Longtime readers will know that we here at What's Up are tiresomely enthusiastic about the advantages, nay, virtues (for they are many) of bibliographic software. Nobody much listens to us, sadly, but you have fewer excuses now that those with access to the U of S Library can avail themselves of RefWorks, "a web-based bibliographic management service that allows you to create your own personal database of references. You can automatically import references from a search performed in an online database or catalogue, or enter references manually. Searching tools within RefWorks enable you to easily navigate your database, organize folders and search for references. Refworks also allows you to format your references for papers and bibliographies in a variety of output styles, including APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago." So there it is. You owe it to yourselves and, frankly, you owe it to us to click here to learn more. And by the way, click here for a helpful comparison of RefWorks with the well-known Endnote program.

CMRS Colloquium: Dr. Allison Fizzard, University of Regina, will speak on "Women, Work, and Retirement: Gleanings from English Monastic Records of the Early Sixteenth Century". Friday February 3, STM 344B. Beverages and Cheese at 4, talk at 4:30. Everyone welcome.

MA candidate Darren Friesen will defend his thesis, "The Other Newcomers: Aboriginal Interactions with People from the Pacific" on Friday, February 3rd at 12:30 in ARTS 272. Faculty, grad students, and friends welcome.

The History Graduate Colloquium this Friday, February 3rd, at 3:30 will feature two papers: Gerelt-od Bayantur, "Soviet Mongolian Relations in the Gorbachev Era", and Paget Code, "A Forgotten Little Flock: English Metis Settlement in the Prince Albert Area, 1860s-1890s". Time-keeping terror Matt Finn will preside, in the windowless, charmless, but otherwise friendly confines of the downstairs room of the Faculty Club. All faculty and grad students welcome.

One of our more attentive and, indeed, far-flung correspondents reports that Omeasoo Butt (BA hons, 2005) will be a featured contestant in an hour-long CTV special due to air February 4th: The Next Great Prime Minister. Former PMs Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and John Turner will serve as judges (Jean Chretien will be out of the country). Omeasso and the three other finalists will present a speech, take part in a question-answer session, engage in a debate, and dispense financial favours to friends (this last has yet to be confirmed, but if you are an old school chum you might wish to take note, nonetheless.) The finalists were chosen from hundreds of young Canadians who were invited to send in videotaped speeches on what they would do if they were prime minister. The winner gets a $50,000 prize, an internship award and the endorsement of a quartet of former national political leaders.

The 9th Annual Michael Swan Honours Colloquium was a great success this past Friday. 27 honours students presented papers to an enthusiastic audience of peers, faculty, friends, and family. The highlight was absolutely everything.

These action shots of presenters and audience members captured in the heat of intellectual debate at the Diefenbaker Centre barely hint at the electricity in the room.

Congratulations to all the presenters, and to HUSA and to Martha Smith-Norris for a flawless organization and, as ever, a damn fine lunch.

Left to right: Amanda Fehr, Kevin Gambell, Katya MacDonald; Chris Philips; Kristin Olney; Christine Charmbury, Keith Carlson.

ALMOST UPON US! The very much-anticipated 9th Annual Michael Swan History Honours Colloquium will be held throughout the day this Friday, January 27th at the Diefenbaker Centre. The colloquium will feature a record-breaking 27 student presentations and, as ever, a damn fine lunch. Everyone welcome. As for location, the directionally impaired among you may wish to consult the map to the right. Click here to return to our departmental motherpage, then scroll down and click on the link in "Coming Events" to see the Official Colloquium Programme in all its pdf glory! Or, for a reasonable facscimile, click on the image immediately below, then click again to render it more or less legible.

M.A. candidate Chris Clarke will be delivering a paper, "Re-thinking Contact Within the Tupi-European Relationshiop, 1500-1560", at the Frank Underhill Graduate Colloquium at Carleton University in Ottawa, March 9-10th. It is the Colloquium that stretches for two days. Chris' paper is expected to be somewhat briefer.

