bunnyjadwiga: (Default)
A faculty member in a metro area commented that they made their students include one resource in their paper bibliographies that wasn't online. I'm reposting my response:

We've had to beg our professors to REMOVE this requirement from their
papers-- we subscribe to 20,000-30,000 journals online through
electronic journal services and only about 4,000 in print, and we were
having to teach the students BAD research habits to find anything
related to their papers in our print journals. Bigger institutions
with larger research collections don't have this problem yet, but I
can see it coming down the pike.

Instead, we teach the students the difference between the subscription
services, with subject indexing, that we have, and the 'open web' and
it's worked out so far-- but that's because we catch them twice in
their first year of college. Changes in the "first year experience"
coming down *our* pike may mess that up.

If I could do one thing as a professional researcher in the SCA, I
would get SCAdians to find out what electronic resources their local
libraries offer, and have them USE those resources, and demand more.
Also, I run into a lot of people who think that once a journal is
electronic it's no longer accessible to non-academics-- but most small
colleges will let you come in and use a public-use computer in the
library to access their electronic journals.

A while back I ran into someone from the Midrealm who was allegedly
marked down for using "Early English Books Online" (a subscription
service) for her herbal research, because it was "Online." I couldn't
decide whether to laugh or cry-- these are scanned microfilms of
multiple versions of extant printed books from the Early printed books
period (1473 to 1700), so it was the closest to primary sources you
could get. In some cases, it's the ONLY way to get access to those
resources as they haven't been reprinted and are in closed special
collections. Only rather rich libraries have access to it, and it's
worth tracking down any libraries in your area that have it that will
let you use it on their computers.
bunnyjadwiga: (Default)
Wyoming Libraries have mounted a library publicity campaign which includes an image based on the MudFlap Girl:
http://www.wyominglibraries.org/images/mudflap-girl-bookmark.jpg

I LOVE the Library Mudflap Girl. However, many female (and some male) librarians are deeply offended by her. I can see their point. But I still think she's great and I want a silhouette of her on my car!

She's also being used to promote the statewide subscription to Chilton's.

I also love some of their other ads...
http://www.wyominglibraries.org/images/WYL-Horse.jpg
and the Cold Dead Fingers bumper sticker:
http://www.wyominglibraries.org/rotating/Cold-dead-fingers-bookmark.jpg
Which I consider the ultimate retort to certain pressure groups...

Oh, and an MP3 for Liam: Wicked Elk Hunt

There's a postmodernist term for taking a symbol of the dominant paradigm and twisting it to serve your own ends. I *think* this is what this is doing, but I'm a third wave feminist and NOT a postmodernist at all....?
bunnyjadwiga: (Bunny)
George Needham of the OCLC "It's All Good" blog has written a lovely satire as a result of Michael Gorman's "revenge of the Blog People": http://scanblog.blogspot.com/2005/02/revenge-of-codex-people.html
(Thanks to Roy Tennant for posting on Web4Lib)
bunnyjadwiga: (Bunny)
Ok, as Librarians, we've all had occasions when our deans, directors or what-have-you administrative supervisor says something that makes us want to hide in the basement behind the 020s until everyone forgets.

But Michael Gorman has done it for the whole profession. His "Revenge of the Blog People" editorial in proves that narrowminded, longwinded professionals can get quite poorly-thought-out things through the printed press. Now, the original article that started the debate, "Google and God's Mind," was a little problematic but well within the restraints of scholarly debate about something that is in the news. (As well as pointing out the well-known issues with relying on electronic media, Gorman complained that Google Print would be problematic because it would provide only snippets of information from books, and allow books to be read and used non-sequentially.)

Some net-addicts with blogs reacted negatively to criticism of Google Print. In his place, I would regard this as a good sign that someone outside the library press had read his work. But the hapless and thin-skinned Gorman decided to dump vitriol on those who blogged criticisms of his statements. He did so in an editorial in LJ, using a broad-brush in a way that was thoroughly unprofessional. He appeared to characterize all blog writers as 'unpublishable' and otherwise unintelligent Blog People. Many librarians with blogs took offense, as well they should. *

Were Mr. Gorman merely the Dean of the Libraries at a school in California, his remarks, which he later characterized as 'satire,' would have been an exercise of the right to make a fool of oneself in print or online as many times as one wishes. However, his publication in LJ was really as the president-elect of the American Library Association.

However, I dispute the idea that a librarian in that position has the right to use LJ, or any other library publication for that matter, as a platform for expressing his personal feelings about people who objected to him. The editors of LJ, and Gorman himself, should have been able to clearly see how offended librarians and their patrons would be by his "rant."

Frankly, if Gorman wanted to say something like this-- the best place would be in his personal blog. With a note above it saying, "The opinions below do not represent other librarians or the American Library Association.

* Links to annoyed librarian bloggers who express themselves far better than I:
http://www.libraryplanet.com/2005/02/gorman http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2005/02/michael_gorman_.html
http://freerangelibrarian.com/archives/022405/gorman_on_bloggers.php

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