A Holocaust Resource Center Becomes a Beehive

Summary

This contribution describes the beginning years of a Holocaust Resource Center and its collection development in a four-year public institution, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. The authors argue that, with such preconditions as strong institutional leadership and commitment and with good “town-gown” relationships, Holocaust and Genocide Studies can be placed central to the liberal arts experience. Such centrality is particularly important given the repeated occurrence of genocide in this century. In view of uncertain fiscal support for public higher education, multiple ways must but can be found to develop Holocaust and Genocide book and media collections.     

Closing Circles,Opening Pathways

Summary

The reference librarian in the setting of a Holocaust library serves several unique functions. Together with survivors and their families the librarian assists in reaching closure in their search for information about relatives who perished in the Holocaust. The reference librarian also serves as facilitator for future generations in learning about the Holocaust and coming to terms with the past. The paper also describes the tools and sources that enable these processes to be accomplished.     

The AAASS Bibliography and Documentation Committee's Working Group on Digital Projects

ABSTRACT

The article describes the activities of the newly established Working Group on Digital Projects, a sub-committee of the Bibliography and Documentation Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.     

Librarians and the Holocaust: Research-Related Issues

ABSTRACT

After learning and teaching about the Holocaust for the past 16 years, the author advocates that librarians join Holocaust scholars, historians, teachers, and others in ensuring that this horrific and catastrophic event of the twentieth century is correctly understood, taught, and, most importantly, never forgotten.     

Holocaust Autobiography

Summary

Students have a need to go beyond their assigned texts when studying the events of the Holocaust. Autobiographies are often the most moving, personal accounts of these horrific times. Reference librarians can offer much assistance for research on specific autobiographies, working in concert with faculty. This article reviews the state of Holocaust education in general, an academic reference department's role in student projects, and an overview of the wide variety of autobiographies that exist.     

Slavic Judaica in the YIVO Library: Acquisitions from 1991–2001

SUMMARY

This article discusses the development of Jewish publications from the former Soviet Republics, which were acquired by the YIVO library during the last decade. A brief history of Slavic Judaica holdings at the YIVO library is provided, followed by an overview of new publishers and vendors of Slavic Judaica in the CIS countries, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, and in the Baltic States. In addition, an extensive, selected bibliography on the following topics is appended: (1) Reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, sources on East European Jewry (2) History of East European Jewry, anti-Semitism, biography (3) Holocaust literature, World War II (4) East European Jewish culture (Yiddish literature in the original and translation, folklore, art, education, theater, fiction, poetry, Jewish wit and humor) and (5) Conferences, congresses, symposiums on East European Jewry.     

Holocaust Denial and the Internet

Summary

The Holocaust denial movement began with Nazi officials and continues today. The term revisionism rather than denial is used by the movement's proponents. They do not deny the Holocaust, but are skeptical of the claims of six million dead, gas chambers, and an extermination policy. The Internet has made revisionist ideas and research more widely available than ever before. This article examines the major revisionist and refutation sites and documents available on the Internet today.     

Lithuanian American Private Libraries: Survey and Data

ABSTRACT

A survey was conducted in 2001 with the purpose of determining the status and nature of personal libraries of Lithuanian Americans who, in the aftermath of World War II, settled in the United States. This was the first such study of Lithuanian American bibliophiles and their libraries. The survey results were analyzed with a primary focus on this question: what books were most valued and collected by those living outside of Lithuania?     

Preparing a Holocaust Unit for High School Students

Summary

This article focuses on how teachers in the Social Studies Department at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, MA constructed, in 1972, a six-week curriculum on the Nazi Holocaust. The unit is considered to be the first formal curriculum on that subject for secondary students. The author of the article, who was a member of the department at that time, explains how she and her colleagues chose the material to be included, which resources were particularly useful and how two of the teachers updated the anthology of readings that had become the basis of the curriculum.

