Self Directed Reading #1

Please read the rules about posted assignments before reading onward. 

For the Self Directed Readings, I had to 1) read an article, 2) write a paragraph summary, and 3) write a paragraph of my reactions to the article.  A short but sweet assignment.

In his article “Prove Your Case: A New Approach to Teaching Research Papers,” Stephen Broskoske, an assistant professor in the College Misericordia, explains a new technique for teaching research papers. To get his freshmen students to understand the importance of a specific thesis and sound research, Broskoske now equates a research paper to a lawyer’s preparation for a trial. Lawyers must first decide how to frame their case, as students must figure out how to “define their topic.” Then, as lawyers sift through evidence to prepare their arguments, so do students with their search for sources. The act of writing their paper became their day in court, where they could “present the evidence” they collected from a variety of sources. The “closing statement” to their “case” would be their conclusion, where they would have to summarize their argument and strongly finish their paper (Broskoske 31).

To a librarian instructor in an academic library, this approach to teaching research papers could prove very effective. Broskoske, himself, wrote, that this teaching method works because students can relate to the “high-visibility court cases in the news” (31). The "lawyer arguing a case" method relies on the students’ past experiences with popular court cases to help understand a similar process – writing. Constructivist teaching methods, a topic of last Wednesday's class, relies on the past experiences of a student to help develop new ideas, which the proposed method does. Many popular television shows, such as Law and Order and and The Good Wife, show the same process as the real court cases in the news. As a librarian instructor, I can use these shows the same way Broskoske used court cases, and create a library session framed around an episode of one of these shows and have the students "defend" cases. I would highly recommend library instructors faced with similar challenges to read this article.

Broskoske, S. (2007). "Prove Your Case: A New Approach to Teaching Research Papers." College Teaching 55(1), 31-2.

You know you've been to library school when....part 1

You know when you've been to library school when you're looking at an onstage performance and thinking about the complex digital object it would become, if someone went and tried to digitize it.

Yesterday night I went to see my cousin, Pavi Proczko, play in the new Quest Ensemble play, "Evolution/Creation."  Why this show is different from your normal show takes a few lines to explain.  The play is actually two plays running at the same time on a partitioned stage: one side shows Evolution, from the big bang to the dawn of humans, while the other shows Creation, up to the story of Noah.  during intermission, the audience switches sides to see the part they did not see.  Each side has no dialogue, and run to the same score. 

So, how would I preserve a recording of this play?  I would probably have two videos, one with Evolution and the other for Creation, just so the user can chose themselves which one they want to see first.  Since this play is not supposed to be biased, why would I show any bias and put one part of the play in front of the other?

Otherwise, the play was great and I think anyone in the area should check it out.  My cousin is Adam on the creation side, and the modern Homo sapiens on the other.  The best part- the show is FREE!! 

It's February?

((looks over shoulder))

Wait, it's February?  That's crazy....I feel like I'll have 1-2 posts like this every semester until blogging finally becomes second nature to me.  Anyone can recommend blogging classes, preferably free ones? ; )

Week 5 Analytic Essay

This assignment was for my Digital Preservation class.  I was supposed to summarize and analyze the four required readings for the week, as well as lead class discussions with questions.

Please read the rules about posted assignments before reading onward.

The readings for the fifth week primarily deal with two ways to preserve digital files, via migration or emulation.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but in choosing one over the other librarians, museum curators, and archivists cast a vote in the great debate in digital preservation — what exactly does it mean to preserve a digital document?  Is it enough to preserve the content, and not the appearance, of a digital document?  Should it function in the same exact way as it did when it was created, or can it be updated to contemporary standards?  The readings try to answer these questions with research and surveys.

Spring Semester, coming up!

For my spring semester, be ready to hear about these three classes"

458, Instruction and Assistance Systems: "Provides an overview to instruction and assistance methods used in a variety of information systems, including libraries, archives, museums, and electronic environments. Includes an overview of theoretical and applied research and discusses relevant issues and concepts. Students will have an opportunity to design and present an instruction or assistance program.

