February 12, 2015
From the TRC: Ronnie Barnes African-American Resource Collection
It’s Thursday, and another edition of From the TRC is published to highlight another service or resource the Teaching Resources Center in Joyner Library has to support the College of Education’s faculty and students. This week, it’s the Ronnie Barnes African-American Resource Collection.
Granted, it is Black History Month and that may be one reason why the Ronnie Barnes African-American Resource Collection is the subject of this week’s post. But, honestly, the main reason is to call attention to this valuable, yet underused resource in the Teaching Resources Center.
Allow me to back that statement up with numbers. So far this school year the Ronnie Barnes Collection has accounted for less than one (1) percent of the books circulated in the TRC. If that doesn’t sound small enough I’ll dig a little deeper into the statistics. Since July 2014, the TRC has accounted for 47%, on average, of Joyner Library’s monthly total circulation of books. What does that mean? Well, out of the 20,460 books that have been checked out from the TRC since July only 161 (0.7%) have come from the Ronnie Barnes Collection. Here’s why the collection is worth checking out any time of year:
Ronnie Barnes, ECU Class of ’75
Ronnie Barnes, an eastern North Carolina native, was the first graduate of ECU’s Sports Medicine program in 1975 and is the Senior Vice President of Medical Services and Head Athletic Trainer for the New York Giants of the National Football League. In 2002, he endowed a fund to develop and maintain a collection of materials written or illustrated by African-Americans, or about the African-American experience.
The children’s collection includes:
- Coretta Scott King Award books
- Caldecott Award books about African-Americans or by African-American authors or illustrators.
- Newbery Award books about African-Americans or by African-American authors or illustrators.
- Biographies of African-Americans for K12 students
Additionally, the adult collection contains all genres, from scholarly books to general fiction. The adult collection is highlighted on an annual rotating basis. At the end of each year, these materials rotate out of the Ronnie Barnes Collection into Joyner Library’s general stacks. The call numbers in the Ronnie Barnes Collection begin with “Barnes.”
For more resources to use in the classroom for Black History month click on these TRC and Joyner Library resources:
- Coretta Scott King Award Winners Bibliography
- Coretta Scott King Honor Books Bibliography
- African-American History Bibliography
- Eastern North Carolina Digital Library and browse by subject
- The Mini Page Archive
Not sure how to put these resources to use? Here are some lesson plan ideas for Black History Month from the National Education Association, Education World, Scholastic, Smithsonian Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, AfricanAmericanHistoryMonth.gov, African-American History Through the Arts, and PBS.
Until next time. – Dan Z. in the TRC