Ohio University Libraries News and Events

Athens County pioneer settler Elijah Hatch (1768 – 1849) composed a journal covering the years 1791 – 1847. This valuable manuscript was presented by descendent Dorothy DeVitt on behalf of her son and donor Donald DeVitt of Marblehead, MA in September. The journal is now an addition to the Hatch – Frost – Broadwell Family Collection in the Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections. DeVitt noted, “The [journal] has been sitting in a safety deposit box for years and I believe it would be better if it was made available to others close to where it was written.”

The journal records Hatch’s active life throughout nearly all of his adult life beginning in eastern New York State, his determination for a better life in Ohio, and his family’s arrival at the confluence of Federal Creek and the Hocking River in what is now Rome Township in Athens County on June 1, 1800. Hatch was a miller, farmer, teacher, and businessman while serving in a host of public offices. In his political life he refused to join either the Federalists or the Jeffersonians, taking the middle ground of an independent republican. Even so, he was popular enough to be elected or appointed to the Ohio House of Representatives (1804, 05, 13, 19, 20-22, 34), Judge of the Common Pleas Court (1805, 07-12, 13, 15-18, 27, 34), Ohio University Trustee (1809-1849), Township Trustee (1811, 16, 22), Township Clerk (1813-16, 23-25, 33), and Postmaster of Federalton, OH (1829-35). He was a founder and shareholder of the famous “Coonskin Library,” the first such institution in the old Northwest Territory. He was a founder and agent in 1828 for the County Agriculture Society which held the first Fair in southeastern Ohio. A son and daughter of Hatch were the first white settlers born in the township.

Topics covered in the journal include travel through the wilderness, family ancestry, religion and philosophy, politics and elections, education and enlightenment, the War of 1812, and the sacrifices of public service. Elijah Hatch was deeply committed to the American government ideal, writing, “Our liberties can only last while we remain virtuous, for when vice takes possession of the people liberty is sure to leave their borders.”

The Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, on the fifth floor of Ohio University’s Alden Library, is open from 9 to 5 PM Monday through Friday and noon to 4 PM on Saturdays during the academic sessions.

Photo caption: Doug McCabe, Curator of Manuscripts, Dorothy DeVitt, and George Bain, Head of the Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections, review items in the Center’s Hatch-Frost-Broadwell Family Manuscript Collection during DeVitt’s recent visit.

Established in 1956, and today supported by more than 600 foundations, the Foundation Center is the nation’s leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants-a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education is now available online to faculty, students and staff on all Ohio University campuses via the Ohio University Libraries’ new institutional subscription. To gain full access to all features of The Chronicle of Higher Education online from on- or off-campus, be sure to use the following link to ensure that you are recognized as an Ohio University user: http://infotree.library.ohiou.edu/single-records/3761.html
For more information, please contact Electronic Access Librarian Whitney Townsend at 593-0003 or winberg@ohio.edu.

AccessMedicine is an innovative online resource that provides students, residents, clinicians, and researchers with instant answers to clinical questions from the most trusted sources. To keep pace with the changing practice of medicine, AccessMedicine delivers the latest medical advances and knowledge from recognized physicians delivered in a digital aggregation with online desktop, PDA, iPod, and MP3 compatible device solutions.

AccessMedicine is updated daily by world-renowned physicians and expanded continuously. It is designed for direct access to the information necessary for completing evaluations, diagnoses, case management decisions, conducting research, medical education, or self-assessment and board review.

If you have further questions or issues while accessing, please contact one of the health sciences librarians:

Samanthi Hewakapuge: 593-2679
Susan Foster-Harper: 593-2683
Debi Orr: 593-0249

A new tutorial, The Basics of Academic Search Premier, is now available. This tutorial is designed to give researchers an overview of Academic Search Premier, the library’s most popular article database. Upon completion of the tutorial, researchers will be able to do the following:

1. break a complex question into keyword terms,
2. find scholarly articles, magazines, or newspapers about a topic in Academic Search Premier,
3. and use the database to expand search strategies and maximize search results.

This tutorial requires the most recent version of Flash, which can be downloaded here. This interactive tutorial will take about 15 minutes to complete.

Note: Since the file size of this tutorial is over 16 MB, a high speed Internet connection is strongly recommended for viewing.

For other library tutorial, please visit our tutorials page.

The library now has a new way for students to learn about the library. You can now borrow our iPod to take an audio tour around Alden. Simply stop by the Learning Commons Desk on the second floor of Alden to check out our iPod. The tour of all seven floors covers the basics of the library, and will take about 30 minutes to complete.

Note (4/22/09): the original tour is out of date and has been taken down. Go here, instead, to get the lastest version of the tour in English and several foreign languages :
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/podcasts/?page_id=14

To make sure you don’t miss future library podcasts, be sure to subscribe to our podcast feed. You can learn how to subcribe here.