507, Cataloging and Classification I. One of the "classic" courses of library school: "Theory and application of basic principles and concepts of descriptive and subject cataloging; emphasis on interpreting catalog entries and making a catalog responsive to the needs of users; provides beginning-level experience with choice of entries, construction of headings, description of monographs (and, to a lesser extent, of serial publications and nonprint media), filing codes, Dewey and Library of Congress classification systems, and Library of Congress subject headings."

590PDL, Digital Preservation.  It seems that everyone wanted to take this course this semester....AND it counts for the Special Collections certificate:  "This course examines the current problems with and approaches to digital preservation that are fundamental to the long-term accessibility of digital materials. We will examine the range of current research problems, along with emerging methods and tools, and assess a variety of organizational scenarios to plan and implement a preservation plan. Topics will include basic information theory, preservation of complex digital objects; standards and specifications; sustainability and risk assessment; authenticity, integrity, quality control, and certification; and management of preservation activities. [Elective course for Graduate Certificate in Special Collections]"

I was going to take one more class, but then I realized that due to certain things happening, I had no $.  Let's hope I can take these classes and still eat through May!

Reading Response #4

Please read the rules about posted assignments before reading onward. 

Alenka Šauperl’s and Jerry D. Saye’s article, “Have we made any progress?  Catalogues of the future revisited,” is a follow up of an earlier article they wrote nine years ago.  In the earlier article, they provided suggestions intended to improve a library’s online catalog, in the user’s eyes.  They recommended showing the table of contents of books, and allowing users to comment on books they checked out.  The new article tries to answer the question of whether these catalogs made any progress within the past several years, in terms of user friendliness.  The authors wrote these articles hoping that with these suggestions, library catalogs would “survive ‘Google attack’” (Saye and Šauperl 2009).
    During this semester, Google has come up in our discussions, in both, positive and negative ways.  The projects Google Books and Google Scholar made some of my classmates angry, while others were awed by Google’s ability to spearhead such a movement.  “Google attack” seems even more likely today than it did nine years ago, as much as the search engine still retains its simplicity and popularity.  The word Google even became a verb in 2006, when the Oxford English Dictionary defined it as such (Bylund 2006). 
    As Google grows, how do Saye and Šauperl suggest for library catalogs to improve further?  One area that could use improvement is the results page.  Google lists its results by popularity, something the authors find alarming.  Google Books and Google Scholar lists results by loading date, another poor form of listing results.  The authors pointed to the North Carolina State University Library’s OPAC as an example of a sophisticated results page.  Unlike Google, their results page is listed by subject.  If a large amount of results are retrieved, the user is able to limit the results with various options (Saye and Šauperl 2009).  These intuitive results pages should be inclued in more OPACs, which hopefully will draw more users into adopting them.
    The authors also mentioned the need for OPACs to have multiple interfaces.  In my opinion, OPACs should become “pioneers” in creating different interfaces for specific groups of people.  As professionals, librarians strive to ensure freedom of information for everyone.  To me, this means providing information regardless of a user’s language barrier, disability, or age.  If a library is located in a multilingual neighborhood, the library’s OPAC should have an interface for those local language speakers.  If blind people use the library, screen readers should be installed, and the OPAC should have a voice input/output option.  For children, an OPAC using “Simple English” could make browsing easier.  Google and Amazon do not have such functions, and could bolster OPAC’s popularity with these groups of people.
      In their conclusion, Saye and Šauperl urge librarians not to “take ‘no’ as a satisfactory answer” when OPAC vendors and other librarians resist these changes (2009).  Librarians must demand these new features in their OPACs in order to keep up with the “Google attack” and to ensure the existence of OPACs in the future. 



Bylund, Anders. (2006, July). To Google or Not to Google. Retrieved from  The Motley  Fool website: http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2006/07/05/ to- google-or-not-to-google.aspx
Sauperl, A.; Saye, J. D. (2009). Have we made any progress? Catalogues  of the future  revisited. Journal of Documentation 65(3): 500-514.

(looks back again)

Wait, what?  It's already December?  New Year's resolution- work on blogging  >.<

For those of you in GSLIS, you can check out my group project's website on Oral History.  It's not fancy, but I coded it all by hand so it better work (shakes fist at computer)

	https://courseweb.lis.illinois.edu/~kdurba2/501