Social Explorer is an exciting new database that allows easy creation of maps and tables using a variety of data sources. Social Explorer includes social, demographic, economic, environmental, and health data covering a wide range of time periods, which vary by data source. The data comes from both public groups, such as government agencies and international organizations, and from private organizations, and is updated regularly as new information is released. Much of the data is for the United States, but there is also international data from the European Union, the World Bank, and others. Unlike most of the statistical and data sources to which we have access, this database’s strength is its mapping function, which allows you to easily create a visualization of the data rather than just viewing the data in tables, although it does that as well.
Maps can be created at larger geographic points such as nations and states, or at small points such as census tracts and zip codes, with several selections in between. You can create multiple maps for side-by side comparison; for example, to illustrate changes over time for a single variable or compare a difference in geographic locations.
By setting up an account and logging in, you can save maps, develop presentations, create reports from the data, and customize the displays.
You can customize the maps in many ways, including changing the colors to preset selections or selecting your own custom colors, turning various display options on and off, displaying a map using satellite imagery, annotating the maps with your own labels, and even uploading your own data to create or alter maps.
The “Tell a Story” option allows you to put together a series of map or data slides and export the content to PowerPoint for easy use in presentations or on posters.
This database currently has a limit of 3 simultaneous Randolph-Macon users, so if you can’t get in to use it, try it again later!
1839 R-MC Catalog indicating the Course of Study for the Preparatory Department and the Freshman Class
Since its earliest days in Boydton, the College has published a catalog outlining the course of study, listing the faculty, and including a wide range of information that has changed over the years. The oldest original in the College Archives is from October 1839, although we have a photocopy of the 1836 catalog held at an archive elsewhere. The catalogs provide us an excellent overview of the changes in the curriculum over time, as well as a glimpse into student life.
The 1839 catalog is only 14 pages, compared to contemporary R-MC catalogs of over 200 pages. Included is a full list of the College’s trustees, faculty, alumni, and enrolled students. The student listing even indicates the dormitory room in which they lived! There is also a listing of the students in the College’s Preparatory Department, the course of study for the Preparatory Department and for each term of college level study, information on the school calendar, expenses, and other general information, such as a statement on the final page that the “College discipline is mild and parental, but it will not tolerate indolence or vice” and that “no idle, disorderly, or immoral student can be permitted to remain….”
The catalog page displayed above shows the rigor of the curriculum and the emphasis on a classical education. Freshman read Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, and studied mathematics and geography. The right hand column indicates the author or editor of the text used, so in addition to knowing the content of the course, we know the textbooks students used and we even have several student textbooks from this era in our collection! Upperclassmen studied subjects including astronomy, chemistry, calculus, logic, political economy, mineralogy, and more classical studies.
In addition to the President, Landon C. Garland who taught Pure and Mixed Mathematics, there were seven other faculty members, although the position of Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy, which translates today into Religious Studies, was vacant. There were professors for Ancient Languages, English Literature, and Experimental Sciences as well as “tutors” in Mathematics and languages. The tutors were instructors rather than the modern definition of tutors. The final faculty member was the principal of the preparatory school.
Tuition was $35 for the entire year, and board was set at $8 per month. Other student expenses included firewood, lights, bedding and laundry, and a category labeled “incidental expenses” at $15 which included textbooks and purchasing furniture for their dorm rooms, as the College did not provide furniture. The catalog also cautions parents against providing too much pocket money, deeming it potentially hurtful!
Three on the Third is a monthly series in which we highlight three books new to the library collection. Summaries of the books will be provided along with shelf location and a link to the item in the catalog. This month we are featuring several exciting new additions to our collection.
