Serendipity

Let’s celebrate labor!

Yesterday was May Day, internationally celebrated as a day of recognition for labor and the working class.

To learn about labor and labor history, you probably know to search NUCat for books and other items in our collection, and use our library home page discovery search box to add journal articles to your search.  In addition, here are some other, perhaps lesser-known, collections and items related to labor that we have to offer in the NU Libraries.

You may have heard references in the media to Northeastern’s Center for Labor Market Studies, an applied research unit that focuses on employment and unemployment in New England and nationwide.  Center for Labor Market Studies reports are collected and published in IRis, Northeastern’s digital archive of university scholarship.

Coop student files papers, circa 1940. Courtesy of NU Archives and Special Collections

The Archives and Special Collections help you go back in time to learn about the history of labor and labor relations in Boston. Their unique documents include Gay and Lesbian Labor Activists Network records from 1987-2001, which illustrate that organization’s campaigns against homophobia in the labor movement, and their support for benefits for domestic partners and nondiscrimination.

Our Archives and Special Collections also help you learn about labor history and union advocacy in Boston’s immigrant community organizations, such as the Chinese Progressive Association and El Colectivo Puertoriqueño de Boston.

The Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) is another advocacy organization, started in 1986 to promote women leaders in the Massachusetts labor movement; their records, including photographs, negatives and slides, are also available in our Archives and Special Collections.

For the most up-to-date information about labor, try our research databases. Factiva (with Wall Street Journal articles) and Lexis-Nexis help you find up-to-date news, while Business Source Complete and EconLit have scholarship and research articles. For a country-by-country view of labor practices, try EIU Country Reports.

Don’t forget that the library has videos!  1-800-INDIA: Importing a White-Collar Economy, available streaming, is a great example–a fascinating look at how outsourced white-collar jobs have affected family relations, urban landscapes, women’s lives, labor practices, and economic development in India.

Courtesy Smithsonian Global Sound

Finally, celebrate May 1 by listening to some old-time labor songs. Here’s labor organizer Florence Reese, followed by Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers, with the heartfelt “Which Side Are You On?” from the album Classic Labor Songs (Smithsonian Folkways).

Encyclopedias and handbooks provide excellent ways to get an overview and start your research project. (Think of how you use this encyclopedia, probably every day.) To help give context to large research questions, the Library has just purchased a collection of encyclopedias and handbooks from SAGE Reference. You’ll find answers to questions like:

• What is the history of European Film Scholarship and how does Film Studies interact with other disciplines like Mass Media, Anthropology, and Ethnography?
• from The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies

• How does performance address social issues through Lethal Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and the Death Penalty?
• from The SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies

• What are the Four Types of Visual Culture?
• from the Handbook of Material Culture

• What is the interplay between Social Movement and Modern Dance?
• from the Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media

You can search or browse the SAGE Reference collection, and find more resources through our Arts and Humanities subject guides. If you have any comments, let us know here or via email.

The Digital Media Design Studio now has 10 Mac Pro workstations with Final Cut Pro 7 installed. Please see the flyer for more details.

In addition to the already available group study rooms located throughout Snell, four new media:scape tables were recently installed on the first floor for all members of the University to use. These high-tech tables are an efficient, modern approach to increase effective group interaction by allowing all students to engage in the project and freely share their ideas.

So how exactly do these media:scape tables work? Each station is equipped with one or two monitors which students can use to display their laptop screens by simply plugging it into a central outlet. With a stylish layout of tables and chairs, students can both relax and communicate with one another while their group work is projected on the large monitor. Through these new media:scape tables, information is now easier to convey and display to group mates all while students are sitting in one of the comfortable ergonomic seats.

What is so unique about the new media:scape tables is that they are a direct result of what Northeastern students requested! Last fall, Snell sampled a table for about three months to observe how often students used it, if at all. The feedback that Snell Library received was overwhelmingly positive, confirming that the media:scape tables would definitely be a worthwhile investment.

These new media:scape tables offer students an innovative, learning environment, which is what the Library aspires to create. Currently, the Library and University is eager to explore more ways to utilize its study space and equipment, but these permanent stations have definitely put us on the right path to do so.

If you’ve used one of our tables, let us know about your experience by filling out our data collection survey! Click here to fill it out.

For more information about the media:scape stations, please visit here!

Snell Library has special hours over Thanksgiving break. Please note the changes in the Library’s regular schedule due to the holiday.

Wednesday, November 23rd: 7:45am – 5pm

Thursday, November 24th – Saturday, November 26th: CLOSED

Sunday, November 27th: 12pm – 12am

Regular 24/7 Library hours will resume Monday, November 28th.

Thank you for cooperating with the Library’s scheduling changes.