and to analyze those relationships within space and time. In addition to showing many maps demonstrating the particular contribution of GIS to specific historical studies, her talk reviewed some basic conventions and theoretical underpinnings of GIS.

Dr. Knowles spoke as the final in a series of GIS talks funded by the "GIS at Brandeis Grant" awarded to Brian Donahue (ENVS) and GIS Services, Brandeis University Libraries by the "Strengthening Interdisciplinary Connections Program" of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Brandeis Libraries can help users interested in GIS in historical research and other contexts. For assistance in obtaining historical data and maps, contact Anthony Vaver, Humanities Librarian, in the Library Center for Humanities Research (http://library.brandeis.edu/humanitiescenter). Members of the Brandeis community, who are interested in learning more about GIS and GIS software, should contact Sally Wyman, GIS Librarian, at Ext. 6-4722 or consult the Brandeis Libraries' Web page (http://library.brandeis.edu/gis) for the schedule of upcoming classes.  

• George B. Kirsch. Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War. Princeton University Press, 2003.

With the exception of pointing out the false attribution of baseball’s invention to Union general Abner Doubleday, baseball historians have generally ignored the development of the game during the American Civil War. By turning his attention to this neglected period, Kirsh finds that baseball’s growth and transformation through the Civil War was crucial to its postwar success and created the strong link between the game and American nationalism, which seems to hold true even today.

• Annette Dixon. Women Who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons in Renaissance and Baroque Art. Merrell, 2002.

Gorgeously illustrated collection of essays that explore how female power was visualized and constructed in works of art from 1500 to 1650, a period when several women governed European states and kingdoms. From social, political, historical, mythological, and erotic perspectives, the authors examine female archetypes (virgins, wives and mothers, warrior woman, heroines, and goddesses), the age’s idealization of women, the relation between imagery and myth, power relations between men and women, seduction of the viewer, and official versus private images. Based on the 2002 exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College.

• Richard Levin. Looking for an Argument: Critical Encounters with the New Approaches to the Criticism of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003.

This book collects Levin’s controversial essays on Shakespeare criticism that mostly appeared in the pages of PMLA in the the 1990’s, along with replies by critics who were on the receiving end of his critical attacks. In his essays, Levin set out to evaluate some of the dominant new critical approaches to Shakespeare-principally New Historicism, feminism, Marxism, and Freudianism-by determining and testing the evidence used to support their critical perspectives, often with maddening results. At one point, he claims to have received personal letters of support in response to one of his essays, but notes, "I received no letters attacking my essay. Academics do not send hate mail, perhaps because it cannot be included in one’s curriculum vitae. They prefer to publish it" (279, n. 2).

• Alex J. Zautra. Emotions, Stress, and Health. Oxford University Press, 2003.

In this thought provoking book, Zautra argues that in order to improve our health, we need to get beyond understanding our emotions as either good or bad, and allow ourselves to see that life experiences often give rise to complex, even contradictory, feelings within us. He illustrates how experience with difficult or stressful emotional situations can be beneficial, and although people often feel the need to cope with problems before beginning to pursue happiness, the ability to move forward does not depend solely on correcting the problems.

• Feng-Hsiung Hsu. Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion. Princeton University Press, 2002.

On May 11, 1997, a machine shocked the chess world by defeating the defending world champion, Gary Kasparov. Feng-Hsiung Hsu, the system leader of Deep Blue spins a tale of how he and a small team of researchers forged ahead at IBM with a project started when they were graduate students at Carnegie Mellon in the 1980’s. No specialist knowledge of computer science or even the game of chess is required to enjoy this personal adventure of rivalry and intrigue.

• Nano Riley and Davida Johns. Florida’s Farmworkers in the Twenty-first Century. University Press of Florida, 2002.

Largely ignored by mainstream America, migrant laborers often toil under adverse labor and living conditions to provide the nation’s food supply. Combining oral history and documentary photography, the author and photographer tell the story of Florida’s farmworkers in the twenty-first century. They distinguish between Florida’s farm laborers and those from other states, and through images and text Riley and Johns draw attention to a labor system in need of reform.

• Henry Kamen. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763. HarperCollins, 2003.

Kamen looks at how late fifteenth to mid-eighteenth century Spain established the most extensive empire the world had ever known, despite being a somewhat isolated, thinly populated country. He contends that the Empire was not the result of conquest and Spanish power. Rather, it emerged only in collaboration with international business interests, like Italian financiers, German technicians, and Dutch traders. The Spanish Empire, then, was more of a global enterprise in which non-Spaniards-Portuguese, Basque, Aztec, Genoese, Chinese, Flemish, West African, Incan, and Neapolitan-played an essential role.

• The Cambridge Companion to the Musical. Ed. by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

A handy and very accessible introduction to the history and development of American and British musical theater written in the form of 14 essays by leading experts in the field, covering the adaptations and transformations before 1940; maturations and formulations, 1940-70; and evolutions and integrations after 1970. Many of the articles address larger social issues, such as "Romance, Nostalgia, and Nevermore" (1920s), "Images of African Americans" (1930s), "The Coming of the Musical Play: Rodgers and Hammerstein," "Stephen Sondheim and the Musical of the Outsider," "From Hair to Rent: Is ‘Rock" a Four-Letter Word on Broadway?," and "The Megamusical and Beyond: The Creation, Internationalization, and Impact of a Genre."