Reference: Evaluation of Resource

A LibGuide is a particular style of online reference guide. Most of them are created by universities about subjects. Some of the subjects are very broad - European History - while others can be very specific - The French Revolution. UNCG MLIS students had to analyze and create one for this program. 

For this class, students had to create a LibGuide, but it could be on whatever subject they wanted. I chose the music of the Irish rock band U2. For Assignment 2, we had to evaluate a resource which we would be using in our LibGuide [edit, 2018, the graduate school LibGuides are no longer available].

Evaluation of Resource (for use in LibGuide)

Resource: The Joshua Tree, U2.

Bono, Clayton, Adam C., The Edge, and Mullen Jr., Larry J. The Joshua Tree. CD-ROM. Dublin, Ireland: Island Records, 1987.

The Joshua Tree, 1987

Where The Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

With Or Without You
Bullet The Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still

Red Hill Mining Town

In God’s Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill

Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), The Joshua Tree has a 10x Diamond certification, which means that it is a very well-selling album. It is considered one of their best albums, and is their only RIAA Diamond. Hits include “Where the Streets Have no Name,” and “With or Without You.” The Joshua Tree has songs about American politics (“Bullet the Blue Sky”), the heroin epidemic in Dublin (“Running to Stand Still”), the death of a good friend (“One Tree Hill”), and the situation in Mexico (“Mothers of the Disappeared.”) Between Live Aid and the recording of The Joshua Tree, Bono and wife Ali spent time at a famine relief camp in Ethiopia. Bono also spent time in El Salvador, where he witnessed first hand the death and destruction wrought by the Reagan administration.

Everything below here is the deeper evaluation; the above track list and paragraph are what appears on the LibGuide. 

            The Joshua Tree is a best-selling U2 album and is usually considered to be the best U2 album. It is a direct look at religion and politics, of the state of the world, from the perspective of someone living there. The perennial hit “Where The Streets Have No Name” is all about the streets of Northern Ireland, of the Quarters of Belfast, of how the name of the street you live on controls your life. “Bullet The Blue Sky” contains lyrics about living under the threat of bombings – “see the face of fear/runnin’ scared in the valley below” – as well as lyrics about witnessing a fighter jet drop bombs:

            And I can see those fighter planes

            And I can see those fighter planes

            Across the tin huts as children sleep

            Through the alleys of a quiet city street

            …See across the field

            See the sky ripped open

            See the rain comin’ through a gapin’ wound

            Howlin’ the women and children

            Who run into the arms

            Of America

“Running to Stand Still” is about Dublin in the 1980s. A country in the clutches of a massive recession. A country with high inflation. A city with a heroin epidemic. In their autobiography (U2 by U2), Bono talked about the Seven Towers apartment complex in Dublin, about how it became host to members of the heroin-user community, about how they lost friends to overdoses.  

            Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth

            I see seven towers, but I only see one way out

            You gotta cry without weeping, talking without speaking

            Scream without raising your voice.

            You know I took the poison, from the poison stream

            Then I floated out of here, singing

            Ah la la la de day

            Ah la la la de day.

            …She is ragin’

            She is ragin’

            And the storm blows up in her eyes.

            She will suffer the needle chill

            She is running to stand still.

“One Tree Hill” was written after the death of a close friend – the roadie who was almost a fifth band member, who died in a motorcycle crash in Dublin one rainy night:

            I’ll see you again when the stars fall from the sky

            And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill

            We run like a river runs to the sea

            We run like a river to the sea

            And when it’s rainin’, rainin’, hard

            That’s when the rain will break a heart

“Mothers of the Disappeared” was named after the Mexican group determined to find out what had happened to those who had disappeared: “Midnight our sons and daughters/were cut down taken from us/hear their heartbeat/we hear their heartbeat.”