Library Ethics

While working on my ePortfolio, a graduation requirement for those enrolled in the School of Library and Information Science, I found an old assignment in which my group, Team Awesome, submitted for LIS 6010 (taught by Dr. Maria Gonzalez) as part of an assignment on library ethics. (Group members: Cecile Bosshard, JC Brown, Janet Curtiss, Brian Cutter, Araceli Mata, Tashia Munson, and Christopher Schimers)

The scenario is as follows:
As a librarian, a friend shows you a finished manuscript of a children's book that takes a realistic look at an adolescent's experience, which includes experimentation with drugs and sex. Your friend wants to know what you, as a librarian thinks, if it's publishable and it's marketable. You know that the book will most likely be considered objectionable in most school libraries and many public libraries unless your friend removes some scenes form his book. Do you recommend that your friend remove the scenes from his book?

It's definitely worth a good laugh...

Technology Tool Chest

Since starting library school in spring of 2010, I been able to experiment and play with different sources of technology. Among my favorites:

Jing: First introduced to me this semester in LIS 7420: Client-Based Website Development. Jing is a free software that can capture images and video on your computer. For a project, I used this software to create an instructional video on how to use MeLCat to interloan a book.

Googledocs: This was first introduced to me in my third semester via LIS 7040: Library Administration and Management. Google hosts online applications that can create word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, drawings and tables. Since winter term 2010, I have used this application every semester for group collaboration (LIS 7340, LIS 6510, and LIS 7560).

Google Wave: This application was first introduced to me during my first semester of library school in LIS 6010: Introduction to the Information Profession. My group used this application to collaborate ideas and content for a ethical scenario. Later, I introduced this application professionally when working on a federal grant with a consultant whom was based out of Okemos.

Dropbox: Like Google Wave, this online data storage was first introduced to me during my first semester of library school in LIS 6010. My group used this application to store our individual segments of a movie we created.

Blabberize: Also introduced to me during my first semester of library school, my group used this fun application to add voice-over to images of various animals for an ethical scenario skit. I also used this application to create an introductory video for LIS 6080.

Filezilla: This free FTP program was first introduced to me in LIS 6080, but I didn't actually use it until LIS 7420 for uploading html and css files to the server.


An oldie, but a goodie from fall of 2010...
Instead of a traditional, "Hi, my name is JC" video, I created monster using Blabberize and an application by AMC MadmenYourself.

Burning the Candle

E.B. White once said, "I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

Apparently, I had no idea of how worn down I had gotten over the past few months. I have been sick since last Friday with today being the first day that I am actually starting to feel better. Winter term starts next Tuesday and I am incredibly thankful for the time to rest and recover although I am chomping at the bit to resume Hermionish activities once again, visit friends/family to "catch" up on life that I have missed while trying to save the world (well, Huron County, at least), and be "productive." Who would have thought that burning the candle at both ends would have this effect? E.B. White didn't share that memo with me.

OK, confession: While stuck in bed, sick, I have already read through one of my textbooks...and began reading the book for February's Literature to Film Club, L.A. Confidential.

My goal today is to organize my study - file notes/readings from LIS 6010, 6080, and 6120; organize books; set-up my laser printer; and unpack/integrate my boxes from my former office at the shelter.

As posted on my facebook this morning:
"As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her." --Erma Bombeck

Carpe diem!

LIS 6010

Lunch Time Update:


Yes, that reads 4.0. Score! (Thank you, Dr. G!)

LIS 6010

Final grade: 98.5 = 99%

Who is going to celebrate this weekend? I am.

Doctor G's Questions

For today's module, Doctor G posted several questions to promote thought and reflection:

Are your personal career goals and opportunities to reach them becoming clearer?

What professional organization appeals to you? Why? What do members of that organization do, that you would like to do?

Whom have you met during the course of the semester that intrigued you?

What surprised you the most?

According to Jean Preer, there are three fundamental principles in librarianship. What are they?

What would you add to those three principles based on your readings?

What one misconception did you have about the field? What were you absolutely right about?

What are new terms or concepts that you learned in this or other classes?

What concepts unique to the LIS professions have you learned about this semester?

What issues faced today by librarians, archivists and other information specialists will you be facing when you enter the field? What are perennial issues?

What trends do you see developing that will impact your work?

What LIS profession do you know least about?

Completed

I finished narrating my presentation this morning and cruised into town to take two more photos of the local library to finish the deal. As I type this, it is being uploaded to Blackboard.

While putting together my presentation, I caught three minor errors in my paper...made the changes and will be resubmitting here shortly.

Now onto my draft POW!

Grade

97.5 = 98% with two weeks left to go!

Writing

My first update via my mobile phone. I cannot stand looking at a computer as I spent the majority of today putting together my library visit paper. I have about 4 to 5 paragraphs left and then I can refocus my attention on putting together the presentation. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed every minute of the writing process today. I love creating.

Hopefully, I can use the little bit of time I have off between this term and fall's term to work a little bit more on my writing project. It pretty much got tabled when my classes started this spring and I need to keep plugging away at it.

Tomorrow: renew my library book (Louisa May Alcott biography) and then head to the Lilith Fair with my Delta Alpha girls. Thursday: refocus, funeral, and paper.

