Leddy Library News

Leddy Library has a trial of the new 19th-century British Library Newspapers database.  Users must be on campus to access this trial.  The most comprehensive range of national, regional and local newspapers in 19th century Britain ever made available in a digital collection, 19th Century British Library Newspapers Part I and Part II provide a range of publications to reflect the social, political and cultural events of the times.Taken directly from the extensive holdings of the British Library, the selected publications provide coverage of well-known historic events, cultural icons, sporting events, the arts, culture and other national pastimes. At a time when newspapers were emerging as a prerequisite medium of commercially-minded societies and major cities, their pages — from articles to advertisements — provide researchers with unique, first-hand perspective.

Users can search across a large range of titles, not typically available at any one institution, and can perform full-text searches, use hit-term highlighting and view specific article types

Please note this trial is only available on campus and until June 12, 2012.  Please let us know (LeddyRef AT uwindsor.ca) what you think about 19th Century British Library Newspapers 

Leddy Libraries’ Librarian Research Series will continue Friday, May11th at 11:00 with the presentation, “Students Helping Students:  Measuring the Impact of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Mentor Program (FASSMP)”. Information Literacy Librarian, Tamsin Bolton along with colleague and co-researcher, Tina Pugliese from the Drama Department will be presenting their collaborative research on the University of Windsor’s FASSMP. The researchers will be joined by five students from the mentorship program who will share their insights on and experiences with the mentorship program.

Please join us Friday, May 11 at 11:00am, Room 302 West Building, Leddy Library.

Maintenance is scheduled to begin Friday May 4th at 23:59 and end May 5th at 04:00 (EST). This maintenance window is being used to upgrade existing network hardware. During this time, all Scholars Portal services (including Journals, Books, RACER, WizFolio, ODESI, GeoPortal, ASK a Librarian, Refworks, SFX, Verde) with be unavailable. We’re sorry for the interruption and appreciate your understanding.

Leddy Libraries’ Librarian Research Series will continue Friday, May4th at 11:00 with the presentation, “Finding Strength(s): Insights on Canadian Aboriginal Physical Cultural Practices”. Data Librarian, Kristi Thompson and colleague and co-researcher, Victoria Paraschak from Human Kinetics will be presenting their interesting collaborative research on the Canadian Aboriginal community and their physical cultural practices.

Please join us Friday, May 4 at 11:00am, Room 302 West Building, Leddy Library.

Leddy Libraries’ Librarian Research Series will continue Friday, April 27th at 11:00 with Karen Pillon presenting, “No students turned away: Using Kohlberg 6 Stages of Moral Development to inform a customer service model.” Karen, Head of Access Service, Leddy Library, will present her exploration of the potential application of Lawrence Kohlberg’s work to build a stronger customer service model at Leddy Library.

Join us Friday, April 27 at 11:00am, Room 302 West Building, Leddy Library.

Read about Dr Brian Owens’ work to collect materials in anticipation of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. He has a surprising take on the big three legends of the conflict – General Isaac Brock, Chief Tecumseh, and Laura Secord. Click here to read about it in the Daily News.

Leddy Library currently has two active trials of historical resources.  These trials are available only for the specified periods and are available only on campus.  Please let us know if you have any feedback on these trials.

Welcome to British Records on the Atlantic World, 1700-1900 from Microform Academic Publishers (available here until May 2, 2012)

This series brings together a wealth of collections spanning two centuries of Britain’s colonisation, commercial, missionary and even literary relations with Africa and the Americas. Alongside the records of Liverpool merchants involved in the infamous Triangular Trade, there are those of slave plantation owners, of early Anglican missionaries, of naval and customs officials, and of a group of socialists from Lancashire, who maintained a lengthy correspondence over many years with the father of American poetry.

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1-5: (Available here until June 1, 2012)

This collection includes digitized images of American magazines and journals never before available outside the walls of the AAS, and is not available for acquisition in digital form from any other source. More than 7,600 periodicals comprised of over seven million pages are available, eclipsing all other online resources in this area.

Five Books about Book History: Suggested by Dr. Leslie Howsam

The “book” in “book history” is an umbrella term for everything from marks on stone, to handwriting on parchment, to printed books and magazines, to new digital media. Book history looks at how written communication has been composed, mediated, and received, how it has survived, and how it changes over time. Novelists, historians, librarians and literary critics have written about it, and I’ve chosen five of their books to show you how interesting it can be.

