LES Authors Panel

September 20th, 2013

Guest post by Nancy M. Foasberg. Nancy is a humanities librarian at CUNY’s Queens College, and most recently published, “Student Reading Practices in Print and Electronic Media,” in the September 2014 issue of College & Research Libraries.  

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The LES Authors Panel took place during the General Membership Forum at ALA Annual 2013 and featured four LES members with a history of successful publication in the field of literature librarianship.

The panelists were:

  • Faye Christenberry, University of Washington
  • Liorah Golomb, University of Oklahoma
  • Harriet Green, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Melissa Van Vuuren, Georgetown University

Jen Stevens of George Mason University moderated.

 

Getting Started with Publishing

At the beginning of the panel, the panelists discussed how they had gotten into publishing.  The need to earn tenure played a role for all the panelists.  Collaboration, connections and timing helped to provide writing opportunities.  Melissa had collaborated with a colleague, Angela Courtney, on an article for The Dictionary of Literary Biography; Angela later encouraged her to contribute to a book series. Faye is a member of the Association of Australian Literary Studies and was able to take over the bibliography for their journal, Antipodes, when the prior author could no longer continue.  Liorah saw a play in London that resonated strongly with her and wrote an article about it. Since the play had not yet opened in the United States, her article was the first and had good exposure and recognition.

 

Choosing Subject Matter

The panelists had very different methods of choosing their subject matter.  Harriet talked about how research interests should fit into the current conversations within a field, choosing subjects that will generate interest while still avoiding those that have been overexposed. Harriet’s tenure process requires her to have a research agenda to which all her publications must relate.  She chose digital humanities as her “umbrella idea” and researched the current issues that were of interest to the field at the time, ultimately choosing to focus on user experience within digital humanities and how digital humanities tools can be improved.  This research is closely related to her day to day work. Liorah, in contrast, writes about whatever is most interesting to her at the moment. She has written about Will Self, women graphic novelists, and postcolonial literatures, among other things. Liorah cites calls for papers and inspiration from colleagues as useful sources for ideas.  However, caution is necessary when accepting calls for papers.  Her book chapter on women graphic novelists was published by MacFarland, which edited it poorly and included chapters of uneven quality.  The book Literary Research and Postcolonial Literatures in English, a collaboration among Liorah, Faye, Angela and Melissa, began as a conversation over beer.  The other four authors had already written volumes in the series, so they suggested dividing up the postcolonial volume. They agreed that it had been challenging to write but very worthwhile.

 

Melissa and Faye focused on the audience for their work. It is important to Melissa that her work and scholarly interests are closely related, so she wants her writing to get out to the user groups that she serves.  Her first book, Literary Research and the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, 1830-1910: Strategies and Sources, was a way to bridge across all her education in a venue not limited to the librarian community.  Another article came from a workshop with faculty in which they designed assignments to help undergraduates understand reference works.  Articles on collaborative efforts such as this can help faculty understand what goes on in the library.  Faye, too, has worked on projects that have appeal outside of librarianship. She was delighted to find that her book had been on a preliminary exam list for a school in England. Because her area of interest is Australian literature, it can often be difficult to access these materials she covers in the US.  She is interested in using her skills to bridge the gap between people doing research in that area.

 

All four panelists agreed that they were happy that they felt passionate about the ideas they pursued.  Melissa pointed out that she always tells students to switch their topics if they are working on something that they hate, because this doesn’t do anyone any favors. Why spend time and effort on something you don’t care about?

 

Logistics of Collaboration

Jen asked about the logistics of collaboration, especially over long distances.  One way to do this is to divide the work into sections.  Harriet and Angela are taking this approach in an article they are writing together, with Harriet merging it into a coherent whole.  When Melissa and Angela wrote the DLB article, Melissa did the biography and Angela wrote the summaries.  The postcolonial book was divided chapter by chapter, an approach facilitated by the consistent structure of books in this series. Each of the chapters in the book stands alone, so having different voices for different chapters was not a problem.  It was still important, though, to look through all the chapters and make sure that they were appropriately cross-referenced and spoke to each other. This is one potential problem with co-authorship.  The other approach to co-authoring is to write together. Liorah described collaborating with Aline Soules on an article which compared the MLAIB across platforms.  Because they were geographically distant, they did most of the research separately, but they wrote the article together in two weeks during which Liorah visited Aline in California.  This article needs to be updated, due to database interfaces and the rise of discovery services, so they will likely write two more articles on the subject together.

 

Timing

Time for writing is a crucial consideration. Harriet has one research day a week, which she is allowed to take off campus.  For those who can’t negotiate this time, she recommends carving out time in the morning and evenings.  Her institution sponsors productivity seminars and invited faculty development expert Kerry Ann Rockquemore to speak to them about techniques for carving out time to write.  Liorah did not have the same release time, but writing was a priority for pre-tenure faculty, who weren’t required to do a lot of service at her institution.  Writing is less urgent now that she has tenure, but she still gives herself deadlines.   Melissa took research leave to work on Literary Research and the Victorian and Edwardian Ages, 1830-1920, and also negotiated for some Fridays off campus. This worked well because it provided a big chunk of time for writing.  Now that she is not on the tenure track, she can still do research and even request some time, but there is less time available and less support generally.  Faye also prefers big chunks of time in which to write. At her institution, librarians are not faculty but can apply for research leave of up to a year, although they only get three months of pay for this.  She used her weekends to work on the book, because she couldn’t get the big chunks of time she needed during the day.  Harriet’s tip from Kerry Ann Rockquemore is to plan well and make the writing as important as everything else you have to do.  If you want writing to be part of your career, you have to give yourself accountability to make sure you spend time on it.

