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Spring 2004

History News

Celestina Wroth, History Section news editor
Indiana University Bloomington
cewroth@indiana.edu

. . . from the History Section Chair

The truly great History Section Midwinter news was the RUSA Board approval of the new ABC-Clio Online History Award. It will join the Genealogical Publishing Award to become our second History Section award. The recipient(s) will have to fulfill the following criteria:

The award can be for an individual or group producing (1) freely available online historical collection(s), or (2) online tool(s) tailored for the purpose of finding historical materials, or (3) online teaching aid(s) stimulating creative historical scholarship.

Additional criteria will be available on our website.

We are at the early stages of implementation and have many details to work out before our first award presentation in Chicago, 2005. We anticipate giving this award every other year.

Jim Niessen has earned our gratitude for conceptualizing, developing, and shepherding the award proposal through the RUSA board evaluation process, and for working to get it right.
Phoebe Janes, Chair, History Section

And, speaking of awards

Sam J. Boldrick, manager, Florida Collection, Miami-Dade Public Library, is the 2004 recipient of the Genealogical Publishing Co./History Section Award. The award consists of $1,500 and a citation donated by The Genealogical Publishing Company, and is given to encourage, recognize and commend professional achievement in historical reference and research librarianship.

The award will be presented at RUSA Awards Ceremony on June 28, 2004, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., during the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla.
Michael Kirley, Chair, Genealogical Publishing Company Award Committee

Committee Reports from ALA Midwinter 2004

Bibliographies and Indexes Committee

The charge of this committee is to "improve the usefulness of bibliographies and indexes through the evaluation both of specific publications and the pattern and effectiveness of coverage in all fields of history; to promote enhanced availability of historical works and information; and to serve as liaison among bibliographers, indexers, publishers, and professional associations." The end product of this charge is an annual "Best Bibliographies in History" article published in the summer issue of RUSQ.

Using the criteria detailed in the Best Bibliographies in History Manual, the committee considered over thirty bibliographies published in 2002 or 2003. From these, we picked 10 to highlight in the 2004 best bibliographies article. Each committee member was given one or two titles to review for the 2004 best bibliographies article. Committee members will write 150 word reviews following the guidelines listed in the manual. These will be collected and edited for style by the editor and assistant editor in late January and February. The editor will write a short introduction.
Laura Dale Bischof, Chair, Bibliographies and Indexes Committee

Genealogy Committee

The committee's meeting at ALA Midwinter covered the following topics:

Online education course: RUSA has asked for names of people to write the course. Committee decided to post a message on Genealib and give the information to the National Genealogical Society and the Federation of Genealogical Societies for inclusion in their newsletters. Members of the genealogy community will send in resumés to the committee. Three committee members will review the names and send names of the best candidates to RUSA.

Standard and Guidelines: RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committe reviewed our submission of Guidelines for a Unit of Course of Instruction in Genealogical Research at Schools of Library and Information Science. The guidelines will be posted on Genealib with a two-week period for comments. Drew Smith will summarize the comments and send them to the subcommittee who will have two weeks to review and respond. The committee plans to begin revision on Guidelines for a Beginning Genealogy Collection. The Guidelines for Preservation, Conservation, and Restoration of Local History and Local Genealogical Materials has been sent to the Local History Committee for review. The subcommittee suggests approval of a possible new guideline: assessment and marketing of genealogical data and services.

Genealogy Program for 2004 Annual: The program is on schedule.

Discussion Forum Software: Donavan Vicha presented a Forum Software, showing its possibilities for a discussion forum for the Genealogy Committee. Donavan said RUSA would be able to implement a discussion forum within the next four months. The committee agree to be the "guinea pigs" to implement a discussion forum.

Genealogy Publishing Industry: A task force of eight committee members has been formed to make recommendations at the 2004 Annual Conference committee meeting regarding the best way to give feedback to the genealogy publishing industry.
Janice Schultz, Secretary, Genealogy Committee

Instruction and Research Services Committee

At the Midwinter meeting in San Diego the Instruction and Research Services Committee discussed plans for the History Section program for the annual conference in 2005. The working title of the program is "Primary Sources in the Electronic Age: Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching Historical Research." The program focuses on teaching with primary sources and will appeal to librarians from a variety of institutions. The committee also reviewed the success of the web site, "Using Primary Sources on the Web," http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA/, which the committee completed and publicized last September 2003. The web site met with very favorable responses from a variety of teachers and librarians throughout the US and several other countries.
David Lincove, Chair, Instruction and Research Services Committee

News, Anyone?

The History Section would like to include news from individual members in future issues of History News. If you have recent publications, news about your collections or institutions, or other news of general interest to share, please e-mail it to Celestina Wroth, cewroth@indiana.edu. Items to be included in the Summer issue should be sent by April 28, 2004.

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