Sanath Balasooriya, the 2009 Feuchtwanger Fellow, will speak at noon on Thurs., Nov. 19, in the Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall in Doheny Library. He will discuss the civil strife in his native Sri Lanka, the conditions faced by the Tamil minority, and his experiences as a journalist and human rights activist. Balasooriya is president of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association and a member of the Sri Lanka-based Free Media Movement and Journalists for Peace.

At her Oct. 22 Friends of the USC Libraries Literary Luncheon, novelist Lisa See reflected on sibling rivalries and the nuances of what is for many people the longest relationship in their lives. In Shanghai Girls, sisters Pearl and May Chin have a complicated relationship. In this clip, See shares a funny anecdote about her sister Clara.

The USC Libraries subscribe to the Web of Science and Web of Knowledge databases. To help you get more from these resources, the publisher is offering live and recorded training on topics ranging from basic search functions and citation metrics to specialized classes on EndNote and Reference Manager. Keep reading for a complete schedule of online classes. 

The director of the Harvard University Library and historian of books and print culture will speak at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall on the second floor of Doheny Library. Presented by the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute and the USC Libraries, his talk is titled Old Books and e-books.

The USC Libraries reached the highest-ever Good Neighbors Campaign participation rate with this year, finishing at 65%. The rate was double last year’s participation rate and significantly above the approximately 40% participation rate that GNC staff expect to find this year among USC faculty and staff.

Safari Books Online 6.0, just released on Tuesday, 27 October 2009, provides a major advance to the service.

NewsBank Hot Topics is provided as part of your NewsBank subscription to alert librarians, patrons, teachers and students to hot topics found in NewsBank products.  Topics include issues and events from throughout the world relative to social studies, science, health, sports, the arts and people.

In September, OCLC contacted USC about plans to complete the transition of OAIster harvesting from the University of Michigan to OCLC and to provide access to OAIster records through WorldCat.org. OCLC has moved forward with these plans that will ensure the ongoing access to the open-archive records included in the OAIster database at no charge.

Lamancas atjautigais idalgo Don Kihots is the latest addition to the USC Libraries’ L.A. Murillo Cervantes collection. After returning from a trip to Latvia, librarian Dace Taube donated the volume, which is only one of three copies in the United States. It features illustrations by Latvian artists, which you can see after the jump.

The libraries’ Deb Holmes-Wong and Matt Gainer are working closely with USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture on the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative. The project will create a searchable Web site hosted by the USC Digital Library that will provide access to primary archival materials documenting the growth of global Pentecostal and charismatic religious faiths.