 

Suggestions for New Librarians 

Finally, Jen asked for suggestions for librarians who want to publish. Harriet suggested co-authoring, finding a topic in which you are really interested, and starting small.  Book reviews, BiblioNotes, and guest columns are good places to start.  Liorah has written critical reviews for RUSA and little book reviews like the ones in Library Journal Express.  At her institution, this is considered service rather than publishing, but it is disciplined writing, so it makes good practice.  She recommended caution when choosing partners for collaboration, describing one project which did not happen because her potential writing partner is having difficulty writing and publishing. Melissa recommends joining a writing group or research circle, in order to bounce ideas off of colleagues and talk about the difficult parts of writing.  This can be helpful when trying to get past a roadblock, and hearing other people’s questions can also help shape things. Don’t be afraid to let people read your writing. Harriet has participated in the Library Research Round Table, which pairs authors with each other.  Writing groups including faculty from other fields are also useful, because they provide a different perspective.  Faye mentioned the new ACRL handbook on academic writing for librarians, which looks like a useful volume and includes chapters on many of these topics.

 

Liorah mentioned one more unexpected thing about research. When she surveyed the listserv about poetry collections, she had to undergo an IRB process. Harriet said that at her institution, there is a shorter exemption form and she can use that one because the IRB knows that librarians are just asking questions.

 

During the audience questions, the panelists were asked about their advice for librarians who are not in tenure track positions, especially if people at their institution discourage them from writing.  Melissa recommends framing writing as service because it benefits the profession.  Faye feels that writing helps her to better understand what her faculty go through when they write books.  Harriet recommends collaborating with a faculty member, which makes writing part of the job.  Melissa also suggested writing outside of work hours and mentioned that even with the support that she had, she ended up doing a lot of the work outside of business hours. Most of the articles in the literature are written by librarians on the tenure track, which narrows down who we get to hear from in the profession.

 

There was also a question about editorial feedback.  Liorah talked about the lack of editorial feedback when she worked on the MacFarland book.  This creates problems because revision suggestions are what show that a publication is peer reviewed.  Melissa finds that editorial feedback can vary wildly. With journals, it depends on what the editor tells the reviewers.  As a guest reviewer, she wrote a lot of feedback, because she finds it very helpful. Too often, commentary focuses on things that would get worked out in copyediting, but it’s really more useful to know about the problems with the argument.

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I for one found the discussion very helpful.  Thanks to the panelists for participating!

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Posted in Conferences, Publishing | 1 Comment »

Programming Idea: Mad Libs Poetry

June 10th, 2013

Photo of Julie JudkinsJulie Judkins is a digital curator at the University of Michigan and a poetry advocate. She leads a young adult writing workshop at 826michigan and has taught workshops on erasure poetry and visual storytelling. Visit her blog to view her recent National Poetry Month series, as well as her series on the 2012 Ann Arbor District Library’s Summer Game. Julie is the 2013 ACRL LES & Arts Emerging Leader. She’d love to hear from you. Write to Julie at julieju [at] umich [dot] edu or find her on Twitter @thatklickitat.

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I recently facilitated a poetry workshop hosted by the Wayne State University Press (in conjunction with the Made in Michigan Writers Series’ May 2013 Bus Tour) and the Ann Arbor District Library. If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to incorporate poetry into your library’s programming, holding a Mad Libs Poetry night is a good option. Even participants who don’t consider themselves “poetic” will walk away inspired. Thank you to Gabe Gloden and the WSU Press team for generously sharing their materials with me.

 

Materials Needed:

Handouts: transcripts of original poems, directions

Paper easel pad(s), prepped (see exercise descriptions for directions)

Markers (for easel pad)

Pens (for workshop participants)

Tables and chairs

Scratch paper

 

The Mad Libs Poetry session I attended was held May 18th, 2013, from 11:15 AM – 1:00 PM in the Ann Arbor District Library’s Multi-Purpose Room. The workshop was free to the public and designed for adults and children ages 10 and older. Workshop partners 826michigan and The Historical Society of Michigan set up informational tables outside the Multi-Purpose Room and a local bookstore sold books from the Made in Michigan Writers Series.

 

Following a brief reading by an 826michigan student, the attendees broke into four small groups of eight to ten people. Poets Chris Dombrowski, francine j. harris, M.L. Liebler, and Keith Taylor each led a group of attendees through two Mad Libs exercises: “Mad Libs” and “Reverse Mad Libs.” Each exercise began with a partially finished work and incorporated random words at suggested points to complete the piece. At the end of each exercise, groups shared their poems with the other participants. The workshop concluded with Dombrowski, harris, Liebler, and Taylor reading their original work.

