libraries – Julia C. Skinner

May 23, 2017May 24, 2017

Not so rare any more: Reaching new special collections audiences through unlikely collaborations

I just finished giving a presentation for NFAIS on building expanding audiences and empowering community members through unlikely collaborations. The audience, as well as Marcie who was the moderator/cat wrangler/problem solver, were all fantastic and I had a great time chatting with them. I wanted to offer a few highlights from the talk for folks who weren’t able to attend but who are thinking about their own outreach programs.

NB: I focused on rare books since that’s the area I work in, BUT these guidelines could be used for outreach with all sorts of artifacts across many cultural heritage institutions.

Why talk about this? Because outreach is critical for increased access and community empowerment

Special collections historically very exclusive
- Often limited to those doing research or in academic/special library settings
- Historically excludes those without access to education and other resources
- Often we do not reach beyond these walls, meaning most potential visitors are not aware of what we have to offer.
Physical access is also an issue (e.g. can someone get to campus? Do they need a certain ID or enrollment/employment status to use your services?)
Even for those who have access, perceived access may be a totally different matter. Special collections often feel intimidating for the uninitiated, and concerns about whether one has access or what expectations are in a special collections environment can overshadow the desire to engage with collections and programs.

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May 23, 2015

Interview with Library as Incubator Project

A few days ago, the Library as Incubator Project posted an interview they did with me about earlier this month. I had a lot of fun doing the interview, and it also got me to think through how my art informs my practice as a librarian (and vice versa). Check it out!

April 24, 2013

Continuing Education Courses at Library Juice Academy

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be teaching two courses for Library Juice Academy this August (August 1st-28th). If you’re not familiar with LJA, they provide continuing education courses for information professionals. There are a lot of great courses on there taught by some great folks, and I’m excited to work alongside them. The two classes I’ll be teaching are Social Media for Libraries and The Librarian as Scholar: Taking Part in Scholarly Communication.

If either of these are of interest to you, I would love to have you in my class, and I’d love to hear from you about what kinds of things you would like to learn. For those of you who have expertise in these areas, are there any must-read resources you always refer your students to? I have some already, but the more the merrier! I’m looking forward to teaching the class, and hope to see some of you there!

February 19, 2013

#RainieFSU Highlights

Recently, Lee Rainie came to visit the good people of SLIS, and gave a great talk on the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s findings, particularly as they relate to libraries. As many of you know, I am an avid conference/colloquium tweeter, and I tend to tweet as a way of taking conference notes. Typically, I can compile those notes in something like Topsy or Storify, but this time around only three of the tweets showed up in either platform, so I’ve gone to my Twitter account, taken some screenshots, and lined them up here so I have an archive of them (and of course so you can read them as well). What do you think of what Rainie had to say? Does it match with your experiences as a librarian and/or researcher?

I’m hoping for better luck with my next round of live tweeting as I attend our Colloquia series (the first one was yesterday). If you’re on Twitter, follow along at #fsuslis13 to see my tweets and join the conversation. Technically, it’s the College of Communication and Information Dean’s colloquium series, but hopefully they’ll forgive me for just including my department in the hashtag! Some incredibly awesome and influential folks from the field will be visiting here and sharing their visions for iSchools in the 21st Century, and I’m very excited to attend the talks and engage with people beyond the walls of SLIS as I learn from the speakers. I plan to compile those tweets too, and we can continue the discussion here when I do!

November 6, 2012November 8, 2012

Rebuilding Libraries After Hurricane Sandy

Update 11/8: So far, we’re up to $80 between all three libraries. I’ll keep updating totals as more people donate!

It has been a little while since I’ve gotten the chance to update here, but there are good reasons (I promise!) that I’ll be announcing to you all soon. The recent hurricane, though, was enough to knock me out of hibernation. It has been so devastating to watch the impact of the storm on communities around the East Coast, and particularly hard to see the devastation in my future home. I am absolutely in love with that area of the country and with all the people I know there, and have been trying to think of ways to really make an impact from afar. I’ve donated to the Red Cross and a few other groups, but the thing that keeps coming to mind is the success we had as a community of professionals in raising funds after the Joplin tornado.

