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On Thursday, I walked over to Tribble to meet with Dr. Simone Caron’s history seminar class (History 390 – Research Seminar: Long Decade of the Sixities: 1956-1974). These students will be looking at topics such as the Eisenhower administration, Cold War, Watergate, Vietnam, space exploration, civil rights, women’s rights, and student movements.

During the class period, I demonstrated our new “Everything” search from the ZSR homepage. For the “Everything” search, I used the keywords “moon landing.” After entering this term into the search box, I showed the students the type ahead feature that offered other possible suggestions. In this case, Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories, Moon, Apollo 11, Moon Landing, and Project Apollo were listed as other relevant terms. Moving the mouse over the suggested terms, I was able to bring up pictures and some additional information including the start (1961) and end date (1975) for the program. Moreover, a brief note indicated that: “The Apollo program was the United States spaceflight effort which landed the first humans on Earth’s Moon.”

Since Dr. Caron’s students need to identify primary sources for their research papers, I showed them how to search for personal narratives. A search for Vietnam AND personal narratives yielded some really good sources. Dr. Caron and her students were very impressed with the new “Everything” search.

I ended my presentation by showing them American Song. This streaming music database was a big hit with the students and the professor. I did a search for “Freedom Riders” and pointed out the album “We Shall Overcome: Songs of the Freedom Riders and the Sit-Ins”. Before class, I created a playlist and used my playlist to play one of the songs.

It was a great afternoon. The brief walk over to Tribble gave me time to reflect and gather my thoughts before I launched into the presentation. I enjoyed meeting and talking with the students about some of the major events of the 1960s that had such a profound impact on my generation.