Barbie STAFF
Co-Editors Selby Documents Librarian UVA Law Library 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903-1789 [phone] [e-mail] Earlene Viano Library Assistant/Reference Hampton Public Library 4207 Victoria Blvd. Hampton, VA 23669-4243 [phone] [e-mail] Editorial Board Fran Freimarck Director Pamunkey Regional Library P.O. Box 119 Hanover, VA 23069 [phone] [e-mail] John Kneebone Director, Publications and Educational Services Library of Virginia 800 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219-8000 [phone] [e-mail] Nan Seamans Director of Instruction Virginia Tech, University Libraries Blacksburg, VA 24061-0434 [phone] [e-mail] Lydia C. Williams Longwood College Library Farmville, VA 23909 [phone] [e-mail] Antoinette Arsic Corporate Business Development Specialist/Librarian EER Systems, Inc. [phone] [e-mail] Molly Brennan Cox Librarian Floyd County High School 721 Baker St. Floyd, VA 24091 [phone] [e-mail] Editor, Virginia Books Julie A. Campbell Library of Virginia 800 E. Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219-8000 [phone] [e-mail]
Virginia Libraries
October/November/December, 2001, Vol. 47, No. 4
COLUMNS
Barbie Selby and Earlene Viano Cy Dillon Scott Silet Julie A. Campbell, Ed. 2 3 29 30 Openers Presidents Column Internet Reference Resources Virginia Reviews
FEATURES
Sue Evans An Interview by Douglas Gordon Ladd Brown and Molly Brennan Cox Ken Winter 5 8 21 25 Loudouns Irwin Uran Gift Fund A Virginia Writers Life and Work: A Conversation with Donald McCaig Managing Electronic Resources in Technical Services Stop Clinging to Those Static Pages
On the cover: Donald McCaig with his friend, Harry
Virginia Libraries is a quarterly journal published by the Virginia Library Association whose purpose is to develop, promote, and improve library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to advance literacy and learning and to ensure access to information in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The journal, distributed to the membership, is used as a vehicle for members to exchange information, ideas, and solutions to mutual problems in professional articles on current topics in the library and information eld. Views expressed in Virginia Libraries are not necessarily endorsed by the editor or editorial board. The Virginia Library Association (VLA) holds the copyright on all articles published in Virginia Libraries whether the articles appear in print or electronic format. Material may be reproduced for informational, educational, or recreational purposes provided the source of the material is cited. The print version of Virginia Libraries is designed by Lamp-Post Publicity in Meherrin, Virginia. The electronic version of Virginia Libraries is created by Virginia Techs Scholarly Communications Project and is available at http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/VALibs or as a link from the Virginia Library Association web site at http://www.vla.org. Virginia Libraries is indexed in Library Literature, a database produced by the H.W. Wilson Company. Items for publication and editorial inquiries should be addressed to the editor. Inquiries regarding membership, subscriptions, advertising, or claims should be directed to VLA, P.O. Box 8277, Norfolk, VA 23503-0277. All personnel happenings and announcements should be sent to the VLA Newsletter, Helen Q. Sherman, Librarian, DTIC Technical Library, Defense Technical Information Center, 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 0944, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6218, [phone], fax [phone], email [e-mail]. Virginia Libraries is available by subscription at $20 per year. The guidelines for submissions to Virginia Libraries are found on page 24.
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OPENERS
Promoting Understanding
by Barbie Selby and Earlene Viano
n light of our nations, indeed, our worlds, recent tragic events it seems likely that many of us have had similar impulses to those of the 3,000 people who are weekly applying to the CIA. We want to do something. We want to comfort someone. We want to contribute to the victims and their families. We were extraordinarily pleased to see that Steve Helm quickly and prominently included a link to donate to the American Red Cross on the VLA web site. While we all know the VLA web pages wouldnt be the rst place anyone would look for such a link, it says a lot about our organization that the link is there. Good work, Steve. One of the articles in this issue of Virginia Libraries seems particularly appropriate for this sad, but challenging, time in our countrys history. Mr. Irwin Uran of Loudoun County gave the Loudoun County Public Library a one-million-dollar gift to be used toward promoting a greater understanding of our neighbors and better relations among all people. What a noble and timely reminder that we all need to learn more about our shared past and our shared present! Understanding is of many kinds understanding ones self, ones neighbors, writers whom one
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reads, even other species one interacts with. Douglas Gordons in-depth interview with Donald McCaig touches on all these possibilities for understanding and gained insight. Reading Mr. McCaigs thoughts on the training of a sheep dog and the almost mysti-
What a noble and timely reminder that we all need to learn more about our shared past and our shared present!
cal connection between dog/sheep/ man is illuminating and thoughtprovoking. Surely, if such connections can exist theres hope of strengthening our connections with one another. Our nal two articles are more traditionally library-oriented. In Managing Electronic Resources in Technical Services Molly Cox and Ladd Brown describe the workow and procedures that have worked well at Virginia Tech to track and organize their acquisition and maintenance of electronic resources. They include an outline of an
Electronic Resource Diary, by means of which they are able to organize the bits and pieces of information libraries need to know regarding their electronic purchases and databases. Ken Winter of VMI reports on their dynamically generated guides called SourceFinder. Prompted by the excessive amount of work involved in regularly updating static web resource lists and by projects, such as VCUs MyLibrary project, VMI has implemented a databasesupported, dynamically generated, easily-updated reference tool for its students. For those of us who havent investigated the possibilities of database-driven web guides this article should show us the way. Beginning with this issue Virginia Books has a new name, Virginia Reviews, to reect its broader scope. With the proliferation of electronic information resources, we feel its time to expand the coverage of our reviews to include this media. As seems tting in Virginia, our rst review will be of the 1880 Virginia census CD from the Church of Latter Day Saints. Carolyn Barkley will do the honors. We hope you enjoy and prot from this additional coverage, and we promise to still do books. VL
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PRESIDENTS COLUMN
State of the Association
by Cy Dillon
There is only the ght to recover what had been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. T. S. Eliot (East Coker) a general statement of our organizations current state. Goal I for VLA was to serve as an advocate for libraries, information services, and library personnel. Our Legislative Committee led the efforts to retain as much public library funding as possible in a ceryou are a public librarian, be sure your board members have copies. Before the 2001 Designated Agenda was even written, we had completed negotiations on an exemption for libraries from some of the restrictions imposed by UCITA. VLA members have consulted with library associations in other states to help stop the spread of this controversial law, and at this point no states have joined Virginia and Maryland in passing the act. VLA participated in national Legislative Day and, for the rst time, sponsored a bus for participants. We had good attendance at our luncheon, including ALA President Nancy Cranich. Also at the national level, VLA was one of the rst chapters to contribute nancially to ALAs battle against the Childrens Internet Protection Act. We have negotiated a contract for the coming year with the Vectre Corporation and will spend over $26,000 on our legislative liaison. In 2002 VLA needs to continue the work begun this year to stabilize the funding for this area. I do not expect the need or the cost to decrease. Goal II was to provide and publicize high quality continuing education opportunities that are geographically and nancially accessible to library personnel and support groups. From the successful Paraprofessional Forum Conference to the regional workshops to events sponsored by various committees and forums, VLA has covered the state
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nd try we have. This past year our Association has seen its members create gains, or at least prevent losses, on every front at a time when much has been at stake in our Commonwealth and our society. We can look toward 2002 with unity of purpose, condence in the soundness of our organization, and a stubborn belief that we can make a difference. This is particularly important because Virginia faces a severe funding shortfall as this year ends that will carry over into the coming legislative session. We also have to continue to deal with the implementation of UCITA and the court challenge to CIPA, as well as with local intellectual-freedom issues. In 2001 VLA Council followed a Designated Agenda for the Association that focused on four main goals that might be abbreviated Advocacy, Continuing Education, Services, and Finances. The Agenda specied initiatives and actions designed to meet those goals. I will use that format as a means of organizing this report and incorporate reports from various VLA units into
We will need every ounce of that strength this winter.
tiably insane budget year. We were successful, maintaining funding for State Aid to Public Libraries and Infopowering, but library construction and the budget of the Library of Virginia suffered. With an excellent legislative liaison and an activist membership, VLA has become one of the stronger advocacy organizations in Virginia. We will need every ounce of that strength this winter. The formula for funding State Aid was reviewed by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission this year, and VLA worked with public library directors and the JLARC staff to provide information and support funding for all regions. The nal report was a strong endorsement for libraries and for local efforts. If you have not yet reviewed this document, by all means try to read it before the next session of the General Assembly. If
Cy Dillon is President of the Virginia Library Association and is Library Director at Stanley Library, Ferrum College.
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with affordable and well-attended sessions. This Annual Conference has drawn over 700 attendees even at a time when travel and public events are under the shadow of terrorism, but perhaps the most interesting fact about Conference 2001 is that we had more proposals for concurrent sessions than we had time or space to accommodate. VLA members are dedicated practitioners of continuing education, as the high quality of the programs we have enjoyed indicates. The Continuing Education Committee has again provided training, support, and publicity for units sponsoring events, and the VLA Newsletter and web page have provided timely communications. Our directory of continuing education venues will be, when complete, a great help in planning programs. If we can also develop and maintain a directory of speakers, we will give our members tools that will be valuable years from now. Goal III was to extend and enhance appropriate and relevant services in support of the membership, publicize those services, and strengthen the organizational framework of the Association. In this area we have succeeded in establishing a structured and unied system for the Associations many awards, as the Opening Session of this conference made clear. We have worked all year on developing and putting in writing succession plans for the various units within VLA and are very near completion on this small but important aspect of organization. This years unit heads are to be commended for their efforts to maintain continuity in their area of responsibility. Dependable, consistent leaders are any organizations greatest asset. The Executive Committee has attempted to enhance communication in the Association through a series of post-council lunches, including one hosted by Barbie Selby at her home. It has been clear to
me all year that the 2001 Executive Committee is a particularly dedicated and open-minded group, and I want to recognize them one nal time for their unselsh service. The question of the VLA Archives has been researched and discussed this year, and the Publications Committee has recommended a set of policies that will make the Archive more usable in the future. We have a growing and exciting photograph archive based on the work of Pierre Courteous that has the potential to grow into a photographic history of our era. If you need photos of VLA events from the past decade, we have that covered. VLAs web presence continues its tradition of excellence with timely postings of publications, Council documents, advocacy tools, and the remarkably popular Jobline. We have upgraded our equipment and software, weathered the autumnal virus storms, and managed to keep Steve Helm interested in exploring additional applications and services. In addition to VLA.org, I use the VLA Membership Directory on a daily basis to stay in touch with other members. This years version was affordable, too. We can improve this resource in future years by making sure VLA has our current contact information at all times. We can only publish what we have. Finally, appropriate and relevant services from VLA are most often directly connected to Linda Hahne. She has been the solid foundation of our Association during its return to nancial and organizational stability. I have never worked with anyone who is more focused on service. Perhaps the single best thing I have done in my year as President has been to sign Linda to a contract for 2001. GOAL IV was to strengthen the nancial framework of the association. This year we conrmed VLAs status as a 501C3 nonprot organization so that our donors could be
sure that they are eligible for a tax deduction for gifts. We continued to develop plans to begin a plannedgiving program. We sought new scholarship sponsors and found donors to help cover the scholarship funding lost when Gale bought IAC. We aggressively solicited donations for supporting the Annual Conference, and, as in the recent past, we conducted both the Annual Conference and the Paraprofessional Forum Conference in a way that created net revenue for the organization. While we are three or four months away from a nal nancial report for 2001, I am pleased to note that we expect to do better than break even on a budget of $267,200. This indicates a sound nancial state as well as careful planning on the part of the Executive Director and Executive Committee. During the past year our nances were reviewed by the accounting rm of Strickland & Jones. They reported that our reserve fund is above average for a professional association, that our budgeting process is commendable and well thought out, and that VLA has sound management. This review also recommended some changes in the dues structure that caused serious concern among the Executive Committee. They suggested, in short, to put more dues burden on lower-paid members. We will be considering these recommendations during our retreat in December. Most of us are reluctant to increase dues and even more reluctant to make more than minor revisions to the progressive scale that has served us well as VLA has regained its nancial health, which it did in a remarkably short time. Nevertheless, we want to give the recommendation a good hearing. If you have an opinion you want to express on this matter, use the VLA web page to contact me or any of the Executive Committee members. We want to represent you. VL
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Loudouns Irwin Uran Gift Fund
by Sue Evans
n the summer of 1999, Loudoun County Public Library Director Douglas Henderson accepted a $1 million dollar bequest from philanthropist Irwin W. Uran. Irwin Urans goal of a greater understanding of our neighbors and better relations among all people guides the mission of this gift. The Irwin Uran Gift Fund (a part of the endowment) would provide programs and materials focusing on the cultural and historical impact of the Jewish Holocaust and on Jewish and Klezmer music. The library responded with a range of programming and materials that would not only edify and entertain, but would provide venues for thought and discussion of the Holocausts effects on history and modern politics. Loudoun County, Virginia, located 30 miles from Washington, DC, is growing rapidly from an agrarian to a suburban community. It is one of the fastest growing counties in the country with more than 15,000 individuals moving in annually. The rapid growth reects an ever-changing demography. In an effort to appeal to the countys changing demography, programs have been scheduled in senior centers, intermediate and high schools (both public and independent), in the open, and in libraries. The programs targeted youth, families, seniors, and minorities. The programs appealed to the humanitarian, the academic, and the aesthetic. Partners for programs included the Hospice of Northern Virginia, the Library of Virginia and
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SARAH HUNTINGTON
Elie Wiesel, The Reverend Betsee Parker, and Mr. Irwin Uran
Sue Evans is a Public Information Specialist, Loudoun County Public Library.