My goal is to have this project wrapped up and submitted for grade before Friday's road trip...and have my draft POW complete.

Library Visit Paper

Yesterday, I planned on spending the entire day organizing and writing my library visit paper with today to be used for revisions and notations for follow-up questions / clarification. That didn't happen! Instead, I spent the day doing a pretty intense and complex crisis intervention at work that involved community mental health, child protective services, and the hospital.

With that said, my Hermionish schedule is a day and a half behind. My husband is painting the upstairs hallway and the office...so I made the trek to my parents' house in order to get some work done!

Closed the Deal

Team Awesome closed the deal and uploaded our presentation to Blackboard at 2:03p. I have to say, this is one of my most fun projects I have worked on in quite some time!



We are talking about a semester wrap-up party at Quay Street Brewery. Score!

Library Visits

Group project is wrapping up this weekend (ethical scenario presentation), which means that once it is submitted, I can turn 100% of my attention to the library visit paper and presentation. I have been looking forward to this project all semester!

Libraries visited:
Bad Axe Area District Library
Sandusky District Library
Lapeer District Library

(Photo of BAADL)

Grade

97% thus far...

Antelopes as Documents

Judith Weedman (2008) wrote:
Suzanne Briet, an influential French information scientist in the 1930s-1950s, defined a document as "evidence in support of a fact." She argued that an antelope in a zoo, in contrast to one in the wild, has been placed in a socially constructed knowledge-promoting institution, can be employed as evidence supporting various facts, and is therefore a document. I use "information bearing entities" and "documents" in this way, to refer to any entity that can be used to provide information, although I wouldn't necessarily include antelopes. (p.114)

Weedman, Judith. 2008. Information retrieval: designing, querying, and evaluating information systems. The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts. Pp 112-126.

LIS Leader Project and Fight Club

Paper and presentation on Everett Thomson Moore - completed.
I enjoyed reading up on Moore v. Younger. A librarian took on the Attorney General of California and won!

I am now taking some time to pleasure read...Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Tomorrow is going to be spent wrapping things up: returning interloan books, paying fees (ohhhh yes!), organizing digital documents acquired, and getting my desk back in order.

From Publishers Weekly
"Featuring soap made from human fat, waiters at high-class restaurants who do unmentionable things to soup and an underground organization dedicated to inflicting a violent anarchy upon the land, Palahniuk's apocalyptic first novel is clearly not for the faint of heart. The unnamed (and extremely unreliable) narrator, who makes his living investigating accidents for a car company in order to assess their liability, is combating insomnia and a general sense of anomie by attending a steady series of support-group meetings for the grievously ill, at one of which (testicular cancer) he meets a young woman named Marla. She and the narrator get into a love triangle of sorts with Tyler Durden, a mysterious and gleefully destructive young man with whom the narrator starts a fight club, a secret society that offers young professionals the chance to beat one another to a bloody pulp. Mayhem ensues, beginning with the narrator's condo exploding and culminating with a terrorist attack on the world's tallest building. Writing in an ironic deadpan and including something to offend everyone, Palahniuk is a risky writer who takes chances galore, especially with a particularly bizarre plot twist he throws in late in the book. Caustic, outrageous, bleakly funny, violent and always unsettling, Palahniuk's utterly original creation will make even the most jaded reader sit up and take notice. Movie rights to Fox 2000."

LIS Leader

An assignment for LIS 6010 requires me to select an LIS leader, write a paper, and prepare a presentation complete with hand-outs. I selected Everett T. Moore, fighter for intellectual freedom and advocate for equal access.

Other than dealing with a crisis at work, I have spent my day working on the paper with hopes of having it completed by tomorrow evening or Monday at the latest which will allow me to focus heavily on the presentation.

It has been one very long day...

Books and articles currently on my desk:
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (6th ed.) Washington, DC: Author.

Moore, E. T. (1964). Issues of freedom in American libraries. Chicago: American Library Association.

Harwell, R & Moore, E. T. (1959). The Arizona State University Library: A survey of the library. Chicago: American Library Association.

Library of Congress Information Bulletin. (1974) v. 33, pp. 174 - 175.

Harlan, R. D. (1978). The colonial printer: two views: a paper read at the Clark Library seminar on intellectual freedom, June 19, 1976, in honor of Everett T. Moore. Los Angeles: UCLA.

Robbins, L. S. (2001). The overseas libraries controversy and the freedom to read: U.S. librarians and publishers confront Joseph McCarthy. Libraries and culters, V. 36, No. 1. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Reflection

Reflecting last night, in order to complete my mid-term evaluation for my LIS 6010 class, afforded me the opportunity of realizing that I am thoroughly enjoying my studies. Enjoying them so much that hours of time can pass and I hardly even realize it!

On Sunday, I put in almost 9 hours and didn't even realize it until I took a break to switch the laundry over. Compared to my undergraduate studies, this is a completely different, yet positive experience. I love drowning myself in my studies!

This week, we are covering one of my many bookish passions: archives. If I lived closer to the metropolitan area, you can bet my graduate certificate would be in archives, although the probably of landing a job in that speciality is pretty slim due to the economy and competitiveness.

Prior to my admission into the LIS program, I would often dream about rescuing rare archives from a fire. Weird, I know, but still relatively amusing.