You’re a Researcher Without a Library: What Do You Do?

Research | Libraries | Access | Free resources

Investigating solutions for frustrated scholars, nonprofits, independent learners, and the rest of us.

Jake Orlowitz

Nov 15, 2017 · 15 min read

The world of publishing is evolving frantically, while it remains frustratingly fragmented and prohibitively expensive for many. If you’re a student who just left your academic library behind only to discover you are now locked out of the stacks; a startup researching water usage in Africa and keep hitting paywalls; a local nonprofit that studies social change activism, but all the latest papers cost $30 per read… This article is for you.

https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/youre-a-researcher-without-a-library-what-do-you-do-6811a30373cd

Reclaiming Reference at the Library

Reference | Public libraries | Information seeking

For librarians, reference work today is increasingly about community service

by Sari Feldman |

Sep 14, 2018 

 

 

.......

 

Then Came Google...

In the late 1990s, as internet search engines were becoming more powerful and Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin were creating Google, that powerful feeling librarians once had at the reference desk began to dim. Initially, librarians called out internet search engines, criticizing them as imperfect and often inaccurate reference tools. But not for long.

Sure, the public’s willingness to take an answer rather than the answer was problematic. But immediacy has its advantages. For many simple questions, patrons could find answers quickly online. For the tougher questions, librarians soon came to use search engines at least as a starting point for research. And as the internet grew more powerful, connections got faster, and Google and other search engines rapidly improved, online research was embraced by librarians.

Today, information—once the domain of libraries, and the provenance of reference librarians—is increasingly accessible, with answers to a range of questions available at the swipe of a finger. As we transitioned to a digital world, I, like many librarians, wondered what such powerful information technology would mean for librarians in the future. With so much information readily available, why would anyone need a reference librarian? Read article...

 

Teaching with Primary Sources: How can we do research with political cartoons? | Brooklyn Public Library

Politics | Cartoons | Information literacy | Research Skills

by Jen Hoyer | Jun 20, 2018 

 

 

 Brooklyn Connections is the education outreach program in the Brooklyn Collection. It focuses on cultivating 21st Century learning skills in students and supporting teachers on the incorporation of archives materials into curricula. This blog post is part of a series from the Brooklyn Connections team, sharing skills and ideas for using archives primary source material in the classroom. Using primary sources in the classroom shows us that we can access history through many different formats as long as we are grounded in historical thinking. 

The Brooklyn Connections team loves engaging with teachers for regular Professional Learning events, and our recent workshop at Plymouth Church gave us an opportunity to learn about the role that this institution played in Abolition and Civil War-era Brooklyn. While exploring the Brooklyn Collection for primary sources that we could share, we were excited to find political cartoons about our subject. We wanted to share some of our ideas on how students can learn to work with political cartoons. We think that using political cartoons in the classroom is an engaging and exciting starting point that shifts away from textbooks and classroom lectures while still scaffolding the same historical information. Read more...

Radical restructuring: Library renovations lead to personnel and process reorganization | American Libraries

Library design | Human resources | Academic libraries

by Catherine Murray-Rust | September 1, 2017

As librarians, we’ve all felt, at some point or another, like one of the great loves of our lives has been judged hopelessly irrelevant. In an era when information is digital and abundant, demonstrating the value of libraries and librarians is more urgent—and can be more difficult—than ever.

At Georgia Tech, we knew that using words to explain and defend would not accurately demonstrate the impact we have on inspiring and accelerating the intellectual achievements of faculty and students. So we set out on a library renewal project.

When we started four years ago, the project largely centered on building renovations. Over time we realized that renovations are the easy part of a transformation. We are fortunate to have creative architects, designers, engineers, and construction experts. We have the financial and political support of the administration and the University System of Georgia. And we benefit every day from the advice of consultants and subject-matter experts.

The biggest challenge to our transformation was organizational. We soon saw that we had to change the culture of the library from passive to active, and we had to retire models that focused narrowly on the library rather than those that supported the larger institution. We had to commit to organizing in a way that envisions a future that is digital.

How? We are adapting techniques used in disciplines such as supply chain thinking and portfolio management to radically restructure the way we operate. Our goal is to make the transactional parts of the library’s work as efficient as possible in order to free up resources to sustain new services such as intelligent agents, visualization, and data science.

Read more...

Trust and Distrust in Online Fact-Checking Services

Fact Checking | Fake News  | Media literacy

By Petter Bae Brandtzaeg, Asbjørn Følstad
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 60 No. 9, Pages 65-71
10.1145/3122803

While the internet has the potential to give people ready access to relevant and factual information, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have made filtering and assessing online content increasingly difficult due to its rapid flow and enormous volume. In fact, 49% of social media users in the U.S. in 2012 received false breaking news through social media.⁸ Likewise, a survey by Silverman¹¹ suggested in 2015 that false rumors and misinformation disseminated further and faster than ever before due to social media. Political analysts continue to discuss misinformation and fake news in social media and its effect on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


Read article:



Trust and Distrust in Online Fact-Checking Services: Even when checked by fact checkers, facts are often still open to preexisting bias and doubt.

Fake News Isn't New: Researching Its History with NYPL's E-Resources | NYPL

Research | Electronic resources | Fake news | Literacy

by Rhonda Evans, Electronic Resources Librarian

August 23, 2017

 

Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, December 4, 1890

The term "fake news" may be receiving a lot of attention lately, but it is by no means new or unique to this day and age. Fake news holds a special place in America's journalistic history. It is easy to forget that before the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet, social media, and even the common use of the telephone, news traveled very slowly. Considering how long it took information to get from point A to point B, newspapers often found it preferable to print stories before receiving  all of the facts to get the scoop on their competitors. 

Take a look at a couple of examples:

Read more...

 

6 Ways to become a power library user | via BookRiot

Public libraries | Library services | Research

by Kelly Jensen 08-22-14

You have a library card and you know the library is more than just a “Netflix for books.” Maybe you know about your library’s e-book offerings and maybe you know you can borrow audiobooks or DVDs. But how can you make the absolute most out of your local library? Here are 6 tips for becoming a power user of the public library.

Worth noting: not all public libraries offer the same services, so not everything mentioned here will be available to all users. Some libraries offer more and some may offer less. These variations exist because of funding differences, library size, location, and a host of other factors, most of which are out of control of the library itself. The one common denominator among these tips, though, is that they’re all things you can ask about at your library.

Likewise, this is geared toward the American public library system, so your mileage in other countries may vary.

1. Get to the top of the holds list for hot titles
Did you know many libraries order books well in advance of their publication date? Librarians are knowledgeable about what’s coming out, and they often put in purchase orders for titles weeks, if not months, before publication. This is especially true for books that are garnering buzz or are new titles by popular authors.  Read more...