The Time of Your Life

Posted on June 18, 2021 Written by

Are you experiencing FOMO watching all your friends travel to distant places for their summer vacation?  Too broke or too busy to fly?  The library has just purchased two first-class tickets to the most exotic and hard-to-reach destination of all: the past.  Travel back in time with our new archive collection: Time Magazine Archive and Life Magazine Archive.

These two American magazines covered news events, popular culture, and daily life for Americans during most of the twentieth century.   They were the most popular weekly news and entertainment magazines of their time, and both were noteable for their award-winning photography and writing.

Cover of Time Magazine featuring portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cover of Time Magazine, January 3rd, 1964.

Time Magazine began in 1923 as a weekly magazine, and may be familiar to many for their most famous feature story: “Person of the Year.”  It is still in print today, but the archive database provides full cover-to-cover PDFs for every issue published between 1923 and 2000. Between its pages, you’ll find interviews from the most famous celebrities, world leaders, authors, scientists, and thinkers of the past 100 years.

 

Photograph of navy sailor kissing woman in a nurse uniform on VJ day, 1941 in Times Square

“Victory Celebrations.” Life Magazine. August 27, 1945. p. 27

Life Magazine, published from 1883 until 2000, is best known for its photographic excellence in documenting American life and world events during the 1930s through the 1970s.  If you’ve ever seen the iconic World War II victory photograph of a nurse being kissed by a sailor, it was first published in Life magazine.

That photograph and many others are fully searchable and delivered through the archive database.  You can browse and keyword search all available issues from 1936-2000.

The landing page for both databases features the familiar search box of an Ebscohost Database.

Screenshot of main search box for the database, featuring "Arkansas Tech University" as a search term in quotation marks

You can search by keyword, author, subjects, or article title.  You can limit results by illustrations, as well as date and subject.  If you would rather browse issues by date, click “Publications” at the top of the search page in the blue border.  Then click the title of the magazine to navigate by issue.

Screenshot of a browse publication menu for Life magazine, list all available issues.

If you search for “Arkansas Tech University” in the Life Magazine Archive, you’ll find a feature story on the university published February 3rd, 1941.  The magazine was photographing a farewell party the university organized for 104 students who were leaving for National Guard training—not knowing at the time if they would be sent to the war raging overseas.  Pearl Harbor had not yet been bombed, and the article remarked, “Of all sections, the South is ready to fight Hitler, readiest to risk war to save Britain.”

Photograph of students in 1941 dancing a jitterbug

Unlike other article databases that only display text in html, results for Life Magazine and Time come complete with fully rendered PDFs of the original pages—ads and all.

Photograph of students sitting in football bleachers from 1941 beside an advertisement for Vicks inhalers, featuring an illustratrion of a 1950's man and woman holding what looks like lipstick containers to their noses.

A photograph of a group of male students dressed in military uniform sitting on the grass, gazing at female student standing under a tree. From 1941.

Want to learn more about these databases and others?  Ask Us via chat, email, phone, text, or some ancient form of letter writing.  Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to learn about more new collections or events as we return to our present destination on the sacred timeline.

Safe travels this summer—wherever or whenever you go!

photograph of Neil Armstrong on the moon wearing full astronaut suit

“A Giant Leap for Mankind.” Life Magazine, July 20, 1969, p. 7

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Shoot ’em With Biscuits, Monday Sept. 9th

Posted on September 4, 2019 Written by

Join us on September 9th in RPL 300B as we kick off this year’s Second Monday Author Series with Dr. Aaron McArthur, Assistant Professor of History and Public History Program Director at Arkansas Tech University, discussing his latest book, The Annals of the Southern Mission.

The evening begins with a reception at 6:00 PM before the main program at 7:00.  The event is free and open to the public.

Photo of Aaron McArthurDr. McArthur obtained his PhD in the History of the United States West from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he mainly focused on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) history during the last half of the nineteenth century.  His first book, St. Thomas, Nevada: A History Uncovered, told the story of the city of St. Thomas from its founding under the direction of Brigham Young to its inundation by Lake Mead.

Cover of the book featuring man reading another bookHis second book, The Annals of the Southern Mission: A Record of the History of the Settlement of Southern Utah, constitutes a transcribed and annotated version of the 2,266 loose, handwritten, and lined pages representing the early history of Southern Utah originally written by James G. Bleak.  Dr. McArthur, along with Reid Nielson, transcribed this important historical document, bringing to light details of early pioneer life during the period from 1849-1900 in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.

This presentation is part of our Second Monday Author Series featuring the works of our local writers and researchers.  You can stay up to date on the series and all library events by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.   For more questions or information about the Second Monday Author Series, contact Luke Heffley at (479) 964-0546.

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On Trial

Posted on October 18, 2018 Written by

This month, the Ross Pendergraft Library is trialing many new databases up for purchase consideration for next year.  Now is the time for you to test drive and give your feedback on the resources important to you.

BizMiner – TRIAL EXPIRES OCT. 22

BizMiner produces industry statistical reports, offering industry financial analysis benchmarks for more than 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. … These financial and industry market trend reports are used by business valuation professionals, accountants, and business owners.

Have a business plan you need to write?  Use this tool to gather market information on thousands of industries at the national, state, and city-level.  Need to know what it takes to open a hamburger restaurant in Russellville?  Look up annual sales, market volume, employment, productivity and more:

Screenshot of Bizminer report for hamburger businesses in Russellville

Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690-1876) and Series 6 (1741-1922)

This trial includes full text, digitized access to nearly 1,000 titles including the Weekly Arkansas Gazette (1819-1876) and Arkansas Gazette (1987-1908).  Series 6 is currently the ONLY way to access earlier editions of the state’s newspaper without using microfilm.  This resource is valuable for finding primary sources to the historical events that shaped our country and region.  The database is searchable by keyword or users can browse by newspaper title, place of publication, article types, and languages.  Once a newspaper article is selected, users will view the original, digitized version of the newspaper (includes photographs, advertising, and more).

Screenshot of Weekly Gazette showing map of new Iron Railroad passing through Arkansas

Take a trip through Arkansas history with this important resource!  But hurry!  It expires October 31st, 2018!

English Reports (HeinOnline)

Looking for early English Law?  The English Reports delivers exact page images of the original bound reprint edition, containing more than 100,000 cases, together with the Indexes and Book of Charts. This series includes the nominate reports or common-law rulings from various courts in England from the Middle Ages to the 1860s. The reports themselves were published in the early 20th century and would fill multiple shelves.  However, you can access this entire collection online using multiple navigation tools, such as a Case Locator, Chart Tool, and an Advanced Search feature enhance the ease of access to specific cases. Also included in this collection is the Statutes of the Realm (1235-1713), along with Pre-1865 Law Reports.

Screenshot of English Reports interface

Review and judge this database until November 5th.

Seldon Society Publications and the History of Early English Law (HeinOnline)

This library includes the Selden Society Annual Series, Selden Society Supplementary Series and the Centenary Guide to the Publications of the Selden Society published in 1987. The Seldon Society dedicates itself to the study and publication of English legal history. It also includes more than 220 English Legal History Classics including abridgments, digests and dictionaries. Moreover, you will be able to access early English case law and link to other online publications in early English history.

Screenshot of title page of early English text

Perufe thif collection of fine Englifh legal hiftory before it expiref on November 5th.

Like them?  Hate them?  Make a case for these trial databases at askus@atu.libanswers.com.  You can also reach us via text, phone, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or in person at the Ross Pendergraft Library.   Remember, your feedback determines what resources we purchase and what we don’t.  So let us know!

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