Greenwood's African American Experience

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A new online library is rich in educational content

By Shonda Brisco -- School Library Journal, 02/01/2007

It's the time of year when most librarians realize that their collections just can't seem to provide enough information for students researching African American history. Even with the best of intentions, most librarians can't find the materials or the funding to satisfy students investigating the historical impact of African Americans on today's world. However, a new resource offers students and teachers a wealth of cultural materials specifically designed for classroom research and personal inquiry.

Grade 9–12+

Cost Yearly subscription prices are based upon enrollment within a single site school. For student enrollments under 500, the price is $450; for enrollments of 500 to 1000, the price is $650; for 1001–2000, it's $900. Prices include multiple simultaneous user access and remote access. For larger enrollments, contact the Greenwood sales representative at gemsales@greenwood.com.

The Big Picture Greenwood's African American Experience is the first in its database family called American Mosaic (future products will cover Latino Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans). As an online library of information rather than an online encyclopedia of resources, the African American Experience offers more than 35,000 articles from over 300 print volumes including reference titles, narrative books and monographs, biographies, and early texts dating back to the 1800's. With a wealth of searchable slave narratives, over 1800+ images, 200+ vetted web links, and 4,500 primary documents—all within a single resource—this database provides a unique opportunity for students to easily investigate and explore the rich history and heritage of African American culture.

Topics covered include history, art, folklore, biography, music, literature, pop culture, slavery, sports, politics, business, civil rights, education, science and technology, and more. Among some of the titles included are: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States, Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights, African American Religious Experience in America, and Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture. Check the product site for a complete list.

Alongside the depth of information provided within the database, African American Experience also contains over 88 lesson plans compiled by education and subject experts. These lessons integrate primary documents, introductory essays, and other background materials into easy-to-use and thought-provoking classroom activities for high school students.

Look & Feel Greenwood's African American Experience database provides students with a clean, yet jazzy-looking home page that displays an easy-to-access list of contents to begin browsing. At the top left-hand side of the page, users can perform a Quick Search or an Advanced Search by typing keywords or subjects in the Search Box, or browse the Subject Content listing directly below it.

Subject Browse contents include: Arts & Entertainment, Business, Education, Folklore & Customs, Health & Medicine, History, Icons, Literature, Music, Organizations, Politics, Law, & Civil Rights, Religion, Science & Technology, Sports, and Women. Within each Subject area is a lengthy list that includes subtopics for in-depth and specific research.

For example, exploring the subject of Music provides the user with the option to select Blues, Jazz, Composers, DJs, Music Executives and Producers, Musicals, Rap and Hip-Hop, Record Labels, and Singers. Within each subtopic are more areas for research that many students will definitely find informative and entertaining.

At the top right hand side of the page, users can choose to Browse the database or search for Timelines. Through the Browse option, students can select from a list of Categories that range from Arts and Entertainment to Women. Within each Category, subcategories are provided and finally a list of articles from those selections. Further down on the right-hand side of the Home page, Primary Documents are listed and include such things as Slave Narratives, Classic Texts, Letters, Laws, and Legal Cases, Speeches and Quotations, and Audio Files.

How it Works Using the Quick Search box on the home page, students can enter a subject or keyword to begin research. For example, the word "Banneker" (referring to Benjamin Banneker) immediately returned 114 search results including 87 articles, 23 primary documents dating between 1731 to the late 1800's, one image of Benjamin Banneker, and four timelines. The results page provides the user with a listing of the ALL topics returned along with tabs for filtering and accessing the additional resources listed within the search, such as primary documents or images.

While well-known topics may be easily accessed, more unique or hard-to-find content items can also be located by utilizing quotation marks around search terms to locate their reference within the database. For example, the term "small pox" provided over 71 results with a total of 53 primary documents referencing the term in descriptions within newspapers or historical accounts.

Within the byline of each database article, the author's name is hyperlinked to provide students with detailed information regarding the author's qualifications and their other works. Articles can be printed and students are provided with bibliographic citations of the articles in either MLA or Chicago Manual of Style formats.

Search topic or keywords used are highlighted in yellow to allow the user to identify the reference within the material. If the results provided by the Quick Search are not sufficient, the database also provides the student with the option to identify searching techniques (such as the use of quotation marks around specific terms or the use of Boolean search terms) to increase results. Additional searching techniques, including the use of personal names, organizational names, or terms and phrases are also provided for students to learn how to best utilize the database contents.

An Advanced Search provides the student with the option of searching by specific words or exact phrases and by specific content such as images, primary documents, external resources (websites, etc.), or articles. Boolean Search options also provide students with extensive search capabilities including AND, OR, and NOT, as well as the relationship of the terms within the search (such as: adjacency, near, frequency, single or multiple character wildcard searches.)

The African American Experience database also provides users with hard-to-locate content information often needed for special projects or research assignments. Among some of this content are quotations from unique writings dating back to the Egyptian Dynasty or full-text speeches made by historical leaders such as Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Aside from the outstanding list of primary source documents is the Audio File content which provides students with immediate access to a wealth of music, songs, and interviews. These unique resources, whether taken from historical archives or recorded within the past decade, provide students with an immediate sense of historical connectivity to the subject and introduce content not generally found in specialized databases.

For Students and Teachers Students will find the African American Experience easy-to-use and informative for quick access to general topics of interest and as a primary source for research of in-depth subjects ranging from slavery to music, from business to politics. With a wide range of informational content and additional resources provided on the sides of each result page, students will easily locate not only the information that they need but also perhaps information that they were not aware of until now.

Teachers will be amazed at the specialized lesson plans that utilize the content of the database to creatively provide opportunities for instruction in either the high school or college classroom. Within the Classroom Resources site of the database, Lesson Plans come from a five-volume print set by Primary Source, Inc., Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History. Primary Source, Inc. is an organization that provides professional development, learning opportunities, and curriculum resources for K-12 educators in History and the Humanities. For more information on Primary Source, Inc., visit www.primarysource.org/default.htm.

Librarians will find that the African American Experience "drips" with educational content for students and teachers at both the high school and college levels. With information not generally found in most reference collections, this database is comparable to only a few specialized databases (see our review of Oxford's African American Studies Center, July, pp. 63–64) and at a price that could not be reproduced by collecting the individual resources.

Report Card With school libraries in mind, Greenwood's African American Experience deserves an A+ for providing not only a uniquely specialized database filled with exceptional content but also quality resources to help teachers develop unique and thought-provoking lessons. As the database continues to grow through scheduled updates in May and again later this fall, African American Experience will become a serious option for many high school librarians.

While the database will certainly find a place in many public libraries or small colleges, some universities may choose to select this as an optional purchase or offer it in conjunction with Oxford's African American Studies Center. However, with companion databases scheduled for Greenwood's American Mosaic Suite (the Latino American Experience is scheduled for release in March 2007 and the Asian American Experience and Native American Experience are scheduled for 2008), this database paves the way for great opportunities in cultural studies at both the high school and college levels.