Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Fall 2009 Courses in Public History


History Professor Ray Rast is offering two courses in Public History this fall semester with Chicano History themes. Get hands on experience bring the Chicano History of Orange County to the public. Learn about careers in Public History, create web sites and museum exhibits.

History 456 -- Introduction to Public History: Historic Sites, History Museums, and Politics of the Past
Meets Tuesdays 4:00 -- 6:45 PM

Students taking this course will learn about career opportunities in history museums, historic preservation, and heritage tourism, and they will gain hands-on experience in the creation of a new National Park Service site devoted to the life of César Chávez and the history of the farmworker movement.


History 492 -- Community History: "Mexican Schools," History Museums, and Collective Memory in Orange County
Meets Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30 AM -- 12:45 PM

Students taking this course will join the research team involved in the production of a new exhibition focusing on Mendez v. Westminster and the fight to abolish segregated “Mexican schools” in 1940s Orange County. This exhibition will open at the Old Courthouse Museum in Santa Ana in November 2010.

For more information contact Professor Ray Rast, Department of History, H825G, 657-278-8563 or rrast@fullerton.edu

Thursday, June 18, 2009

$1,000 Dr. Donald S. Castro Memorial Study Abroad Scholarship

From Victor Rojas:

Victor has let us know that the Dr. Donald S. Castro Memorial Study Abroad Scholarship application deadline has been extended to September 4, 2009. For more information please see the flyer posted at: http://guides.library.fullerton.edu/CRC/CASTRO%20Scholarship%20Flyer.pdf

If you have more questions, please contact Victor at 657-27803137 or vrojas@fullerton.edu

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Additional genealogy resources

For those of you doing the family history assignment for CHIC 305, here is a new place to explore for ideas: http://genealogy.about.com/ including lots of advice on how to preserve and share your family's history, free family tree charts, a genealogy blog, discussion groups, tutorials, and more places to search.

New way to find databases

CSUF Pollak Library has just instituted a new way to discover useful databases for student research topics. It combines our previous Databases A-Z and our Databases by Subject pages. Clicking on Find Databases will bring you to an alphabetical listing of all of our databases. This list can be filtered by selecting a category from the By Subject menu (roughly equivalent to Databases by Subject). For Chicana & Chicano Studies topics, the obvious By Subject category is Chicana & Chicano Studies.

It is very important to understand the interdisciplinarity of Chicana & Chicano Studies. The best databases for your topic depend on the topic. Therefore the first databases listed in the By Subject list may not be the best databases for your topic. As it stands I have ordered these databases in the following manner:
1. multi-subjects databases (including article, book, and reference book databases)
2. simgle-subject databases (in alphabetical order according to title of database)
3. single-subject encyclopedias for art and music
4. image databases for art and photography/photojournalism
5. newspaper databases
6. historical and primary source databases
7. music databases
8. statistics and government document databases
9. biographical databases

To further refine the list of possible databases, you can select a tag associated with Chicana & Chicano Studies. Once you selected a tag, associated databases will appear in alphabetical order, but there should be fewer, more appropriate databases from which to choose.

It is now possible for you to add your own tags to databases that you find that are especially helpful for specific topics. Just click on the view tags icon to the left of the database and add your tags. One of our librarians will take a look at the tag to make sure it is appropriate, so it will not appear immediately.

Good Luck and happy hunting!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Graduate Program Announcement

In addition to CRC activities and programming announcements, research help and resource suggestions, we also intend to include items of interest to our students, such as the following:

The George Washington University: Bilingual Special Education annouces its Online Distance Program for Fall 2009**
The George Washington University’s bilingual special education *online distance program* is now accepting applications for the 18 credit hour graduate *Certificate *and 45 credit hour *M.A.* in Bilingual Special Education for the Fall 2009 semester.For more information: http://gsehd.gwu.edu/bilingual
Please contact Tara Courchaine at mailto:taratez@gwu.edu* or call (719) 660-7564.
**The program is eligible for FAFSA financial aid, and individuals who qualify can apply for funding through the TEACH grant.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Looking for up to date statistics on Chicana/os & Latina/o?


Check out the Pew Hispanic Center, http://pewhispanic.org/. which conducts surveys and compiles research and reports on changing Latino demographics in the United States. Some of the latest report titles include: "Through Boom and Bust: Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership," http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=109, "Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History," http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=108, and "A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States," http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=107. Datasets and reports are available for demographics, election 08, economics, education, geographic, identity, immigration, labor, Latino public opinion, politics, and remittances. The latest nation, state and county population estimates are available via interactive maps,


It is one of seven projects supported by the Pew Research Center, http://pewresearch.org/, which "... is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take positions on policy issues."

Monday, May 11, 2009

blogging and the CRC

The CRC would like to come up with a way to communicate with our users about our activities and services, give tips on research, announce events, and alert our users to issues that impact their studies and their lives. instead of publishing a newsletter each semester, we would like to use a blog or another web 2.0 technology to do this. So, as an experiment, I have set up this blog. However, if only I am able to post here, instead of all of the CRC staff, then, a blog will not be as useful as it might be. Any suggestions on other technologies to explore?