From September 15th through October15th, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month (a yearly commemoration first established as a week-long celebration in 1968 and later expanded to a month-long event in 1988) to honor the contributions, history, heritage, and cultures of Hispanic and Latino Americans.
During National Hispanic Heritage Month, libraries typically celebrate by hosting events and programs highlighting the Hispanic culture, by creating themed book displays, and by promoting books and materials by and about Hispanic Americans.
This year, The Library invites you to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Monthby exploring the Hispanic American themed books, e-Books, audiobooks, music, movies, and more in our collection. For a sampling of what you can find at the Dauphin County Library System, click here.
This year, I invite you to also explore Hispanic Life in America, one of this library’s newest digital databases. What is Hispanic Life in America? Hispanic Life in America is an aggregated news database filled with primary source content from over 17,000 publications and news media sources, all covering the social, political, and cultural contributions of Hispanic communities in America. What better way to understand the pivotal experiences of this population than by exploring the very words and reports shared during those moments as they unfolded?
Where can you find Hispanic Life in America?Visit www.dcls.org/research. You will find it listed alphabetically among our database selections. As a library database, this resource is freely available to all library members and on-site visitors. If you’re accessing it from outside a library location, simply log in using your library card number and PIN.
Once you open Hispanic Life in America, you can begin to discover the full scope of what it has to offer by performing a keyword search or by browsing through its broad collection of carefully curated “Suggested Searches.”
What are “Suggest Searches?” They are a selection of professionally created search results covering major topics of importance, organized by era and topic. They highlight the significant people, laws, and events impacting the lives of Hispanic Americans throughout history from the early 1700s through today. Would you like to learn about the Mexican- American War era, for example? Just select it and then choose from the list of associated topics and subtopics. Then, browse through the list of results and open any that sparks your interest or matches your research need.
If you discover that you want or need more guidance with using this resource, NewsBank, Inc. provides training materials, help guides, and introductory videos, including this short YouTube video: https://youtu.be/aqNY2X1oNSA. To find help from within this database, look for the “Learn more about this database” link near the top of the Hispanic Life in America landing page.
Lastly, library staff can provide guidance and assistance as well, so please do not shy away from using it to re-examine the contributions and impact of the Hispanic population on this nation’s history through the more balanced and diverse lens that this resource offers. I think that once you give this easy-to-navigate database a try, you, too, will find it to be both useful and enlightening.
Gracias,
Ann Marie Megoulas
Information Services Supervisor