Do not waste your time counting sheep; if you’re having trouble settling in for your long winter’s nap, you might find newspaper titles as sedating as Seconal: the “Gazette,” the “Times,” the “Examiner,” the “Post,” the “Tribune,” the “Sun,” the “Star,” the “Journal,” the “News”… and then the hyphenated titles, formed by newspaper mergers: “News-Tribune,” “News-Gazette,” “Journal-Star,” “Sun-Times,” “Star-Tribune,”and on and on.
A handful of interesting exceptions do, however, cross my desk. I’m often puzzled by the “Sun-Star” and “Star-Sun” unions. Is it an unholy marriage of night with day, or a Rosicrucian signal: sun is star; star is sun; sun marries self, a terrible autogamy and its dread progeny? Imagine waking every morning, or returning home every evening, to that Yeatsian horror: “[W]hat rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”(Oh, and, Merry Christmas, if you celebrate!) Continue reading “HPNL Hot Blast + Our Annual Gift Guide”→
Change of plans: no more rabbit holes. Geneaology!
Stephen Cornett Pribble’s Obituary
Genealogy is more than just names and dates, jobs and relationships. I started in the late 1990s researching my dad’s side of the family. I live in the area that my ancestors lived in back in the 1870s. There are a lot of us (Pribbles) in the Vermilion and Champaign County area. How did I find this out? Censuses, talking to older relatives (I interviewed my great-aunt, Anna Kathryn Pribble McNeese, 98 at the time), cemetery listings and walks, and joining the Illiana Genealogical and Historical Society. I used the society’s resources which, at the time, were reference books and microfilm. I looked on sites such as Ancestry.com, which were free back then, but there was a gap between my known Pribbles and the Pribbles listed on the site. Where did we fit in to the line that came over from England as an indentured servant?
Using HPNL’s libguide entitled Geneaology Resources, I found a number of aids useful in tracking down ancestors. Ancestry.com is still available, but you must pay to access the information there now, but Family Search is free.
Through the USGenWeb Project, I accessed the ILGenWeb site and from there, the Vermilion County genealogy website. From this site, deaths, marriages, military information, newspapers, and obituaries can be accessed. I’m just looking in Vermilion county for my folk, but the ILGenWeb has a site for each county in Illinois, and the USGenWeb Project for each state. I have used this site in the past to verify deaths and marriages.
Back on the Geneaology Resources libguide page, I selected “V” under the “Illinois” sidebar on the Genealogy Resources page, and am taken to the “Where to Start” page for searching information in Vermilion county. This led me to a number of books that may contain useful information. As for my Vermilion county cousins, I was able to read about them from an entry in History of Vermilion County… (Beckwith). Yohos can still be found in the area I went to school with Henthorns in Catlin, a nearby village to Westville, Georgetown and Sidell. It is a small world. One of my West Virginia (migrated in the 1870s, settling in Ridgefarm) cousins can be read about here. Frank’s brother was named Wilbur. Go figure. Kinfolk, but definitely independent lines from a common ancestor. Continue reading “Flesh Out your Genealogical Searches with Small Town Newspapers”→
Hurricanes continually pummel the coasts of the United States, we had record high temperatures across the country this summer, and we are biting our nails waiting for what winter may hold. When you really think about it, there is only one logical explanation for the extreme weather we have seen over the last decade: The government.
Or at least that is what I saw some people saying on social media.
One of the most satisfying parts of my job as an academic librarian is to see a research project that started out as a twinkle in someone’s eye appear in the Library as a published book. Here are some new titles by University of Illinois faculty members in the subject areas we collect here in the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library (African American Studies, History, Jewish Studies, Philosophy, and Religious Studies) that we’ve recently acquired (a few are still on order). Congratulations, all! Continue reading “New and recent books by Illinois faculty”→
During the academic semester, HPNL is open from 9am-7pm Monday-Thursday, 9am-5pm on Fridays and 1-5pm on Sundays.