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the Library of Virginia Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Book, Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and National Video Resources, in partnership with the Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Response to and participation in the Irwin Uran Gift-funded programs and the purchase of related materials has been tremendous. The library has hosted writers, artists, art exhibits, documentary lm series, humanitarians, and musicians and has added over 3,000 items to the librarys collection. William Styron spoke to a standing-room-only audience about his Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, Sophies Choice. The program appealed to readers, writers, and humanists of all ages. The book, an All Virginia Reads 2000 book selection, provoked the thoughtful discussion that Loudoun County Public Library and the Irwin Uran Gift Fund hoped it would. Awardwinning poet Carolyn Forche read from her anthology, Poetry of Witness, and author Leo Bretholz brought his personal story, Leap into Darkness, to a Loudoun County audience. Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of Louisianas David Duke, appeared as special guest with Lawrence N. Powell, author of Levys biography Troubled Memory. Artist Sherry Zvares Sanabria exhibited Lagers: In the Shadow of the Holocaust along with a slide lecture, and in June of 2001, artist Jeffrey Schrier conducted workshops for over 2000 Loudoun County students and volunteers to contribute feathers to the Wings of Witness, a Holocaust Memorial sculpture
in progress. The wings are constructed of feathers made of discarded soda can tabs collected by intermediate school children to symbolize the numbers of those individuals killed in the Holocaust. Over 20,000 students and volunteers across the country have taken part in the sculpture. At its presentation in Leesburg (on the lawn adjacent to the Rust Library), the sculpture measured 50 x 100 feet and contained over 6 million soda tabs.
The library has hosted writers, artists, art exhibits, documentary lm series, humanitarians, and musicians.
The bilingual (Spanish/English) art exhibit I Never Saw Another Buttery presented the work of children interred in the Terezin Ghetto from 1942 to 1944. The children painted, sketched, and put into verse fantasies, memories, and fears. The art recalled an awful time and an awful place but was timeless and universal in its plea for compassion. Among the several documentary series hosted by the library were the memorable From Rosie to Roosevelt, a lm history, covering Americans in World War II, and the PBS special series Witness: Voices from the Holocaust. The Witness series featured Producer-Director Joshua M. Greene and a screening of his special series, followed by commentary on and discussion of the Holocaust. Highlighting Loudoun County
Public Librarys series of programs was the appearance of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. In his talk, Bringing People Together, Mr. Wiesel called for compassion and understanding among all people. The noted humanitarian envisioned a world in which knowledge and tolerance are the means for change. Over a thousand individuals including students and teachers attended the program. The librarys benefactor, Irwin Uran, who received a standing ovation from the audience, also attended the program. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of the acclaimed best seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People, spoke to another standing-room-only audience in the Loudoun County Senior Center at Cascades in a program cosponsored with the Hospice of Northern Virginia. Rabbi Kushner shared his own experiences and answered questions from an enthusiastic and interested audience. The concerts attracted diverse audiences from the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The music was traditional and innovative, joyful and melancholy. More than 500 people gathered on the lawn of Leesburgs Ida Lee Park to hear the Klezmatics play and sing original and classic Jewish music. The harmony of the music unied the audience; they joined together in dance and song. Through programs, concerts, events, and the purchase of library materials, Loudoun County Public Library has provided material for thoughtful discussion on the issues of tolerance and understanding and has raised the level of appreciation for Jewish and Klezmer music, thereby channeling this philanthropic gift to the people of Loudoun County and the larger metropolitan area. VL
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LINDA HOLTSLANDER
Students from Simpson Middle School, Leesburg, work on the Wings of Witness project, supported by the Uran Gift.
SARAH HUNTINGTON
Wings of Witness, designed by artist Jeffrey Schrier and constructed by over 20,000 students and volunteers from across the country using six million discarded soda can tabs in remembrance of those who were killed during the Holocaust.
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A Virginia Writers Life and Work: A Conversation with Donald McCaig
An Interview by Douglas Gordon
anuary 29, 2001. A cold, Highland County, winter day. Donald and I take a late morning walk through the pastures and down by the Cowpasture River with three border collies and an Irish Water Spaniel on her rst trip to the farm. Later, as we approach the house and a group of sheep, we meet Ruth, short for Ruthless, the large wooly, white dog who protects sheep from coyotes. After a tuna sandwich lunch, we sit down for our conversation in McCaigs book-lined study where he writes every morning. With a few guests due to arrive for dinner, Doc McCaig is cooking a free range turkey and potatoes. He is as exacting about the cooking as he is about the details of his plots. The hand-held timer beeped periodically during our talk. Often he paused in response to my questions; his responses were thoughtful and never evasive. At times he broke into great, loud, generous laughter, particularly at the end when he mentioned Hardys critics. Whenever he
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mentioned Harry, his aging, border collie with a failing heart, his voice was quieter, lled with respect for his longtime companion. Harry is out of McCaigs Gael and Wilsons Roy, promised originally to someone who never came to get him. McCaig nally called and said, There are plenty of dogs that will suit you better. Harry is his puppy name as in Harry, harry krishna, harry krishna harry, harry. In May of 2000, McCaig was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Christopher Newport University. I always did want to be called Doc, McCaig said. up all the DG When you addWorld colpoems, Dog umns, reviews, articles, NPR columns, non-ction, and novels, you could fairly be called a prolic writer. Yes. You gotta be if youre gonna make a living.
DMc
DG You have now lived thirty years in one place. You
Donald McCaig and Harry have gone from young man to old timer
Douglas Gordon is a professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Christopher Newport University. He is a contributing editor of The Bark, and has written about and lectures frequently on dogs in literature. He occasionally teaches a special topics course entitled Dogs in Literature at C.N.U. Photographer: Roy Burke III is a Blue Ridge Mountains photographer. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is a senior waterquality modeler for the State of Georgia Environmental Protection Division. His photographs have appeared in Blue Ridge Country, American Libraries, and Best Friends Magazine.
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ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROY BURKE III
The McCaig farmhouse in Highland County, Virginia
DMc Old man! Highland DG in this place County. How has shaped your
view of the world? When we rst came here, we couldnt afford plumbers, electricians, carpenters. And so, I found out if I take enough time, I can do what needs to be done. Now, I wont do it as well as a professional and certainly not as fast. But I am not afraid of trying. I have a pretty strong sense that if I think about it long enough and hard enough, I can then take a shot at it. That is not to say I will succeed, but I am not afraid to try it. Thats been one change. I would have been afraid before I came down here.
How I relate to my neighbors here is very different than the persona that enables me to meet a large group of people who know me because of my books.
DMc
DMc Because of inliving here, I see people church every
Sunday. So as far as they are concerned, I might do something odd like insurance or sales, a slightly exotic occupation. How I relate to my neighbors here is very different than the persona that enables me to meet a large group of people who
know me because of my books. I dont think that having the persona is necessarily authentic or good. But I am absolutely sure that if I tried to meet people at readings with the same deliberation I do with my neighbors it would drive me mad. I have some very close relations with the people here, as with you. The people I meet through books are essentially literary friendships. But I have all these people in the community who are decent people, and I got to say something to them. But I also have all these people I meet because of my books. I got to say something to them, but I think most of that is pretty shallow. the living on DG Hasover thirty yearsthis farm for changed your views in any way? When we came here I didnt know anything. I had read
DG
Do the people in the community know you are a writer?
DMc
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philosophy in college; I knew how to put an advertisement together and to survive in the New York subway, which now I cant all of which are useful skills. But here it was without a doubt a good thing to suddenly realize that if you did not x the roof leak, it would leak. One early winter we thought you could drive in deep snow with a tractor to get rewood, so we werent too concerned about rewood. Anne wasnt here at the time. It snowed; we couldnt get in or out; we didnt have a four-wheel drive. At one time I considered cutting the apple trees closest to the house. But even in those kinds of circumstances you cannot drive a tractor without chains on the tires, and even then it will hardly go anywhere. It is extremely dangerous. But a neighbor let it be known he had noticed the absence of a woodpile, came down with his bulldozer, cut a tree and dragged it over for us. So you try and do stuff by yourself, but at the same time you get really intimately bound to this community.
and says Will you? the answer is almost always Yes. They would not ask unless they needed it. No one likes to ask. So you probably ought to say yes. We are independent of the greater society in lots of ways. I dont watch television very often, so I dont know what George W. Bush is doing, and I dont care; but I do care about what is happening here in this community.
together since it is so isolated out here. Female companionship had been breaking down here. In the old days they got together for quilting bees and husking bees. The kind of times where women meet together and talk were gone. You can get pretty isolated up here from each other.
DG What has astayed the sameI in you as person? When
see photos of you and the young friends who arrived here with you, I wonder what is the constant in McCaig. There is a way in which I cant answer that question. I think a writers preoccupations are formed pretty young whatever they may be. Most writers explore only a few things trying to get a book out. I think we explore and write a few things trying to get a book out, sensing were writing the same book over and over, trying to get it right. Most times I really shy away from asking such an analytical question because I am really afraid I would nd out and I wouldnt have anything to write anymore. Its hard to explain, but I can give an example. I went back to Montana this past summer to Butte, a difcult place to grow up, my hometown. The mining is out. The ying in and out was difcult. Butte is an industrial town most buildings of stone and brick, two are boarded up buildings, one or two with an historical monument for this and that, two have been knocked down. All empty. But history can move you while empty. I would walk at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning for blocks and blocks and blocks. I was staying at a bed and breakfast which used to be the old boarding house. Before my time they would literally rent beds out in shifts. That is where the term hotbed came from. But I could sit there and see the old building and the sixth oor where the company had its ofces. I could sit there
DG Can you give me an example? woman just brought DMc Well, ababy to church and is a new
going to come again next Sunday. There is a young fellow in some kind of trouble with the law, has a woman pregnant. Is he going to be sensible enough so they at some point can get married? There is a lot of good in him but at the same time he is the kind of kid that is a bit of a hothead and it could all go the other way. You can see that when you are an old fart like I am
DMc
DG Are you self-sufcient? case that we DMc It isnt thecient. Not atall. are self-suf
Were perfectly dependent upon this small community out here. A lot of times I do the things simply because there isnt anybody else to do them. I went to my rst Shenandoah Presbytery meeting because if I didnt go, who would go? The church members didnt go for years. They didnt want to be told theyd have to close because of too few members. There is a lot that you dont have the option of not doing if you are able to do it. If you dont do it, nobody is gonna. Everybody else is just as pressed or more pressed than you are. You just have to do some of these things. But it is not my inclination atall. My inclination is to sit down and read a bunch of books. But in this community if somebody calls you up
DG Dignied elder statesman! Nobody in a DMc Not really. like this runs it. community
Nobody comes and consults. There are people I call on when I want to get certain kinds of things done. One of them you are going to have dinner with tonight Barry Marshall, re chief, mechanic been friends for years and years. If I want to get something done, I will go down and talk to Barry. First the two of us and then we will ask around. We just dont go sailing out and do it. If the community seems to think it is a good idea and wants to support it, then it can get done. Other things, nobody talks to me atall I am not good at certain things. Often people will come and talk to Anne and talk about stuff that is important in the community. Shes been running a yoga class once a week and has for ve or six years. She teaches yoga. It is really good that the women can get
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in this old miners boarding house, look out, and see these places where prominent people in that part of the state had worked. Id sit there and wonder how those miners felt because they saw the same things. In one way it wasnt any different, but at the same time it is altogether different. some of what DG And thatinisButte Polka. you explore think DMc Which most people book. is an uncharacteristic And in some ways it is. threads in DG Iofnd common Every timeallI your work. pick up something else to read that somebody else has written about you, I look at the biography, part of which I know you constructed. What has taken root over the past two decades or more is a sort of romantic story of you and Anne, the society dropouts. Dropped out of Madison Avenue life to come and live in this strange community of Aborigines! Hillbillies!
Donald McCaig and his wife, Anne
DMc
DG To what extent is that true? DMc Oh, not atall.
Being here is not dropping out? It is dropping in in a very serious sense. It is an unfortunate thing about writers that if you want to give interviews to sell books, you have to give something in your PR release to sound interesting, usually to a reporter who isnt the best reporter wholl see this and say, Ah ha interesting. Zillions of people have the big fantasy of changing their life while doing something simple. Farming is enormously complicated. I used to design and produce television commercials a piece of cake. Edited movies based on character. This morning we talked to Shay out
DG DMc
there about the barn doors. [Shay McMullen is the McCaigs main farmhand, a young, talented carpenter and sometime guitar picker.] They have to be xed and its not simple. I know what we are going to be doing here well into the summer months. So you always put it into what season where you will have that kind of time for that kind of job. This can wait, but this has to be done. What you tear down and start over with.
and lawyers wife that would bring out their lamb for fancy meals Anne took this personally and say we bought this from this cute little couple in Highland County.
