Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Garbage In, Garbage Out: The Effect Of Library Instruction On The Quality Of Students’ Term Papers, Susan Hirst, Joseph Leonard

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

The authors report the results of a study which used citation analysis of students’ term papers to determine the effectiveness of a library instruction session. The research was conducted during the 2004-2005 school year. In each semester, two sections of the same class received a library instruction session, while the third section of the class did not. Bibliographies of the students’ term papers were then examined to determine if the numbers and types of sources cited differed between the two groups. Library instruction was determined to be effective, in that students receiving library instruction were significantly more likely to …

Looking For A Link: Comparing Faculty Citations Pre And Post Big Deals, Donald Taylor

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

Big Deals expand an institution's access to scholarly literature, with usage statistics showing that previously unavailable journals receive significant usage. To determine if faculty use these new e-journals in their research, the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Library analyzed SFU citation data to journals from selected Big Deals for two years prior to signing a major Big Deal (1993 and 1998) and for two consecutive years following the Big Deal (2004 and 2005). Pre Big Deal, the percentage of citations to journals that are part of Big Deals but were previously not subscribed to was an average of 2.6%. Post …

Multiple Roles Of Academic Librarians, Justine Alsop, Karen Bordonaro

E-JASL: Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship (1999-2009, Volumes 1-10)

Abstract

This exploratory research study seeks to investigate the phenomenon of academic librarians working in other paid roles on university campuses in addition to working as librarians. Its purpose is to explore how prevalent this phenomenon might be, to discover what other types of paid positions librarians are engaged in, and to ascertain what the perceived advantages and disadvantages could be of working in dual roles on campus. An online survey was administered and results point out that some academic librarians are engaged in working in multiple roles on campus. Furthermore, a majority of those surveyed saw a number of …

Review Of From Dominance To Disappearance: The Indians Of Texas And The Near Southwest, 1786-1859 By F. Todd Smith, William Meadows

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

F. Todd Smith's work provides the first detailed history of the Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, an area encompassing parts of present day Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma over a seventy-four year period.

Foremost, it highlights the competing efforts of the Spanish, French, American, and later Texan governments to control and maintain boundaries in the region, much of which depended on the ability of colonial powers to provide trade goods to tribes, and to supply assistance in the form of protection against then-existing enemy tribes. The Spanish inability consistently to provide trade goods and the growing intercession of …

Review Of The Encyclopedia Of Saskatchewan: A Living Legacy, Patrick Brennan

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Saskatchewan celebrated its centennial as a Canadian province in 2005, and the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan resulted from the admirable desire to make a lasting commemoration of that milestone. When one considers that the project had a tortured history of chronic underfunding, and, as a result, failed to engage many in the scholarly community, the final product, flawed though it might be, is still a remarkable success.

The goal of the Encyclopedia, publisher David Gauthier informs readers in an introductory preamble, was to create "a substantial memorial to the people of Saskatchewan that highlights their achievements and provide a comprehensive …

The Militarization Of The Prairie Scrap Drives, Metaphors, And The Omaha World-Herald's 1942 "Nebraska Plan", James J. Kimble

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Some of the most unusual weapons deployed by the United States in World War II hailed from Phelps County, Nebraska. For over thirty years, two cannons had flanked the entrance to the county courthouse, serving as a memorial to the Civil War. In July 1942, county officials directed that the cannons be removed; they were again to serve as munitions in an American conflict. From Washington, President Roosevelt himself lauded the county's sacrifice and suggested that others might consider making a similar contribution to the war effort.

Not even the president was certain, of course, that the cannons would still …

The Good, The Bad, And The Ignored Immigrants In Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, Renee M. Laegreid

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Willa Cather's move to Nebraska as a child, the people she met there, and the seemingly endless prairie around her captured her imagination and became the inspiration for her novel O Pioneers! In this work, Cather introduces her readers to the diversity of immigrants who settled in the area around her home in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Cather's novel represents the age-old appeal of the West-hope, optimism, mystery-as well as the Janus-face dilemma of acculturation: the longing to partake in all that the new land has to offer and the reluctance to give up a rich and comforting cultural heritage.