 

Exercise #1: Traditional Mad Lib

 

After workshop participants split into groups, each poet/workshop leader directed their group’s attention to a paper easel pad.

 

This exercise uses two sheets of paper on the easel pad. The top sheet contains the prompts (e.g. name an adjective, name a place) written underneath rectangular cut outs that reveal the page underneath. This allows the scribe to write the chosen Mad Lib word(s) directly into the Mad Lib version, hidden below on the second page. When all of the prompts are completed, the workshop leader flips up the first page, revealing the completed new Mad Lib version on the second page.

 

To prep the paper easel for this exercise:

1) Flip to the second page on a paper easel pad. Write out the Mad Lib version of a poem you’ve selected, in a large font that will be legible from a few feet away. Just leave a blank space where a prompt occurs. You’ll cue participants in the next step so there’s no need to signal what each blank signifies just yet.

 

For example, here is a Mad Lib version of Tennyson’s “The Eagle”:

 

The [Animal]

By [Group Name]

 

He [Verb ending in “s”] the crag with crooked [Body Part];

Close to the sun in [Adjective] [Place],

[Verb — Past tense] with the [Color] world, he [Verb ending in “s”].

 

The [Adjective] sea beneath him [Verb ending in “s”];

He [Verb ending in “s”] from his mountain [Noun — Plural],

And like a [Noun] he [Verb ending in “s”].

 

2) When you’ve finished writing out the Mad Lib, flip back to the first page and carefully cut out a rectangle that corresponds with where each Mad Lib prompt falls. (Flip back and forth between the pages to get the placement right.) Underneath each rectangle, write the cue (e.g. “Noun – Plural”).

3) Have a copy of the original poem on hand so you can read it to participants as a comparison.

 

You’re ready to Mad Lib!

 

Exercise #2: Reverse Mad Libs

 

After the completion of the first exercise, each participant at the workshop I attended received a handout with these instructions:

 

“Now who’s ready for Reverse Mad Libs!?

Now you’re ready for a bigger challenge.  For Reverse Mad Libs, we’ve given you only a handful of the words from a poem, giving you the freedom to fill in the rest of the poem as you see fit.

  • Working as a team, you have fifteen minutes to create a completely original poem using the space provided on your worksheets.
  • The first line of the poem is given… then you fill in the rest, making sure you incorporate the random elements along the way.
  • There is NO word limit, but you must use the given punctuation.
  • Take time to digest the given elements of the poem and let them inspire you.  Do any themes present themselves?  Consider the random elements a creative gift, rather than a burden… and most importantly… don’t worry if your poem makes sense!  It’s a Mad Lib!  The meaning will come out of the absurdity.
  • Your author will be available for questions and inspiration, but they want to hear what you can come up with too!
  • At the end of fifteen minutes, your author will enter your team poem onto the board and you’ll give it a name.
  • When all teams are done, a representative from each team will read their poem aloud.
  • Then we’ll reveal the original poem!”

A second handout was given to the participants at this time. It contained the prompt for a reverse Mad Lib. This example is a version of workshop leader Chris Dombrowski’s “Small Fire in Snow.” Participants completed the poem individually by hand before coming together to re-write the same poem as a group.

However arrogant I had to be

to say ___________, ______ poem __, ____

__________________ branch end

_____________ stabbed ___ hot dogs _____

_____________ ketchup.

___________?  __________ not enough

_______ cook _______, wrapped ____

______ flames, ___________, charring–

__________________ meal,

______, taking ____, ________ bite, ____

_________, _________ hungry.

 

Here is my individual version, to give you an idea of what a completed poem might look like:

 

However arrogant I had to be

to say Molly, who cares how this poem ends, I

am but the branch end

that is stabbed with hot dogs roasted

over a campfire and served with ketchup.

Sounds tasty, right? I think not enough

people cook outdoors, wrapped up in the

flicker of flames, watching their food, charring–

a La Brea meal,

oozing, taking new form, with every bite, cold

then blistering, to answer your hungry.

 

To prep the paper easel:

 

1)   Transcribe Reverse Mad Lib from handout onto a page of the easel. Make sure you’re writing in a legible font that can be read from several feet away.

2)   On another page, write the original version of the poem, to be revealed after the Mad Lib is completed, for comparison.

 

Other ideas:

  • Instead of established poets, invite students enrolled in poetry courses at your University to submit their work to be turned into Mad Libs. Ask the students to participate in a short reading, before or after the Mad Libs event.
  • Instead of poetry, turn a short story or pieces of flash fiction into Mad Libs. If working with a longer piece, split workshop attendees into small groups, with each group in charge of one of the story’s sections. Ask volunteers from each group (or the author, if applicable) to read the story aloud at the end.

 

Additional “Traditional Mad Lib examples” examples:

 

“How doth the little crocodile…” by Lewis Carroll

–

How doth the little [Animal]

by [Your Name]

 

How doth the [Adjective] [Same Animal]

[Verb] his shining tail,
And [Verb ending in “s”] the waters of the [Body of Water]
On every [Color] scale!