DG And your view is? show DMc That it isWendellbiz. I know people, Berry for
one, who doesnt have a persona. He goes out on these book tours, and they just tear his guts out. It is just awful. He gets on with NPRs Terry Gross who really doesnt care about anything much but rock-androll and celebrities. Yet here he is trying to explain in an honest and decent way what it is like living in a rural community where his grandfather lived. I just wince to hear it. I try to write honestly and answer questions honestly, but certainly the persona is entirely protected. I remember one fellow one time who was reading. He was terribly ustered. Afterwards I came up and said what you need is to use a hat, like this one, my Stetson. Others have different strategies. I
DG Is it that theinromantic PR bio allows you some sense to
maintain the amount of privacy a writer must have time to think? Yeah. But it isnt that as much as you got to have a life privacy. There are lots of things about my life that simply are nobodys business but my own and Annes period under any circumstances. How do you avoid those questions? Well, you become a little cub in the woods. That aggravated Anne quite a bit for a long time. We were selling locker lambs to customers. Every doctor
DMc
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have to disassociate myself. I give a performance. up here DG It struck me drivingyou have that, over the years, gone out of this out-of-the way place into a much larger world, whether to London or Kosovo or Scotland or Washington or California and then come back to this place. It is a pattern of your life. This past year with the many awards for Jacobs Ladder and your honorary doctorate of humane letters from Christopher Newport . I loved that ceremony, I really liked President Trible. I loved those students. I really liked that, and the students, and I expected that I would hate it.
nary reader might read it. Heidigger. Sartre. Wittgenstein. I couldnt read Kirkegaard for a long time. I do a bit now. Im more open to religion. I am currently reading this philosopher at U.Va. I dont read abstruse philosophy at all, rather ones the ordinary reader would. philosophy made DG You thinkyour own writing?its way into I dont DMc Oh, sure. I often ndmind. I have a good, logical think I am a good storyteller, and as a consequence my philosophical papers were awful, but I nd the way I learn things is I can learn things quickly. That is an advantage when doing research for a book, an article. Next year I wont remember a thing about the Bozeman Trail. But something that I want to learn, like dog training, I tend to bring it into my bones not into my head. So a lot of the philosophy is in my bones, so it comes out at times. Once you were looking for a recipe for your follow-up to Jacobs Ladder from some famous hotel restaurant during the aftermath of the Civil War, the Reconstruction? You found it in the Swem Library. I sent you a copy. When you go to the library, like the Library of Congress, and look at documents, for your research, do you keep notes? It depends whether I can get copies made.
fast enough to nd what Im interested in. Im looking for all this stuff on the Black and Tan convention, their actual minutes from Reconstruction. When I get to that section in the novel, I have what I need. read it and conDG Do youthat partthenthe novel struct of that you are working on almost immediately after involving yourself in the primary source? It goes back and forth. For instance, I just nished a draft to the Jacobs Ladder sequel. Theres research I havent done yet, paragraphs to ll in that happen at every stage of the novel. I tend to build a skeleton and put meat on it. I want to know what happened. You start out with a bunch of characters and some of them just disappear or become important. I have a vague idea, write a draft that is usually awful.
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War DG You were invited to the How College in Montgomery. did that go? What did you talk about? Did they ask you about using border collies to get geese off the runways? A couple of people came up to me with books for me to sign, which was very attering. But I like these guys a lot. Couple of real dopes, a few vacuosities, but as a bunch they were smart. Reminded me of the Amish, who are technologically great. If you had a little problem with jacking your house up, get a bunch of Amish and they solved it in 47 seconds. It was after having gone to CNU a very interesting contrast where some of the people seemed to be the ultimate theoreticals. The cultures were so different. Those military guys were sharp cookies.
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DG How fast does the draft go? on the book. Some DMc Dependshard. Jacobs Ladder are just
was hard. Nops Trials was easy. There are times when you are ready sometimes not. Sometimes you have to make yourself ready because once you start you have tremendous impetus to nish because its going to be just as hard to start the next one. But I was just looking at the draft of The Happie Land of Canaan, which was a mark made on a tree, a carving, by the Yellowstone River, and I was looking at the eighth draft on the rst half. Ill be able to go through the rst three hundred pages in about two weeks because I already know what happens. your writing DG How have How do you habits changed? work? Do you write all day? No, I cant. Mostly I now have a better sense of time. I write from eight til noon six days a week. Works out to probably four
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you are more DG Butphotocopies? likely to rely on depends DMc It allget copies on whether I can made. When I go up to the Library of Congress next time, I want to look at a microlm guide to the very rst passengers in the First Continental Railroad, 1868, see photos of the early Pullman cars. Literally there will be a dozen things there for me. I have a friend who is a research librarian there. So when I arrive there will be a stack of books I go through
your own DG What about and studiedreading. You read philosophy. You still read philosophy? Probably once a year.
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Whom did you read most often? Probably the existentialists. I am interested cause an ordi-
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days a week with travel. And I write whether or not I have anything to say. If I cant write, I rewrite. I read research I do something. Im back here working the full time. I have a June date for The Happie Land of Cannan. I have a contract. It has to be done. Its a ve hundred page book. So I was pushing hard this last year. You get crazy. I dont write in the afternoon because I dont want to. But if I go over the hours I set aside, Im just wastin my time. it a on DG Is major problem working The a magazine article, Happie Land of Cannan, and another novel all at once? No. Its kinda nice. The hardest thing to do is put your nose to the grindstone. I like thinking about different things. With work now it is relaxing because Im thinking about different things. When I nish The Happie Land of Cannan, Im going to be working on one thing. Then if I cant get going Im stuck. [Beep] Time to turn over the turkey.
call DMc Some. Some reading INevcomfort reads. Theres ille Chutess Trustee From the Tool Room. Youd like it. Completely unassuming. Like the macaroni and cheese of literature. And another was Alistair McLeans rst book, HMS Ulysses, just a wonderful adventure story. I read those the way people watch television. If I want to read really good ction, I have to read it rst thing in the morning while I have brains left. With
of DG Almost all theyour works seem to have at core some mystery that has to be solved. Some knowledge that has to be gained. Some order that has to be set right again. All of this implies some hope. But when you get to the end, when the murderer is caught but not punished If the The Cooney catcher goes down
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the napper doesnt pay DG If pricedogthen there is a sense a of exhaustion. Justice comes at a great price. Is that something you have thought about? No I havent. I have no particular doubt my general worldview is fairly bleak. Thats part of the Butte Polka. Lets see. Let me get the book. I may have used it as a epigraph. [Reads] Butte, Montana, is a place where the company is too big to beat, where the house cut is always too steep, and where victory, below ground or above it, consists in snatching a draw out of the jaws of certain defeat.
If I want to read really good ction, I have to read it rst thing in the morning while I have brains left. With really good ction you have to give as good as you get.
really good ction you have to give as good as you get. What DG You have ato ne library.certain if you had choose a number of keepers? Well, thats sort of an unfair question. You keep the ones you havent read. Hardy would be one Mayor of Casterbridge, Return of the Native, even old Tess. Dickens. Eliot was right. When you ask writers what they like, its the one youre learning from right now?
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Youve written poetry. You still write poetry? I read it. Wendell Berrys most recent poetry I really liked. Just loaned it to the guy down the road. Im reading the Australian poet Les Murray, couple of his books. I was reading one this morning. Its on the table. Im enormously fond of Phillip Larkin. I love his work.
is but people are DG Justiceout.done,like Lewis Burkworn Its holder going after his stolen dog, bashing down the wall of the lab with the re truck. Hell never be a reman again. He had to resign.
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tell my DG Peopleand I me view is too bleak say DMc Read some McCaig. back to DG Goyou can the mystery again. If think about Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: You go out into the world to search for something that is mysterious and unknown to you, and you dont know if you can do it. And you do it, and you come back, and you are glad you did it. But, boy, it was sure tiring to work your way through that.
more likely DG Youre than any otherto read poetry thing? Poetry and popular ction. DMc I have a large collection of popular ction. Sometime I cant read atall. Then sometimes I read nonction history. I probably nd it hardest to read good ction. It was easier to do when I was teaching.
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DG You read detective ction?
Who are you learning from right now? Jim Harrison. Alice Munroe. Might be Russell Banks. Wendell Barry denitely. Some are so good you cant learn anything from them. Raymond Carver is one of those. At least I cant. And poetry. I love poetry of all things. If I had my druthers, Id write poetry.
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You nd what you DMc thinkneveraregoing to nd. I you sometimes say I am a writer because I am a student and I am! I really want to nd out about this stuff. I want to nd out how things work, and I almost always do. When I go out to nd one thing, I always nd something altogether different. Is your idea I think of Lewis DG Burkholder in this sense that somehow a man will go out and learn these things, but then he will bungle it again? Lewis nds Nop, and then runs the dog nearly to death and he has regret for it. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah, it is something I had not thought about. On the other hand, I certainly am convinced my days of bungling it are not over. I have new and bigger bungles to make. I suppose for some there is a sense in some ction that when the story is over that life is over. Thats it. But I dont have that sense at all. Almost always I have a sense of taking a slice out of it. To be sure its a slice that has the convenient beginning, middle, and end, but that does not mean that life stopped.
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variuss various recipes to replicate these varnishes. His dream is to go to Cremona. He is discussing how he is trying to replicate these varnishes. And he taps the violin body: it is a C. Taps the bridge an E and taps another part of this damned violin and it is an A. The instrument is a musical chord. I am not sure, but what I do is that I nd this guy interesting, his life interesting because he nds life in that instrument. Now that may be simply because I use work as a displacement for life itself. That may be the case. That is one of the things that I like about Wendell Berry. He is one of the very few people who writes sensibly about work. In our culture the idea is that its the unpleasant thing you do until you got enough money stacked aside to just stop doing it. That is just insane. First of all, most people dont do that. There are those who feel that way. There are those that feel the need, but most people rather enjoy what they do. I think that is true. [Beeper.] Oops, time to roll the turkey over. Turkey break. When Donald returns from the kitchen, he looks at Ducks, our Irish Water Spaniel, lying on the oor and says respectfully to her Youre a literary dog, arent you? She looks back in earnest. going to be hard to go DMc Its readings without Harry. to Hes just about at the edge of not being able to go anymore. your DG Does make itcommitment to work comfortable to be in a Calvinist church, to work with Calvinist dogs? Because they are Presbyterian dogs? Oh, theyre Calvinist, all right. They live to work. Most the reason I go to the Williamsville Presbyterian church is its in Williamsville. If it were the Williamsville Methodist Id go. Id be
more comfortable in a Quaker or a Unitarian church. Its a community church, so o.k. read somewhere that DG Igrandfather left Scotlandyour and went to Canada? I dont really know. Ive never really been interested. He was a stonecutter. He was a Wobblie, died of silicosis. His father (legend has it) was a professor at McGill in Canada.
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there serious DG Were life before Pip? dogs in your DMc Sure. We had this dog in Montana, a dog and just a pet. He was named Rascal. And there we had this 16-year-old with a drivers license. I put Rascal in the car and took off. The family thought Id be gone a couple of weeks. At the beginning of that summer I had $100 saved up, took that cocker spaniel, and there were a couple of highway patrol men looking for me by the end of the summer. I had a good time with that dog. Dog Rascal! Have you DG My Dog Skip? The famous read My boy and dog story? I reviewed it for The Post. You know whats interesting is very often writers best books are often about dogs. I think it is true of J. R. Ackerley. London. It is an odd thing. And it is almost always taken as an unimportant part of the writers work. Its not unusual. You also often nd that the dog is often the only friend a child has. You read Women and their Dogs? You remember some of those stories. Maybe they are very unhappy children. I dont know. Anne never really had a dog. Her family was very tidy, cold. So we got this big Labrador, half Chesapeake, named Lucille. She was the rst farm dog.
