Reprint from Collections & Connections
Spring 1999, Vol. 3, No. 2

The Kentucky Library announces the acquisition and cataloging of its 1000th broadside. Its 1000th what? A broadside is a term librarians use for a one-sided printed piece; they have been used for hundreds of years to make political announcements, advertise events, state personal beliefs, and make literary statements. The Kentucky Library's broadside collection features a wide array of subjects, ranging from announcements for dances, parties, circuses, political speeches, and religious events to poetry, political invective, and store advertisements. Each broadside is painstakingly cataloged to give it as many access points as possible. All references to people, communities, and counties are indexed as well as general subjects. The index to the first 1000 Kentucky Library broadsides contains over 8000 subject entries.

Selecting the broadside that would bear the significant number "1000" was difficult. Weighing the pretty illustrations of one broadside against the significant content of another was no easy task. The only definitive criteria was that the piece had to be from Kentucky and preferably from the South-central region. The broadside chosen is actually fairly small, measuring only 27.5 x 10 centimeters. It is an "extra" published by the Kentucky Standard, a Bowling Green newspaper that was printed in the mid-1850s by R. J. Smith. The Kentucky Library owns only five copies of this newspaper.

The Kentucky Standard issued this "extra" on June 20, 1854 to announce the Bowling Green "appearance...in a most destructive form" of the dreaded disease cholera. It lists three victims who "all died within the space of ten hours" and "a young lad by the name of John Beck, [who] was attacked, and survived only eight hours." The broadside characterizes the disease as "a type...to baffle all medical skill. Our physicians and citizens generally deserve all praise for their unrelenting attention to the sick."

As was common throughout cholera-stricken river towns in the South, Bowling Green citizens vacated the town during the epidemic. The broadside noted that "many of our citizens have quit the place and others are leaving." It also advised people "to abstain from eating fruits of every kind, and especially to exercise discretion and moderation in dieting," as "the cause of the first case of cholera is attributed to imprudent and immoderate eating." The broadside also issued a call for Bowling Green's denizens to congregate at the Courthouse the next day at 8:00 a.m. "to consider the health of the town and to devise means for removing filth, and purifying the air."

At the bottom of the broadside, the editor noted that there would be "no paper on Saturday", because "our hands...like many others left the place...to get a little fresh air." Also near the bottom, the editor provided the following public service announcement: "the Ladies of the Presbyterian Church have deferred their Fair until next fall" due to the epidemic.

The Kentucky Library faculty and staff appreciate the generosity of Thomas N. Moody of Franklin, who donated this broadside. He has given numerous items to all areas of the Kentucky Building, and we acknowledge his effort to preserve Kentucky's history. Some might view Broadside 1000 as a stained, folded, yellowing sheet of paper; we call it a treasure.

~ Jonathan Jeffrey

TOPCAT, WKU Libraries' online catalog since 1992, will be converted to a state of the art library management system over the summer that will transform the way local and remote users access the Libraries' collections. By August 1999, TOPCAT's outdated mainframe-based system, NOTIS, will be replaced by a cutting edge client-server system, Endeavor Voyager.

The "new TOPCAT" will have a graphical user interface operating in a familiar Windows environment. It will be accessible through standard Web browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer. The new Web-based TOPCAT will enable users to "point and click" to navigate between bibliographic records and seamlessly link to Internet resources cited in those records.

Using the new TOPCAT to locate materials held in the Libraries' collections will be easier and more flexible. Searching can be done by keyword, author, title, subject, call number, date and format. Retrieved records can be selected and marked to print, e-mail or download.

Endeavor Voyager has been funded by the Council on Postsecondary Education as the common library management system for the emerging Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual Library (CVL). By July 2000, all of Kentucky's public universities and colleges will implement the Endeavor Voyager system. With our expected August 1999 implementation, WKU Libraries will be among the first group of the public comprehensive universities (Eastern Kentucky, Kentucky State and Morehead) to offer the new library system.

By the July 2000 implementation of the CVL Endeavor Voyager library system, the new TOPCAT will enable users to simultaneously search any or all the collections of the libraries of Kentucky's eight public universities and 28 community and technical colleges.

Stay tuned for Commonwealth Virtual Library developments in future issues of Collections and Connections!

~ Elaine Moore

Several watercolors by regional artist Ivan Wilson help document the homes, businesses, and inhabitants of Jonesville, a former African-American community in Bowling Green. Located on the edge of the WKU campus approximately where Diddle Arena and Smith Stadium are now located, Jonesville was demolished as part of urban renewal efforts in the 1950s and 1960s. The paintings will be on display through the summer.

~ Sandy Staebell