How [Adverb] he seems to [Verb]
How [Adverb] spreads his [Plural Noun],
And welcomes [Adjective] [Animal — Plural] in,
With [Adverb] smiling jaws!

 

“Song of the Witches” by William Shakespeare

 

Song of the [Group of People]

by [Group Name]

 

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire [Verb] and [Container] bubble.

Fillet of a [Adjective] snake,

In the [Same Container] [Verb] and bake;

[Body Part] of [Animal] and [Body Part] of frog,

[Body part] of bat and [Body Part] of dog,

[Animal]‘s fork and [Animal]‘s sting,

[Member of Group]‘s leg and [Member of Group]‘s wing,

For a [Noun] of [Adjective] trouble,

Like a [Noun] boil and bubble.

 

“Dandelion” by Hilda Conkling

–

 [Plant]

By [Group Name]

 

O little [Occupation] with the golden [Tool of that Occupation],

What are you [Verb ending in —ing] on my lawn?

You with your [Color] [Tool of that Occupation]

And your [Adjective] [Body Part],

Why do you [Verb] so [Adjective]?

There is only the grass to [Verb]!

 

See also:

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Posted in Just for fun, Programming | 2 Comments »

REBLOG: “Leaves of Graph” by Pete Coco

August 23rd, 2012

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

Originally posted ato ACRLog (http://acrlog.org/2012/08/23/leaves-of-graph/) by Pete Coco. Pete is the Humanities Librarian at Wheaton College in Norton, MA and Managing Editor at Each Moment a Mountain: Archivally Inspired Art and Inquiry.

Note: This post makes heavy use of web content from Google Search and Knowledge Graph. Because this content can vary by user and is subject to change at anytime, this essay uses screenshots instead of linking to live web pages in certain cases. As of the completion of this post, these images continue to match their live counterparts for a user from Providence, RI not logged in to Google services.

This That, Not That That

Early this July, Google unveiled its Knowledge Graph, a semantic reference tool nestled into the top right corner of its search results pages. Google’s video announcing the product makes no risk of understating Knowledge Graph’s potential, but there is a very real innovation behind this tool and it is twofold. For one, Knowledge Graph can distinguish between homonyms and connect related topics. For a clear illustration of this function, consider the distinction one might make between bear and bears. Though the search results page for either query include content related to both grizzlies andquarterbacks, Knowledge Graph knows the difference.

Second, Knowledge Graph purports to contain over 500 million articles. This puts it solidly ahead of Wikipedia, which reports having about 400 million, and lightyears ahead of professionally produced reference tools like Encyclopaedia Brittanica Online, which comprises an apparently piddling 120,000 articles. Combine that almost incomprehensible scope with integration into Google Search, and without much fanfare suddenly the world has its broadest and most prominently placed reference tool.

For years, Google’s search algorithm has been making countless, under-examined choices on behalf of its users about the types of results they should be served. But at its essence, Knowledge Graph presents a big symbolic shift away from (mostly) matching it to web content – content that, per extrinsic indicators, the search algorithm serves up and ranks for relevance – toward the act of openly interpreting the meaning of a search query and making decisions based in that interpretation. Google’s past deviations from the relevance model, when made public, have generally been motivated by legal requirements (such as those surrounding hate speech in Europe or dissent in China) and, more recently, the dictates of profit. Each of these moves has met with controversy.

And yet in the two months since its launch, Knowledge Graph has not been a subject of much commentary at all. This is despite the fact that the shift it represents has big implications that users must account for in their thinking, and can be understood as part of larger shifts the information giant has been making to leverage the reputation earned with Search toward other products.

Librarians and others teaching about internet media have a duty to articulate and problematize these developments. Being in many ways a traditional reference tool, Knowledge Graph presents a unique pedagogic opportunity. Just as it is critical to understand the decisions Google makes on our behalf when we use it to search the web, we must be critically aware of the claim to a newly authoritative, editorial role Google is quietly staking with Knowledge Graph – whether it means to be claiming that role or not.

Perhaps especially if it does not mean to. With interpretation comes great responsibility.

Some Questions

The value of the Knowledge Graph is in its ability to authoritatively parse semantics in a way that provides the user with “knowledge.” Users will use it assuming its ability to do this reliably, or they will not use it at all.

Does Knowledge Graph authoritatively parse semantics?

What is Knowledge Graph’s editorial standard for reliability? What constitutes “knowledge” by this tool’s standard? “Authority”?

What are the consequences for users if the answer to these questions is unclear, unsatisfactory, or both?

What is Google’s responsibility in such a scenario?

He Sings the Body Electric

Consider an example: Walt Whitman. As of this writing, the poet’s entry in Knowledge Graph looks like this (click the image to enlarge):

You might notice the most unlikely claim that Whitman recorded an album called This is the Day. Follow the link and you are brought to a straight, vanilla Google search for this supposed album’s title. The first link in that result list will bring you to a music video on Youtube:

Parsing this mistake might bring one to a second search: “This is the Day Walt Whitman.” The results list generated by that search yield another Youtube video at the top, resolving the confusion: a second, comparably flamboyant Walt Whitman, a choir director from Chicago, has recorded a song by that title.