What about work? In Butte Polka people work and live their lives working hard. People work hard, and dogs, too, in your other writings. Do human beings redeem themselves through work? I ever tell you this story? I spent some time near the Blue Ridge Parkway with horsedrawn loggers. I met this guy who owned the land. He had a little tiny ranch house the size of this room. I admired his woods, and he says to me, hes retired from the C&O, says, Wanna see my ddles? I said sure. We go to his workshed dirt oor, his shelf is nailed up by one bolt, dangling there. Hes made violins the Audubon Quartet are playing. We are looking in this country woodshed through Stradi-
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asked Carol DG I[Benjamin is a Lea Benjamin well-respected
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Donald, Harry, and the sheep dog trainer and award-winning author of numerous training books, such as Mother Knows Best and ction, most recently detective ction in which dogs gure prominently] what she would ask you Youre a mean bastard damage. There are lots of things they do not understand. The concept of being caressed, being petted. The same way you have to beg your dog to beg for treats. They are not blank slates by any means. When Harry went to a reading at an old folks Methodist group a couple of weeks ago, everyone sort of uggieboogies Harry, and Harry looks at them and walks away. Hes willing to be courteous, but hes never been taught you should go up to these people and pretend you like them. What counts with these people is affection, a complicated thing. When I saw my rst Westminster dog show, there were these Golden Retrievers. The dogs jumped away from their owners trying to jump on total strangers. I was going nuts. Where did this come from? They were trained to do this and it varies a lot from dog to dog. Harry and I have been together for so long that we have this tremendously deep bond. It is inarticulate. Shay works him but he is still my dog. In the way that Josie is becoming Shays dog. Shilo, the dog I trained, kind of likes me I think, but I think but she is pretty much an opportunist. Things work better when she pays attention than when she doesnt. Then she gets to work the sheep. She does not want to get yelled at. I guess what I am saying is I can speak about that for very specic dogs, but I cannot speak about it for dogs in general, and speak with some condence. has DG So Harry of hisgotten something out relationship with you other than the opportunity to work? You know that is hard to say. I could tell you what I have gotten out of my relationship with Anne, but I really could not
DMc had one question. DG if shethis very interesting.I found
She said that you often say a border collie uses his human as a way to get to the sheep. And she wants to know other than the opportunity to work what does Doc McCaig think the dog is getting out of this relationship with man? And how do you think this might have changed since the onset of the partnership? Whats the dog getting out of this relationship? We got this puppy out of the pound. Probably not socialized very well. Mac. We probably got it in time to repair a lot of this
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tell you what she got out of her relationship with me. Im not being coy. Harryd have to tell you that. buried on the DG You have dogsfrom here. You farm not far expect to be buried on the farm near them, I presume? What does it mean to think about being buried in the same place with your dogs because most people are not and maybe would not want to be? I havent thought about that. It just seems to me I spend more time each day relating to dogs than to people. Part of that is because there are so many of them. Unless Shay is here, Im in charge, and now we have a visitor dog here. Shilo wants to get to the sheep. Mac wants to play with Ruth, and I dont want him to because hes starting to get a little rogue on me. Festus, the visiting dog, wants to play with Mac in the house and doesnt know how and will destroy it. Silk is being scared to death, fearing that Mac might knock her over and trample her. He will. Dottie is taking advantage of the fear so she can get in and nail Silk. Zippy hates it because Anne is not here. Josie is pregnant and far more timid. I picked the dogs we walked with this morning. The wrong combination would have turned into a nightmare. So, they are part of my life, and I am going to be buried somewhere. But I would not bury them in the cemetery it would be disrespectful to kinfolks of people already buried there.
also a DMc He wasdog. ThewonderfulI sheep skills. always liked him. Hes getting a little grumpy now. I just like him. You wrote in Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men that the work of man and border collie is metaphysical. What do you mean by that? You start with the fact that its an unknowable mystery. You are trying to do something perfectly that cannot be done perfectly. Never seen a perfect run in a sheep dog trial.
training. I know next time I go to England I really want to see him work a dog. more DG Can you add anything metaabout what makes this physical? It is impossible. It is in search of beauty. It may be ideal communication. The kind that husbands and wives can have in a happy marriage. One will start a sentence the other will nish it. That is what you are doing but with another species.
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DG you DMc Yes, butfrom cannot fall off very far the perfection.
To the unknowledgeable eye the difference between what I do with the dogs here and when I do major sheep dog trial is not evident. The task requires (and the dog knows it as well as I know it) every bit of everything your intelligence, your reexes, your knowledge, your life experiences, your physical health, your stamina. Well, the story I remember is J.M. Wilson, who had a hip replacement very early on. The greatest sheep dog trialer in the world. Ill tell you a better story than that. There was this guy who would trial in a walker. I was in Scotland in spring, and I saw a guy go out to trial in a wheelchair. He wheels out, and then comes the dogs nal time to go to pen. This is intricate, precision work between human and dog. He rolls out and he sits, dog gets through, then rolls off the eld. I asked him if he had been doing this a long time and he said, Nay, I got into this after I had me accident. He learned to handle his dog from a wheelchair when he started out. I asked, You buy your dogs trained? He said, Nay. I train me own dog, and he takes on other dogs to train. I dont know how the hell he does that. He takes in others dogs for
It is pursuit of perfection?
same DG Is that thewife? with a husband and is chance DMc Maybe. There reala bastards in which some can be involved. In trialing, in the act of trialing, they cannot be. When it does work, what you will see in the best case is kind of transguration.
DG It requires purity of heart in some human beings. also remember round at DMc Inational nals two years ago.
Alistair McCrae had a wonderful run. I was sitting there because I was the media guy, talking to some PBS guys who were thinking of lming next year. He started to come off the eld, and one these producers wanted to go congratulate him. I said stay away. That man desperately needs silence, time with his dog. You wont see people rushing. Might applaud. You wont see people trying to talk after something like that. Theres a moment to come back into the world. was thinking about DG Ibefore Jacobs Ladder andNop, the praise for it. Sometimes it was almost as if Nop was the only thing you had written. I wondered if you thought about the success of Nops Trials and that it limited you in terms of how people see you. Oh, sure. It is real difcult when, in terms of attention
a heirarchy of dogs DG Is there memory? Some more in your irreplaceable than others? They are all mortal, all irreplaceable. Thats an honest answer. Its going to be hard to see Harry go. Im really fond of him.
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the DG Is that because of The shared journey with him? travels to the outside world? Travels with Harry.
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span in modern culture, people can take in a couple of sentences and that is about it. Dog writer. Urban Homesteader. If you are lucky, they might say literary writer. In general that means you wont make enough to pay your bills. Some few do. It isnt wicked. Nobody cares about what I am writing as much as I do. They ought not to. They got their own lives. Maybe a moment of entertainment on an airplane.
Donald, Harry, and the Dodge Power Wagon McCaigs, she died in August.] They are not in the schools, not in the galleries, not on the streets . Where, oh, where, have my little dogs gone? At the rate of 3 million dollars a year up the chimneys. We are a dog unfriendly country. We like to think of ourselves as a nation of dog lovers the old ideal (you read Thurbers accounts of dogs), but somebodys run over them. There was a tremendous sea change right after WWII. The world changed. Changed for dogs, too. Nobody had pure-breed dogs before then except rich folk. You have a society now of two-income families. Whos going to take care of the fancy dogs? ers, they are all out there walking their dogs. You will not see that here. If you see dogs at all, say out in Montana, they are in the back of pickup trucks. I dont know what the reason for it is. The English are more dog savvy than we are more dog democratic than we are. Which is to say that the most important dog in the world is sleeping by the owners foot. A gasping old mutt. Not one with ten thousand trophies. We dont think that. We think that the Westminster dog with Champion in front of his name is somehow a better dog. Englands a better democracy for such a caste-ridden society. You sort of see two things in this country: fewer people with dogs and in general getting more involved in something with their dogs. I think the AKC herding events are Mickey Mouse, but Im glad that people are out doing something with their dogs lure coursing, search and rescue. Fewer but more intense the success of The Bark is interesting. Several years ago I would not have thought it would have been possible.
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A piece of insight here or there. Someone whos been where they would like to go. I thought I was lucky. Jacobs Ladder went to sixteen publishers before it was accepted. Norton is a literary publisher period. I suspect it was helpful they had not read anything else I had written before they got the book. you DG Vicki Hearne said to askhave where all the doggies gone. [Hearne is the author of the highly regarded Adams Task, named by Audubon as one of the twelve best animal books of the 20th Century. In her book she called Nops Trials one of the best of the best in dog literature. A friend of
written that ours DG You havedog-friendly society, is not a as manifested in Crofts? [The British National Dog Show] What is the difference between the English approach and the American approach to dogs? You have these little villages in Scotland, and at six in morning you will see people walking their dogs farmers, shopkeep-
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who DG People are are involved in trialing those people prone to tell stories about their dogs? I am reasonably convinced that if you get three people talking about their dogs, no one is listening to stories about someone elses dog. They tend to talk about it in very short shorthand. Oh, he came in third at this trial or I got this training strategy it paid off. Very short, truncated. One they will tell you is a psychological life history of the dog. This dog has this, this dog has that, and thats what this means to that dog all the best clinicians and trainers. The very rst thing Ill do when I see a dog working with a novice is go up to the novice and say very close to these words, Now, this dog is thinking this and you want to be thinking this. So it is mental. And nally, it is mysterious. I have been startled time and time again by dogs doing things that dogs cannot do. I know perfectly well they just cannot do this, and there they are doing it. When I was out in Montana Working pens with sheep is really very high stress because the dog just gets jammed against with sheep. And they were working from 7 a.m. in the morning until 2 p.m. in the afternoon. They pushed 800 sheep through the chutes. Then a guy jumps them on the back of his atbed, dismounts his motorcycle and off they go through the sagebrush. Not a soul for miles. Essentially brings another 800 sheep off about 2,000 acres. Just cant be done. They tree mountain lions, his guard dogs do. His Ruths. Wolf almost killed one of them, but had this spiked collar on, couldnt bite down.
dog are DG Whathave beenyou running? You working her about three years now? How is she doing? Silk. She is bundle of neuroses. The most neurotic dog out there. It is a really good thing she likes to trial, or itd be a disaster because it is such a separate world in her mind. She is a basket case. She reminds me of the most weird, most neurotic, college girl we knew. The beret-wearer with a ower in it. Thats Silk.
with a narrow vocabulary and way of expressing things. And from time to time every word is available to you. wonder it like DG Isaying howif can isyou tellYeats the dancer from the dance, tell the shepherd from the sheepdog because there is training behind it and discipline. Its all to reach beyond training and discipline. I remember one time I came home from a trial course, Harrys best run. Ran at the Nationals and he was a point out of the top twenty, but afterwards people came over to congratulate us. Youre out there for about fteen minutes, and it seems like you are out there for a year. This was ve years ago and I can explain today exactly what happened. At the end of it a friend came over to congratulate me, and shes a nurse. She said I thought I would see you in the emergency room, you were hyperventilating so bad. I can remember at the end, at the shedding ring there was a real darkness at the edge of my vision, but I could still see the sheep. All I remember was I had enough vision to work the dog.
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Most of the time you are separate with a narrow vocabulary and way of expressing things. And from time to time every word is available to you.
Leads me DG tion, editortoofClaudias quesThe Bark. She said I would love to hear him talk about the moment when dog and man are one. Whats that mean? You can from time to time you become something separate from the dog or the man. What I will say is it is an out-ofbody experience. You are focused, your spirit is out there on the course, not as the dog, but as the proper place for the dog. You get so focused you wouldnt hear someone shooting.
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talk has fascinated me DG Dog students are always interand ested in talking dogs. I will be teaching dog lit in the fall. Nop will show up. Where did this come from for you as a writer in Nops Trials for the dog talking? It is kind of interesting. Random house wanted the book but said you cannot have the dogs talking. They talk. Thats nonnegotiable. Publishers did not want it. Thought it was weird.
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DG Are you still trialing? DMc Not successfully.
DG So it is art in a way. It is a creative moment? is DMc Itcanfairly similar.isThe closest I come to it when the
writing is going very well and this gift occurs. Every word in the English language is available to you. Most of the time you are separate
wonder why? This is DG Iancient form, goes back an to Lucian, the Latin poet, in his Dialogues. Cervantes wrote about talking dogs. Did it come naturally to you?
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and editors dont DMc Publishers to read enough. get time Some are not well-educated to start with. Yeah, right from the start. The rst line, which later came out. If thou art a sheepdog like Nop. It never occurred to me to not. you write in a DG Did you know stretches back tradition that to Latin poets? No, but as soon as I wanted to write a dog book was the only time I read a lot of dog books. The only time Ill read books on the reconstruction is before I start a book on it because you can see where the difculties are. For dog books it is the difculty as I saw it was that very few writers have managed to make the dogs and humans alive. White Fang is a wonderfully drawn character in the book, but there are no human beings, only cartoons. Peter Mailes books have nothing to do with dogs. [Beeper]. Were getting critical here, close to 160 degrees. Generally, you have reporters asking why did your dogs talk? Cause they do! No, I didnt know. It certainly did not seem absurd to me or that I was inventing a new tradition. I was not aware of other dogs talking.
are a Christian, for example, Jesus Christ died for old Sheps sin!? thought I like. You DG Its a introduction for awrote the new edition of Vicki Hearnes Adams Task. Why do you think that book has had such an enormous impact? Because she takes humandog communication seriously with the seriousness it deserves. Vickis book is about human animal understanding and how it can be achieved. It is unique. The notion
dall recently tried to explain something (you know Donald, he is an author). I would put myself in the B-minus league as a dog trainer. B-plus as a trialer. Shes DG Let me ask about Anne.Raiser part of the legend. of prize Rambouillet sheep. A. A. McCaig. What role has she played in your writing? Its changed very recently. Very little in the writing except she changed me as a man. She certainly did. Recently, with Jacobs Ladder, she was one of the two most important editors of the book. Her strength is language.
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One of the reasons I wrote Jacobs Ladder was I was really quite aware if I was to do a big novel I was going to have to do it before I got much older.
that the human has as much to learn as the animal is true. Every dog you train is a new experiment. Because we got Mac, a pup, we have made very radical dog arrangements here, very quick ones. It has been in response to him. The household has been disordered and reordered because of this dog, and I have trained a lot of dogs but they are all different. And they all have changed me. She thinks one of the remarkable things about you is you came to dog training late in life. Im not a great dog trainer. It is hard to tell. If I am at a sheep dog trial with pretty good people, they dont come up to ask me questions. People who read my books are not dog trainers. I do not get complaints from dog trainers. The ones who read tend to like them. My friend Ken Kukyen-
on the DG She can biteand see coin of your work if it is authentic? Yes, in great detail. Patoohie and sometime triple patoohie is written all over the drafts. It is essential if I want to nd something in the book enormous help. Shes made a chapterby-chapter outline of my next novel.
