Kensington Central Library – August 2013

Kensington Central Library

Hello from us all at Kensington Central Library! Our blog post this month has a pieces from our lending and reference libraries which perfectly illustrates we have something for everyone.

A wizard and ghosts in the children’s library!

As the school holidays are in full swing we’ve had some amazing events for kids in our children’s library to support this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.

Mr Wiz the Wizard came to see us last week – he needed help building his creepy house in the children’s library.  He had plenty of dinosaur eggs (Haribo eggs thankfully!) and balloon animals which he gave out to the children that helped him. The children had a great time as they also had the chance to spin plates, burst bubbles and sing songs.

We’ve been having a story and craft session every Thursday afternoon at 2pm since the start of the summer holidays. We’ve been reading some scary stories and creating some scary things which the children have loved. Last Thursday the children made ghosts by drawing round their hands and spiders from fingerprints. They also came up with some great names for their spiders – Vegeta and Ushar being two of them!

We’ve another story and craft session this Thursday (15 August) & we’ll be making witches – bring the kids along!

Jodie Green

Jodie Green

Lending Librarian

Headlines and back issues

Newspapers

Did you know that we keep a range of current newspapers and magazines in our libraries? We also have a treasure trove in our historical and special collections of back issues of not only current titles but also newspapers and magazines that have long since gone out of print.

Magazines

Our most popular titles include:

• Illustrated London News – going back to 1842
• Microfiche of The Times – 1785 – 1997
• Punch – going back to 1841
• Harpers Bazaar – going back to 1950
• Vanity Fair  – going back to 1956
• Vogue  – going back to 1923

A full list of all the newspapers and magazines that we have and how far back we keep them can be found on our ‘Reference and information and special collections’ web page. If you want to check we have issue – do phone us on 020 7361 3010 so we can confirm that the newspaper or magazine you need is available.

Current issues of young adult magazines

Back issues of young adult magazines

Did you know we have newspapers and magazines for children and young adults too? We have reorganised the young adult magazines in the young adult library at Kensington Central Library so that the current issues are in some sturdy green folders and the back issues are now kept in box files on the shelves just behind where the current issues are.  They now look a  lot tidier and more importantly are more accessible.

Sandeep Dhaliwal

Triborough Reference Librarian

Advertisement

Hot Off the Press – from the Titanic to Picasso

This is the final blog post in a series of four from Nina Risoli, one of our Tri-Borough Reference Librarians about two of our online reference databases:

• Times Digital Archive
• UK Newsstand

You can catch up with last three posts, an introduction to both databases, more about  UK Newsstand and the Times Digital Archive.

This week Nina demonstrates how two very different subjects – the Titanic and Pablo Picasso –  can be researched on the Times Digital Archive and UK Newsstand.

Sinking the Unsinkable

The Titanic

You can experience the drama of events such as the sinking of the Titanic, for example, and follow the awful event as it was reported as the news trickled in.

Boarding Pass for the Titanic

This is a string of some of the results you get when you search the database inserting a single search term: Titanic.

• Launch Of The Titanic. Vessel Successfully Takes The Water. (News) from our special correspondent
  The Times Thursday, Jun 01, 1911
• The Largest Vessel Afloat. Maiden Voyage Of The Titanic. (News)
  The Times Thursday, Apr 11, 1912
• The Titanic Disaster. (Editorials/Leaders)
  The Times Tuesday, Apr 16, 1912
• Titanic Sunk. Terrible Loss Of Life Feared., Collision With An Iceberg., Official Messages. (News) (FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.).The Times Tuesday, Apr 16, 1912
• Position Of The Titanic At The Time Of The Disaster. (Picture Gallery)
  The Times Tuesday, Apr 16, 1912
• The Marine Insurance Market. The Disaster To The Titanic. (Shipping News)
  The Times Tuesday, Apr 16, 1912
• The Titanic Disaster. A Death Roll Of 1,328., List Of Survivors., World-Wide Expressions Of Sympathy. (News)
  The Times Wednesday, Apr 17, 1912
• New York Stock Exchange. Dull On The Loss Of The Titanic. (Stock Exchange Tables)
  The Times Wednesday, Apr 17, 1912
• Help For Titanic Victims. A Mansion House Fund., Donations From The King And Queen. (Letters to the Editor) THOS. BOOR CROSBY, Lord Mayor
  The Times Thursday, Apr 18, 1912
• The Titanic. Number Of Survivors Still Doubtful., The Supply Of Boats., Relief Fund Opened In London. (News) (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
  The Times Thursday, Apr 18, 1912

Dinner Menu on the Titanic

The string of newspapers headlines eloquently illustrates how the ‘unsinkable’ ship went from this:

Titanic at Night

To this in one short week:

Sunken Titanic

 

Fall and Rise of Picasso

Pablo Picasso

In another example, the first article published in The Times about the artist, Pablo Picasso is dated 12 April1912 following the exhibition of his drawings in Stafford Gallery in Duke Street in London. It defends the artist from the accusations of being the ‘incompetent charlatan’ and discusses how the advent of photography ‘spooked’ artists like Picasso into exploring the abstract and moving away from representing form in the conventional way.

