Who in the World is the Notorious RBG?
By: Pam Lamberger
Not many 85-year-old women are known by just their initials. Nor have many been the topic of two big-screen movies in the last six months. But then again, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is far from your standard octogenarian. She has lead an extraordinary life and accomplished much along the way – and she persists when most of her age are well into retirement! I do not think this diminutive Supreme Court Justice would mind helping to demonstrate a useful database that is available courtesy of your library called Biography in Context.
Whether you are gathering material for a school paper or just seeking background information about a notable politician, writer, historical figure, or celebrity, Biography in Context is a valuable resource. To find it, visit our homepage, hover your curser over Services and click on the last entry in the drop-down menu, See A-Z Databases, scroll down through the alphabetical list until you see Biography in Context and click to open the database. From the launch page, you can enter the name of your person-of-interest in the search box or just browse through the featured individuals below. If you scroll down to the heading of American Supreme Court Justices, you will find the name of our hero, RBG. Click on her name and, Voila! A wealth of information is displayed in a variety of formats.
On this page, you will find: Featured content, Biographies, Images, Videos, Audios, Magazine articles, News articles, Academic Journal articles, Websites, and Related topics. The volume and variety of information provided is quite impressive. The top article under Magazines is from Newsweek and it suggests that RBG loved the latest cinematic release about her, On the Basis of Sex, but only after some revisions were made by the screenwriter, who happens to be her nephew!
If you click to open this or any of the other articles, you will see a list of tools available for your use on the right. These include: Citation tools, Highlights and notes, Send to Google Drive or OneDrive, Print, Email, Download, and Save to folder. You can even request a translation from one of a hefty selection of languages! Finally, you will have the option to review related subjects.
You may be interested to know that the library also offers a variety of books, audio-CDs and videos on the illustrious RBG in both our adult and children’s collections. The newest adult items are the DVD RBG: Hero, Icon, Dissenter, a biography titled, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sharon DeHart, The RBF Workout by Bryant Johnson, and an auto-biography, My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in both print and audio-CD.
News reports from the last few days tell us that RBG, who is currently recuperating from surgery to remove cancerous nodules from her lung, has missed oral arguments to the Supreme Court for the first time since becoming a Supreme Court Justice in Aug. of 1993. In true form, RBG is not resting on her laurels but working from home and helping to decide cases using briefs and transcripts of oral arguments. We’d expect nothing less from this exemplary public servant.