HPNL Study Space:
HPNL is a semi-quiet study space that has both large study tables that work for both individuals and small groups, as well as new individual study carrels! There is both traditional library seating as well as soft seating. The library has great natural lighting through large windows in the main reading room. If you need an even quieter space to read or study, and don’t mind a bit of cool temperatures, we also have a few seats in our microfilm stacks available for use. Continue reading “HPNL – A Great Place to Study!”→
Since 2017, The Urbana Free Library has hosted an event called the Archives Bazaar, where cultural heritage organizations from the Champaign-Urbana area—including special collections libraries, historical societies, archives, museums, and independent collectors—congregate to exhibit materials found in their collections. Archives bazaars exist to promote the preservation of our cultural heritage and to promote the use of archival collections by highlighting popular, “hidden,” or interesting collections within an institution. Bazaars are a chance for organizations and repositories to leave the stacks and connect with people in the community (not just the scholarly researchers one may think of when one thinks of archives!). It’s a way for us to say, enthusiastically, “Isn’t preserving history neat?” and “Please come use our collections!”
This year, The Urbana Free Library’s Archives Bazaar has a central theme on the history of the Illinois Central Railroad. 2024 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Illinois Central depot in Champaign, Illinois. The Illinois Newspaper Project, jointly administered by HPNL and the University Library’s Preservation Services Unit, will table at the Bazaar to showcase the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (IDNC) and to promote our newly-published (and very first!) research guide featuring articles about the Illinois Central Railroad found in the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections. Continue reading “Archives Bazaar: All Aboard the Preservation Train”→
One of the many benefits of working at a newspaper library is the ability to acquaint myself with the tremendous archive of historical newspapers available on both microfilm and online databases. These newspapers, ranging from local papers to underground zines to major titles like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, offer valuable insight into the cultural climate of their time period. For me, the most fascinating section of the paper is not always found under the front page headline. Often, it is situated far from the land of hard-hitting journalism, politics, and foreign affairs, somewhere closer to the crossword puzzle and the funnies. I speak, of course, of the advice column.
“There is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9
An attempt has been made on the President’s life, but the would-be assassin doesn’t complete his task. Soon after the incident, it is reported to the public that he’s just a crazy lone gunman. Murmurs. It is said that the gunman was in cahoots with the President’s political opponents, so an investigation is initiated. The President himself asserts that the shooter was probably hired by one or more members of the other party. The opposition counters by announcing that the shooting was staged to garner public sympathy for the President. Others blame the opposing party’s inflammatory comments made prior to the act for inciting it. Continue reading “The United States of Paranoia”→
From: T.S. Eliot, “The Boston Evening Transcript,” Poetry 7, no. 1 (October 1915): 21.
I like these first two lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Boston Evening Transcript.” I’ve clipped them (sort of) from the issue of Poetry magazine in which the poem first was published. Probably it’s a little strange that I should like them, because I don’t think he meant them to be lovely. Continue reading “A bit of and a bite at “The Boston Evening Transcript””→
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library and the Department of History are pleased to announce the 2024-2025Research Travel Grant to support scholars conducting research in any of the Library’s collections.
The University Library is one of the largest research libraries in the U.S., holding more than 14 million volumes and 24 million other items and materials in all formats, languages, and subjects. Special collections include the papers of literary figures such as Marcel Proust, H.G. Wells, Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, extensive collections of Slavic and East European materials and of materials documenting the history of science, technology, international agricultural programs, and librarianship, the premier collection on international amateur sports and the Olympics, and a unique collection of sub-Saharan African research materials. Travel grant recipients will also have access to the Library’s digital collections (including journal subscriptions and licensed databases) during their stay.
Travel grant awards typically range from $1,000 to $2,500 per recipient. Funds may be applied toward round-trip travel, and accommodations and expenses in Urbana-Champaign, IL.