  

Pablo Picasso

268 further results reveal the bewilderment of the established critics at the developments of this new way of artistic expression. They chart the artist’s rise through countless exhibitions, record-breaking sales, stolen works, attempts at forgery of his paintings, right through to the platitudes piled on him on the occasion of his 75th birthday, on 25th October 1956, in the article which declares him ‘among the greatest draughtsman to have appeared in the history of European art.’

…and finally his death at 91 on Monday, 9th April 1973, with The Times depicting him as the ‘greatest painter of modern times’ and a national treasure of several countries. Henry Moore calls him ‘probably the most naturally gifted artist since Raphael’ and the director of Tate hails him as ‘beyond comparison and the most original genius of the century.’

 “When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk you’ll end up as the Pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”

It is interesting to note how the emphasis of the whole body of writing on the subject of Picasso on the Times Digital Archive is overwhelmingly his art, despite the fact that he had a very colourful private life. Out of 268 articles only a handful refer to his private life, briefly and respectfully.

The true fall-out of his manner of life and the fact that he left no will to help the family manage his gigantic legacy can be much better traced using UK Newsstand, reflecting our modern obsession with salacious detail and Picasso himself. Search for “Picasso women” yields staggering 9222 articles in UK Newsstand.

All this is interesting on its own merit, but if you are a student or a researcher or have a special interest in anything that happened or was talked about in this country in the last 200 years – Times Digital Archive can enrich your understanding and widen you research through its particular take on people and events captured in news articles as they unfolded.

If you wish to have a demonstration of the Times Digital Archive or UK Newsstand please contact Kensington Central Reference Library on information@rbkc.gov.uk.  A reference librarian will be delighted to help you get familiar with the databases and set you off on your own journey of discovery. Kensington Central Reference Library has 5 dedicated computers available for researching our online databases.

Nina Risoli

Nina Risoli, Tri- Borough Reference Librarian

Kensington Central Reference Library

Hot Off the Press – Times Digital Archive

This is the third in a series of four blog posts from Nina Risoli, one of our Tri-Borough Reference Librarians about two of our online reference databases:

• Times Digital Archive
• UK Newsstand

You can catch up with last two posts, an introduction to both databases and more about  UK Newsstand. This week Nina tells us about the Times Digital Archive.

Times Digital Archive (TDA) offers access to 200 years of The Times and The Sunday Times. Just think – you can read the news as it happened from 1785 onwards!

Cover page of the first issue of The Times, 1 January 1785

That is, from the time when life and some of the people in the news most probably looked like this.

Theatre goers: ‘The laughing audience’ Edward Matthew Ward, 1785

Benjamin Franklin visiting London, 1785

Fanny Burney, British writer, ca. 1785

Thomas De Quincey, author and essayist

…and the shoes they wore looked like this!

Court shoes, ca. 1785

This is the Times’ very own editor, John Walter, from that first 1785 issue to 1803.

John Walter, Editor of The Times 1785-1803

Have a look at his first ever editorial (seen on that first cover page, headed ‘To The Public’), introducing to the world  the publication that would over the next couple of centuries become one of the most read in this country and abroad, with its hand firmly on the pulse of European and World history in the making.

TIP: Have your library card number ready to access TDA. Once there, you can enlarge the text by dropping down the small menu on top of the citation which states “Article at 133%”

The beauty of the database is that it presents pages as they really appear, rather than displaying dry, document-style text characteristic of more modern newspaper databases. And yet, the entire text is keyword-searchable. Keywords are highlighted in pretty pink in the resulting articles, to help you assess the relevance of the ones you’ve retrieved.

You can see layouts and fonts used at the time, pictures, advertisements and captions, but with added extras. You can enlarge text to read it comfortably – even visually impaired people can enjoy browsing the database as any text can be amplified by up to 400%. You can also single out particular articles and view just those, rather than the whole page. You can print out anything of interest with easy pre-sets or e-mail citations with a couple of clicks.

More tips on how to navigate 200 years of British and world history:

For more specific searches you can define date ranges or use particular titles or names of authors if you have them. You can search by the newspapers section and choose articles from results divided into 7 categories: Advertising, Editorial/ Commentary, News, Business, Features, People or the Picture Gallery.

You can Browse List or Browse by Date, which allows you to view the entire newspaper, page for page, with the links to the individual articles conveniently displayed on the right. Try checking the paper from the date of your birth for example, and see how life was on the day you made your grand entrance.

By far the best tool at your disposal in TDA is the wonderful Keyword Search. You can use it to research any topic of interest from the whole 200 years of publication. You can get a comprehensive overview of any subject, person or event that was deemed newsworthy throughout the two centuries, up to 1985.

If you wish to have a demonstration of TDA or UK Newsstand please contact Kensington Central Reference Library by emailing information@rbkc.gov.uk, or call 0207 361 3031. A reference librarian will be delighted to help you get familiar with the databases and set you off on your own journey of discovery. Kensington Central Reference Library has 5 dedicated computers available for researching our online databases.

Nina Risoli

Nina Risoli, Tri- Borough Reference Librarian

Kensington Central Reference Library