We Will Win the Day by Louis Moore
James “Mudcat” Grant would not sing the right words. He knew they were a lie. Home of the Brave. Land of the Free. For who? Not black Americans. Not in 1960. Grant remembered vividly growing up in poverty in Lacooche, Florida, in a shack that had no hot water, no electric lights, or an indoor toilet, while his widowed mother supported her family on her menial wages working as a domestic in white people’s home and then trying to supplement her meager wages at the local citrus plant. He remembered the white kids who would bully the black kids and call them racist names, the white cop who pointed a gun at him while his partner kicked him in the rear, and the unequal school system where black kids received old school supplies deemed unfit for white kids, where he studied in a school that was really a house with blankets dividing the classrooms. There were the segregated spring training games in Florida, his Cleveland Indians teammates who yelled racist remarks at black fans, and his pitching coach, Ted Wilks, who in 1947 as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals tried to organize a boycott to avoid playing Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and as a pitcher regularly threw at the heads of black batters. GV706.32 .M66 2017 Catalog Link – We Will Win the Day
Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers Edited by Kent Spriggs
While bus boycotts, sit-ins, and other acts of civil disobedience were the engine of the civil rights movement, the law provided context for these events. Lawyers played a key role amid profound political and social upheavals, vindicating clients and together challenging white supremacy. Here, in their own voices, twenty-six lawyers reveal the abuses they endured and the barriers they broke as they fought for civil rights. These eyewitness accounts provide unique windows into some of the most dramatic moments in civil rights history–the 1965 Selma March, the first civil judgment against the Ku Klux Klan, the creation of ballot access for African Americans in Alabama, and the 1968 Democratic Convention. The narratives depict attorney-client relationships extraordinary in their mutual trust and commitment to risk-taking. White and black, male and female, northern- and southern-born, these recruits in the battle for freedom helped shape a critical chapter of American history. E185.615 .V63 2018 Catalog Link – Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers
Let the People See by Elliott J. Gorn
Everyone knows the story of the murder of young Emmett Till. In August 1955, the fourteen-year-old Chicago boy was murdered in Mississippi for having–supposedly–flirted with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, who was working behind the counter of a store. Emmett was taken from the home of a relative later that night by white men; three days later, his naked body was recovered in the Tallahatchie River, weighed down by a cotton-gin fan. Till’s killers were acquitted, but details of what had happened to him became public; the story gripped the country and sparked outrage. It continues to turn. The murder has been the subject of books and documentaries, rising and falling in number with anniversaries and tie-ins, and shows no sign of letting up. The Till murder continues to haunt the American conscience. Fifty years later, in 2005, the FBI reopened the case. New papers and testimony have come to light, and several participants, including Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, have published autobiographies. Using this new evidence and a broadened historical context, Elliott Gorn delves into facets of the case never before studied and considers how and why the story of Emmett Till still resonates, and likely always will. Even as it marked a turning point, Gorn shows, hauntingly, it reveals how old patterns of thought and behavior linger in new faces, and how deeply embedded racism in America remains. Gorn does full justice to both Emmett and the Till Case–the boy and the symbol–and shows how and why their intersection illuminates a number of crossroads: of north and south, black and white, city and country, industrialization and agriculture, rich and poor, childhood and adulthood. HV6465.M7 G67 2018 Catalog Link – Let the People See
My last post detailed the new mission and vision of the McGraw-Page Library. This month’s post will explore the values and priorities that the Library uses to guide its decisions. Much of what is mentioned below is fairly self-explanatory, but if anyone would like to engage in a conversation about why the Library considers these values to be worth explicitly stating, I would love to hear from you.
Our Values
The McGraw-Page Library is committed to:
Liberal arts teaching, research, and scholarship
Ease of access
Innovation
Life-long learning
Preservation of knowledge
Continual improvement of collections
Intellectual and academic freedom
Collaboration with the campus community
Mutual respect and civility
Responsible stewardship
Our Priorities
Randolph-Macon College Students
Current & Emeriti Faculty
Staff & Administrators
Alumni
Community Members
We felt it was beneficial to state these priorities in our strategic plan because we do weight the needs of these groups differently when we make decisions. Ideally, we would love to support all of these groups equally, but because both space and budgets are tight, choices sometimes need to be made. This list helps to guide those choices, especially when they are difficult.