So, this message is a plea to everyone in libraryland (and everyone who loves libraries) to show that kind of support to libraries in need. The staff are working like crazy to keep libraries open and serving as the most effective community spaces possible by providing resources, bringing in trained experts, and giving people a place to charge their phones and get out of the cold. When the library isn’t open, library staff are going mobile to bring resources to their communities.
This is a time when our colleagues are really shining, and showing why their libraries matter to communities. I know this is something we would all do in the same position, because we love our patrons and we love our libraries, and I’m hoping we can all come together from afar and help those communities out. There is an excellent article in American Libraries Direct that helped guide me to some resources, and I’m listing them here, along with opportunities to donate to individual libraries that have listed immediate needs on their websites. If anyone knows of other libraries in impacted communities that are taking donations, please share them in the comments. It would be great to have our library love reach as many people as possible!

Libraries in need of assistance

Queens Library: Several libraries were damaged during the storm, and many materials were lost. These libraries are in some of the hardest-hit areas, which means their patrons need everything from FEMA assistance to outlets to charge their phones. Staff have taken bookmobiles out to bring resources to patrons and are doing some really incredible work, but they need help to rebuild their collections. Their library foundation has a donation page where you can donate using a credit card.

Brooklyn Public Library: BPL has not set up a disaster-specific donations page, but some of the branches sustained damage during Sandy, according to the BPL website. The library has a page for making donations which allows you to specify where you want to gift to go (I would recommend selecting ‘where it is most needed.’) If anyone knows of additional funding needs for BPL (or a recovery-specific funding site), please let me know.

New Jersey Libraries: The New Jersey Library Association has set up a donation page to raise funds for libraries around the state that were damaged during the storm. Like the other libraries, these folks are working hard to help communities recover, and need assistance as they begin to rebuild.

I’ve donated to each of these sites, and I hope you’ll join me today in helping out our colleagues in need. Our field is filled with passionate and awesome professionals, and I’m looking forward to seeing that in action! Once you donate, you can tweet your amount using the hashtag #sandylibraries, leave it in the comments on this post, or send me an e-mail with the amount (JuliaCSkinner at gmail dot com). I’ll update the totals as I get them in! Remember, any amount (even $5) helps–and enough small donations really add up. Thanks everyone!

Update 11/8: Reader-Suggested Sites

American Library Association site for how to help U.S. libraries after a disaster.

November 16, 2011

Sexual Assault Survivors and Libraries-Can We Do More?

I have been spending this semester writing research methods papers on how we can study the information seeking behavior/needs of sexual assault survivors and/or the experience of survivors in the library. I am excited that I get to turn one of these (and hopefully more than one) into an actual study this summer, but it’s made me very aware of how little there is out there dealing with this issue. There aren’t any studies that look at survivors’ needs or experiences, and only one that discusses the issue at all. Since I won’t be doing my research until this summer, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share a few thoughts I’ve been having about some simple ways we could improve library services now. I’ve taken these from my own experiences of looking for information and interacting with people during the earlier stages of my healing process, and from my understanding of research in social sciences as a whole. I would really love to hear from practitioners too–what are you doing at your library? What do you want to do? What barriers do you see to implementing changes (if any)? So here are my ideas, add your thoughts in the comments!

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September 26, 2011October 1, 2011

Funding Opportunities-Week of September 25

It’s time for my third installment of this funding opportunities post. Last week’s post was updated a couple times during the week, and I hope to keep doing that each week as more information about funding trickles in. I’ve decided to try something different this week and divide things up by discipline (where applicable.) Some of the awards are across disciplines, so those I’m still going to categorize by professional position. I’d like input on how it’s most helpful to lay these things out, so if you have ideas please share! Happy hunting!