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DG Your next project is not widely known? DMc It is vaguely known contractually Im obliged to
share very few details. . Any other projects in the hayloft when you get through these two novels? How long do you see yourself capable of creating ction? Yesterday.
who DG It strikes my students naturead it the rst time as ral. When I read it, I was not surprised because of my awareness of the tradition. Some people believe to have talk animals is to be of the devil because God gave humans speech and did not give speech to dogs, and that prompts a deep suspicion of that tradition. One of the reasons people try to get fairy tales banned is because animals talk. That is interesting. I did not know that. I do remember driving down the road and picking up some Christian broadcaster talking to kids: You may love old Shep, but Shep is not like you. Be kind to him. He hasnt got a soul. In one way that makes great sense. If you
DG
DG
DMc
DMc
DMc
Some writers are DG time they are forty.nished by unpredictable. Generally, DMc Itsyou write big novels you if ought to do it when you have a lot of strength left. Its no surprise lyric poets are young men and women. One of the reasons I wrote Jacobs Ladder was I was really quite aware if I was to do a big novel I was going
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and have Saturdays and Sundays days off. After I nished the draft of this book, I didnt write for three or four days. You cant tell. And you get to be an old man. to DG Ive thought thatmoreget old means to become clearly what we are if were lucky. What might not be virtuous in a younger man, in an old man is Forgiveable.
DMc
you thought how DG Havewould ever to be rememyou like bered when all is said and done? How your friends will remember you? No. One minute and the turkey is out of the oven.
Donald and Harry
DMc
to have to do it before I got much older. you DG Was it agonizing tondingto have such difculty a publisher? The usual agony is Jesus, how am I going to pay the bills? I often worried about that. As a freelancer that comes with the territory. On the other hand, when Ive nished a piece of work, if I do not nd anyone likes it well enough, theres not much I can do about that. I cannot go back and change things. It is done. There aint no more there. [Beeper] Were getting close to the Magic 160 here. Good books are not good books because they are not awed. Good books virtues overwhelm their vices. There comes a time I just cant stand to look at it again. That is it. It is very difcult to me when people call me between prints and say youve got this wrong, these facts wrong. This is misspelled. Its difcult for me to change not because it ought not to be changed.
DMc
It ought to be. But its over. It is done with. I joke with Anne every now and then that one of these days well hit the lottery, get a big movie sale and open the Leaning Tower of Pizza. This writing is the only thing I am good at. I am not going to do something I am halfassed about.
think in Hardy-esque fashDG Iion. Within a short period 4-6-8 semesters, in my terms no one remembers teachers very long. But I wonder about people who read your books? Well, you see I dont know what it is like to read my books. I write them but I dont read them in a certain kind of way.
DMc
DG Can you imagine yourself doing something other than
writing? I have a dream. I would like to do a book on the last wolves of Scotland. I would like to see if I could write poetry. Ive written a couple of good poems in the last couple of years. Are they oneshots? Since Im only writing one a year, its hard to make predictions. But Id have to have 25 years to have 25 good poems. Farming is real interesting. The dogs are real interesting. If I am not careful I could get too many events. If I am not careful, I could get sucked up in community events. It is nice not to have to write more than ve days
DMc
DG And on your tombstone? Old fashDMc My tombstone. Im gonna ioned river jack.
get one of those old-fashioned ones. Like in slave cemeteries. Just a marker for the head.
DG With your name on it? DMc Nope. DG Thomas Hardy would appreciate that. DMc Yeah. But the critics tore him apart.
VL
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Managing Electronic Resources in Technical Services
by Ladd Brown and Molly Brennan Cox
s electronic information becomes a staple in libraries, it becomes necessary for libraries to devote more staff time to ordering, licensing, and controlling electronic resources. At Virginia Tech, staff members have taken on new responsibilities and have learned new skills, and the workow in the Technical Services department has changed to reect this new environment.
A
e-resources are not so different from obtaining print or other formats. Two areas that stand apart are licensing issues and record keeping, both of which tend to generate paper. Licenses are amended and drafts are exchanged between the licensee (us) and the licensor (them). Complete les will contain all of these copies. It is prudent to retain notes of purchasing decisions, pre-
Workow
In the traditional print environment, the workow for acquiring materials is well established. The workow is fairly linear: from the point of request, to the placing of the order with a vendor, to receiving. At Virginia Tech, e-resources are requested, and subsequently placed in the workow, from a variety of places. Similar to the print environment, e-resources are requested by subject bibliographers or collection development staff. E-resources are also made available through consortium agreements, bundled with print subscriptions, or available free on the web. They also enter the workow when titles change from print to electronic-only or when users personally register for a title on the web and then ask the library to help solve access or invoice problems. Most steps in acquiring
Two areas that stand apart are licensing issues and record keeping.
liminary negotiations, contact information, and post-purchase information that may aid in the successful delivery of the e-resource. If a crisis occurs or there is need for problem solving, nearly all these records are relevant and certain to be of some value, either in re-establishing access or to serve as background data. Much of this information will be in electronic form (e-mail correspondence, word-processed memos, web sites, internal databases and spreadsheets), but much of it will be in the form of handwritten notes. Keeping extensive and well-organized les is important when pulling together information to solve a problem or answer a question.
Before licensing became ubiquitous, library staff was not required to do much investigation or handling of these legal documents. Even today, with a myriad of sources for license education, it is still a complex process. License examination and negotiation slows down the acquisitions process. Some licenses are immediately controversial. At other times, the whole matter of obtaining the e-resource hinges upon a seemingly irrelevant clause or an issue perceived as trivial by one of the parties. The concept of limiting database access to geographical connes such as a certain building or main campus may make perfect sense to an information provider, but to a university with remote graduate centers it does not. If this small matter is not agreed upon, then the contract goes unsigned, and the product is not purchased. Once the licensing issues have been resolved, then the order is placed. In the traditional serial/ print workow orders are primarily placed with a subscription vendor. Due to the complexity of ordering, licensing and maintenance, Virginia Tech is placing most orders for e-resources directly with the publisher or information provider rather than with a subscription agent. This may change in the future as subscription agents develop their skills and nd their niche in this
Ladd Brown is Head of Acquisitions at Virginia Tech ([e-mail]). Molly Brennan Cox ([e-mail] ) was Serials Coordinator at Virginia Tech. She now works for the Floyd County School System.
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market. There is a recent example1 of a subscription agent working on a librarys behalf to negotiate a license, using a pre-signed standard academic single site license created by John Cox and Associates. As part of this agreement, the subscription agent takes care of registration, licensing, and invoicing. It is an interesting development, and one our general counsel will continue to monitor. Even after the product is purchased or access is made available, e-resources continue to affect the workow. With other formats, the concept of sale and ownership prevails and, as owners, libraries can manage these resources under this precept. Within their established policies, libraries can bind, lend, repair, archive, or withdraw as they see t. With e-resources, constant vigilance becomes a part of maintenance. Is there compensation for lengthy downtime written into the license agreement? Are the peripheral and auxiliary aspects like printing, viewing, and downloading causing a problem? Is the electronic environment consistent within the institution, or are there variations in the levels and quality of access from building to building, campus to campus? Some of these difculties require technical expertise to untangle, but access to contact information, purchase information, and important background information will often involve technical services staff. If e-resources are cataloged, then any major changes, such as increase or decrease in the backles or URL changes, will entail new responsibilities for the cataloging department. Duplication is one of the new concerns or decisions that needs to be made when electronic resources are acquired. For example, when an e-resource is requested, staff must verify that the title doesnt duplicate or overlap any existing print resources. If it does duplicate, is it intentional duplication? With
shrinking library budgets, staff must be aware of electronic titles that duplicate print titles. These duplicated print titles are often possible candidates for cancellation in the future. Part of the new workow in e-resource acquisitions is gate keeping. Used in this context, the term suggests that the e-resource manager will become familiar with the content of, the packaging or bundling of, and the patron-use or curriculum-support reason for selection of e-resources. He or she must learn to evaluate e-resources within a technical services framework.
The e-resource manager's motto is Be Prepared.
Which takes priority: a quarterly humanities journal available from a reliable aggregator who advertises that it has 24 x 7 customer and technical support, or a massive engineering e-resource notorious for downtime and the unresponsiveness of the information provider? The e-resource managers motto is Be Prepared, and knowing some of these details will help in the event of an access emergency. Because e-resources are very expensive and in high demand, recordkeeping takes on added importance. Primary records include copies of contracts from the rst draft to the signed copy. Once institution or agency ofcials have taken their time to sign an approved agreement, always safeguard these signed contracts by using registered mail or commercial delivery services. Secondary records are largely informational, but no less valuable. E-mails, phone logs, and notes will provide history and background information as well as the allimportant list of contacts if some-
thing goes a-miss or if there is a question. The above-mentioned information can be included in a checklist. This is lled out at the beginning of the acquisitions process or when problems develop at any time during a subscription. Here at Virginia Tech, this checklist has evolved into the Electronic Resource Diary, available at the end of this article. It has two functions: as a tracking tool for important chronology (the diary) and as a source for vital contact information. Having this checklist, or similar tool, just within reach is sound practice. Remember, Be Prepared. Ideally, all of this emergency information should be online for ease of update and universal accessibility by all stakeholders. The online version of the checklist is in development and will be featured on the acquisitions team web page soon. Paper may still be the best medium for the diary. Some information, such as administrative passwords, may be condential. The mobile form can also be easily taken to meetings.
Stafng
Unlike the linear process of ordering and receiving associated with other formats, the e-resource workow in Technical Services may ow from Point A to Point B to Point G, and then back again. The hub at the center of this circular workow is often a technical services staff member. Some libraries have made staffing changes because of new electronic responsibilities. According to Montgomery and Sparks2, in the future libraries will see a decrease in the number of staff in journal check-in, claiming and binding, and a corresponding increase in stafng in the areas of acquisitions, database and web-site maintenance. Already some libraries have shifted positions to address this change, while others have created new posi-
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tions. These new positions are often given primary responsibility for e-resources and are given titles like Electronic Resources Librarian, Electronic Journal/Information Delivery Librarian, or Manager of Electronic Resources. Electronic resources exploded onto the library scene long before the position of an Electronic Resources Librarian came into being. The need for a position whose job is solely devoted to acquiring and/or managing and/or cataloging e-resources is readily apparent, but not all institutions can afford to create a new position. Instead, the responsibilities for acquiring e-resources are either re-assigned to one position or spread over several existing positions. At Virginia Tech, we re-assigned a position from monographic acquisitions, creating a new serial-acquisitions assistant. This move allowed the Head of Acquisitions to devote more time to electronic resources. Even with this change, the number of responsibilities associated with acquiring and cataloging e-resources has continued to increase faster than staff can manage. The library has recently made the decision to establish a new professional position. This position will be responsible primarily for cataloging electronic resources but will also assist the head of acquisitions in licensing and ordering issues.
Due to the nature of electronic products and the intricacies and/or eccentricities of local environments, technical support is just as important as the sales representative or customer service contact. Technical support is vital both from the library staff and from the information provider. There is more money involved. The fee rates (especially for scientic, technical, and medical/ STM e-resources) are steep. Without signicant growth in the library
higher, and e-resource managers are in the spotlight. Therefore, communication is imperative. The earliest draft of the e-resource cataloging policy at Virginia Tech contained this language: Effective communication among all involved parties about the acquisition, cataloging, and other processing of electronic resources is essential. The general counsel may not be familiar with databases; technical support personnel do not necessarily know about the pricing options of the products they create and maintain. The channels must be open and the communicators must be aware that oftentimes their communication is closer to three- or four-way, rather than merely twoway.
Electronic resources exploded onto the library scene long before the position of an Electronic Resources Librarian came into being.
budget, a greater proportion of the existing budget must be committed to e-resources. There are more users: distance and distributed-education students, extended- campus users, and remote researchers. Virginia Tech has 12 agricultural extension stations spread all over the state, from the mountains of the west to the Eastern Shore. Many libraries public, private, academic, special recognize that remote access is a user expectation and are making room for it in their policies and their budgets. There is more paper involved. Whatever happened to the paperless ofce? Ironically, the product is electronic, but the associated documents are not. E-resources, especially those that involve a license agreement, tend to generate a disproportionately larger amount of paperwork than their print counterparts. With all these mores and extra players in the mix, the stakes are
Juggling, Not Balancing: Skills for the New Millennium
Technical service staff members are most likely to function in some sort of middle-manager role: They have to listen; they have to talk. They have to relay information, assess situations, and be conduits, facilitators, mediators, and sometimes totally disinterested third parties, sometimes-major decision makers. When e-resources are pursued, expectations are born. At one end, the requestor is interested in access at his/her ngertips. At the other end, a very busy legal counsel is taking her valuable time to see if the license agreement is acceptable. Along the way, other interested parties may express concern or simply be curious about the status of a particular resource. Clear, concise, and informed communication is, to quote the policy above, essential when dealing with all stakeholders. Electronic resources are an integral part of almost every library collection. Several characteristics set
More, More, More
E-resources present a unique set of circumstances. From the management perspective, e-resources dissolve the boundaries in todays libraries. Responsibilities are not so clear-cut anymore. The task forces and committees and other groups committed to e-resources have representatives from almost all library departments. Not only is the acquisition of e-resources nonlinear, it is also interdepartmental. There are more players involved, both inside and outside the library.
