Blog Archives

Social Media for Professionals, Revised July 2011

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality. –Dante Inspired by the recent HackLibSchool post on the work/life balance on Twitter, I decided I had participated in the library

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Adventures in Freelance Researching

Last Friday I finished up a freelance project that lead me to daydream about Iowa’s mid-19th century railroad schemes. I followed up on an ad circulated through our department’s listserv to make contact with an independent researcher out of Missouri.

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Silencing Jillian Michaels

Jillian Michaels has had a lot of appearances lately in the magazines I read, and when I saw her new book, Unlimited, displayed on a shelf at the Iowa City Public Library as I was browsing, I decided why the

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Library Workers: Facts and Figures published

PDF viewable/downloadable here. To follow up on previous diversity discussions, people of color comprise 16%* of librarians (9% Black, 5% Latino, and 2% Asian). Regarding gender, 83% of librarians are women, and with MLS enrollment at 81% women, the trend

Posted in libraries

Smarter SmartSearch: Academic Libraries vs. Google Scholar

Last night I finished Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Googlization of Everything, and rather than being scared away from customized search after reading the book, I find I am more drawn to it, especially when thinking about how to improve search for academic libraries.

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Summer Freelancing Work

I’m dedicating part of my time this summer to freelance projects, something I might not get to do after completing my MLIS degree and getting a FT job (*crosses fingers*).

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Video: Why do librarians need a master’s?

Great video by a SLIS student at Syracuse, Dan Enders. Thirty-second answer to “Why does one need a master’s degree to become a librarian?” is proposed at minute 2:20. Enders addresses the question from a school media and teacher-librarian perspective.

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Posted in digital media, libraries

Book Review: Alone Together

The following book review was turned in for an assignment in my Research Methods class. We were required to choose a book that required intensive research in its development process. I chose Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More

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My Life with 5 Fingers: Review and progress update

Five weeks ago I purchased a pair of Vibram FiveFingers shoes, in the Bikila style. The company promotes these running shoes as being designed to support “a more natural, healthier and more efficient forefoot strike.” As in, you could also

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