 

Note the perfect storm of semantic confusion. The string “Walt Whitman” can refer to either a canonical poet or a contemporary gospel choir director while, at the same time, “This is the Day” can refer either to a song by The The or that second, lesser-known Walt Whitman.

Further, “This is the Day” is in both cases a song, not an album.

Knowledge Graph, designed to clarify exactly this sort of semantic confusion, here manages to create and potentially entrench three such confusions at once about a prominent public figure.

Could there be a better band than one called The The to play a role in this story?

Well Yeah

This particular mistake was first noted in mid-July. More than a month later, it still stands.

At this new scale for reference information, we have no way of knowing how many mistakes like this one are contained within Knowledge Graph. Of course it’s fair to assume this is an unusual case, and to Google’s credit, they address this sort of error in the only feasible way they could, with a feedback mechanism that allows users to suggest corrections. (No doubt bringing this mistake the attention of ACRLog’s readers means Walt Whitman’s days as a time-traveling new wave act are numbered.)

Is Knowledge Graph’s mechanism for correcting mistakes adequate? Appropriate?

How many mistakes like this do there need to be to make a critical understanding of Knowledge Graph’s gaps and limitations crucial to even casual use?

Interpreting the Gaps

Many Google searches sampled for this piece do not yield a Knowledge Graph result. Consider an instructive example: “Obama birth certificate.” Surely, there would be no intellectually serious challenge to a Knowledge Graph stub reflecting the evidence-based consensus on this matter. Then again, there might be a very loud one.

Similarly not available in Knowledge Graph are stubs on “evolution,” or “homosexuality.” In each case, it should be noted that Google’s top ranked search results are reliably “reality-based.” Each is happy to defer to Wikipedia.

In other instances, the stub for topics that seem to reach some threshold of complexity and/or controversy defers to “related” stubs in favor of making nuanced editorial decisions. Consider the entries for “climate change” and the “Vietnam war,” here presented in their entirety.

In moments such as these, is it unreasonable to assume that Knowledge Graph is shying away from controversy and nuance? More charitably, we might say that this tool is simply unequipped to deal with controversy and nuance. But given the controversial, nuanced nature of “knowledge,” is this second framing really so charitable?

What responsibility does a reference tool have to engage, explicate or resolve political controversy?

What can a user infer when such a tool refuses to engage with controversy?

What of the users who will not think to make such an inference?

To what extent is ethical editorial judgment reconcilable with the interests of a singularly massive, publicly traded corporation with wide-ranging interests cutting across daily life?

One might answer some version of the above questions with the suggestion that Knowledge Graph avoids controversy because it is programmed only to feature information that meets some high standard of machine-readable verification and/or cross-referencing. The limitation is perhaps logistical, baked into the cake of Knowledge Graph’s methodology, and it doesn’t necessarily limit the tool’s usefulness for certain purposes so long as the user is aware of the boundaries of that usefulness. Perhaps in that way this could be framed as a very familiar sort of challenge, not so different from the one we face with other media, whether it’s cable news or pop-science journalism.

This is all true, so far as it goes. Still, consider an example like the stub for HIV:

There are countless reasons to be uncomfortable with a definition of HIV implicitly bounded by Ryan White on one end and Magic Johnson on the other. So many important aspects of the virus are omitted here – the science of it, for one, but even if Knowledge Graph is primarily focused on biography, there are still important female, queer or non-American experiences of HIV that merit inclusion in any presentation of this topic. This is the sort of stub in Knowledge Graph that probably deserves to be controversial.

What portion of useful knowledge cannot – and never will – bend to a machine-readable standard or methodology?

Ironically, it is Wikipedia that, for all the controversy it has generated over the years, provides a rigorous, deeply satisfactory answer to the same problem: a transparent governance structure guided in specific instances by ethical principle and human judgment. This has more or less been the traditional mechanism for reference tools, and it works pretty well (at least up to a certain scale). Even more fundamental, length constraints on Wikipedia are forgiving, and articles regularly plumb nuance and controversy. Similarly, a semantic engine like Wolfram Alpha successfully negotiates this problem by focusing on the sorts of quantitative information that isn’t likely to generate so much political controversy. The demographics of its user-base probably help too.

Of course, Google’s problem here is that it searches everything for every purpose. People use it everyday to arbitrate contested facts. Many users assume that Google is programmatically neutral on questions of content itself, intervening only to organize results for their relevance to our questions; Google, then, has no responsibility for the content itself. This assumption is itself complicated and, in many ways, was problematic even before the debut of Knowledge Graph. All the same, it is a “brand” that Knowledge Graph will no doubt leverage in a new direction. Many users will intuitively trust this tool and the boundaries of “knowledge” enforced by its limitations and the prerogatives of Google and its corporate actors.

