Welcome to the Reference Department Blog. Visit often for information on programs and events, featured research tools, book lists, and Web resources. We encourage you, our patrons, to give feedback and share your own favorite resources and books. Join us in creating a unique resource for the Wright Library Community.
To encourage community participation in this special visit, Wright Library is holding book discussion groups of All But My Life on March 26 at 1:00 p.m. and March 27 at 6:30 p.m. in the Library Meeting Room.
For over six decades, author, historian, speaker, and Holocaust survivor, Gerda Weissmann Klein has captivated audiences worldwide with her powerful message of hope, inspiration, love and humanity. In her speeches and books, Klein draws from her wealth of life experiences: from surviving the Holocaust and meeting her future husband on the day of her liberation, to her journey to the United States, accepting an Oscar and Emmy for a documentary based on her life, and her constant fight to promote tolerance, encourage community service and combat hunger. Gerda Klein has authored nine books on a wide variety of topics for an array of different audiences. These include her memoir, All But My Life, which was the foundation for the Oscar and Emmy-winning HBO documentary One Survivor Remembers.
The Great Flood of 1913 adversely affected communities all along the Great Miami River from Piqua to Dayton to Hamilton and beyond. It garnered world-wide attention as one of the most photographed and documented disasters of the early 20th century. Join Oakwood Historical Society past-president and current board member, Mark Risley, Saturday, March 16 at 2 p.m. for a presentation following the story of the flood and beyond.
Also, there is a Great Dayton Flood display in the South Reading Room of the Library, which be available until March 25th.
The picture above is from the Dayton Flood collection at Digital@UDayton, where more images can be found.
Trolleys and Buses: A History of Transit in Oakwood
Join Tom Morrow, Oakwood resident and Oakwood Historical Society member, as he makes a presentation on early trolleys and buses in Oakwood Saturday, February 9at 2 p.m. Mr. Morrow has an extensive collection of photos of early streetcars and buses, maps of their routes and terminals he will have on display.
Transportation to and from Oakwood to Dayton and points beyond was a critical piece of Oakwood’s history. Mr. Morrow will talk about how transit played a key role in Oakwood’s growth and prosperity from the beginning up until the 1950’s.
Don't Know Much About the American Presidents by Kenneth C. Davis is a recent book on CD, which is a great way to brush up on your presidential knowledge in this election year. Test your knowledge with these trivia vidoes.
Join us Sunday, November 11th, from 2 - 3 p.m. for a Time-Capsule Home Tour presented by the Oakwood Historical Society. The home on Wiltshire Avenue, was the site of an Historical Society open house in September, which presented it as it would have been in the 1930s, both in terms of decore and the items you would have found within. If you missed the open house, this program will give you a chance to see what the house was like and to hear stories of Oakwood at the time.
Advanced registration is required and limited to the first 65 people. Contact Wright Library’s Reference Department at 294-7171 or by email to register beginning Friday, October 26th.
Wright Library and the Oakwood Historical Society will present “The Town of Oakwood” Tuesday, April 17th from 7:00 – 7:45 p.m. in the Library Meeting Room. Advance registration is required and limited to 65. Contact the Reference Department at 294-7171 or by email to register beginning Friday, April 6th.
“The Town of Oakwood" lecture will follow the creation and development of the town of Oakwood from 1872-1908, the “rocky years”. In 1872 four men purchased and platted 78 acres of rural farmland in Van Buren Township with hopes that people would follow. They quickly learned few people were willing to move so far out of the city. Three of the four investors bailed, lost their money, and died. An early Dayton biographer called Oakwood “a failure”. Come hear the whole story as it is presented by Mackensie Wittmer and Harrison Gowdy of the Oakwood Historical Society. Additional financial support was provided by the Oakwood Rotary Foundation.
February is African American History Month. Here is a list of resources for any student of history. Included are timelines, biographies, essays, videos, and primary source material.
President Obama delivers the State of the Union address tomorrow night. This review of the past year and presidential vision for the coming year that can make one think of history and our place in it. Whether out of personal or educational necessity the following Web sites gather together additional resources for any one wanting to explore history online.
HeritageQuest Online™ is a great online resource for genealogical research. It combines digital, searchable images of U.S.federal census records (1790 - 1930) with the digitized version of the popular UMI® Genealogy & Local History collection and other valuable content.
This online database is an essential collection of unique material for both genealogical and historical researchers, with coverage dating back to the late 1700s. It offers more than 20,000 book titles, including nearly 8,000 family histories and over 12,000 local histories. Additionally, there are more than 250 primary-source documents such as tax lists, city directories, probate records, and more. Access is also available to the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, and the Freedman's Bank Records.
A new international cultural resource has opened its virtual doors. In April, the Library of Congress, UNESCO, and other partner institutions launched the World Digital Library. These partners are contributing digitized content from their collections to the World Digital Library. All content is included on a nonexclusive basis.
The project brings together on a single website rare and unique documents – books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings – that tell the story of the world’s cultures (Library of Congress).
You can search and browse features in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish) and the content itself will be in more than two-dozen languages. Explore the collection by borwsing Place, Time, Topic, Type of Item, or Institution and learn about our world.
For more information on the World Digital Library:
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are large scale street plans produced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance company from 1867 to 1970. These maps are heavily used in both public and academic libraries by a wide range of researchers including local historians to locate and identify buildings and neighborhoods, urban historians to study the growth of towns and cities, and environmentalists concerned about impact of new developments.
Rope-making was once Xenia, Ohio's largest industry, employing thousands of people at six rope factories. The Library will show the award-winning documentary, Ropewalk: a Cordage Engineer's Journey through History, at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 16 in the meeting room. The executive producer, Kate Hagenbuch, and her father, Bill Hagenbuch, the narrator, will be on hand to introduce the film.
