Research the History of Your House: A Guide from Baltimore Heritage

Read about the history of the Poe statue

Baltimore Heritage, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that works in a variety of ways to preserve and bring awareness to the many historic buildings and neighborhoods in Baltimore. They've built an excellent mapping tool for viewing details of some of Baltimore's historic gems.

One of the resources available through their website is a fantastic research guide called "How to Research the History of Your House or Neighborhood." The guide divides the search into phases ("Where do I start?") or you can search for a particular business, architect, or theme. Going further, it explains where and how to find maps and pictures.

The full link to the guide is: www.baltimoreheritage.org/resources/research-guide. I recommend you check it out!

Orientation Season

Orientation season just wrapped up. All summer long, various departments on campus work together to introduce freshmen, transfer, graduate and international students to the University of Baltimore, along with new faculty and staff.

Orientation can be overwhelming. You have to remember a netID, a new password (with numbers, letters, and lots of other restrictions), which buildings are which, and how your transportation/parking situation works, all while trying to look super cool and not at all lost. (Here's the campus map for reference). Talk about information overload!

But if its any reassurance, by next semester, it'll all be an old hat. You'll know that you can only get to the gym in the Academic Center by using the stairwell on the plaza side, closest to Mount Royal. You'll learn where your favorite spot to hang out is (the library, obviously). You'll also know the time to the nearest coffee shop. With three Starbucks around the university, a Duncan Donuts on the bottom floor of the Varsity, TriBeCa on Charles Street, Shapiros on Preston Street, there's bound to be one within a 5 minute walk.

The best thing about a new school year is the amount of events involving free food. Browse the Welcome Week event calendar and line up your meals for the week. We're a bit partial to the free cupcakes in library on Wednesday, September 4, 3-4pm, on the second floor. What are you looking forward to this year?

Local Lawyer/Journalist Tortured!

I was trying to think of a title for this blog entry that would grab readers attention, something shocking. But then I began to think of the recent events that include cannibalism, mass murders, and (shudder) worst of all, elections 2012, it seems rather difficult to come up with something shocking these days.

So what gives... who, what, and where did this lawyer/journalist get tortured? The who is Alexander Contee Hanson. The where is right here in Baltimore city. The what involves and angry mob, beatings and even the use of tar and feathers. The missing question here is, "When?". That would be July 22, 1812, just a little over 200 years ago, and only 4 days after the beginning of the War of 1812.

This is one of many, many interesting discoveries I found with only a quick search of the terms War of 1812 and Baltimore. One location I discovered was right here above my own nose. The Special Collections Library at UB, under the direction of Tom Hollowak, is a treasure trove of material meant for the aspiring historian all the way to the most learned academic. For more info, visit the Society of the War of 1812 in the State of Maryland (SWE) resource page.

When I first discovered this incredible link to fascinating history, my first thought was, "I could lose my job," meaning that I could very easily spend my day sorting through the various historical pages, collections, and artifacts in this collection. And what better time to explore this resource than as we commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

As we begin this school year our 1st floor display case features a large portion of the collection about the War of 1812 from our Special Collections Library. Including a replica of a 15 star American Flag, an insignia, possibly from a battle drum of the Washington Blues, 5th Regiment of Maryland, and a piece of wood labeled "Piece of tree under which General Ross was killed."

So what about that tar and feathered journalist/lawyer? Here is just a peak into that story, from Wikipedia:  

Alexander Contee Hanson (February 27, 1786 – April 23, 1819) was an American lawyer, publisher, and statesman. He represented the third district of Maryland in the U.S. House, and the state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate.

Hanson, the grandson of John Hanson, was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and attended local private schools. He graduated from St. John’s College in Annapolis in 1802. He proceeded to study law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Annapolis. He served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1811 to 1815.