While …

Review Of A Godly Hero: The Life Of William Jennings Bryan By Michael Kazin, Troy Murphy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan represents the first major biography of Bryan published in almost forty years. Michael Kazin's well-written and engaging book complements Edward Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Scopes trial, Summer for the Gods (1997), in providing another useful corrective to the misguided yet common understanding of Bryan that emerged from popular histories of the Scopes trial. Kazin successfully illustrates why Bryan belongs in the "top rank of American leaders" of the reform era, arguing that only Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had a greater impact on politics and political culture in the …

Review Of This Is Not A Peace Pipe: Towards A Critical Indigenous Philosophy By Dale Turner. Toronto, Dennis Mcpherson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

By his own admission, Wittgenstein's famous imperative "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" can be paralyzing for Dale Turner. Turner says "I am indigenous, yet I am not an indigenous philosopher; and therefore I ought not to place myself in the privileged position of explaining the meaning of indigenous spirituality." Dale feels that "In a European philosophical context, having invoked a term like 'spirituality' [he] must then explain how this normative term is to be used in its rightful place and do so in the English language." Why must Wittgenstein's imperative be paralyzing? You cannot know what …

Review Of One West, Two Myths: A Comparative Reader Edited By Carol Higham And Robert Thacker, Keith Thor Carlson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Collectively the eight essays in One West, Two Myths provide readers with a solid introduction to the comparative approach to historical study. The forty-ninth parallel serves as the volume's focus. And though the surrounding region has had, and retains, certain social, cultural, and economic commonalities, the book clearly argues that the international border is real and meaningful-despite its geographical arbitrariness.

The lead essays, by three senior historians of the Canadian and American Great Plains (Elliot West, Donald Worster, and Gerald Freisen) provide what are essentially historiographical engagements with the region as viewed through the prisms of social geography, the myth …

Review Of Saskatchewan: A New History By Bill Waiser, Max Foran

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Bill Waiser's sweeping narrative of the history of Canada's most identifiable agricultural province was published as part of Saskatchewan's centennial celebrations. Wonderfully written in an authoritative but engaging style, Waiser's "Saskatchewan" is a story of challenge where buoyant hopes and dashed dreams were acted out by generations of people whose origins and backgrounds were as diverse as the physical environment they settled.

Two dominant themes underpin Waiser's narrative. The first is the enduring presence of a rural order built around "King Wheat," one that through the years, in both good times and bad, became the focus around which Saskatchewan defined …

Review Of Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward By Charlyne Berens, Peter Longo

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

There is little doubt that Chuck Hagel will be remembered as one of the leading statesmen in the domestic and global political scene. Indeed, Senator Hagel should be of keen interest to students, scholars, lawmakers, and citizens in general. Charlyne Berens's Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward is therefore a timely read for concerned onlookers. Yet, as Berens illustrates, the Chuck Hagel story is more than an account of a beltway career.

Berens offers a fine journalistic account of Hagel's life, including his upbringing, and how Nebraska's political and environmental variables helped mold his character. She tells us, for example, that

in …

Title And Contents

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY

Volume 27 / Number 2 / Spring 2007

Contents

The Militarization Of The Prairie: Scrap Drives, Metaphors, And The Omaha World-Herald's 1942 "Nebraska Plan"

The Good, The Bad, And The Ignored: Immigrants In Willa Cather's 0 Pioneers!

Vengeance Without Justice, Injustice Without Retribution: The Afro-American Council's Struggle Against Racial Violence

Review Essay: Centennial Saskatchewan

Book Reviews

Notes And News

Vengeance Without Justice, Injustice Without Retribution The Afro-American Council’S Struggle Against Racial Violence, Shawn Leigh Alexander

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

wr 1 he Negro's friend has dwindled to a Smith & Wesson pistol, a Repeating Rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition for each, a good, strong nerve, a lesson in good marksmanship, and then use." That was the call from the editors of the Wichita Searchlight on January 19, 1901, just one week after the streets of Leavenworth, Kansas, witnessed the burning of Fred Alexander, a twenty-two-year-old black Spanish-American war veteran. The brutal murder of Alexander horrified many African Americans throughout the region, who decided that it was time to stand up and let their grievances be heard by argument and …

Review Of Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving The West Through Women's History Edited By Sarah Carter, Wendee Kubik

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West Through Women's History arose out of the same-named conference held at the University of Calgary in 2002. This edited collection brings together a broad spectrum of contributors and a variety of "modes of expression." The incorporation of region and gender is an ongoing theme; it is, as well, the "glue" that holds everything together throughout all of the articles. The major contribution of the book is the connection among gender, place, and the processes that shaped the diversity of women's experiences in the settlement of the Canadian West.

