I’m beyond excited to announce that I’ll be serving as the new Editor for the Fine Press Book Association’s journal, Parenthesis. The journal combines theory and practice in a way I really enjoy, and I have some big shoes to fill from the previous editors, who have cultivated a journal known for its strong reviews and compelling writing. Is there something new you want to see in the journal? Something we’re doing already that you love? Let me know in the comments!
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!
My 100th Post, and a Big Announcement!
In honor of my 100th post on this blog, I’d like to share the announcement I just made about the topic of my second book! I asked readers to vote on one of two topics (early modern English desserts or gardening practices), and I would work on modernizing the one they chose. Well, readers responded, and they chose…
Gardening!
Thanks to everyone who voted–I’m thrilled to start working on it! You can read the full announcement here.
Exciting Happenings
A quick post to share a few exciting things:
My brief article on Modernizing Markham has been published in this issue of the Indiana Food Review. More exciting news about that project to come later.
I’ve joined the circus! Seriously! We have a circus class here, where I’ll get to learn the different performance and rigging activities I could do. I’m hoping I’ll find one I really love so that I can audition for the regular circus and get to perform while I’m here. If you want to check out the FSU Circus, go here.
Ad-Free Zone
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. About 3 weeks, to be exact. Once the dust settles from some recent crises, I *promise* you’ll get more funding posts, discussions of libraryland, etc. In the meantime, I had an interesting experience today that I wanted to share and get some feedback from my readers.
Someone (for courtesy’s sake, they will remain anonymous) e-mailed me today asking whether they could pay me to put ‘relevant’ links up in one of my funding posts and pay me to do so. I’ve never gotten any requests for anything like this before (honestly, I’ve never thought I had a big enough reader base for any advertiser to bug me), but it gave me a chance to put in writing why I don’t want advertising on my blog. I wanted to share the text of our exchange here to see if any of you have had a similar experience and how you responded? A couple things to note–the person who wrote the e-mail was very nice and respectful, and I’m sure just doing his/her job, and not at all pushy which I really appreciate. Also, when I say ‘online colleges’ in my response, I am referring to certain online schools that are very aggressive about advertising, not about all online education programs (I T.A. for online courses!) So, here’s the text:
Hi Julia,
I just finished reading your post , ‘Funding Opportunities, Week of November 27’ and really enjoyed it! I would like to offer to place a few relevant links into the post that would complement your original writing. For this, you’ll be paid via PayPal. These links would direct to resources on education and topics related to the theme of your site. If this sounds at all like something you might like to be a part of kindly let me know. I will be happy to answer any concerns you may have 🙂
Thanks
_________
Hi _____,
I’m glad you enjoyed my post! I appreciate your offer, but I don’t feel like it does any services to my readers to offer resources I’ve carefully selected and then provide them with other content that serves the purpose of making money for a textbook company/online college/etc. I’ve purposefully kept my blog free of all advertising particularly because I don’t agree with the idea of compromising the quality of content of the focus of my work in the interest of money. Thanks again for the offer, but my concerns with compromising quality far outweigh any benefits I might receive from sharing other links.
Best,
Julia
******
Did I handle this well? What would you have added? What are your thoughts about the impact of advertising on the content of a site?
I am very grateful that the writer was a very friendly person, and I’m also glad I got the chance to write down a few thoughts. I’d like to expand on them at some point, but however my ideas are refined I think it’s safe to say that I’ll never compromise the content of my site or mis-direct readers for the sake of a few advertising dollars.
Staying Informed, One Listserv at a Time
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything besides funding updates (grad school will do that to you!) but I have been wanting to post something on listservs for a while. I’m of the opinion that listservs are a stellar way to stay informed about the field, learn about funding and conferences, and more. In fact, several of the publications I’ve been involved in were ones I learned about through listservs. This is especially great for students and new professionals, who are still feeling out their place in the field and want to learn from others. They are also great for anyone who wants to keep up to date on funding opportunities and calls for papers (two of my big focuses right now!)
Below is my “list of lists”–websites that you can go to and sign up for listservs that interest you. Since my focus is in LIS, Social Sciences, and the Humanities, that’s where I have focused my attention–if you know of a similar site I haven’t included, feel free to add it!
ALA Mailing List Service: All the listservs run through the American Library Association. I am an ALA member, but it looks like non-members can sign up too. Just follow the instructions when you hit ‘subscribe.’ After you complete the steps the first time, your e-mail address will be subscribed to other lists with one click.
H-Net Discussion Networks: H-Net (Humanities and Social Sciences online) is an awesome resource. They have calls for participation, conference alerts, and a heaping helping of listservs spanning just about every interest. By adding yourself to the lists you are most interested in, you’ll get updates from H-Net (which is very extensive and daunting to browse through) that are relevant to your chosen topics.
Conference Alerts: Most people I know haven’t heard of this one, which makes me feel like I am sharing some great secret with them. This site is incredible–it lists conferences from all over the world and across disciplines. You can search by country or topic. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts that you can customize to include whatever topics you want and whatever countries you want (I have mine set to tell me about conferences in all countries.) Then you’ll get occasional e-mails with a list of upcoming conferences that meet your criteria. I like to browse the list not only to find what conferences I might attend, but also to see if any of my current projects might fit into a call for papers.
WikiCFP: A resource for calls for papers in science and technology. You can sign up for an account, and create your own list of topics you want CFPs for. They also alert followers to new CFPs on Twitter (@WikiCFP.)
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.
>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!
Continue reading “>The Next Phase of Library History Research”
>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.
>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!
Julia C. Skinner 