Hanson established and edited the Federal Republican, an extreme Federalist newspaper, in Baltimore. On June 22, 1812, four days after the beginning of the War of 1812, a mob that was irritated by his articles denouncing the administration[,] destroyed his office. [On] July 28, he reissued the paper from another building, where he was joined by a group of armed allies. When that building was besieged by a mob, Hanson and his group fired, killing two. On the morning of July 29, Hanson and his group surrendered to the militia and were escorted to jail. That evening, the mob stormed the jail, and Hanson was beaten and left for dead. Hanson moved the paper to Georgetown, Washington, D.C., where he published it unmolested. Hanson later moved to Rockville, Maryland.

Open Data Applications

Hi! I'm Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction librarians at Langsdale Library, and I also teach the Information Literacy (IDIS 110) course in first-year student learning communities.

In my course, I like to include a segment where students demonstrate an interesting web site or web-based tool that relates to information literacy. I saw some interesting (and occasionally controversial) demos this semester, including these two:

Microsoft's "Pedestrian Route Production" Mobile App 

Sometimes called the "Avoid Ghetto" app, this tool recommends walking directions based on weather, crime statistics, and population demographics. The app has received a lot of attention, due in large part to protests from civil liberties organizations, which claim that it highlights social discrimination and drives away potential business from the neighborhoods that need the most attention.

The Baltimore Sun's Homicide Mapping Website 

This site, not-so-affectionately called the "Baltimore Death Map," shows a map of Baltimore homicide victims as far back as 2007. Clicking on a pin shows the victim's name, age, gender, race, cause of death, and a link to any Sun articles about the homicide. A bit disturbing, I suppose, but an intriguing way to reveal the darker side of living and dying in Baltimore.

About the Open Data Movement

Both of the above tools demonstrate intelligent use of information made available by "open data" practices. The idea behind open data is to provide certain statistics and data freely for people to use without worrying about violating someone's intellectual property restrictions. A lot of governments and cities are providing this kind of data, and app and web developers are making really interesting reports and tools.

Baltimore's Open Data 

Baltimore city has two top-notch open data projects. There's OpenBaltimore with its goal of providing "access to City data in an effort that supports government transparency, openness and innovative uses that will help improve the lives of Baltimore residents, visitors and businesses" (Hint: recently got a parking citation? Look it up here). There's also the VERY nice CityView map, which offers various base maps of the city and numerous data layers (for example, you can see a sobering map of the many vacant buildings).

Going Farther with Google Maps

Hi! I’m Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction Librarians at Langsdale Library. I joined UB in August this year, and have been enjoying my work here very much. You may have seen me at the reference desk, in your class offering library instruction, riding my bicycle to campus, or playing indoor soccer in the Recreation and Wellness Center. If you see me, say hi! I’d love to get to know you.

A few weeks ago, I taught a class how to use Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) to build a collaborative class map. Google Maps is a map service you can view on an internet browser, and is also one of my favorite websites. As it turns out, a lot of the information we use every day is place-specific. In other words, new information either comes from one geographic place, or information we already have is only useful in one place. Google Maps is one of the best resources I can think of for getting to (and using) place-related information.

Some of the things you can do with Google Maps include:

• Get driving, walking, cycling, or public transit directions from one place to another. You can even choose between different recommended routes or click on "traffic" to see current travel conditions.
• Use "search nearby" to find businesses near an address. I use this when looking for food by cuisine (pizza, Chinese food, etc) or for businesses I need (Kinkos, Post Office, etc).
• Zoom to the street-level photograph of an address, to see what an unfamiliar place looks like from the ground.
• Search for user-submitted photos and videos near an address by clicking on the "more" button and selecting those options.
• Look up Wikipedia articles that relate to specific places the map using the "more" button.
• Search for a new home or apartment using the "real estate" option under the "more" button.
• Log in to create your own maps and share them with friends
• And a whole lot more!

For video tutorials on how to use Google Maps to do these things (and more!) visit http://maps.google.com/intl/en/help/maps/tour/. You can also "Ask a Librarian" if you want one of the Langsdale librarians to assist you in your place-related information needs.