So:

Consider the college freshman faced with all these ambiguities. Let’s assume that she knows not to trust everything she reads on the internet. She has perhaps even learned this lesson too well, forfeiting contextual, critical judgment of individual sources in favor of a general avoidance of internet sources. Understandably, she might be stubbornly loyal to the internet sources that she does trust.

Trading on the reputation and cultural primacy of Google search, Knowledge Graph could quickly become a trusted source for this student and others like her. We must use our classrooms to provide this student with the critical engagement of her professors, librarians and peers on tools like this one and the ways in which we can use them to critically examine the gaps so common in conventional wisdom. Of course Knowledge Graph has a tremendous amount of potential value, much of which can only proceed from a critical understanding of its limitations.

How would this student answer any of the above questions?

Without pedagogical intervention, would she even think to ask them?

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

LES and Related Meeting Schedule for Annual 2012 (Anaheim)

May 17th, 2012

About Liorah Golomb

Are you planning to come to Anaheim for ALA this June? Whether you are a member of LES or simply interested in what we’re doing, you are invited to come to LES meetings, discussion groups, and conference program. Below is a schedule along with a brief explanation of each event’s purpose. We hope to see you in June!

Friday, June 22

9:00 a.m.–4:00.pm. – Anaheim Convention Center-208B

Pre-Conference Workshop: Digital Humanities in Theory and Practice: Tools and Methods for Librarians

This requires separate registration and fees. It’s selling out very quickly!

Learn how humanities librarians can participate in, create, and lead digital humanities initiatives. In addition to introducing theories and practices that characterize the digital humanities, explore several examples of how librarians currently lead library digitization initiatives, collaborate on faculty projects, and participate in national grant-funded efforts. Investigate project management complexities, digital humanities’ impact on research collections, humanities librarians’ work with faculty to manage their digital humanities research, and digital humanities’ role in scholarly communications.

Saturday, June 23

8:00-10:00 a.m. – Disneyland Hotel-North Exhibit Hall Room IJ

Executive Meeting I

Meeting of the officers and committee chairs of the Literatures in English Section of ACRL. Open, but it’s a business meeting and probably not of interest to the general public.

10:30-12:00 p.m. – Disneyland Hotel-North Exhibit Hall Room DE

MLA IB in Academic Libraries Discussion Group

Not an LES meeting, but of interest to many members. Get updates on the state of the MLA International Bibliography from vendors and MLA representatives.

1:30-3:30 p.m. – Hilton Anaheim-Palos Verdes Room

Fair Use, Intellectual Property, and New Media

As libraries continue to acquire digital content (books, films, websites, and other media), they face an increasing demand both to adhere to relevant intellectual property laws, and to open up materials for teaching and research purposes. This session will feature a panel of professors, lawyers, and librarians to discuss how librarians can assert fair use rights and understand the complex range of issues concerning intellectual property rights over new media materials.

4:00-5:30 p.m. – Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel-Pacific Ballroom B

New Members Discussion Group & General Membership Forum

Discussions pertaining to the role of the literature librarian, and an opportunity to connect new literature librarians with each other and seniors in the field.

5:30-7:00 p.m.– (Location TBA. Watch LES-L for more details.)

LES Social Hour

Sunday, June 24

10:30-12:00 p.m. – Disneyland Hotel-Disneyland Grand Ballroom North

Collections and Reference Discussion Groups Combined Meeting

LES Collections Discussion Group and Reference Discussion Group meet to discuss current topics of interest to practicing literature librarians.

4:00-5:30 pm – Disneyland Hotel- North Exhibit Hall Room BC

Digital Humanities Discussion Group

A new ACRL discussion group that may interest LES members.

Monday, June 25

8:00-10:00 a.m. – Disneyland Hotel-Castle A&B

All Committees Meeting

Simultaneous meetings of LES committees: Virtual Participation, Strategic Planning, Conference Planning, Membership, and Publications. These are business meetings,but might be of interest to those thinking of joining a committee.

10:30-12:00 p.m. – Disneyland Hotel-Monorail B&C

Executive Meeting II

See description of Executive Meeting I.

 

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Posted in Conferences, General, Uncategorized | No Comments »

National Poetry Month (still)

April 18th, 2012

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

We’re already half way through April, which is (as we all know) National Poetry Month. Here at the University of Michigan, we have a very well regarded graduate program in creative writing, and I’m happy that the library has been enthusiastic about partnering with the English Department to highlight the poetry talents of the faculty. This year, we put on three poetry events in our library gallery space. Two of the events were poetry readings (featuring Keith Taylor, Tung-Hui Hu, Raymond McDaniel, Ken Mikolowski, Linda Gregerson, Laura Kasischke, A. Van Jordan, Benjamin Paloff, and Cody Walker). The other event was a panel discussion on the subject of “poetry and difficulty,” featuring professors Benjamin Paloff, Douglas Trevor, and John Whittier-Ferguson. All of the events were well attended, and they seemed to produce real excitement in the audience. I was pleased to get many people from the university community into the library for this and to cast focused attention on poetry for a few days.