Library and Information Studies:
Melvil Dewey Medal: An award for leadership in LIS in the areas Dewey was most interested in.
Beatrice E. Griggs scholarship: For an MLS student pursuing a school library media certificate.
Zora Neale Hurston Award: For those who help promote African-American literature and serve diverse populations.
Charlie Robinson Award: Given to a public library director who, over a 7 year period, has taken risks and been an innovator.
Louis Shores award: For excellence in reviewing books and other media.
Baker & Taylor/YALSA Conference Grants: For first-time conference attendance for those who work directly with young adults.
Isadora Gilbert Mudge award: For distinguished contributions to reference librarianship.
Ken Haycock Award: For promoting appreciation of the field of librarianship.
Genealogical Publishing Company Award: For librarians who have worked to improve genealogical services.
Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award: For someone who has made a significant contribution to instruction in a college/research library.
Routledge Distance Learning Librarianship Award: For those working in distance learning; helps cover costs to attend ALA Annual conference.
Paul Howard Award for Courage: For an LIS professional who displays great courage to further the interests of their institution or field.

Political Science:
CSDP Visiting Scholars: For a fellowship at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics.

History/American Studies:
The Roosevelt Institute: Includes a list of awards, including grants-in-aid for those studying the Roosevelt years.
Anschutz Fellowship: For someone within or outside of academia to teach American Studies an participate in life at Princeton.
Venetian Research Program publication assistance: For those who have had a work accepted for publication on the subject of Venetian history and culture.
American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Funding opportunities for those studying Classics, History, and Greek Law to conduct research in Athens.
World War One Digital Content Prioritization (UK): In advance of the 100th anniversary of the conflict, this is for professionals and organizations involved in preserving WWI history in digital form.
Leo Baeck Institute DAAD Fellowship: To study the history and culture of German-speaking Jews.

Science and Technology:
ITEEA Academy of Fellows: For the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association.
F-Paris Computer Services Contract (France): Call for proposals to develop training in computer services.
Lancaster University Marie Curie Fellowships: For health services-related interfaces.

Internships/Fellowships:
JASWDC Internships: For Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C.
Postdoctoral Fellowships for Faculty Diversity: Offered through several partner schools.
The Society of the Cincinnati: Fellowships and internships for the library and museum.
Barra PostDoctoral Fellowship: For early (pre-1850) American studies. Includes stipend, insurance, and office space. Deadline November 1st.

June 16, 2011June 16, 2011

Book Review: Critical Library Instruction

Maria Accardi, Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier. Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods, 2009, Library Juice Press: Duluth, MN.

Visit the publisher’s website here: http://libraryjuicepress.com/

I got a review copy of this book a while back (thank you, Rory Litwin!) and have been reading this book in spurts for the last month. It doesn’t normally take me that long to read a book, but I found myself spending so much time highlighting and making notes in the book that it took me several hours to read each chapter (also, graduation and such has made life busy.) I requested a copy hoping to review it from the perspective of someone who is about to begin instructing students, and during the time I read the book I was impressed by how much I could translate the findings from the book into the classroom, and how much positive feedback I heard about the book when I mentioned that I was reviewing it.

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June 6, 2011June 17, 2011

#AppleDRM

This morning, my partner and I were chatting when he mentioned a new patent Apple applied for to disable recording functions on their devices at concerts and theaters. This article gives you a brief overview. I had been waffling between upgrading to a Droid or an iPhone, but after reading this I may have my decision made for me! The patent is still being processed, from what I understand, and no announcement has yet been made as to whether it will be included on future iterations of the iPhone, but the fact that it was applied for raises some important issues for me. I posted a link to the article in a tweet, and in minutes had a number of retweets and responses that sparked a vibrant discussion about DRM (digital rights management) in a number of devices and what our role is in encouraging producers (like Apple) to reduce restrictions.

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