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>The Librarian as Poet

>I’m working on creating some pretty exciting appendices for my book manuscript at the moment, and the joy of this is getting to review the documents I based my research on so that I can share some of them with readers. In the process, I found this snippet from Grace D. Rose, librarian of Davenport Public Library:

Opening upon a world at war and our country devoting every effort to a vigorous prosecution of her part in the conflict, and closing with the guns at rest and a hopeful looking forward to permanent peace, 1918 was a most eventful year. (Source: Davenport PL 1918 Annual Report, pg 7).
What a way to open the Report of the Librarian! Some of you might remember my post on Helen McRaith of Iowa City, and her beautiful, flowery language when discussing the role of the library in modern life. I love that this sort of beautiful language was being employed in something as seemingly mundane as an annual report–Rose’s writing sounds almost like the opening of a tense piece of homefront fiction. I haven’t spent as much time with more recent annual reports, but it definitely makes me wonder if we’re using equally compelling language to tell our libraries’ stories today.
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>Diversity in LIS Education

>A couple things have happened lately that have caused me to spend some serious time contemplating diversity issues in LIS. The first was a post made on a professional listserv I follow. One individual shared a letter she had written to Iowa legislators about a number of issues, including library funding. She mentioned that the letter included other issues, but that she shared it on the list for those who were struggling to find words when talking to elected officials about libraries. For those of you who aren’t from Iowa, you may or may not know that a lot of people here are very divided at the moment over the issue of gay marriage, and the fact that this woman’s letter included mention of her support for gay marriage was upsetting to some other list members.
One member’s response was basically, “if she wants to go against what THE BIBLE says, that’s her right, but keep libraries out of it.” I tend to stay away from angry listserv discussions (people get riled up about everything from tuna fish to book boards on the lists I follow, and most of the time I just sigh and delete the thread), but this instance was one where I felt compelled to respond and say that the list included non-Christian individuals, and that not only did that response make them uncomfortable, it took time and attention away from the library issues the list was created to discuss. I did not mention my stance on gay marriage in the hopes that I could diffuse things rather than add my own anger to the discussion (but, for the record, I’m an ardent supporter!) I also wanted to avoid belittling the author’s views, because she has most likely formed them with as much care as I have formed my own.

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>Analytics and You

>Stephen Abram just put this post on his awesome Lighthouse blog, and I wanted to pass it along to my readers. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again: if you aren’t following his blog, you should be. And follow him on Twitter too (@sabram)–there really are few people out there who post so frequently on so many timely topics that impact wide portions of the LIS field. I *love* tracking my stats, and Topsy seems like another great tool to add to the arsenal. I just checked my Twitter mentions, and it allowed me to see what days were most active over the last two weeks (which, if checked regularly, can help me see what posts are having the greatest impact and are being shared the most).
Why should you care about keeping track of your stats? As an LIS student or new professional, it’s a good way to know what social media actions are drawing attention and thus to be able to use social media tools more effectively. It also helps you manage your online presence (for a really great post about ‘listening’ in social media, see Dierdre Reid’s blog!)
Thanks largely to Dierdre’s post, I started keeping tighter track of my online presence through Google Alerts: if you have a Google account, I recommend setting them up. I set up alerts for my Twitter accounts, B Sides journal, both my blogs, and my name. I get an email for each one around noon each day, and while many of the links are false positives, there have been quite a few links that ended up being accurate and led me to mentions of myself and my work that I otherwise wouldn’t have known about! I also check my blog stats daily, and I check my Twitter mentions and retweets multiple times a day by making columns for them in my Hootsuite account. I’ll be adding Topsy to this list!
Fellow LIS students, what are you using to track your stats? And what impact has it had on your online presence and your use of social media tools?

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>Check out the #HackLibSchool Blog!

>For LIS students and new professionals, I have glorious news! You might remember me talking about Hack Library School in various posts. Basically it started out as a shared space for everyone to talk about their experiences in LIS programs and give advice to others. Now, it has evolved even further into a collaborative blog! I’m excited that Micah Vandegrift (who came up with the project and has worked really hard to make it awesome) asked if I wanted to be a part of the next stage. The answer, of course, was yes! So, I’ll be blogging here, and I’ll be blogging at the HLS site too! We have some great ideas for topics to discuss and for series of posts (check out Micah’s Two Minute Insights). I’m very excited about today’s post, where each of us talked a little about our experiences in different conference settings. It’s a great read, especially for students getting ready to go to conferences! Is there a topic you want us to cover? Questions you have? Post them here or on the HLS blog!

