Celebrate Black History Month With Library Resources

Black History Month is here! And the Fulton County Library System is ready with resources to help learn and celebrate. Here are a few resources you might have missed.

First of all, Atlanta has the Auburn Avenue Research Library, the first public library in the Southeast to offer collections of books and papers for research on African American culture and history, as well as peoples of African descent worldwide. Explore all they have to offer, opens a new window.

The library catalog can help find interesting resources. Try searching "Harlem Renaissance" for example. You'll find books and ebooks, but also audiobooks, videos, books for adults and children both, even archival collections at the Auburn Avenue Research Branch - the papers of two poets of the Harlem Renaissance. "Available at" shows how many of the results are at the different branches. "Format" lets you find books vs ebooks and more. "Titles I can" will help you find books you can check out instead of books you can use while in the library.

Or, try searching "fugitive slaves" in the catalog and from the options on the left of the page select "Website or Online Data". You will find original documents from American history as Congress argued for and against slavery.

If you are a fan of ebooks and eaudiobooks, Libby offers options. For example, in the search bar you can put African American History then at the left you can specify the general age of the reader (under Audience), format (ebook, audiobook), subject (history, sociology, literature), and more.

Or, let's say you want to learn more about the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 but can't get to Auburn Avenue Research Library or the Special Collections department of Central Library to read one of the "in-house use only" books. Try Galileo. Access Galileo from the "Books & Browsing" tab at the top of www.fulcolibrary.org, opens a new window put in your library card number at the prompt, type in your search and select "Full Text Only" and find not only news articles and peer-reviewed research articles, but many of those same books, digitized and ready to read from your device.

Many library blogs feature topics of interest that are useful for Black History Month. For example, you can see a colorful poster depicting stamps that honoring African Americans in the blog "African Americans and the Postal Service, opens a new window". Blogs can be found by placing a search in the search bar at the top of www.fulcolibrary.org, opens a new window and selecting "Website" where it says "Search by".

As you find new books, don't forget to log them in Beanstack, opens a new window for Year of the Book. Win badges, challenges, and prizes.

Happy exploring!