Dr. Leslie Howsam is University Professor in the Department of History at Uwindsor, where she teaches British history and the history of the book. Dr. Howsam is the author or editor of six books, including Old Books and New Histories: an orientation to the study of book and print culture (2006) and Past into Print: the publishing of history in Britain 1850-1950 (2009). She is currently president of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing.

People of The Book: A Novel, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking Press, 2008)

The heroine of this novel is a rare-book expert who is asked to examine a rare and beautiful work called the Sarajevo Haggadah. The story traces and (because it’s fiction) embellishes the true story of an extraordinary book, but the details of restoration and conservation are remarkably accurate.  The clues include an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a single hair.

Call # On Order.

Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, by James A. Secord (University of Chicago Press, 2001)

The world knows so much about Darwin that we have forgotten about another book on evolution that made a huge sensation in early Victorian Britain. Historian James Secord tells an important story about scientific ideas by tracing traces the genesis, production, distribution and reception of a single book whose author remained anonymous, and hence a matter for gossip and speculation.

Call # QH363 .S4 2000

Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing, by Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman (University of Toronto Press, 2010)

Gorgeously illustrated, this book takes us back to the 18th century and forward to the 21st to show how writers and illustrators, and children and their parents, have experienced the genre of illustrated children’s literature in its Canadian manifestation. The authors, scholars of librarianship and English, spent over a decade researching in archives, and interviewing authors, publishers, booksellers and readers.

Call # Z 484 .E39 2010

A feeling for books: the Book-of-the-Month Club, literary taste, and middle-class desire, by Janice Radway (University of North Carolina Press, 1999)

Everyone of a certain age knows about the Book-of-the-Month Club, but Radway’s book will make you think about it in a different way. Radway combines a social-science research method with personal memories of BOMC membership. She uses the theoretical concept of the “middlebrow” to explain the appeal of the “club” that told people in Canada and the US what to read and how to read it.

Call # Z1003.2 .R33 1997

Endymion Spring, by Matthew Skelton (Puffin, 2006)

This fantasy novel for children is appealing to adults, too. It tells the story of Gutenberg’s apprentice (named Endymion Spring) back in the 1450s, and of two kids in 21^st century Oxford who discover a mysterious and magical book in the Bodleian Library.

Call # PS8637.K455 E53 2006

Remembering The War of 1812: Five Books You Should Read about the War of 1812 suggested by Dr. Marshall Bastable.

Dr. Bastable teaches for the History Department at the University of Windsor. He has taught about wars and revolutions at universities in Canada and the United States. He finds The War of 1812 particularly interesting for how it is remembered.

Bicentennial commemorations of the War of 1812 are underway in Canada and the United States. This summer will see military re-enactments, warships and tall ships visits, plaques unveiled and commemorative ceremonies and events held. But remembering and commemorating this long-ago war can be tricky. Much attention is given to which side won, but there are other important questions too. How did the various people at the time see the war? Was it a popular war? Was it a civil war? Was it glorious or a war full of terrible suffering and atrocities? How should we of 2012 remember the War of 1812?  The War of 1812 was a turning point in Canadian, American and First Nations histories. Yet, like our recent war in Afghanistan, assessing the War of 1812 and deciding how to remember and commemorate it is a problem. The books recommended here are chosen to help us make those judgments. They also show how fascinating and important the War of 1812 remains.

Click here to read Dr. Bastable’s Overview of the War of 1812
Donald R. Hickey, Don’t Give Up the Ship! Myths of the War of 1812
Hickey aims to dispel many myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings about different aspects of the war and how it is remembered. Much of the book answers specific questions, in a format which allows readers to open the book at any page. The questions range from the trivial (Did Brock have a fiancée?) to the interesting (Why did the British burn Washington? Is the role of Laura Secord exaggerated? What are the true origins of the Star Spangled Banner? Who were the most hated men in the war? ) to the weighty (Who were the real War Hawks? How decisive was the Battle of the Thames? Who were the best generals? Is Tecumseh over-rated? Did the Canadian militia save Canada/Did the American militia save the United States?) This is an entertaining and thought-provoking book on the myths and memories of The War of 1812.
Leddy E 364.9 H53 2006

