News & Blog

“I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely…”

Yes, I’m going Joyce Kilmer on you. It’s National Poetry Month. How could I not start with the opening of a poem we all learn in primary school?

The Academy of American Poets, inspired by the success of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, created National Poetry Month in 1996. It is the largest literary celebration in the world and UCF Library is proud to do our part.

We gathered suggestions for 20 books of poetry that are currently in the UCF collection. These works represent a wide range of favorite poetry books of our faculty and staff. Click on the link below to see the full descriptions and catalog links.

Featured Bookshelf: National Poetry Month

In celebration of International Women’s Day, we asked our librarians who their favorite female authors are. Here is what they shared!

Women’s History Month began as a week-long celebration by in Sonoma, California in 1978 which was centered around International Women’s Day on March 8. A year later during a women’s history conference at Sarah Lawrence College, participants learned how successful the week was and decided to initiate similar in their own areas. President Carter issued the first proclamation for a national Women’s History Week in 1980. In 1987, Congress (after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project) passed Pub. L. 100-9 designating March as Women’s History Month. U.S. Presidents have issued proclamations on Women’s History Month since 1988.

Here at the UCF Libraries, we have created a list of suggested, and favorite, books about women’s history in both fact and fiction. Please click on the link below to see the full list with descriptions and catalog links.

Featured Bookshelf: Women’s History Month

For information about the bevy of Women’s History Month events at UCF, visit Office of Diversity and Inclusion Women’s History Month site.

Just one week until WomanFest 2017! Smart women! Zines! Words! Bake Sale!

Tuesday, March 8th in John C. Hitt Library room 223

10:30-11:45 AAUW Panel on Women’s Leadership

12:00-1:15 Open Mic

1:30-2:45 Zine workshop with Dr. Leandra Preston-Sidler

Come for all of it, or just 10 minutes. Kathleen Hanna wants you to be here, so you can listen to Bikini Kill and Le Tigre all day.

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In honor of Black History Month, the UCF Libraries and the Department of Africana Studies would like to announce the acquisition of five new African American primary source databases. These collections, which were acquired as part of a technology fee proposal, fill a crucial need for primary source material related to the far-ranging field of African Americana studies. They contain a treasure trove of unique material that will be invaluable to subjects such as Africana studies, history, political science, legal studies, literature, art, and more. Here’s what’s included in the package:

Black Abolitionist Papers: Brings together a disparate collection of primary sources that tell the story of the abolitionist movement in the voices of the activists themselves. The collection ranges from 1830-1865 and contains reform newspaper articles, essays, editorials, speeches, sermons, lectures and more.

Black Thought & Culture: A foundational collection that consists of 100,000 of documents spanning 250 years of African American history. Highlights include the transcript of the Muhammad Ali trial, a full run of The Black Panther newspaper, and 2,500 pages of exclusive Black Panther oral histories.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive: 1.5 million pages of historical documents including 7,000 books and pamphlets as well as 80 newspapers and a dozen manuscript collections.

Slavery and the Law & Slavery in America: The most comprehensive collection of legal documents pertaining to slavery and emancipation. Highlights of this unparalleled collection include Petitions to State Legislatures, Petitions to Southern County Courts, and State Slavery Statutes, a master record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789–1865.

All five collections can be accessed via the Africana Studies database page. If you have any questions, please contact John Venecek, the Africana Studies subject librarian.