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them apart from their print counterparts: their price tag is high, they are in high demand, and they enjoy a rather high reputation or status in the library world. Wrapped in this glamour is the reality that e-resources are also high-maintenance, whether it is the lengthy acquisitions process or insuring continuous access. Technical services staff that does not treat them as just another acquisition in the workow and do not underestimate their far-reaching and longterm impact will Be Prepared to manage these resources effectively.
Endnotes
1
PO Box 90001 Blacksburg, Virginia 24062-9001 Voice: [phone] Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]
Faxon and IUPUI Sign Industrys First Licensing Service Agreement, Faxon/RoweCom News May 30, 1999. [electronic mail] Montgomery, Carol Hansen and JoAnne L. Sparks, The Transition to an Electronic Journal Collection: Managing the Organizational Changes, Serials Review 26, no.3 (2000).
2
Molly Brennan Cox Serials Coordinator Newman Library [Mail Code 0434] Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University PO Box 90001 Blacksburg, Virginia 24062-9001 Voice: [phone] Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail]
Electronic Resource Diary
Date Initiated: License Chronology [see over] Title: License Contact: URL: Archives? Catalog: OCLC: ISSN: ILL? IPs Registered: Usage Statistics? Users: Deal-stopper? Platform: Milleniac 2000 Record: Publisher/Vendor/Consortium: Order Info: Customer Service: Fund Code: Technical Support: Payment Info: Requestor/ Designated Expert: Sub Period: Newman Tech Support: Related Print/Other Title(s): Trial Notes: Action Taken: License Chronology: Problem Reporting/ Status/Oddities:
Ladd Brown Head of Acquisitions Newman Library [Mail Code 0434] Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
VL
Guidelines for Submissions to Virginia Libraries
1. Virginia Libraries seeks to publish articles and reviews of interest to the library community in Virginia. Articles reporting research, library programs and events, and opinion pieces are all considered for publication. Queries are encouraged. Brief announcements and press releases should be directed to the VLA Newsletter. 2. While e-mail submissions are preferred (in the body of the message, or as text (.txt) attachments), manuscripts may be submitted as text les on 3.5-inch computer disks. VLA holds the copyright on all articles published in Virginia Libraries. Unpublished articles will be returned within one year. 3. Illustrations, particularly monochrome images and drawings, are encouraged and should be submitted whenever appropriate to accompany a manuscript. Illustrations will be returned if requested in advance. 4. The names, titles, afliations, addresses, and e-mail addresses of all authors should be included with each submission. Including this information constitutes agreement by the author(s) to have this information appear with the article and to be contacted by readers of Virginia Libraries. 5. Bibliographic notes should appear at the end of the manuscript and should conform to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. 6. Articles should be 750-3000 words. 7. Submit e-mail manuscripts to [e-mail]. 8. Virginia Libraries is published quarterly: Jan/Feb/Mar (no. 1); Apr/ May/June (no. 2); July/Aug/Sept (no. 3); and Oct/Nov/Dec (no. 4). Contact the editor for submission timelines. VL
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Stop Clinging to Those Static Pages
by Ken Winter
M
ost library Web pages are easier to create than they are to maintain. That observation used to strike me while updating some of my librarys Web based study guides. Creating and maintaining such guides just comes with the territory for most of us. After all, a current, concise list of resources can do wonders to help patrons when were not around. The theory is good, but even for small libraries maintaining such guides can be a real hassle. There are links to add, links to remove, descriptions to update, dead links, and changed URLs. To confuse matters, there are usually multiple subject experts working on various guides. All the while the number of potential information sources keeps growing. Whats the best way to handle this kind of maintenance problem?
system of 18 static link lists for The SourceFinder, a single dynamic search tool that allows students to create custom study guides. To understand how SourceFinder works it helps to understand the difference between a static Web page and one created dynamically. Static pages are built and posted onto a Web server, where they sit until they are requested by a browser. When that happens, the static page
A dynamic search tool will allow students to create custom study guides.
appears on screen exactly as it was originally created (or last modied). Patrons cannot request parts of a Web page in this arrangement. Therefore, we usually avoid overwhelming users with long lists of sources by breaking large pages into several smaller pages. Sometimes we rene our organizational scheme along the way, creating categories and sub-categories. The logic is as follows: As the categories get more specic, lists get more specic, and thus shorter. Therefore the odds increase that patrons will nd what they need without having to scroll through excessively longs lists. In our case that meant instead of creating one study guide called Humanities we had one for English, one for History, etc. It is not unheard of for larger college or uni-
Static Vs. Dynamic: Whats the Difference?
We stumbled upon the concept of dynamic Web pages in the Fall of 1999, when we saw the MyLibrary personalization project implemented at Virginia Commonwealth University. Created by librarians Jimmy Ghaphery and Dan Ream, the MyLibrary project helps VCUs patrons create shortcuts to their favorite online resources. We also discovered The Data Genie, a tool created at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. At VMI we decided to emulate the Data Genie by scrapping our old
versity libraries to create and maintain more than 100 such guides using this model! Unfortunately, more pages means more maintenance, especially when links begin to change, when multiple pages list some of the same links, and when several librarians must maintain the pages for their subject disciplines. In complete contrast is the dynamic web page, a concept that has been widely adopted by e-commerce sites. It is seen in subscription databases and is one of the driving forces behind Web search engines. Dynamic Web pages do not exist until they are requested. In the case of SourceFinder, heres what happens: First, a patron goes to the resources main page, where he species exactly what he wants by selecting from pre-set categories and setting the appropriate limits. When he clicks the Search button, his request is sent as a query to a database of sources that is organized into searchable elds. The requested data is identied, collected, poured into a pre-formatted HTML template and displayed on the patrons computer screen. The patrons customized Web page is thus built on the y. If the concept seems vaguely familiar theres a good reason. Whenever you use JSTOR, Amazon, or Google you benet from the power of dynamic web-page creation. The same is true when you use your librarys online catalog or place a bid at an online auction site like eBay.
Ken Winter is a reference librarian at the Virginia Military Institute. He can be reached at [e-mail].
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SourceFinders Main Page: The Front End
We call the main user interface to the SourceFinder the Front End. Readers may want to test the SourceFinders Front End by going to: http://www.vmi.edu/sourcefinder/ (See gure 1 FRONTEND.)
Figure 1 FRONTEND
The Front End allows a library patron to search for library sources in three ways. The rst way is to specify a subject, source, and any limits you wish to place on those sources. By clicking the Search button a list of sources and source descriptions matching your criteria
appears on the screen. The second way to search is to simply click on one of the links on the left-hand side of the screen under the heading Take me to . One might assume that all eight links in this category connect to static Web pages. In fact, three
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Figure 2 BACKEND of the eight links do connect to static pages. Those links are: the Online Catalogs link (which we rarely need to change), the VIVA Journal Locator link (which goes to a resource outside the VMI domain), and a Help page that goes to generic help le. Finally, we created a link called Quick Search, which allows users to go to a third search interface that lets them conduct keyword searches in multiple elds or keyword searches in title or subject elds. Having a mix of static and dynamic pages, and links that run queries automatically, as well as the main SourceFinder search page and the Quick Search feature, gives patrons a number of ways to locate library resources. appear on the screen, they all have one thing in common they allow the administrator to alter the contents of the SourceFinder or the way it functions. The librarian simply types in source titles, checks boxes for criteria that apply, and types in a description. When the submit button is selected, the change is added to a Microsoft Access database located on VMIs server, thereby updating the contents of the SourceFinder in real time. There are a few advantages inherent in this concept. First, since it is Web-based, the contents of the SourceFinder can be modied remotely. Second, because the same options and check boxes are presented for describing every source,
SourceFinders Secret Page: The Back End
Most SourceFinder users do not realize there is a secret Back End just for administrators. When librarians click on the SourceFinder logo on the main page they are prompted for their user name and password. A screen then appears with several administrative options: input an entry, edit an existing entry, delete an entry, view all entries, add a new subject category, and view user comments. (See gure 2 BACKEND.) While selecting each of these categories makes different forms
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descriptions tend to be more consistent. Because the information will ow into an HTML template, on screen appearance is always consistent. When a sources URL changes, we make the change using the Back End and that change instantly and automatically is reected in any study guide created by a patron from that time on. In addition, none of the administrative forms requires any knowledge of HTML. Best of all, when librarians need to change a URL in SourceFinder, they change it only once. Whether the link appears on one or a hundred study guides, that change will automatically be made on all guides listing the source. When it is time to run a link check (which we do weekly), our link checking software checks the contents of one database, instead of 18 separate pages.
How We Created the SourceFinder
Dynamic web pages can be created using a variety of hardware, software applications, and hand-written scripts, including CGI (Common Gateway Interface), Perl, or JAVA. In fact, almost any programming language could conceivably be used. Since VMIs computing infrastructure relies heavily on Microsoft products, we decided to use what we already had in place. On the hardware side, we utilized a server running Microsoft NT and Internet Information Server (IIS). On that server we placed a Microsoft Access database containing descriptions of select library resources. We chose to use Microsofts Active Server Pages (ASP) as the programming piece between the Front end and the Access Database. The SourceFinders main screen (Front End), administrative screens (Back End), and display screens were created using Microsofts HTML editor FrontPage. Finally, all the components were tied together with several handwritten scripts created
by our programmer using the programming language Visual Basic. The basic SourceFinder interface was created by a single programmer, and was modeled on the Data Genie. We had a working model in about two weeks and library staff tested the prototype by slowly adding content to the Access database. Next came a process of testing the resource over the course of a month. When we were satised with the results, we began to enter more and more data into the Access database. With minor modications the resource was complete in another month. At this point the Access database contained all the sources and descriptions that had been our 18 study guides, but in a more versatile format. Essentially, we swapped 18 static study guides for a tool that could potentially generate thousands of dynamic custom guides. Ultimately SourceFinder has helped ensure that all our guides have a consistent look, structure, and functionality. It has also completely eliminated the need for librarians to know HTML, allowing us to focus on our strongest suit organizing information sources. We now teach use of the SourceFinder in all introductory bibliographic instruction classes and routinely show it to students in one-on-one consultations. Statistics indicate SourceFinder has become one of the most visited of all library pages.
in the process. Instructors can not only view survey results and see who is registered, they can enter a Back End component of the site to change or update workshop descriptions, and even send e-mail that will automatically go to all registrants. More recently we created an Electronic Reserves system that utilizes Active Server Pages. The site has a Front End for patrons to use and a Back End that allows library staff to add and remove digitized articles, problem sets, practice tests, and even audio les and video clips. In another creative use of Active Server Pages, the VMI archives just went public with a search tool for nding archived historical images. The search tool and display interface are powered by Active Server Pages, allowing it to tap the contents of an Access database that will eventually house more than 7,000 historical images and their records. Not only does it push archival collections out to the public, it also allows archivists more exibility and control in cataloging their materials. These days, VMI uses Active Server Pages to power Web sites for conference registrations, all online calendars, a jobs postings page, and several faculty/student directories. With so many new examples of dynamic Web pages, it suddenly seems like the skys the limit.
References
Stop the Static: Serve Your Patrons Dynamic Web Pages http://www.vmi.edu/ library/kw/vla2000.htm Outlines the authors presentation at the Fall 2000 VLA conference. My Library http://www.library.vcu.edu/ mylibrary/ The Data Genie http://www.lib.calpoly.edu/ research/data_genie.html VL
Plans for the Future
The technology behind SourceFinder is highly exible. Dynamic Web pages could be used for a variety of purposes in a typical public library branch system or in any academic or special library. For example, library staff at VMI recently used Active Server Pages to create an online signup page for a series of faculty development workshops. Faculty members register online, lling out a brief survey
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Internet Reference Resources
by Scott Silet
Epguides.com
http://www.epguides.com Expansive database of episode guides for over 1,800 television programs produced primarily in the United States. Currently more than a third of these programs offer indepth episode information including title, summary, number, original air date, guest stars, writers, and directors. Program entries include cast photograph, regular and recurring cast member lists, total number of episodes (and dates), as well as links to the Internet Movie Database for complete acting credits. Includes handy genre guide (http:// www.epguides.com/menu/genre. shtml) with nearly a dozen different categories from which to browse. The database has a few holes (notably The Rookies, Room 222, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and other classics) but the editors continue to add new shows as time allows. Includes handy search engine (http://www.epguides.com/ search/) to search episode summaries. Compiled by a dedicated group of tv hounds from hundreds of sources. ect is an archive of more than 1,200 languages covering Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. Entries could include detailed description of the language, genesis translations, glossed vernacular texts, orthographies, Swadesh word lists, inventories of phonemes, audio les, basic color terms, as well as miscellaneous texts. Entries also include language name, language family, and country where the language is/was spoken. Produced initially by the Long Now Foundation with funding from the Lazy Eight Foundation. searching but are not searchable simultaneously. Both also allow users to browse entries by author, title, subject, and journal title.
Manuscripts Catalogue of the British Library
http://molcat.bl.uk/msscat/ INDEX.ASP Searchable catalog of more than 100,000 manuscripts acquired by the British Library since 1753. Search the collection index (heading names) or collection descriptions. Manuscript descriptions vary widely in size and content but most include brief content entry and provenance of the collection. Copies of manuscripts may be ordered from British Library Reproductions.