April isn’t over, but our semester is, which means we probably won’t be doing much more for poetry month here this year. My wheels are turning for next year, however. I wonder what others are up to. Do you do special things to observe National Poetry Month at your library? If so, I’m sure many of us would love to hear about it (and maybe steal some of your ideas…).

If you’re still working on Poetry-month-related programming, here are some other interesting idea sources:

* The Academy of American Poets Official National Poetry Month pages
— including this nice list of “30 Ways to Celebrate”
— & including this nice calendar of events
* We’re six days off form “POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY,” and easy guerilla-style way to celebrate
*The Poetry Foundation also has lots to offer on the subject
* This may not be a very good poem, but it does talk about moustaches:

 

NB: Video of all of three of this years’ MLibrary National Poetry Month events was captured, and it will be posted on the library’s website as soon as I have all of the consent forms back from the participants.

Posted in General, Just for fun, Marketing and Outreach | 1 Comment »

What is a Library Function, or, When should the mission creep? Instruction Controversies.

February 13th, 2012

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

An interesting conversation is brewing on the ILI-I listserv (beginning with this post http://lists.ala.org/sympa/arc/ili-l/2012-02/msg00125.html) over the range and limitations of “library function” and “mission creep.” The specific question pertains to citation instruction and related questions of academic integrity. Although it is pretty well established in the various Information Literacy guidelines (ACRL, AASL, etc.) that knowing how to “use information” is a key student learning outcome (along with knowing how to locate and to evaluate information), there is plenty of room for debate about what “use” means. Thus, the poles of the discussion on ILI-I seem to be: proper citation is a writing issue and therefore outside the scope of library function–on the one side–and–on the other side: proper citation is both a writing issue and a library issue… we need to be collaborating with writing programs insofar as we can.

I’ve refrained from entering the fray up to this point. In part, my feeling is that others have expressed my basic position, which is something like this: we all recognize that the world of information is changing in deep ways and at fairly high velocity, and we also want to foster student learning in whatever forms that world is taking, so “mission creep” might not be the right analogy here. In addition to this, I’d add that I think proper citation and a focus on academic integrity are really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to spheres of overlap between the information literacy goals tacitly operating in most introductory writing course learning outcome statements and potential growth areas in library-based information literacy instruction. In other words, I think “writing issues” are “information issues” and that they are the responsibility of many programs/units (including writing programs and writing centers, obviously, but also libraries). I also think that framing this responsibility as a new burden rather than a new opportunity is unfortunate. I’d rather view it as a way to think about demonstrating our value in new ways. Evolving.

Don’t most of us LES members have a vested interest in seeing library instruction and writing instruction finding fellowship, especially as writing pedagogy trends towards focusing more on They Say, I Say-style engagement with the moves successful writers make and less on the traditional “research paper”? Shouldn’t we be trying to articulate what the library can offer students trying to make successful writing moves, and–anyway–isn’t this a vital question in how to “use” information?

Posted in Changes in the Profession, Instruction | 3 Comments »

ARL Guide to Fair Use for Librarians

January 26th, 2012

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

Yesterday, in a conversation with faculty and graduate students, the question of fair use came up, as it often does. This time the problem had to do with making streaming copies of Iranian and Chinese films available (in their entirety) to students for class. This is a sticky problem of course, because “legitimate” streaming versions of these films are not easy to get. Asynchronous access to streaming films is extremely appealing to faculty, because it doesn’t cut into class time. Currently, there isn’t any easy solution. No news there. Happy to learn, however, that the ARL Guide to Fair Use has just been made available. Hardly filled with solutions, it is nevertheless a nice asset in the ongoing effort to identify what we can and cannot do in good conscience…

 

http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/codefairuse/index.shtml

Posted in Changes in the Profession, Copyright, Electronic Resources | No Comments »

ALA Awards in Cutting Edge Library Services 2012

January 25th, 2012

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

ALA (OITP & LITA) has announed the winners of this year’s Cutting Edge Technology in Library Services awards. These are pretty cool projects. Even though these are very *techie* (in many senses) projects, they hold promise for all kinds of exciting implementations by our users.

Take a look:

 