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>The Next Phase of Library History Research

>For those who read my blog posts a few months ago, you might remember this post where I celebrated the completion of my manuscript on Iowa libraries during World War I. Recently, I heard from a publisher I sent a proposal and sample chapter to, and they made some great suggestions for improvements that they wanted to see before the manuscript was sent through peer review. I wanted to share some thoughts here, but more importantly I wanted to solicit some input from folks who have read my research (or listened to me talk about it). I want my manuscript to be as awesome as possible, and I bet there are some great suggestions out there!

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>Thank you, Dr. Munsterberg

>Being a student of history is a lot of fun because you get to “meet” many interesting characters. Not only do you get to learn a lot about these folks, but sometimes I’ve found that I relate to them and this helps me better understand what it was like to live in the time period(s) I’m looking at. Relating to a historical figure also helps me look at current events differently by placing what happens now in the context of what happened then (and how that individual and the folks around them reacted).

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>Some Great Sites for Book Artists

>Readers, this has been a wonderful week or so for serendipity in my life. I have stumbled upon a lot of great resources (some recent, some that I’ve rediscovered while transferring my Delicio.us tags to Google) that made me realize my blog posts have been a bit neglectful of the book arts side of my work (and of my book arts friends around the world!) In an attempt to remedy this, let me share with you some of what I’ve been getting excited about in book arts land recently:

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>Keeping the Creativity Alive

>I’ve mentioned before how much I love LIS as a field where folks are creative, active, and engaged with others. I have been so fortunate to connect with people around the country (and some around the world) who challenge and inspire me! One of the first things I tell prospective or new LIS students is what a great potential there is for trying out new ideas in a non-judgmental environment, and most importantly, having a lot of fun while thinking up new ways to look at the field or to make it better. Looking for inspiration? I’ve compiled a short list of folks who have been very inspirational to me and who have challenged me to try new things.

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>The Kindle for LIS Students

>A few months ago, I decided it was time to buy a 3G Kindle after hearing a few classmates rave about how useful it was for reading-heavy courses (and also because I wanted to load it up with fun books too!) I’ve been really impressed with it thus far, and have found it to be a big help for storing and accessing professional reading material. A number of folks have expressed frustration over Kindle’s lack of page numbers, but I like this author’s review because it acknowledges that these are shortcomings of e-readers in general. I’m a little bummed that I can’t easily use my Kindle to store articles for my research that I need to cite page numbers for (that would make me very happy), but I can still use it to read the articles and reference the ‘location’ later to get a general sense for where in the article the information is (it’s a little extra work, but a lot easier than hauling a ton of papers and books with me everywhere I go). The good news is that the lack of page numbers is causing discussion amongst academics, so hopefully new versions of style manuals will address this.
The Kindle, apart from being lightweight and user-friendly, has a few features that I think are especially useful to LIS students. In the ‘experimental’ settings users can find a browser, and with free 3G coverage for the latest generation, I can access what I need even when I’m outside of the range of wifi. I definitely recommend using Kinstant (a Kindle-friendly start page with links to social media, email, and news, with the option to add your own favorites). Even though it isn’t going to provide the same surfing experience you get with a color screen (the screen does take a little longer to load, and is black and white), the browser on the Kindle is actually quite good, especially if you’re only using it for short spurts.
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>What Makes an Artist’s Book?

>I recently had a discussion with a friend (the wonderful Amanda Langdon) about artists’ books when she was trying to describe them for a paper. Talking with her gave me the opportunity to think about how I define an artist’s book (especially since the published literature and the content of library collections gives such broad, and sometimes conflicting, definitions.)

The big thing that I think separates an artist’s book from a commercially-produced book is the interplay between form and content. Broadly defined they’re books created primarily to be ‘art’ rather than to be a book in the traditional sense. They are still functional (ie you should be able to interact with them as books) but they were not created by a publishing house with the sole purpose of showcasing an author’s content-they were created by an artist to showcase both their binding work and the interaction between content and form.

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