Rain was too irresistible tonight. (Or far more fun to explore than work on this lingering paper.) Here is the file: MayStorm
Technical issues, community-building-of-enthusiast issues, bibliographic issues. Good project design, leadership, and charging forward required.
Goal: Clarity! Changes to the first draft:
- Made some headway into the methodology and was able to add what approach I’m taking. (But I still consider it a work in progress.)
- Expanded scope to include disciplines outside the humanities, casting the net wider and catching more strategies.
- Included motivational factors as something I’m trying to discover (trying to avoid going too deep into motivation studies, which I’m sure is a thing). Read the rest of this entry »
Developing this Introduction to Omeka Google Doc to share for a one-shot session teaching Omeka as a digital tool. I chose to do this through a Google Doc rather than a PowerPoint presentation for easy access to links, public access, and the ability for it to be in continuous development rather than a static product.
I’ve been working on this research idea since early January, writing about it for my last HASTAC blog post. This morning I submitted the abstract to the Jakobsen Conference, a conference for University of Iowa graduate students, and wanted to publish a copy here, too, to make it public. I will be continuing this research through April, and will be revising the abstract based on that research. I welcome any constructive criticism you might have. Read the rest of this entry »
For some reason I am chomping at the bit to read Dr. Wayne Wiegand’s new book on U.S. libraries in the late 19th through early-to-mid-20th century. I still feel fairly new to the scholarship on libraries, but Dr. Wiegand’s reputation for deep thoughts is all I need for inspiration. Plus, he was an advisor of and supporter of Dr. Christine Pawley’s work, and her contributions to the field are just the bee’s knees as far as I’m concerned.
So I thought I’d do a short post about my favorite 10 readings from my MLIS program thus far. I have plenty of material to choose from–with 10 courses under my belt and umpteen articles, there is certainly a cream rising to the top of the crop.
Dare I try to rank these in order and play favorites? Nope. The editor in me must go alphabetical by last name. Thus I give you the following, my favorites from the past year and a half of grad school:
Matthew Battles, Library: An Unquiet History
Lovely poetic loveliness
Course: Cultural Foundations
Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Burek Pierce
Roger Chartier, On the Edge of the Cliff: History, Languages, and Practices (selected readings)
Can be a bit obtuse for an American reader. The 2 Amazon reviews are telling in that one review gives it 5 stars and the other only 1. Recommended for those who believe empiricism is possible in the humanities. Introduced me to the field of historiography. (How did I not come across that term as a journalism student?)
Mark Dressman, Literacy in the Library (“Books that are True; Stories that are Made Up: School Libraries and the Politics of Reading”)
Library history meets literacy history! How can I not geek out about this??
Course: Literacy & Learning
Instructor: Dr. Jim Elmborg
James Elmborg, “Libraries as the Spaces Between Us: Recognizing and Valuing the Third Space”
Great blending of Pratt’s “contact zone” concept with the idea of libraries as spaces where individuals and communities undergo growth
Course: Digital Environments
Anna Everett & S. Craig Watkins, “The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games” from The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning [PDF, see p. 141]
A powerful take on immersive gaming in “authentic” worlds
Course: Digital Environments
Instructor: Dr. Andre Brock
Bonnie Nardi & Justin Harris, “Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft” [PDF]
Have to add this reading because I found myself highlighting a full page of text about how gamers teach each other through websites, forums, videos, etc. This was an area I wanted to research in depth, particularly while thinking of the game Minecraft. Peer-to-peer learning through virtual media just fascinates me.
Course: Digital Environments
Christine Pawley, “Information Literacy: A Contradictory Coupling”
Great metaphors about what is lost in a one-size-fits-all idea of teaching and learning models
Course: Literacy & Learning
Christine Pawley, Reading on the Middle Border (Chapter 3–”A benefit and a blessing: The Sage Library”)
Fantastic example of finely detailed qualitative meets quantitative research. I believe we talked about this in our content analysis section.
Course: Research Methods
Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Burek Pierce
Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone”
Stories so well woven together! Best impressions are made when you’re so into the reading that you don’t notice it changing you.
Course: Literacy & Learning
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together
Discusses the psychological perils of living online alone. Mediated environments (as in, the media is an interlocutor) affecting relationships and the wholeness of human beings.
Course: Research Methods (self-chosen text)
Very happy to have been a part of this crowdsourced video panel put together by Neal Stimler for the Museum Computer Network’s 2011 conference. The conversation made me fall back in love with museums and see digital archives in a whole new light, especially with their potential for community engagement and personal learning and growth. The conversation was almost a month ago already and I am still inspired.
I have had a full and gratifying month this October and haven’t been as free to contribute thoughtfully to my own blog. I have posted a couple of essays to my HASTAC blog, and thought it’d be worth noting here too. Since my last post here, I have written about Twitter and using social media for research purposes and the use of databases for digital humanities (DH) projects. Here is the information from those posts:
Feminist Hulk Goes to (My) School: Exploring the Use of Twitter as a Research Method, published September 23, 2011
Databases & Digital Humanities: Whose Power? Whose Peril? published October 20, 2011
And for those who are wondering what’s keeping me so busy this semester, here are some of the things that are a little more exciting than writing blog posts for The Melody Party:
- Taking full advantage of my position as a HASTAC Scholar
- Facilitating DH discussion among 9 UI faculty and staff
- Facilitating DH conversation between professionals in archives and a museum, particularly talking about the Civil War Diaries Transcription project and digital media for teaching and learning (audio recorded!)
- Planning THATCamp Iowa City for Spring 2012
- Preparing Pecha-Kucha presentation on THATCamp plans
- B Sides AY 2011–2012 progress
- Establishing B Sides formally with UI Student Organizations
- Interviewing and taking on two new associate editors for B Sides
- Creating copy editor position and adding organizational capacity
- Launch planning for Spring 2012 practice poster session
- Graduate assistantship duties
- Developing timeline for project management goals
- Investigating CMS tools for functionality (Omeka, Drupal, WordPress)
- Conversations about database design and metadata
Somehow I’ve managed to keep on top of my coursework and get a few runs in on top of all this. My hopes for strength training this semester haven’t come to fruition, however. (Bought a medicine ball a week ago but have yet to try out a workout I found in a magazine.)
All this makes me remember what my friend’s family member told me when I visited her in Germany: “You can sleep when in America!” I’m starting to tell myself this about Thanksgiving and Winter holidays—relaxing is what breaks are for.
Earlier today I drafted and published my first blog post as a HASTAC Scholar. Our sponsors suggested that we use our first post to introduce ourselves to the community, and, well, my introduction had to get all thinky and turned into an essay on questions for digital archivists and those who could benefit from digital archives. It’s not too deep or complex, but was fun to write! I’m glad the academic year is giving me new inspiration for blogging topics.
I published this essay on Twitter events in our local Iowa City rag. I’m a month late on adding this so I’m back-dating this post for my records.