There is a broad range of articles, …

Review Of Going Indian By James Hamill, Todd Leahy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Since the publication of Hazel Hertzberg's The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements (1971), scholars have struggled to understand the development of an ethnic Indian identity among the nation's Indian population. Anthropologist James Hamill's work comes as close as any to explaining how an ethnic Indian identity can supplant a tribal one. In exploring the dynamics of creating culture and identity, Hamill focuses his investigation on the state of Oklahoma, which holds over seventy distinct Indian groups. The shaping forces for identity, Hamill explains, are not broad culturally based principles, but rather shared historical experiences. As Hamill …

Review Of America's 100th Meridian: A Plains Journey Photographs And Text By Monte Hartman, David Mcmillan

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Photographs come in many guises: tools of advertising, personal mementos, scientific data, reportage, self-expression. A tree can be photographed as a representative of a specific species in a field guide, a casualty of a lightning strike in a newspaper, a symbol of strength for an insurance company, or an object of beauty interpreted by an artist. Each manner of photography reflects a different relationship the photographer has to both subject matter and form. The photojournalist, for example, has an obligation to appear neutral, to be the unbiased eyewitness to the subject matter depicted, which is usually an editorial assignment. The …

Review Of A New South Dakota History Edited By Harry F. Thompson, Paula Nelson

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In some academic circles today the study of governmental units-nations or states-is passe. Race, class, and gender, categories of analysis that are "stateless," rule the discourse. That is unfortunate for the study of history. Politics and political designations matter. They shape the lives of the individuals who live within them and create or limit the possibilities for individual achievement within their borders. Herbert T. Hoover and John E. Miller, both scholars of South Dakota and its peoples, have collaborated to write portions and edit the entire anthology of substantial chapters and thoughtful essays. Harry Thompson, archivist at the Center for …

Review Of Civil War On The Missouri-Kansas Border By Donald L. Gilmore, John M. Sacher

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Donald Gilmore seeks to redefine our understanding of the conflict on the Missouri-Kansas border during the Civil War era. He contends that biased histories have long portrayed Kansans as innocents who suffered depredations at the hands of lower-class Missouri bushwhackers- a pejorative term that historians continue to use. These histories place special emphasis on William Clarke Quantrill, whom they almost invariably depict as a demonic leader of savages. According to Gilmore's corrective, if anyone should be blamed for the atrocities of the border war, it should be the abolitionist Kansans. Kansans, including Jim Lane, James Montgomery, and "Doc" Jennison, had …

Review Of Hidden Treasures Of The American West: Muriel H. Wright, Angie Debo, And Alice Marriott By Patricia Loughlin, Courtney Vaughn

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Patricia Loughlin has written an excellent work about three female scholars specializing in Native studies on the frontier, more specifically Oklahoma. Loughlin couches her analysis of Muriel H. Wright, Angie Debo, and Alice Marriott in terms of Nancy Parezo's concept of "hidden scholars." They comprised scores of early twentieth-century women who wrote for scholarly and popular audiences about Native people. Ironically, the three subjects in Loughlin's book were conceptually part of this larger movement but often worked in isolation. Although Debo did teach at West Texas State College, and Wright was editor of The Chronicles of Oklahoma, especially Debo …

Review Of A History Of Migration From Germany To Canada, 1850-1939 By Jonathan Wagner, Hans Werner

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

German speakers have been important migrants to the Great Plains, but in Canada most came not from Germany, but from Eastern Europe. Given the low numbers that came to Canada from the Reich itself, Jonathan Wagner's study is more about explaining the country's failure to attract Germans than about their actual migration. According to Wagner, this failure can be explained by Canada's later and less complete industrialization, which meant that its "perceived needs could not win converts in the more industrialized Germany." While Canada was seeking immigrants to farm the wide-open spaces of the Canadian prairies, Germany was already an …

Review Of The Women There Don't Treat You Mean: Abilene In Song By Joe W. Specht, John Wheat

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

What's in a name? If that name is "Abilene" and it rhymes easily with other poetic phrases and occupies a mystic landscape in the popular imagination, then there's quite a bit. That is the basic message of this modest but surprisingly complex essay in cultural geography that traces the presence of Abilene, Texas, in some sixty popular songs over the past century. Author Joe Specht, librarian and music historian at McMurry University in Abilene, has collected music and files on this subject for many years and finally brought it all together with recent interviews with many of the songwriters themselves. …

Review Of Sovereign Selves: American Indian Autobiography And The Law By David ]. Carlson, Hertha D. Sweet Wong

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In Sovereign Selves, David ]. Carlson presents an original, thoughtful, and convincing argument that early Native American autobiography was profoundly shaped by Native "engagement with colonial legal discourse." Even more dramatically, he proposes that such an engagement framed post contact Native self formulations. In short, the federal legal system constructed notions of the "Indian" (child of the forest, ward of the state, etc.) that Native autobiographers both accepted and refashioned.

