Happy Women’s History Month!

This March, join the Pratt Library in celebrating women’s contributions to our culture and history. Here’s a look at some of our recent faves spotlighting women voices.

First Lie Wins
By Ashley Elston

Book | eBook | eAudio

Say You’ll Be Mine
By Naina Kumar

Book | eBook

Bride
By Ali Hazelwood

Book | eBook | eAudio

The Cycle
By Shalene Gupta

eBook | eAudio

In True Face
By Jonna Mendez

Book | eBook | eAudio

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
By Tia Williams

Book | eBook | eAudio

The Partner Plot
By Kristina Forest

Book | eBook | eAudio

Private Equity
By Carrie Sun

eBook

Becoming Madam Secretary
By Stephanie Dray

Book | eBook | eAudio

Good Material
By Dolly Alderton

Book | eBook | eAudio

Redwood Court
By DéLana R. A. Dameron

Book | eBook | eAudio

The Maid
By Nita Prose

Book | eBook | eAudio

What’s New for Teens this March!

Not sure what to read this month? Here’s a look of the latest Young Adult books available at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Hope that you enjoy them!

Heartless Hunter
By Kristen Ciccarelli

eBook | eAudio

The Feeling of Falling in Love
By Mason Deaver

Book | eBook

Poemhood
Edited Amver McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin

Book | eBook

Shadowshaper Legacy
By Daniel Jose Older

Book | eBook

A Soul as Cold as Frost
By Jennifer Kropf

eBook

Where to Start
By Mental Health America

eBook

Where There’s Smoke
By E.B. Vickers

Book | eBook

The Poisons We Drink
By Bethany Baptiste

Book | eBook

Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal
By Gretchen Schreiber

Book | eBook

The Summer She Went Missing
By Chelsea Ichaso

Book | eBook

Out of Body
By Nia Davenport

Book | eBook

The Outlaws of Sherwood
By Robin McKinley

eBook

Celebrate Black History & Culture with these Movies

Check out these films and documentaries that uplift Black talent and highlight Black history and culture. We hope that you enjoy them! For more recommendations, take a look at the Pratt Library’s Black History Month collection.

The Sixties Underground Press and the Digital Age: Part 3

By Josie Breck, Periodicals Department

Newsprint, Digital Storage, and Ephemerality

There is one reason why I was able to explore the underground press of the Sixties several decades later at the Pratt: microfilm. Newsprint is fragile, not meant to last long beyond its initial publication. Archival-quality microfilm can last anywhere between 100-500 years, if properly stored and handled. If it weren’t for the efforts of one very dedicated Bell and Howell employee in 1973, much of what exists on those rolls would be entirely lost to time.

The ephemerality of newsprint is matched by that of digital storage. While a data server for a social media app may carry its contents more reliably than a newsprint for a time, it’s still easy for that data to become lost forever. A devastating example of this is Myspace. In 2019, the former social media juggernaut lost 12 years of data overnight. It’s hard to overstate how much was lost in just this one incident, including 50 million songs from 12 million musical artists.

The issue of archiving the web and digital media is complicated. Due to the truly staggering quantity of data, you cannot possibly archive everything online. The Internet Archive can only do selective crawls of the web, which capture a website on a particular day and store it on their servers. This is the best way to get as much of the web archived as possible, but because of the possibility of significant data loss inherent in digital storage, it is not the best long-term archival solution. The tradeoff of storing as much as possible means accepting a certain level of ephemerality.

While this is a problem with no perfect answers, I do believe that microfilm should be considered as one of many imperfect answers. One could curate a collection of digital media, say social media posts of a particular time or subject, and store that collection on microfilm, so that a permanent archive can exist outside of its ephemeral origin. As of the time of publishing this article, I am unaware of any such project. If you or anyone you know is doing something similar, or is interested in starting such a project, I would absolutely love to know about it. You can reach me via my email: jbreck@prattlibrary.org.

Further Reading Recommendations

Nonfiction Reads to Enjoy this Black History Month

Happy Black History Month! Here’s a list of books to check out not only this month but all year long spotlighting Black voices, culture, and history. For more recommendations, take a look at the Pratt Library’s Black History Month collection.

Madness
By Antonia Hylton

Book | eBook | eAudio

Black Love Letters
Edited by Cole Brown & Natalie Johnson

Book

HBCU Made
Edited by Ayesha Rascoe

Book | eBook | eAudio

Iconic Home
By June Reese, BID

Book | eBook

Twisted
By Emma Dabiri

Book | eAudio

Civil Rights Queen
By Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Book | eBook | eAudio

The Sisterhood
By Courtney Thorsson

Book | eBook

Out There Screaming
Edited by Jordan Peele

Book | eBook | eAudio

All Hope is Found
By Sarah Jakes Roberts

Book

And Then We Rise
By Common

Book

Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras
By Odie Henderson

Book | eBook

Code Noir
By Lelani Lews

Book