>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!
>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.
>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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>Academia.edu’s Journal List
>This article was brought to my attention today, and it discusses the creation of Academia.edu’s list of journals. For those who’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably remember my earlier post where I mention it as a great resource for new LIS students. For those who haven’t read the blog for that long, Academia.edu is a site I love because it’s a social networking site for academics: I love getting to connect with folks all over the world, and I wouldn’t have found them otherwise!
The reason folks are excited about Academia.edu’s journal list is that you can follow journals online and receive updates, but you also benefit from the social component (i.e. what are my fellow students/professors reading to stay current?) The article mentions another site (ticTocs) that allows you to search journals in a similar way, although I don’t have any experience with it.
I just went through and added a smattering of journals to my list (you can view them here), and I was pretty impressed by the selection. However, there was one big discrepancy I noticed, and that was a lack of Open Access journals! I’m sure there are some OA journals in the list (although I didn’t have the time to go through all of the thousands of entries to verify that), but I could not find my favorites, like First Monday, B Sides, and Library Student Journal. I love that they are open to suggestions, however, and so I hit the ‘suggest a new journal’ button and fired away! As OA becomes a more accepted venue for scholarly publication, I’m excited to see these journals get more recognition and more followers! If you don’t have an Academia.edu account, I would definitely recommend getting one. Once you do, just go to this link and start following! And make sure to suggest journals you don’t see, I bet they would appreciate having an even more comprehensive list!
>My World War I Research is Finished!
>Tomorrow everyone on this side of the pond will be tucking in to large plates of food in celebration of Thanksgiving. That holiday came a day early for me when I (finally!) finished writing my paper on World War I-era Iowa libraries. The project evolved a lot from when I started about a year ago, and I ended up with a paper that is about 190 pages long (including tables, bibliography, etc.) I learned a lot about my writing style and about how I work best, and I think a few of those things might be good to jot down here for my fellow students (in LIS programs or otherwise) who are undertaking large writing projects:
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>Moving Between Genres: The Challenges and Rewards of Interdisciplinary Blogging
>In my last post, I talked a bit about my other blog, and the final project of which it is a part. Since I am building steam on writing for that blog, I wanted to write this post about what I have learned so far blogging both as a historian and as a LIS student. I would love to hear what experience other writers have in working between disciplines, so please add your thoughts to the comments!
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>Guest Post at The Infornado!
>Hello readers!
I thought you all might be interested to know about my guest post on Micah Vandegrift’s blog, The Infornado. He’s been doing a great series where LIS students contribute their thoughts on the topic ‘what I learned in library school.’ These posts are such a wonderful resource for new students (or not-so-new ones too!) as they help provide a variety of perspectives from a group of writers with diverse backgrounds, and give great information on how others have found their niche in their programs. Micah’s other posts are great too–he has some wonderful insights on current trends in LIS, and also created this post, which is a wonderful comparison of all the different blogging platforms that are big right now (I learned a lot from it!)
>Copyright Criminals
>Last night a group of SLIS students went to see Copyright Criminals, which was absolutely amazing, followed by a Q&A with Kembrew McLeod, an event that was part of the Iowa City Public Library’s Intellectual Freedom Festival. I am so excited about this film that I wanted to write a bit here. First of all, I highly recommend that folks should look at the website and watch the film. It’s very well done, and it calls into question our current copyright laws by looking at the history of sampling in music.
>LIS Classroom Resources on Censorship
>In honor of ALA’s Qu’ran reading in protest of the book burning that’s scheduled for September 11, I thought I would post a couple things to spark discussion about censorship in the U.S.
The ALA announcement for the reading can be found here. It gives you an insight into why the ALA decided upon the reading, and why ALA members think it’s important.
>Free Resources for Students and Researchers
>There are a ton of great free resources out there both for students and for researchers, and I wanted to share some that I’ve found before the semester kicks into high gear. I know I’ve mentioned some of these resources before, but I’ve come across so many more that it’s good to keep the list updated. If you know of anything that I missed, please include it–I’d love to make as complete a list as possible!
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Julia C. Skinner 