Well read in legal, historical, and autobiography studies, Carlson takes the scholarship of Indian law further than most by showing not merely its tangible effects on Native populations, but …

Evaluation Of The College Experience Among American Indian Upperclassmen, Terry Huffman, Ron Ferguson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This article reports partial findings from a five-year study that examined the attitudes, perceptions, and expectations regarding higher education among a sample of American Indian students attending a predominantly non-Indian university. Most notably, this article examines some of the factors associated with two specific personal assessments of the college experience: (1) the impact of college upon their appreciation of Native American heritage and (2) the level of satisfaction with the college experience.

Review Of Deep Time And The Texas High Plains: History And Geology By Paul H. Carlson, J. Brett Cruse

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This brief book is a history of the Lubbock Lake Landmark site, a nationally recognized archeological site located on the Texas southern High Plains on the north side of the city of Lubbock. The location has been the subject of intense investigations by archaeologists since 1939. Paul H. Carlson, a noted author and professor of history at Texas Tech University, states that his purpose was to go back through what John McPhee called "deep time" to show how the Lubbock Lake location was formed and was used by humans through time. He accomplishes this in five chapters.

Population Characteristics And Health Service Use By Latino Immigrants To Southwest Missouri, Suzanne E. Walker, Susan Dollar, Ravilldra G. Amonker

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The rapid influx and new demographic patterns of Latino immigrants to the United States have precipitated numerous pressing issues, among them health and healthcare disparities. The relatively recent phenomenon of high Latino immigration rates to rural areas is increasingly common in the Midwest and Great Plains states, where they are drawn by the labor market. A rural setting, low socioeconomic status, and high concentrations of minorities have been shown to be closely intertwined, and such regions are often medically underserved. Such describes rural southwest Missouri, where we collected data in four counties on demographics, socioeconomic factors, healthcare perceptions, and use …

Review Of The Search For A Common Language: Environmental Writing And Education Edited By Melody Graulich And Paul Crumbley, Denise Tillery

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This edited collection grew out of a symposium held at Utah State University in Logan in 2002. According to the editors, the symposium's purpose was to "publicly explore the particular ways environmental writing educates the public through a fusion of science and literary expression." The Search for a Common Language achieves that purpose by including short prose pieces-ranging from memoirs, essays on specific locations, and scientific papers - as well as poetry on natural themes. The range of topics and genres and the inclusion of poetry provide a variety of ways to talk about the environment and reach out to …

Sulfate Mineral Paragenesis In Pennsylvanian Rocks And The Occurrence Of Slavikite In Nebraska, R. Matthew Joeckel, K. D. Wally, S.A. Fischbein, P.R. Hanson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The acid weathering of pyrite-bearing Pennsylvanian clastic sedimentary rocks in southeastern Nebraska locally produces the secondary sulfate minerals alunogen, copiapite, epsomite, felsobanyaite/basaluminite, gypsum, halotrichite, jarosite, rozenite, and slavikite. Of these mineral occurrences, four are first-time discoveries in the state or the surrounding region. Slavikite (NaMg₂Fe₅ (S0₄)₇ (OH) ₆• 33H₂0), which has been reported only once before in North America and from a handful of sites in Europe and South America, was found in abundance at an outcrop at Brownville, NE. The pH values in 1:1 solutions of deionized water of the …

Review Of The Real Roadrunner By Martha Anne Maxon, Janice M. Hughes

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This lively little book is the ninth installment in the Animal Natural History Series published by University of Oklahoma Press. Its author, Martha Maxon, has aptly chosen to reveal the true nature of the greater roadrunner, a veritable icon of southwestern bird life. Perhaps no one is better able to accomplish this: Maxon arguably possesses greater intimate knowledge of roadrunners' private lives than any other ornithologist.

Review Of Ogallala Blue: Water And Life On The High Plains By William Ashworth, Sandra Zellmer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

William Ashworth, an environmental historian and prolific writer, grips our attention in lyrical yet urgent terms in Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains. Ogallala Blue stands beside John Opie's Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land (1993) and Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (1986) as a "must read" book for anyone who cares about the future of water resources.