One of our far-flung correspondents sent us this action shot, left, of Angela Kalinowski on sabbatical in Rome. In front of Hadrian's Temple, the camera captured just one of several failed attempts she made to slide on the non-icy Roman streets. Professor Kaliowski is a resourceful sort, and we are confident that she will make the necessary adjustment to her January stride and come to appreciate that Rome, as others before her have noted, is no Saskatoon.

The Macwardly inclined among you should be glad to know that that the powers-that-be-Google have deigned to make their staggeringly good free interactive digital globe, Google Earth, available to Apple Macintosh sorts of people. Google Earth "combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips." It really does. Click here to learn more and download the necessary software for either Mac or Windows.

Forty year old Keith Carlson will host a screening of a powerful documentary, The Lynching of Louie Sam, on Wednesday, February 1st at 7pm in the Neatby-Timlin Lecture Hall (ARTS 241). The film, shown at film festivals in Toronto and Vancouver, is based directly on Keith's research. It tells the shocking tale of the lynching of a young native man in BC, 122 years ago. Admission is absolutely free and absolutely everyone is welcome. Click here to read the recent university news-release about Keith and the film. And click on the poster to the right to enlarge it to readable size.

In the unlikely event that you have forgotten, tomorrow, Wednesday January 18th, is the day of the HUSA-sponsored History Student / History Faculty Mixer. The place is the Faculty Club, but in a relaxed sort of convivial way. The relaxed conviviality begins at 5pm. Everyone welcome.

The HUSA Film Series resumes on Tuesday, January 24th with a gala presentation of The Emporer and the Assassin, an epic starring Li Gong (a.k.a. Gong Li) set during the unification of China in the 3rd century B.C.E. Adam Toews of HUSA will introduce the film. 7 PM, ARTS 241. Free. Everyone welcome. Click here to learn more about this film.

Some time back, the History Department adopted, with permission, Footnotes: A Guide for the Perplexed by Christopher R. Friedrichs of the History Department of the University of British Columbia as our official student guide to footnotes and endnotes. It remains a most useful and straightforward guide, addressing most questions that come up regarding Chicago-style notation in a succinct and easily-printed four pages. As is the way of all web, however, the URL has been changed. Our departmental web page for online resources for students will shortly be updated. Instructors who offer a link in PAWS will also need to make the change. In the meantime, please note that the new URL is http://www2.history.ubc.ca/Hist120/ftnotes.htm .

The library continues to acquire important new online collections of interest to historians. Contemporary Women's Issues (CWI) is a multidisciplinary, full-text database that brings together relevant content from mainstream periodicals, "gray" literature, and the alternative press -- with a focus on the critical issues and events that influence women's lives in more than 190 countries. It includes English-language titles from East and West Africa, Asia, and South and Central America, the Caribbean, North America and Europe, and is updated weekly. It is available from the Database A-Z list and from the WGST subject page. If you have access to the library collection, click here to check it out.

International Security and Counter Terrorism Reference Center (smoothly accronymed as "ISCTRC") is a full text resource on security and counter-terrorism issues, combining news sources and scholarly writings with expert commentary from across the international political, military, economic, social and technical spectrum. Content includes full text journals and periodicals, news feeds, reports, summaries, books, blogs, FAQs, and proprietary Background Information Summaries that pertain to terrorism and security. ISCTRC is updated weekly. It is available from the Database A-Z list and from the History subject page. If you have access to the library, click here to check it out.

The GLBT site, thanks to generous private donations, now offers a full text facility through 2006. The Index covers literature covering gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender (GLBT) issues, including the full text of 50 of the most important and historically significant GLBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, as well as dozens of full text monographs. It is available from the Database A-Z list and from the WGSt subject page. If you have access to the library, click here to check it out.

Info-LatinoAmerica now integrates with the U of S Library collection, and offers direct links to full-text offerings available in the library, whether electronic, paper, or microform. Check it out here.

