Hoopes Prizes

Over the last couple of days, we've been fielding questions about Hoopes Prizes in general and the 2009 winners in particular.

I've put up a post on LNL, our public blog, about the 2009 Hoopes Prize theses. Our copies are essentially in transit -- i.e., at the bindery -- and won't be here for a couple of weeks. But Archives copies are available for users to see.

So if students ask, direct them to the LNL post or give them the information there. Also, remember that we have a printed handout, "Searching for Hoopes Prizes, Theses and Dissertations in HOLLIS" in rack near the dictionaries. And an online copy can be printed out or downloaded from our Scribd collection as well.

And by the way: I've just now discovered that to browse these Archives items -- like HU92.2009.151 -- you need to select "Widener number" in HOLLIS classic. "Other call number," which I started with, comes up blank.

GRRR . . . Ger

A patron -- Ph.D. candidate in history, familiar with the collection, came in tonight trying to uncover the call numbers for certain statistical publications produced by the Third Reich. He remembered that the call number began "Ger Doc 9."

I tried Vida's famous rolodex, HOLLIS "other call numbers" and even -- in desperation -- "Government number," all to no avail. Ger Doc(s) never surfaced. Finally, I went to the basement with him, got him in the general area and set him loose.

Puzzled, I asked JC what I'd done wrong. Here's a tip: use Widener call number searches for paper documents with a geographic or country name prefix, followed by the abbreviation "doc." This system owes its origins in many cases to the old Widener class system, which identified countries thus. Ger= Germany; Ind=Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan); Afr=African continent, Br=British Isles (including Ireland), and so forth.

This system makes perfect sense as soon as you remember that Widener is the parent of Gov Docs -- the classifications that are neither LC or SuDocs are part of that legacy.