Friday, November 10, 2006

ProQuest Black Studies Center!

The Schomburg Collection 74 Black Studies Journals The Chicago Defender in Full-Text (and even more)

We've had it for a few weeks. You might have checked it out already. If not, you're in for a great treat!

Faculty members, Graduate students, Undergraduates, Friends, Neighbors, Folks interested in fascinating stories. Do we have a database for you!

ProQuest's Black Studies Center includes one of the most comprehensive collections of the African Diaspora in the United States. Multidisciplinary essaies, an index of black studies journals, and over 1,000 full-text dissertations (yay!). It is lovely. It's just fun to play in, let alone do real work.

Before the digitalization, you would have to find a nice grant for a flight and hotel room, or a few dollars from your parents to hitch hike or ride in stinky bus stations and maybe sleep there so you could study. Then you'd have to find a blanket and sleep in the New York Public Library. But now you can stay in your own apartment, dorm, or friends' rooms in Gainesville and look up the material here in the library or on your computer at home.

The Schomburg Building at the NY Public Library is beautiful, but you probably don't want to sleep in the bus station too much. So use your computer, ours or your friends'.

You can perform a "quick search" by typing a few words in the upper left hand corner of the home page and then look at the the most interesting resources by format: essays, newspaper articles, journal articles, etc. The Black Studies center marks especially important, core articles that it considers "required reading" with a read star.

So have a good time looking through this amazing resource. You should find many different uses for it. Lots of material on language, socialization, psychology, mental health, life, love, where we are and where we've come from. Everything is here. It's a joy to have and I'm thrilled to pieces!

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