The library now offers the Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900 on a permanent basis, thanks in part to a generous donation from our own Chris Kent. The directory includes 50,000 English language newspapers and periodical publications published in England between 1800-1900. This is Series 2 of a 5-series set. Series 2 includes the contents of the previously published Series 1. Series 3-5 are forthcoming. By the completion of the five-series set, some 125,000 titles are expected to be identified, located and described. All subject areas are covered, although each one of the series attempts to provide a comprehensive listing of from seven to ten additional subjects, while including many thousands of titles not on those specialty lists. The subjects dealt with most completely so far are: Art & Architecture, Children, Feminism, Music, Theatre, Wit & Humour, and Women. The library will also be adding the 20-volume printed edition to its reference section. Find the electronic edition on the History subject page, or click here.

Good news for library users. Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, two extremely useful but aged and clunky search engines for historians, have finally been given a facelift by their makers. The new interface is prettier and more efficient, though Historical Abstracts still insists, uniquely among historical databases in the civilized world, that author searches be conducted on a first-name first basis, "John Smith", rather than the otherwise universal "Smith, John". Still, better is better.

Looking Back, the acclaimed series of Saskatchewan history vignettes written and presented by Bill Waiser (left), has been off the air for a few years now but continues to garner awards. The dvd of the series was released this past year, and it has just been voted first prize in an in-house CBC award competition to celebrate excellence in English-language tv. Bill and the team that produced Looking Back (Paul Dederick, Jill Leyton-Brown, Debbie Carpentier, Rob Mackenzie, and Jeff Nenson) will be feted in Toronto on January 31st at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre. Congratulations to all.

Meanwhile, Bill remains coy as to rumours of an impending opera based on Looking Back. He did, however, confirm that Grey Owl star Pierce Brosnan has not been approached with regard to a rumoured movie (or, as the CBC prefers, "film") of the series.

A loyal correspondent reports that Janice MacKinnon is a featured panelist on the CBC Newsworld program "Behind the Ballot", a weekly review of developments in the federal election campaign, hosted by Peter Mansbridge. The show can be seen Saturday evenings during the campaign at 9:30 and 12:30, and on Sunday at 6:30. Click here to check the Newsworld schedule.

One of the elite social events of the year occurs next Wednesday when HUSA sponsors a History Students/History Faculty Mixer in the Fireside Room of the Faculty Club, starting at 5pm. (Which is to say, following a HUSA meeting at 3:30, in case you need to be at that, as well.) $2 for HUSA members, $7 for non-HUSA students, and faculty are always welcome to make a donation.

The much-anticipated Michael Swan History Honours Colloquium will be held throughout the day on Friday, January 27th at the Diefenbaker Centre. The colloquium will feature a record-breaking 27 student presentations and, as ever, a damn fine lunch. Everyone welcome. Further details to follow.

The next History Graduate Students Colloquium will be held this Friday, January 13th, starting at 3:30 (precisely!) in the windowless downstairs of the Faculty Club. The two presenters will be Christine Charmbury, "Picturing the Dakota: The Wahpeton and Whitecap People Through the Lenses of Euro-Canadians", and Sarah Person, "Understanding Hugo Chávez: His Political Style and Public Image". All faculty and grad students welcome.

The Eighteenth-Century Studies Group is among the sponsors of two presentations on Thursday, January 19th by Professor Annette Burfoot (Sociology, Queen's). A seminar at 2pm in ARTS 208, "Pilfering in Technoscience", concerns the challenges involved in research in the emerging interdisciplinary fields involved in the visual culture of science. The second, at 7 pm in the Faculty Club is "Terrific Material: Early Modern Medical Imaging and the Materialization of the Feminine", a lecture based on excruciatingly realistic 18th century wax anotomical models that resonate with current medical imaging initiatives such as the Visible Human Project. A reception will follow. Everyone welcome.

This Thursday's CMRS Colloquium will feature Dr. David Hay of the University of Lethbridge speaking on "Women and Warfare in the High Middle Ages: The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa (1046-1115)". STM 344B, refreshments at 4pm, talk at 4:30. Everyone, especially students, invited.

Congratulations to Bill Waiser, whose Saskatchewan: A New History was the number one bestseller for 2005 at Saskatoon's largest bookstore, McNally Robinson. See the full list of Saskatchewan bestsellers here.

Peter Bietenholz, back from a Christmas visit with family in Toronto, continues to recover from his recent surgery. Reliable sources confirm that Peter was recently out cross-country skiing.