The anthology was published initially by Bantam Books in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith as a trade book in soft cover and was entitled The Holocaust Years: Society on Trial (Chartock and Spencer, eds., 1978). After being out of print for nearly ten years, it was republished in hardcover in 1995, with a new title, Can It Happen Again? Chronicles of the Holocaust(Black Dog and Leventhal) with nineteen additional entries. Since the 1970s the anthology has served as a springboard for other educators interested in developing their own interdisciplinary curriculum on the Holocaust.     

International Communications

Henry 0. Hart's Mass Communication and Social Change Process and Practice (An Attempted Extension of Basic Models) (East European Area Audience and Opinion Research Dept., RFE/RL, Inc., Oettingenstrasse, 67 AM Englischen Garten, 8000 Munich 22, West Germany—apparently free on request, paper)

World Directory of Mass Communication Periodicals ($15.00)

Mass Communication Research–Current Documentation ($10.00 per volume)

Directory of Mass Media Research Centres in European Socialist Countries ($5.00)

Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner and Hans Speier, eds. Propaganda and Communication in World History, Volume II: Emergence of Public Opinion in the West (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980-825.00)

Stephen L. Vaughn's Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the Committee on Public Information (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980—$21.00)

Mock and Larson's Words That Won the War (1939)

Oswald H. Ganley's The United States-Canadian Communications and Information Resources Relationship and its Possible Significance for Worldwide Diplomacy (Working Paper W-79-7, November 1979—$10.90, paper, 97 pp.)

Anthony Crawford's Posters of World War I and World War II in the George C. Marshall Research Foundation (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1979—$9.95)     

Why we fought: Holocaust memory in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan

–Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan has been criticized for its failure to frame narrative action in terms of national, moral purpose. This criticism can be understood in terms of the constraints that the “Vietnam syndrome” places upon contemporary cinematic narratives of war; Vietnam memory subverts earnest declaration of high national principle. This essay examines how Saving Private Ryan “reillusions” American national identity in the wake of Vietnam by giving presence to an even more distant past. Supported by close textual analysis of key scenes centering upon the sole Jewish character in the film, this reading argues that the specific moral justification for waging war and accepting its horrors and sacrifices is found in a moral crusade against the Nazi program of Holocaust. By suturing the Holocaust into the film as its moral foundation, the film participates in the “Americanization” of Holocaust memory, circumvents Vietnam as a source of traumatic memory, manufactures a redemptive national identity, and constructs an ethically usable past in the present.     

Rediscovering an American Legacy of Service through a Free Curriculum

Abstract

This case study highlights a free curriculum created to commemorate the World War I centennial and to celebrate the future of volunteerism and global citizenship education by encouraging students to engage in local, regional, and international service. The lesson plans are aligned with Common Core and UNESCO Global Learning standards, and use primary sources to highlight the little-known efforts of Americans who volunteered in nonmilitary roles before and after the period of American neutrality. The curriculum was a result, in part, of newly accessible collections from the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs and related outreach efforts.     

Batter Up: Classifying Pre-World War II Baseball Cards Using Dewey Decimal

Abstract

Within cataloging non-book items, literature on sports cards is limited and not rooted in academic research. Sports cards provide valuable statistical information and evidence of lineups. This article addresses the gap by examining Jefferson Burdick’s The American Card Catalog. Known as the Dewey Decimal system of trading cards, the Catalog is the preeminent resource for collecting pre-World War II cards. This article expands upon Burdick’s work and guides librarians through the building of a class number for individual sports cards. The result incorporates classification methods to support user search, and highlights the historical value of cards within library collections.     

Overlooked Reference Tools for Researching the Holocaust

Summary

General reference tools can be valuable sources of information for conducting research on the Holocaust. In addition to the articles in general encyclopedias, several specialized encyclopedias contain lengthy articles on this subject. Several sources for bibliographical essays are identified. Other publications discussed in this article are Gale's Literary Criticism Series and the thc Biography Index.     

