In recent months, the Library has added several new databases full of journals, dissertations, industry reports, and other valuable research materials to our collections. Check out the new acquisitions below! Like all of our databases, they are accessible to all Georgetown faculty, staff, and students.
Black Life in America, Series 1 and 2, published by Readex
Black Life in America: The Experience and Impact of African Americans as Recorded by the News Media is a rich collection of primary source materials that chronicles African-American history and culture from 1704 to 1975. Drawing on Readex's extensive collections of over 400 Black newspapers and a host of other publications, this trove of materials offers an expansive window into centuries of Black history, culture and daily life—as well as the ways the dominant culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent. A Suggested Searches feature allows researchers to quickly explore topics, eras, and events, while a powerful advanced search allows researchers to drill down into the material across a variety of attributes.
A search of "Georgetown University" returned a multitude of fascinating results, including a 1968 vignette of Patrick Francis Healy, S.J. published in the Sacramento Bee entitled "Son of Slave Developed Georgetown University."
Access to Black Life in America was acquired through a grant from the Resources Legacy Fund to honor Artemis G. Kirk, University Librarian Emeritus, for the library collections in the field of African-American, African and History of Slavery Studies.
Global Commodities, published by Adam Matthew
Drawing from several different libraries and archives, this collection brings together primary source documents on 15 commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, wine and spirits. The collection includes historical prices; records from relevant companies such as the Hudson Bay Company for fur, Texaco for oil, and General Mills for wheat; ledgers and early trading accounts from countries around the world; historical advertisements; and more. The collections can be cross-searched with other Adam Matthew databases for additional connections.
One unique feature is the 360 Object Gallery, which allows users to view selected objects from several angles. An interesting resource was A Treatise on Coffee; its Properties; and the Best Mode of Keeping and Preparing it from 1831. The author recommends: "boiling water, in the proportion of two and a half ounces of Coffee, to two pints of water; take the pot soon off the fire, but keep it closely shut about for at least two hours, on the warm ashes." Access to this resource is generously provided by the Georgetown University in Qatar Library.
The Nation Archive (1865-2020), published by EBSCO
This archive makes it possible for researchers to access 14 decades and more than 7,500 issues of alternative journalism from The Nation in ways never before possible. The archive contains historic articles, editorials, letters, reviews, poems, and puzzles dating back to the magazine's first issue from July 6, 1865. The Nation Archive is a fully searchable electronic version of the magazine's complete backfile, of reporting, opinion, and criticism.
South China Morning Post (Historical), published by ProQuest
Part of the ProQuest Historical Newspapers Series, this collection spans all South China Morning Post newspaper content from 1903-2001. The South China Morning Post is renowned for its authoritative and influential reporting on Hong Kong, China and all of Asia. Founded in 1903 by Alfred Cunningham and Tse Tsan-tai, a key figure in the Chinese revolt against the last imperial Qing Dynasty at the turn of the 20th century, the newspaper became a platform for advocating the reform movement in China. It is highly regarded by researchers because of the unique history of Hong Kong as well as the newspaper’s editorial perspective on Imperial Japan and Communist China. Users can search the entirety of the newspaper including advertisements, editorials, cartoons, and photographs. In addition, the paper is cross-searchable with all of our other ProQuest Historical Newspapers Collections.
This SCMP acquisition complements our other purchases within the ProQuest Historical Newspapers series. Titles include the Atlanta Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, The Times of India, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Within the collection is this interesting 1974 story about The Exorcist, in which two Georgetown University psychiatrists caution "suggestible persons" should not view the movie, even though parts of it were filmed on the Georgetown campus.