Making of America
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu and http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa Growing full-text digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, science, and technology. These two collections, produced by the libraries at the University of Michigan and Cornell University and made possible through funding from the Mellon Foundation, include thousands of books and more than 100,000 journal articles (totalling nearly 5 million pages) from 19th-century imprints. Both collections offer basic and advanced
Art Atlas: Art Galleries of the World
http://artatlas.com/ Address and phone directory of nearly 5,000 art galleries around the world. Particularly strong for Central and East European countries. Search for galleries (businesses that sell art) by name, city, artist name, or keyword. The Atlas has started to include links to gallery Web sites, but most entries dont have that information yet. Compiled by the German-based rm Datenraum. VL
The Rosetta Project
http://www.rosettaproject.org A comparative linguistic research project in progress, the Rosetta Proj-
Scott Silet manages the Internet Reference Sources page for the University of Virginia. Send comments or suggestions to Scott by e-mailing [e-mail].
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Virginia Reviews
Reviews prepared by staff members of the Library of Virginia Julie A. Campbell, Editor
Lee Miller, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001. xv + 362 pp. $25.95 (hardcover). Lee Miller attempts to solve the mystery of the Lost Colony, which was located on Roanoke Island, tucked in the sounds behind North Carolinas Outer Banks. In 1587 John White sailed for Britain, leaving 117 settlers on the island. When he returned three years later, they were gone. For too long, Miller contends, historians have been content to accept the ofcial version of the colonists fate and to attribute the colonys failure to the inept governance of John White and the Spanish Armada. Rather, Miller argues, the efforts of the colony and its founder Sir Walter Ralegh (as he spelled it and as most modern scholars do, although Miller does not) were sabotaged by a powerful enemy, Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeths Secretary of State. Miller states that by destroying the colony, Walsingham accomplished two things: the removal of a troublesome group of religious separatists, and the removal of Ralegh, his most dangerous rival for Elizabeths favor. Walsingham guaranteed that the colony landed at Roanoke Island in a hostile environment, rather than along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. He blocked
all efforts by Ralegh and White to rescue those who had been stranded in the New World by his machinations. Walsingham succeeded: the colony was lost, Raleghs prospects diminished under Elizabeth, and
Indians tantalized the settlers at Jamestown with stories about people like them.
under her successor, James I, he was executed. Miller offers an intriguing explanation as to what happened to the colonists. A very small group found its way to friendly Indians on Croatoan and are lost to her tale. The larger group settled inland among the natives. Later, these Indians and colonists were attacked by other native tribes that killed, enslaved, or adopted the English. Twenty years later, Indians tantalized the settlers at Jamestown with stories about people like them. At times
unknowingly close to nding the missing colonists, the Jamestown settlers were the rst to be puzzled by the lost colonists fate. Millers tale is intriguing; however, it suffers from her writing style. First, she does not enclose quotations from sources in quotation marks but renders them in italics: Scrambling up a sandy bank, White cries out. He has found something, an astounding discovery. Cut into a tree, in the very brow thereof, were curiously carved these fair Roman letters: CRO. Second, she writes in a melodramatic tone punctuated by incomplete sentences: There are times when the ocean seems uncannily human. Ask any sailor, and he will recount for you its many changing moods. Coy, playful, slumbering. Fierce. But worse than these is a rising sea, neither one thing nor the other. Frightening in its indecision. Such stylistic oddities make it hard for the reader to follow the ow of her assertions and thereby damage her arguments. reviewed by Trenton Hizer, Private Papers Archivist
Lucia Stanton, Free Some Day: The African-American Families of Monticello. Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2000. 192 pp. $13.95 (softcover).
Julie A. Campbell is the editor of Virginia Cavalcade, the quarterly illustrated magazine of Virginia history and culture published by the Library of Virginia.
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In this well-designed and readable book, Lucia Stanton offers the fruits of her research and that of her colleagues: the stories of the enslaved people who lived at Monticello during Thomas Jeffersons life. Stanton mixes the few reminiscences and letters that survive, Jeffersons Farm Book and other of his writings, materials from Monticellos archaeological excavations, and the oral histories of the descendants of Monticellos slaves, into a story of how people such as the Hemingses, Jupiter, George, and others struggled to maintain their humanity in a cruel situation by learning skills, earning their masters trust, and holding their families together. Stanton brings to life the people who made Monticello and Jeffersons other farms work. Reading their stories is to appreciate the difcult situation in which the enslaved African Americans found themselves. Faced with few options, they nevertheless learned skills that enabled them to win their masters trust. Tipped in at the back of the book are family trees of the Jefferson, Hemings, Gillette, and Hern families, and of two couples (George and Ursula, Jupiter and Suck) that attest to the vitality of these families. Over his life, Jefferson owned more than six hundred enslaved African Americans. Stanton skillfully blends facts about individuals with the larger context of black labor on Jeffersons various farms. She explores the lives of Jupiter, George, Ursula, Davy Hern, James Hubbard, and their relatives, many of whom labored on the farms or as skilled artisans in the plantation shops. Jupiter, the same age as Jefferson, moved from personal servant to hostler and coachman, in which position he oversaw the Monticello stables. Additionally, he learned stonecutting from William Rice and worked on the east portico of Monticello.
George became the de facto overseer for the Monticello and Tufton farms, and his wife Ursula was a cook who also oversaw the annual bottling of cider, ruled the dependencies, and served as a wet nurse for the Jeffersons children. Her son Isaac became a skilled blacksmith. The Hern family included Davy, a skilled woodworker, his wife Isabel, and twelve children. Knowing that Jefferson supported family stability, several of the Hern sons who married women from other farms petitioned Jefferson to buy their wives
the men and women eshed out in Free Some Day testify to their ability to negotiate and survive their bondage.
and to keep their families intact. Their son Davy regularly traveled between Monticello and Washington, D.C., not only to bring materials to Jefferson but also to visit his wife Fanny Gillette, who was being taught French cooking at the White House. Jefferson was not immune to rebellious slaves, however. On two occasions, James Hubbard ran away using false emancipation papers and wearing purchased clothing to disguise his status as a slave. The longest chapter is devoted to the Hemings family, ve generations of whom worked at Monticello during Jeffersons lifetime. Although Stanton mentions the recent genetic tests and historical research, which suggest the intimate relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, here she is more interested in detailing how the Hemings children and grandchildren t into the Monticello hierarchy and how the family fared after Jeffersons death in 1826. Betty
Hemings, her children, and her grandchildren occupied an exceptional position in the life of Monticello. They worked in the house, were excused from eldwork during the annual wheat harvest, hired themselves out during Jeffersons long absences from home, and traveled with Jefferson. As the most visible of enslaved laborers to family and visitors, the Hemingses even wore clothing that was markedly different from that of the other slaves. Stanton concludes with the dispersal of Jeffersons estate in 1827. Some of the slaves attempted to minimize the breakup of their families by arranging for local farmers and businessmen to purchase sons and daughters. Often the strategy worked. While debates continue over the paradox of Jeffersons belief in the principles of liberty and his active participation in the institution of slavery, the men and women eshed out in Free Some Day testify to their ability to negotiate and survive their bondage. reviewed by Barbara Batson, Exhibits Coordinator
Marc Leepson, Saving Monticello: One Familys Epic Quest to Rescue the House That Jefferson Built. New York: Free Press, 2001. 320 pp. $25.00 (hardcover). In our time, the visitor to Monticello could easily succumb to the notion that the broad lawn and architectural laboratory that was Jeffersons house appear today just as he knew them. We are slightly aware of the intrusion of a few well-concealed concessions to the modern age, such as electrical lighting and climate control, but generally the illusion that Jefferson could step across the threshold today and feel at home is carefully maintained. Saving Monticello shatters that
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illusion and in the process tells the story of a determined and colorful Jewish family who rst purchased the property in 1834. Lieutenant Uriah Phillips Levy, an important but headstrong gure in U.S. naval history, bought what had been a failed silkworm plantation on Jeffersons little mountain and began the process of repairing Monticello. As an asset owned by an enemy ofcer, Monticello was conscated from Levy by the Confederate government. This meant the house and grounds again fell into decline during the Civil War and the years following, while the title remained in legal limbo. In 1878 a visitor to the site noted, There is scarcely a whole shingle upon [the house]. The windows are broken. Everything is left to the mercy of the pitiless storm. The room in which Jefferson died is darkened; all around it are the evidences of desolation and decay. It was only the care shown the house by Uriah Levys aptly named nephew, Jefferson Levy, that saved Monticello from destruction. Beginning in 1879, this wealthy New York nancier resolved the legal entanglements surrounding the estate and lavished a considerable portion of his fortune on the property. His motivation for saving the house, even though it was never his actual residence, was simply his enormous regard for Jefferson. Leepson does an excellent job of unraveling the complicated line of Monticello ownership. Along the way, he introduces the members of the Levy family who fought the effects of time and weather, vandalism and anti-Semitism to preserve this most important testimony to the mind and talent of Thomas Jefferson. Supporting players in Saving Monticello include Lafayette, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Jennings Bryan, all of whom visited Monticello and were profoundly impressed with this architectural and historical gem.
Jefferson Levy eventually capitulated to a national movement begun by a hysterical New York socialite named Maud Littleton in 1911 to make Monticello a national shrine. The house was sold to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923, ending more than a hundred years of stewardship by the Levy family. Throughout the long history of Monticello and its various owners, one thread is constant: The thousands of visitors who for almost two hundred years have been drawn to
The room in which Jefferson died is darkened; all around it are the evidences of desolation and decay.
this remarkable structure and have paid their respects at the grave of its extraordinary architect, Thomas Jefferson. Happily, the role of the Levy family in the preservation of Monticello is now recognized in displays and narrative histories presented to the public who tour the mansion. Saving Monticello is a thorough and enjoyable record of that long-neglected story. reviewed by Selden Richardson, Senior Archivist for Architectural Records
Sally Hadden. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001. xi + 340 pp. $32.50 hardcover. This book is the rst substantial scholarship published on slave patrols, and it makes important contributions to the literature on the antebellum South, the legal his-
tory of slavery, and African American history. The study is based on in-depth research into both public and private papers and treats Virginia and North and South Carolina from the early years of the eighteenth century to the end of the Civil War. The rst chapter traces the evolution of a unique legal tradition in the American South by which the slaveholding society attempted to govern the behavior of slaves and free blacks. The volume explores subtly and in detail the composition of the patrols, which consisted of a cross-section of Southern white society, not just poor whites, as some mistaken old accounts suggest. The patrols engaged in intrusive and often brutal treatment of both slaves and free blacks, even in good times. White society looked to the patrollers as the rst line of defense against domestic insurrection when emergencies, such as the American Revolution or the War of 1812, seemed to offer slaves an avenue of escape; or when uprisings, such as occurred in Richmond in 1800 and in Southampton County in 1831, presented real or imagined threats to the systems of slavery and white supremacy. The nal chapter describes the collapse of the legal slave-patrol system during the Civil War. An important eighteen-page epilogue places the slave patrols in an even larger perspective by demonstrating that they provided a post-war model for the Ku Klux Klan, which in many respects acted like the patrols but without any effective legal constraints. The epilogue and the excellent chapters on who the patrollers were and how the system operated in times of crisis will probably interest the largest number of people. However, the chapter titled In Times of Tranquility: Everyday Slave Patrols may be the most important in describing the constant presence in the lives of ordinary black people of
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an armed and organized force that could victimize them almost at will. reviewed by Brent Tarter, editor, Dictionary of Virginia Biography
Mark Grimsley and Brooks D. Simpson, eds., The Collapse of the Confederacy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. 201 pp. $47.50 (hardcover). Even after Robert E. Lee ordered the Army of Northern Virginia to lay down its arms, hope that the South could still win was alive. Even though the Confederacys most celebrated ghting force had ceased to exist, President Jefferson Davis remained unbowed. I think we can whip the enemy yet, if our people will turn out, he informed his cabinet two days after Lees surrender. The conict was not fated to end precisely as it did, and this collection of essays takes that premise as the starting point for discussions of the various factors impinging on the wars conclusion. Steven E. Woodworth writes about the end of the Confederacy and the negotiated peace. Coeditor Grimsley, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University, examines Southern generals during the nal weeks of the Confederacy. The other editor, Simpson, a professor of history at Arizona State University, studies the Union high command. William B. Feis re-examines Davis and the possibility of guerrilla warfare. George C. Rable investigates the collapse of Confederate morale. Jean V. Berlin wraps things up with a question in her chapter entitled Did Confederate Women Lose the War? The book examines a period that has received insufcient attention, and students of the conict will benet from a reading of the issues these essayists raise. reviewed by Don Gunter, assistant editor, Dictionary of Virginia Biography
John S. Salmon, The Ofcial Virginia Civil War Battleeld Guide. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2001. xii + 514 pp. $29.95 (softcover). Salmon, newly retired staff historian of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, has written a denitive guide to the states Civil War battleelds. Several years ago, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission found that 384 battles of the war deserved study and preservation. Of that number, a staggering 123 are in Virginia. Salmon used
This book belongs in the glove compartment of everyone who likes to visit Civil War battleelds.