Donald Graves, Field of Glory; The Battle of Crysler’s Farm, 1813 is a fast-paced battle-field narrative of a crucial battle in the war in which the British defeated a much larger American force on the move towards Montreal. This victory kept the St. Laurence River open to British transportation and ended any American hopes of winning the war. Graves tells a gripping story with lots of fighting and heroes.
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In The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels and Indian Allies, Alan Taylor argues that the United States invaded Canada to save itself from bitter internal partisanship on the one hand, and to defend the young and fragile Republic from the perceived ambition of imperial Britain to destroy it on the other hand. Taylor calls it a civil war in that it created new tensions and exacerbated old ones in American society: between Patriots from Loyalists, Irish Americans and Irish soldiers serving in the British army, the anti-war north eastern America and the pro-war west and the south.
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George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada is a ground-breaking revision of the war. Sheppard shows how deeply divided the population of Upper Canada was before the war and how very unpopular the war was amongst Upper Canadians. He takes the reader as close as possible to the terrible social and economic impact of the war on ordinary Upper Canadians. The memory of the War of 1812 as a glorious war of national unity, of heroic acts and mythical battles was imposed upon that conflict long after it had come to an end.
Leddy FC 442 S54 and Electronic

R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership takes the reader into the world of First Nations and the failed efforts of Tecumseh to forge a confederation ofall the tribes to defend their land and culture against the incursions of the land-hungry and expansionist-minded Americans. Edmunds combines and good story with a realistic analysis of Tecumseh’s struggles to create an Indian confederation state. Fist Nations warriors proved essential in the successful defence of Upper Canada during the war, but were unable to create their own state when peace came.

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In conjunction with our War of 1812 Display near the Williams Coffee Pub, Leddy Library invites you to explore the rich regional history related to the War of 1812.  Check out Dr. Marshall Bastable’s suggestions for 5 Books You Should Read about the War of 1812 and read his concise overview of this fascinating historical event below.

Overview

The War of 1812 was fought between American soldiers and American militias and their Indian allies on one side, and British soldiers and Canadian militias and their First Nations allies on the other side. The conflict involved eight major battles on land and water and several dozen lesser battles and skirmishes, along a front stretching along the northern shores of the Great lakes system from Detroit-Amherstburg to Montreal. A secondary theatre was a British naval blockade along the American Atlantic coast, and a final battle at New Orleans. Most of the action took place in the Niagara Peninsula.

Key Military Events
When President James Madison declared war on Britain in June 1812, British forces in Canada under Major-General Sir Isaac Brock immediately invaded the United States, seizing Detroit. The Americans invaded across the Niagara frontier but were defeated at Queenston Heights. Brock was killed, becoming English Canada’s second military hero and adding Queenston Heights to the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City where General Wolfe fell in 1759 as sacred military ground in English Canadian history.

In 1813 American amphibious forces burned Toronto, and their army overran the Niagara Peninsula. Their advance was beaten back at Stoney Creek but they held on to Niagara-on-the Lake. The Americans gained a strategic advantage when Commodore Oliver Perry defeated the British navy on Lake Erie. With their supply lines cut to the western front the British abandoned Amherstburg and retreated towards Toronto.

During that retreat the First Nations leader Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames, and the native coalition he had forged dissolved, ending any chance for North American native peoples to secure their own nation state in North America. Thus the first two years of the war produced three military heroes for the future: Perry for the Americans, Brock for the British and Tecumseh for the First Nations peoples.

In the east theatre American forces failed to take Montreal and the British secured a decisive victory at Crysler’s Farm, on the St. Laurence River between Montreal and Kingston, thus securing British communications between Upper and Lower Canada. Finally, British and Canadian First Nations forces then drove the Americans out of the Niagara Peninsula.
In 1814 British naval forces raided the American eastern seaboard, burning Washington, attacking Baltimore (which inspired the writing of The Star Spangled Banner). The American attempt to re-take Niagara was driven back in heavy fighting at Lundy’s Lane, Chippawa and Fort Erie. A peace treaty between Britain and the United States was signed in December 1814 and peace treaties between the United States and various Indian tribes were signed in the next few years.

Consequences of The War of 1812
Conceptualizing The War of 1812 is a complex problem: some say Canada won the war, others say the United States did, while others call it a draw; some say it was an international war, others say it was a civil war. The War of 1812 determined the fate of North America. Tecumseh’s dream of a First Nations state of the Great Lakes was lost forever. Canada and the United States still confront the consequences of that tragic outcome. Both the United States and Canada became continental expansionist “sea-to-sea” nations. The War of 1812 certainly laid the foundation for Canadian-American relations that continue today.

The War of 1812 exacerbated the bitter partisanship of American national politics and did not ease the sharp constitutional disputes and the regional divides between North and South, East and West. The war did not unite English and French Canada, nor did it unite Canada and the First Nations. Britain betrayed First Nations several times before 1812 and at the settlement treaty of 1815. Does Canada continue that legacy today?