That’s “Librarian Squared.” On this evolving website, you’ll find annotated resource lists on academic library assessment, library instruction, and linked open data. Each addition will appear in the blog along with posts on issues, contradictions, etc. that come up while reading (viewing, listening to) these resources. And you never know what else I may throw in.
New resources, news, and announcements will be added every week, so check in often.
I’m very excited to see the great progress you’ve made in such a short time. You’ve only been around since 2010! I wonder if you’re considering any digitization/promotional outreach, beyond the content hubs, along the lines of a mobile digitization unit that can visit the smallest libraries, historical societies, museums and archives to help them bring their treasures–which might only be a few–to the Digital Public Library of America.
These institutions likely lack funding and/or expertise for digitization projects and may not even think it important. But the DPLA should be interested in what may be in these collections. And a visit from DPLA’s mobile scanner could turn into an event that could benefit both DPLA and the library or museum visited. Interested institutions could fill out a simple online application (nothing as formidable as a grant application) to propose their best content for inclusion in the DPLA.
And the social media fun you could have…track the DPLA mobile scanning units online as they collect content from across the country…read blog updates from visits to a wide variety of interesting small archives and historical societies…when will the DPLA come to your town?
Outfit a van and hit the road! Give it some thought.
Your fan, Liz Jardine
This Barbara Kingsolver novel really surprised me. This is the first fiction I’ve read by her, and I’m ready to class her with my favorite Margaret Atwood–she’s that good here. This is story of a fanatical Baptist preacher who has to beg to be sent to Africa as a missionary in the early 60s when the Belgian Congo underwent a troubled transition to independence. His family goes with him, and the tale is told in the distinctive voices of his wife and four daughters. When things get bad in the Congo–beyond his not being able to really convert anyone in the village to Christianity–he won’t leave even when his missionary society deserts him, and his family suffers greatly. Kingsolver handles the multiple narrative voices masterfully, and the Congo seems as real as if I’d been there. I’ll be on the lookout for another novel by this amazing author. Anyone have a suggestion?
Breeding, Marshall. “Linked Data: The Next Big Wave or Another Tech Fad?” Computers in Libraries, April 2013. http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/apr13/Breeding–Linked-Data–The%20Next-Big-Wave-or-Another-Tech-Fad.shtml.
The current state of library technology and its research and use of the semantic web.
Hovious, Amanda. “Infographics: The Intersection Between Information Literacy and Visual Literacy.” Designer Librarian. http://designerlibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/infographics-the-intersection-between-information-literacy-and-visual-literacy/.
After seeing one too many abstracts that paste together sentences from the article in an awkward fashion, I’m posting my brief guidelines to writing an abstract in the probably overly optimistic hope that some scholar may read it and write a little better abstract the next time.
Indexers and abstracters out there, what hints do you have for writing a great abstract? Share them in the comments section!
“An abstract is a brief but accurate representation of the contents of a document”. While it might include words from the document being abstracted, it is primarily a creation of the abstracter and not a mix of quotes from the item’s content.
A well-written abstract is brief, accurate, and clear. There’s no room for redundancy when brevity is the aim. It’s free from jargon which might be unknown to some users. It is usually written using the active–not–passive) voice [Example: “The explorers discovered a route to India” is written in the active voice, whereas “The route to India was discovered by the explorers” is written in the passive voice.] and in complete sentences. It should read smoothly from point to point, not in a fragmented manner.
Users look to abstracts as guides for selecting articles to be read in more depth. This makes it easier for them to sift thorough large amounts of information and pick what they’ll spend their time on. Therefore abstracts should include the basic who, what, when, where, and why. A key sentence at the beginning–or sometimes the end–of an abstract can help orient the reader. Many documents can be abstracted by stating the thesis and showing how it is supported. Only the most important arguments used to prove the main point should be included. This style is called an informative abstract.
Some documents do not try to prove a thesis; conference summaries, review articles and articles dealing with complex ideas are examples of this type. These documents are best abstracted by describing the scope of the item without attempting to include arguments and conclusions (which there may not be in any case). This style is called an indicative abstract. Some abstracts will combine elements of both the informative and indicative abstracting styles.
And P.S. Please do not put citations in your abstracts. Life–and abstracts–are too short for that.
References
Lancaster, F.W. Indexing and abstracting in theory and practice. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1991.
“ABC-CLIO abstracting instructions.” Santa Barbara, CA.: ABC-CLIO, [n.d.]
The world of library podcasting has seen some changes since I first wrote about it last year. Most of them have become a little to a lot less consistent in podcasting and one has disappeared. Still going are Digital Campus and Bibliotech. The Buds of Bibliotech are moving to a once every three weeks schedule provided they have compelling topics to discuss, so if you have a topic you’d like them to address, let them hear from you. Hack Education with Audrey Watters and Steve Hargadon has become very erratic, and I fear for Semantic Link as well. The podcasters from Adventures in Library Instruction have moved on to other projects–adieu, you are missed!
I never did get into T is for Training (sound problems), but there’s one new podcast discovery I’ve made since last year’s post: TWIL (This Week in Libraries). This podcast comes from the Netherlands but is conducted in English and is also available in video form. They interview librarians from a wide variety of institutions and locations on an equally wide range of topics. I love getting a more global perspective on things.
No, make that double wow!! Over at the incomparable and inspirational INALJ (I Need a Library Job), Britt Foster mentioned Librarian Squared as one of her favorite websites in an interview with Joy Rodriguez. Britt is a solo librarian at the V.E. Petrucci Library serving the Dept. of Viticulture and Enology at Fresno State.
Thanks, Britt! So glad your job hunt had a happy ending.
Cranford; Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
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The e-learning reader; Sara de Freitas
