Black History Month Featured Database

Thanks to a unique partnership, many publications in the Oberlin College Library’s renowned anti-slavery collection are now available online. Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive (SAS) is a new online research collection devoted to the transatlantic history of slavery. The database contains over 1.5 million searchable pages from newspapers, books, serials, legal documents, court records, manuscripts, private correspondence, and other archival documents from the antebellum era. Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition is the first part of this extensive resource to come online. It documents the debates surrounding slavery and its abolition in the U.S. but also in the UK and other European countries, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa.

Oberlin began building the antislavery collection within just a few years of its founding in 1833. Over time, the collection has grown to an impressive resource of nearly 3,000 items. In collaboration with Gale Cengage Learning, a publisher of online databases and reference works, digital versions of these rare and often fragile documents were created. SAS also contains substantial content from other important collections, including the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, and Oxford University. Brought together, these collections form the world’s largest archive on the history of slavery, including materials published not only in America, but also England, Europe, and other parts of the world.

To assist researchers, essays, research guides, and subject outlines have been added. Three additional modules are planned for future release, covering the slave trade in the Atlantic world, slavery in the U.S., and emancipation. When the final part is released in 2013, SAS will include over 5 million pages.

Got Books?

If you've got a collection of books that you're proud of submit an entry in the Student Friends of the Library Book Collection Competition!

Cash prizes will be awarded and the winner's collection will be displayed in the Academic Commons this spring.

Introducing the U.S. Congressional Serial Set!

What contains information about (almost) everything you’ve ever wanted to know relating to U.S. history and politics, is always being trumpeted by your favorite librarians, is now completely digitized, and has a really fun history relating to Oberlin College??

Don’t miss the Spotlight on the Collections display on the Serial Set!

Want some quality time with medieval manuscripts?

Join the Student Friends of the Library and Special Collections Librarian Ed Vermue for an informal "show and tell" session with some medieval manuscripts from the the Library's collection.

This event will be held in the Goodrich Room (4th floor!) from 5 to 6pm on Thursday, February 18th.

Check those call numbers before you head to the stacks

The OBIS look-up stations located near the green elevator on the 2nd and 3rd floors of Mudd are out of commission for a while. We hope to get them replaced around Spring Break.

If you haven't already, try the "text it" feature in OBIS and you'll always have the call numbers that you need!

Main Library carrel sign-up begins Saturday, February 13

Study carrels....you know, those cozy nooks where you can store materials you've checked out from the library and study in peace. You can have one of those assigned to you for the semester! Just bring your OCID to the circulation desk in the Main Library, starting on Saturday, February 13, and get yourself settled. All the carrels are numbered, so please scope out the ones you like in advance and make a note of the numbers. If someone got to your favorite first, you may have to accept a alternate. We allow up to 2 people to be assigned to each carrel, so you might have to share. See all the details here.

While you were away ...

we were busy adding things to the Library collections during Winter Term. Peruse the new books area and grab a few hot titles before the madness begins again.