the commissions ndings to shape his book. He was also spurred to action by threats of development that hovered over such important places as Manassas and Brandy Station. With the support of the Department of Historic Resources, the National Park Service, and the American Battleeld Protection Program, he went to work. Turn to p. 270 and the section on Spotsylvania Court House for an example of the books nature. Wellresearched, solid prose tells what happened during those early days of May 1864. An excellent map by Stackpole Books art directors Caroline M. Stover and Wendy A. Reynolds clearly shows battle lines, historic and modern roads, locations of historical markers, and other features. Boxed text contains directions to and around the site, and an illustration by contemporary artist Alfred R. Waud shows weary soldiers preparing for an assault on the Mule Shoe, where for 23 hours combat raged. Further enhance-
ments include a glossary, an extensive bibliography, a list of major preservation organizations, and an index. This guidebook serves several purposes, writes Salmon. The most obvious objective is to inform and direct you to the battleelds, then guide you around each one. Another is to educate visitors and landowners alike about the battleelds, their current integrity, threats to their continued existence, and opportunities for their preservation. Most important, I hope you will appreciate the fragility of these national treasures and help to preserve them. This book belongs in the glove compartment of everyone who likes to visit Civil War battleelds, and it belongs on the shelves of libraries all over the state. reviewed by Julie A. Campbell
Samuel C. Shepherd Jr., Avenues of Faith: Shaping the Urban Religious Culture of Richmond, Virginia, 19001929. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. xii + 414 pp. $44.95 (hardcover). Samuel C. Shepherd, a professor of history at Centenary College in Louisiana, is a native of Fairfax County. He says that, like other residents of northern Virginia, while he was growing up he viewed Richmond as a bastion of the Old South, a community with few discernible contributions to the twentieth century. Now, after years of research, he argues that Richmond in the rst quarter of that century was a dynamic industrial city with a dominant Protestant religious culture committed to social activism to solve urban problems. At that time Richmond was a center for religious publishing, and Shepherd mines the several denominational newspapers published there to illuminate the responses of Richmonds churchmen and churchwomen to social
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and religious issues. Indeed, the books notes and bibliography run to nearly 100 pages. Although one of the interpretive themes of the book is Richmonds religious diversity, to keep the book within bounds Shepherd focuses on six mainline, white denominations: Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, and Lutherans. Protestant Richmonders generally practiced what they preached, but they only partially accepted blacks, Jews, and Catholics. Nonetheless, just as the citys religious leaders objected to the religious tests and adversarial stance of the Fundamentalists after World War I, they also helped to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from gaining signicant support in Richmond. The churches past experiences of interdenominational activity and cooperation facilitated this rejection of divisive issues and organizations. Shepherd argues that as the churches responded to urban conditions, the multiple demands made on ministers led to development of specialized roles for lay leaders, including lay women. The expansion of leadership, interdenominational cooperation, and the systematic planning and organization for bringing about social reforms also bolstered evangelism. A consequence of the churches social activism, then, was an increase in the number of churches and church membership. Avenues of Faith is a signicant contribution to the study of southern religious history, and it is also a model for how to incorporate churches and religion into local history. reviewed by John T. Kneebone, director, Division of Publications and Educational Services
of Virginia, 2001. 239 pp. $27.95 (hardcover). In 1998, Earl Swift, a reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, shoved a canoe into the headwaters of the James River and paddled all the way to Hampton Roads. For three weeks, he and his colleague, photographer Ian Martin, led stories with their paper and ate more Taco Bell food than seemed humanly possible. Swift has turned his dispatches into a book brimming with humor, a love of history, and a palpable ache at the damage humans have
sized spiders invading the canoe, prompt comparisons to Bill Brysons A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. Kudos to those at the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the University Press of Virginia who allowed and encouraged Swift to turn his newspaper pieces into this enjoyable, well-written book. reviewed by Julie A. Campbell
a watermark recalls the night the Tye River burst in, sucked the organ out a window, and carried it to the James.
Earl Swift, Journey on the James: Three Weeks through the Heart of Virginia. Charlottesville: University Press
inicted on the mighty James. Swift mixes stories of the modern people and places they encountered along the way with stories of historical events that have occurred along the river. The chapter this reviewer found most memorable was Day Twelve: Thirty Years After the Rivers Worst Night, in which Swift recounts the sudden devastation that hit part of Virginia in 1969. After Hurricane Camille, the landscape had so changed in parts of Nelson County that topographic maps were obsolete, he wrote. Mountain contours had shifted, riverbeds straightened or bent. Cropland lay deep under mud. Woods had vanished. Thirty years later, a watermark seven feet up the pine paneling of Grace Episcopal Church in Massies Mill recalls the night the Tye River burst in, sucked the organ out a window, and carried it to the James. Such dramatic and thoughtful stories, combined with tales of st-
Freedmans Bank Records The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, $6.50. Order from www.familysearch. org or 800-537-5971, item #50120 (CD-ROM) African American genealogical research is not for the faint hearted. A basic strategy is to trace an individual family backwards until they can be located in the 1870 federal census. Prior to 1870, research becomes difcult at best. Specic records may only be found in the personal papers of the slave owners as the federal census listed slaves by name only if they had reached the age of 100 years. Surnames were either not used at all, were different in one generation from another, sometimes duplicating that of a specic owner, sometimes borrowing that of someone greatly admired, sometimes using a name recognized only within the slave community, and sometimes not used at all. The records of the Freedmans Savings and Trust Company represent a major resource for tracing former slaves and their families into the time period prior to the Civil War. The bank was established by an act of Congress on 3 March 1865 for the benet of freed slaves and former African American military personnel. Registers of Signatures of Depositors in branches of the Freedmans Savings and Trust Company between 1865 and 1874 contain the records of the 29 branches of the Freedmans Bank. These original records, preserved as
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National Archives Microlm Publication M816, asked depositors for their name, date the account was opened, age, place of birth, where brought up, complexion/height, residence, occupation, employer, spouse, children, father, mother, siblings, remarks, and a signature or mark. In addition, a wifes maiden name or name of former spouse as well as military unit for a veteran might be served. Early forms might include name of the former slaveowner and the plantation where the individual lived. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints recently published Family History Resource File CD Freedmans Bank Records provides an index to these records, and by providing access to 480,000 names contained in these records is a major tool in identifying African Americans and recreating their families during this time period. Take the case of James Barclay. The index states that his spouse was named Sarah, his father was Steve (no surname), his mother Hannah (no surname), and that he was born in Natchez, Mississippi. He applied for an account in the New Orleans branch on 28 October 1872 at age 33. This information provides clues to locating James in the 1870 federal census, and moves the researcher quickly back to 1839, the year of his birth. A search for his parents in the index identies three other children in the family group. Or take the case of Mollie (no surname) who was married to John (no surname) before 1808 and who had sons named John Halfort and Daniel Bedne. The Freedmans Bank Records may be the only source to link these two men with their mother. The CD requires Windows 95 or NT 4.0 or higher and 8 MB of harddisk space. No separate viewer is required, and the CD loads quite quickly even on a less powerful PC. A basic surname search can be displayed as name + a PIN number
used to quickly go to other names in the le, surname + dates, surname + spouse, or surname + parents, in order to assist in pinpointing the correct individual. A Soundex type search can be done by setting search parameters quickly bringing all surnames that sound alike together. Wildcard searches are also available. Once an individual has been selected, a quick search will identify all indexed relatives of this individual. A small inconvenience is the number of entries at the beginning of the alphabetical surnames list that represent entries
Virginia Bookends
Chalmers Archer Jr. is a recently retired professor and administrator from Northern Virginia Community College. In 1992 he wrote the award-winning Growing Up Black in Rural Mississippi about his youth in the 1930s and 1940s. His new book covers his military service in the next decade: Green Berets in the Vanguard: Inside Special Forces, 19531963 (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001. xiv + 139 pp. $28.95 hardcover). I remember a feeling of excitement, awe, and anticipation on that bright morning in 1952, he begins. I was about to start my rst six months at the Psychological Warfare Center, at Fort Bragg, home of the U.S. Army Special Forces. His recollections are valuable at any time, perhaps more now than ever. John F. Blair, Publisher, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has published two interesting and very different books. In Ghost Dogs in the South (2001. xxiv + 287 pp. $16.95 softcover), folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett compile twenty tales. The stories are scary, funny, and poignant. Some of the animals appear in ghostly form, like Preston, a Boxer in Nashville who saved a childs life after Preston had lost his own life the day before. Other faithful hounds, like Pepper, the only Virginian in the bunch, tried but failed to tell his mistress about the otherworldly nature of her mysterious husband. Delightful old photographs of dogs and their proud owners add to the well-told stories, some of which are set in recent times. Blair also has issued Walking the Path of a Legend: On the Trail of Robert E. Lee, by Clint Johnson (xix + 186 pp., $12.95 softcover). This is your guide to both the major Lee sites in Virginia and West Virginia and lesser-known sites in
Delightful old photographs of dogs and their proud owners add to the well-told stories.
with no names or with inaccurate dates given due to GEDCOM errors. This problem, however, poses no problem when searching a specic surname, or even a specic given name unassociated with a surname. Family group sheets, kinship reports and a variety of descendant and ancestor charts can be quickly congured and printed as well as narrative reports. Finally, a GEDCOM le can be exported for use in a family genealogy program of the researchers choice. The CD is easy to use and does not require lengthy instructions. The help screens are easily accessed and understood. At $6.50, the disk is a welcome addition to a librarys genealogical collection, particularly in libraries with a demand for African American genealogical resources. reviewed by Carolyn Barkley
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distant states, says the back cover. From Texas, where he was sent to chase Indians; to New York, where he rode his horse down Broadway; to Florida, where he picked oranges as an elderly tourist. Taken together, they will let you as far as is possible stand where General Lee stood and see what he saw. Photographs, maps, and directions help readers nd their way. The University Press of Virginia has issued two new titles in its popular Virginia Bookshelf series, softcover reprints of noteworthy books. The rst is a satirical treatise by the prolic Virginia writer James Branch Cabell, Let Me Lie: Being in the Main an Ethnological Account of the Remarkable Commonwealth of Virginia and the Making of Its History (Charlottesville: 2001. xix + 286 pp., $17.95 softcover). First published in 1947, it was met with silence and has, in the words of R. H. W. Dillard, director of creative writing at Hollins University, been generally ignored even by Cabell scholars for roughly half a century. An example of Cabells observations: In Virginia a tacky person is one who, so nearly as I can phrase his deciency, does not quite know just how to behave in the way that well-born Virginians tacitly expect an equal to behave in civilized intercourse. [I]f he does not know, by sheer intuition, that unworded code which is customary among the indigent, well-bred inner circles of Virginia, why then he remains forever tacky. The other offering is a 1969 novel by Robert Deane Pharr, The Book of Numbers (Charlottesville: 2001. 382 pp. $18.95 softcover). Critics at the New York Times Book Review and Newsweek, among
others, praised the tale of Dave and Blueboy, black men who worked as waiters and numbers runners in a ctional 1930s Richmond. Author Pharr was born in Richmond in 1916, received a degree from Virginia Union University, and studied at New York University, Fisk, and Columbia. Despite his academic training, he made his living as a waiter at racetracks. In his new afterword, Jabari Asim, a book editor at the Washington Post, calls the book a lost gem. Louisiana State University has published two books of poetry by Virginians. Messenger (Baton Rouge: 2001. 75 pp. $24.95 hardcover, $16.95 softcover) ows from the pen and mind of R. T. Rod Smith, who lives in Rockbridge County and edits Shenandoah at Washington and Lee University. This is the second book in a trilogy, Dreaming in Irish. Readers and dreamers will appreciate the poem titled Reading Groups: Five blackbirds sat in the corner circle, slow with books, Miss Noonan claimed. Cardinals and Robins crooned the antics of Dick and prissy Jane for extra milk and tinfoil stars while my ock struggled. We read aloud or doodled. I preferred Genesis, Grit, The Atlanta Constitution (Covers Dixie Like the Dew), reports of train wrecks, Lester Maddox, Tech football and barbecues. Stop that cloud gathering, her stern voice said. Her plastic ruler slapped my hand, but I was elsewhere, wind-borne, ying. The welt across my palm burned red as the rose on a blackbirds wing.
Dana Littlepage Smith, a Richmond native who lives in England, offers her rst book of poetry, Women Clothed with the Sun (Baton Rouge: 2001. 116 pp. $26.95 hardcover, $19.95 softcover). In sensuous verse, Smith nds words for ninety women from the Old and New Testaments. In Susanna, her subject commands: Slice cucumbers, beloved & drape the mint green room with scarves of silver. The day has come for an end to mourning; let the elders drink brine. Our drink, Joakim, will be the dew. They sleep in dust, I bring you silken pillows. Let woe become the skirl of night. Dawn rises when I nd you. And nally, two works of historical ction about Virginia and Virginians. Virginia Beard Morton has written Marching Through Culpeper: A Novel of Culpeper, Virginia, Crossroads of the Civil War (2000. Edgehill Books, P.O. Box 1342, Orange VA 22960. 544 pp. $27.99 hardcover). Morton grew up in Richmond and has lived in Culpeper for thirty years. Ron Carters new book is Prelude to Glory, Vol. 5: A Cold, Bleak Hill (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 2001. xvii + 557 pp. $22.95 hardcover). This installment in a series of novels about the Revolutionary War follows George Washington and his soldiers to Valley Forge. reviewed by Julie A. Campbell VL