In March 2010, we are celebrating 30 years of recognition of women’s historic contributions to the growth and strength of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. It was President Jimmy Carter who issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980 as the first National Women’s History Week. Later the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) worked to lobby Congress to expand the week into a month. In 1987, a Congressional Proclamation designated March as the “Women’s History Month.”
The theme selected for this year’s celebration is “Writing Women Back into History.” You will find a display of library books, CDs and DVDs in the Periodical Reading Room by and about women who were artists, engineers, scientists, warriors and much more.
When you visit the display in the Periodicals Room, you can see materials representing the variety of experiences that comprise Women’s History, from the letter writers in Revolutionary War times in Women’s Letters through to Laura Brodie’s account of the admission of the first female cadets at VMI in 1997. In between are the biographies of suffragist Susan B. Anthony; America’s first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell; pilot Amelia Earhart; anthropologists Margaret Mead and Mary Leakey, and Maria Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer.
The National Women’s History Project website is here, and their facebook page is here.
Celebrate YOUR Freedom to read and right to choose your book during Banned Books Week, September 3 to October 3.
Most of the books featured during Banned Books Week were not banned due to the efforts of librarians who fought to keep them in their collections. Just imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights.
If you are curious about the books that made the “Frequently Challenged Books” list, check out the American Library Association’s web site:
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/index.cfm
And check out the display of banned books located in Preston Library’s lobby.
Try out the brand new database, NewsBank Access World News.
Search full-text newspapers – current and archived! Find information about events, issues, people, businesses, and topics of your choice. Explore local, state, national and international news sources such as newspapers, broadcast transcripts, newswires, news blogs, news web-only content and video.
The URL is http://infoweb.newsbank.com/?db=AWNB&s_sources=location&d_place=United%20States
Since the database is presently in beta testing at VMI, you have the opportunity to provide the publisher, NewsBank, and the library with feedback about content and access.
Let us know if we should keep this database once it is available for purchase!
Cadet Noah Scribner ’09, received this year’s Frances W. Camper award for his outstanding service and leadership to Preston Library as a Library Cadet Assistant. Throughout this time he demonstrated exemplary leadership, dependability, and resourcefulness.
Joining in the ceremony to honor Cadet Scribner on April 30th, were members of the Friends’ Board and Library staff. Mr. Drummond Ayres, Chairman of the Friends of Preston Library and Col. Don Samdahl, Head Librarian, presented Cadet Scribner with his award. Following graduation Mr. Scribner will serve in the U.S. Army as an armor officer.