The rhetoric of unconditional surrender: Locating the necessary moment for coercion

This essay reworks the classical notions of kairos and to prepon to suggest that coercion can only be defended when the degree of human urgency exceeds the opportunity for further meaningful discourse. Unconditional demands are cast as thinly veiled elements underwriting a rhetoric advocating coercion. To illustrate the theoretical claims, the proposed criteria are used to critique U. S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War, one of the most dramatic examples of American military power widely accepted by the American public as an instance of justified coercion.     

Annual Review of Work in Newspaper and Periodical History

Dynamics of the Pictured Page: representing the nation in the ‘Illustrated London News’, 1842–1852 Peter W. Sinnema, 1998 Aldershot, UK, Ashgate pp.231

American Photojournalism Comes of Age Michael L. Carlebach, 1998 Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press pp.224

Media Technology and Society. A history: from the telegraph to the Internet Brian Winston, 1998 London, Routledge pp. xiv, 374

On Television and Journalism Pierre Bourdieu, 1998 Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, trans. London, Pluto Press pp.97

A Journalism Reader Michael Bromley and Tom O'Malley, eds, 1997 London and New York, Routledge pp. xix, 394

Ulster Loyalism and the British Media Alan F. Parkinson, 1998 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 184

William Randolph Hearst: the early years 1863–1910 Ben Proctor, 1998 New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press pp. xiv + 345

Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century E.M. Palmegiano, 1998 Maryland, Scarecrow Press pp. 296

The War Correspondents: the Crimean War Andrew Lambert and Stephen Badsey, 1994 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 335 including index

News from the Front: war correspondents on the Western Front, 1914–18 Martin J. Farrar, 1998 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 238 including index     

Film Genre Studies

Les Adams and Buck Rainey's Shoot-em-Ups: The Complete Reference Guide to Westerns of the Sound Era (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978---$30.00)

David Rothel's The Singing Cowboys (Cranbury, N.J.: A.S. Barnes, 1978---$19.95)

Lawrence H. Suid's Guts & Glory: Great American War Movies (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978---$12.95/6.95)

Jack G. Shaheen, ed. Nuclear War Films (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978---$10.00/4.95)

Thomas Cripps' Black Film as Genre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978---$10.00)

Neil P. Hurley's The Reel Revolution: A Film Primer on Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1978---$7.95, paper)

Anita Loos' San Francisco, A Screenplay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979---$10.00/4.95)

Eugene Rosow's Born to Lose: The Gangster Film in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978---$19.95)     

Television and radio program ratings and measurements: A selected and annotated bibliography

Following testimony dealing with the role played by television audience ratings in determining whether a given program will or will not be kept on the air, Chairman Oren Harris of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce requested the American Statistical Association to examine, describe, and evaluate the statistical reliability and validity of the various commercial rating services. The ASA's Technical Committee on Broadcast Ratings, under the Chairmanship of William G. Madow, produced its report early in 1961. It was published by the House Commerce Committee in March, under the title, Evaluation of Statistical Methods Used in Obtaining Broadcast Ratings (House Report 193, 87th Congress, 1st Session).

Although the entire report is highly technical, it is recommended to all those seriously interested in the rating services and their standards. For those without the statistical background to understand certain portions of the report, attention is called to more easily read articles, such as Harrison B. Summers’ “Qualitative Information Concerning Audiences of Network Television Programs”; (which appeared on pp. 147–160 of this issue of the Journal) as well as general articles cited in the bibliography that follows.     

Book/video reviews

John R. Catsis. Sports Broadcasting . Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1996.

Ralph Engelman. Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.

Marc J. Seifer. Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla . Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 1996.

How to Construct a Radio Documentary (CD‐Rom). Concord, Ontario: Irwin Publishing, 1996.

Paul Chantler and Sim Harris. Local Radio Journalism . Oxford: Focal Press, 1997.

Donald G. Godfrey and Frederic A. Leigh, (Eds.). Historical Dictionary of American Radio, Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1998.

Nancy Lynch Street and Marilyn J. Matelski, (Eds.). Messages From the Underground: Transnational Radio in Resistance and in Solidarity . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.

Michael Nelson. War of Vie Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997.

Radio Industry (video). New York: Insight Media, 1997. 30 minutes, color.