  • Snap & Go, Contra Costa County Library, Calif. 
    Using QR (Quick Response) codes, Snap & Go serves as an innovative delivery mechanism for traditional library services. From local transit ads to posters to newspaper ads, Contra Costa County is delivering instant access to library materials and services to cardholders with mobile phones. By scanning the code with a reader on their phones, users are directed to downloadable e-books and audiobooks, virtual museum passes, interactive reference service, account and catalog search and readers’ advisory tools. QR codes placed on popular titles take readers to “read-alike” lists created by library staff. Usage of the library’s mobile site has increased 16 percent since Contra Costa implemented Snap & Go. http://guides.ccclib.org/qr
  • Participatory Platforms for Learning, New Canaan High School Library, Conn.
    New Canaan’s Participatory Platforms for Learning program strives to cultivate curiosity throughout the learning community and encourage experimentation with new tools for content creation, publication and participation. The program includes deploying the full complement of Google applications; advocating a culture of intellectual freedom; using Twitter for current events research; and using Facebook groups for students to record their research process and provide feedback to others in the group. The program enmeshes learning and the “real world” to teach students digital citizenship by encouraging them to become responsible information consumers, creators and contributors in the public domain. Their online portal is at: http://nchslibraryannex.blogspot.com/
  • Map Warper Toolkit, New York Public Library, New York
    The Map Warper toolkit allows staff and the public to virtually stretch (or geo-rectify) historical maps onto a digital model of the world à la Google Maps or OpenStreetMap, transforming old atlases into interactive spatial environments. Participants also can go deeper, tracing and transcribing specific map features into a growing public database. The project adds to the historical and scholarly record while engaging library patrons in building digital resources. The service is managed by the NYPL Labs group, developed in collaboration with EntropyFree, an open source geospatial software firm. The tools are in the process of being published to an open code repository for other libraries, scholars and cultural heritage workers to use and build upon. http://maps.nypl.org
  • Gimme Engine, Scottsdale Public Library, Ariz.
    The Gimme Engine mobile website helps customers find a great book to read based on a library staffer’s recommendation and review. Gimme combines library catalog MARC data, content enrichment service images and descriptions and library staff book reviews on Goodreads.com to create a unique experience. Gimme, which was developed with monies received from an LSTA grant, was created to meet a need stated by both library and non-library users; they wanted book recommendations powered by library staff. The Gimme engine is a creative solution to meet these customer needs. You can use Gimme for yourself by visiting: http://gimme.scottsdalelibrary.org

(original press release may be found at American Libraries news page).

Posted in Changes in the Profession, Digital Humanities, Electronic Resources | No Comments »

Evaluating Digital Scholarship [PMLA]

December 13th, 2011

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

All of us are faced with new questions about collections in the massively-networked digital age. The Modern Language Association has commissioned a special batch of articles on the subject of “Evaluating Digital Scholarship,” which is freely accessible on the PMLA site.

 

Susan Schreibman, the editor of the section, has this to say:

The series is introduced by Susan Schreibman, Laura Mandell, and Stephen Olsen, with contributions by  Steve Anderson and Tara McPherson (‘Engaging Digital Scholarship: Thoughts on Evaluating Multimedia Scholarship’), Geoffrey Rockwell  (‘Engaging Digital Scholarship: Thoughts on Evaluating Multimedia Scholarship’), Bethany Nowviskie (‘Where Credit Is Due: Preconditions for the Evaluation of Collaborative Digital Scholarship’), Jerome McGann (‘On Creating a Usable Future’), and Katheleen Fitzpatrick (‘Peer Review, Judgment, and Reading’).

These articles provide an important intervention as digital scholarship and digital scholarly methods and practices are becoming more mainstreamed into traditional academic work

For the most part, these pieces are not directly addressed to the questions and concerns of library collections, but the entire conversation is highly relevant for us, and I hope we might begin some conversation here regarding that relevance.

 

 

Posted in Changes in the Profession, Collection Development, Digital Humanities, Electronic Resources, Publishing, Scholarship | No Comments »

Publishing in Literary Studies

November 23rd, 2011

About Aaron McCollough

English Literature Librarian, University of Michigan

This week Inside Higher Ed picked up the story of a report that is likely to aggravate many of the faculty members we serve as English Literature specialists. Does it have any resonance for us as librarians?

Emory University Professor Mark Bauerlein’s paper was produced by the Center for College Affordability and co-hosted by the Cato institute (a Libertarian think tank). Bauerlein is also the author of a book called The Dumbest Generation, about new media’s degrading effects on education, attention span, etc. So, it is fairly safe to suspect some bias underlying his audit of contemporary literary scholarship.

Here’s a short snippet from the Inside Higher Ed piece (citing Bauerlein):

“Many professors enjoy their work, finding it rewarding and helpful to their other professional duties, but if their books and essays do not find readers sufficient to justify the effort, the publication mandate falls short of its rationale, namely, to promote scholarly communication and the advancement of knowledge,” Bauerlein wrote in the report. “To put it bluntly, universities ask English professors to labor upon projects of little value to others, incurring significant opportunity costs.”

Bauerlein is no doubt right that something is not working quite the way it should be in scholarly publishing in the humanities. I’ll be the first to agree that tying academic credentialing to monograph and article publication has gotten out of control. As a librarian, too, I sometimes have to think long and hard about buying monographs that are costly but seem narrowly focused in a way I can’t believe will be useful to others. But none of this seems to be his real focus. He claims to be advocating for more emphasis on teaching, which sounds fine, but is this kind of report really likely to lead administrators to change credentialing criteria or is it likely to help them justify hiring fewer permanent faculty?

Further, as the Inside Higher ed notes, tracking citations proves little about impact when studying the Humanities. After all, Humanism tends to privilege individuality over consensus, persuasion over precedent.

 

What do you think? Does the kind of efficiency Bauerlein seems to be describing come at a cost that is justifiable or not? Are there other, better ways to address the problem he identifies? Are there problems with academic publishing in the field that he is overlooking (or other dynamics in the profession he should be taking into account)?

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

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