Free access to ProQuest Black History Resources for Black History Month #blackhistorymonth

Black NewspapersProQuest are offering free access to the following Black History resources throughout February 2013. (University of Edinburgh users please note that the links below do not give access to existing resources already available for UofE users from ProQuest)

ProQuest Historical Newspapers – Black Newspapers—The voice of the people, culture, politics, and issues in those communities that too often received little to no attention from other papers. They give students the complete story with nine full-image titles that are cross-searchable with other ProQuest Historical Newspapers, ProQuest Civil War Era, and with the Black Studies Center. Access it free now.

Black Studies Center—Start here…for primary and secondary sources for Black or African American studies. It includes the only periodical resource focused exclusively on African and African American studies, two historical Black studies indexes: the Marshall Index to Periodicals and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Index to Black Literature, and the full Chicago Defender newspaper from first issue to 1975. Access it free now.

ProQuest Civil War Era—Comprehensive full-image primary source materials, previously unavailable digitally, cover a vast range of topics including the formative economic factors and other forces that led to the abolitionist movement and the emancipation of nearly 4 million slaves. Access it free now.

ProQuest African American Heritage—Groundbreaking digital resource that not only brings together records critical to African American family research, but also connects to a community of research experts. See the video. Access it free now.

Israel, the Assyrians and a shoemaker’s gift

The sacred and profane history of the world connected : from the creation of the world to the dissolution of the Assyrian Empire …, and to the declension of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel …/ by Samuel Shuckford, D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, George the Second. ; Revised … by James Creighton. Philadelphia, 1824.
New College Library [Special Collections] Z.2152

At todays’ opening seminar in the Divinity Biblical Studies Research Seminar series, the speaker is Dr Carly Crouch, Lecturer in Hebrew Bible, University of Nottingham, on “Israel and the Assyrians”.

On that note, here’s an ambitious work of history from New College Library’s Special Collections that covers the Assyrian Empire and  “the declension of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel”. Written by Samuel Shuckford in the eighteenth century, this edition was published in the nineteenth century and is the first American edition of this work.

What interested me the most was in fact the label inside the book (well, I am a librarian), which states:

“Presented to the Free Church of Scotland, by Thomas Aikman, shoemaker, a native of Scotland, near Sterling [sic], a citizen of the United States of America since 1794 – a member of the Presbyterian Church in full communion for more than fifty years. Burlington, N.J., 1844.”

With this provenance, the book must have been donated to New College Library as part of the first appeal for books that came with the founding of New College as the College for the Free Church of Scotland after the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843.  It shows that Thomas Aikman, an emigrant of humble background, was following religious affairs in his homeland closely and that the principles behind the founding of New College were close enough to his heart for him to donate this book.

This book is part of the ‘Z’ Collection, currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.