Library Juice 3:11 - Library Juice is now a book and a blog

Library Juice 3:11 - March 15, 2000 Contents: 1. HighWire Press Announces Free Access to over 130,000 Articles 2. _Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology_ 3. Summary of responses to Information Literacy query 4. Indexes of Conference Proceedings 5. Interview with Shirl Kennedy 6. Marxists Internet Archive 7. The Real Beer Page 8. five golden rules to librarianship Quote for the week: "I dream of a zine that startles me. I am amazed at how similar in format many zines are to their mass media counterparts. It's not enough to just take a different position than Newsweek. How about questioning the validity of any position at all? The fundamental assumption of nearly all publications available today is that there is a right and a wrong, and this writer knows which is which. Come on! Truth is a figment. All things change. When a zine professes certainty about who should be president or what we should do with murderers, I am often frustrated. I am not reading to find out what I ought to believe; I don't want to be converted. I'd like to see more people admitting their confusion, exploring the truly ambiguous nature of nearly every important issue in modern consciousness..." -E. Persimmon, "I dream of a zine..." _A reader's guide to the underground press_ No. 12. Home page of the week: Norman Buchwald http://www.library.arizona.edu/users/buchwaln/index.html ____________________________________________________________________________top 1. HighWire Press Announces Free Access to over 130,000 Articles Free Online Full-text Articles http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl Press Release http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/00/000301highwire.html HighWire Press http://highwire.stanford.edu/ In yet another major step forward in the provision of free scholarship online, Stanford University's HighWire Press (last reviewed in the February 16, 2000 _Scout Report_) has announced that publishers of the science, technology, and medicine journals it hosts now provide free online access to the full text of more than 137,000 articles. This makes HighWire "the second-largest free full-text science archive in the world - and the largest in the life sciences - with three entirely free journals, 51 journals offering free back issues and 32 offering free trial access." Please note that the availability of back issues and length of the free trial period vary widely by journal. Users can consult the site for a list of participating journals, the back issues they offer, and the ending date of the free trial period. Click on the journal's name to access the articles. As an additional service to users who subscribe (as individuals or through their institution), some journals offer "toll-free linking" of articles, which allows users to access the full text of related articles from other journals whether or not they subscribe to those journals. [MD] > From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ____________________________________________________________________________top 2. _Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology_ http://www.harcourt.com/dictionary/ Academic Press along with Harcourt Inc. has made available the _Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology_. The site is designed as a free scientific resource for educators, librarians, students, business professionals, scientists, and researchers. Users can perform a keyword search or browse scientific topics such as Engineering Sciences, Life Sciences, Medicine, Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Social Sciences. From these broad topics, users can select from over 130 specific fields, bringing up lists of terms for that specialization. Entries include a short description of terms, and some illustrations and .wav recordings of pronunciation. [JEB] > From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ____________________________________________________________________________top 3. Summary of responses to Information Literacy query From: Esther Grassian <estherg[at]library.ucla.edu> Hello. A non-librarian friend forwarded this message to me. It's long, but I thought it might interest BI-L subscribers. I don't remember seeing it on BI-L--apologies in advance if it's a duplicate. Esther Esther Grassian Instructional Services Coordinator UCLA College Library Box 951450 L.A., CA 90095-1450 Phone: (310) 206-4410 Fax: (310) 206-9312 Email: estherg[at]library.ucla.edu >From CIO Digest - 3 Mar 2000 to 6 Mar 2000 (#2000-36) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 11:57:40 -0800 From: Bret Ingerman <ingerman[at]LCLARK.EDU> Subject: Summary of responses to Information Literacy query It has taken a while, but here is a summary of the responses that I received to my query about Information Literacy requirements. I have included quotes from the respondents, as well as any url's that they provided or that I could dig up on my own. I have also included contact information for each summary. The list is somewhat long, but I think it represents a very interesting cross-section of approaches to this issue. Thank you all for sharing the information...I know it will help in our own endeavors along this line. >============================================================= The Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education is a good document to look at. You can view the "parent" web site: http://www.ala.org/acrl/infolit.html which offers a few additional links to materials. [thanks to Jim Kopp at Lewis & Clark College, kopp[at]lclark.edu; and John Balling at Willamette University, jballing[at]willamette.edu] The University of Calgary has a Library of the Future Task Force on Information Literacy. They, in turn, have a White Paper available at http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/departments/INFO/library/lftf/WP3-1.html It is slowly on its way to becoming a formal requirement. [thanks to Morven Wilson at the University of Calgary, jmwilson[at]ucalgary.ca] Calvin College has an ad hoc committee on Research and Information Technology whose task is to develop a Research and Information Technology core course (they are one of 3 ad hoc committees working on parts of the new core curriculum). They presented their results to the faculty last month. Their web site is at: http://www.calvin.edu/admin/rit/ [Thanks to Henry DeVries at Calvin College, hdevries[at]calvin.edu] Villanova University "...has an information Literacy program in place to educate students how to navigate the Web intelligently. We do not have a computer literacy program in place and are not sure if it is really needed as more an more freshmen are computer literate when they come here." [thanks to Karin Steinbrenner at Villanova University, karin.steinbrenner[at]villanova.edu] East Tennessee State University "...requires all freshman to take a "Using Information Technology" course that is now mainly taught online. All students must complete a technology-intensive course before graduation..." [thanks to Carl Dury at East Tennessee State University, Duryc[at]ACCESS.ETSU.EDU, who suggests contacting Dr. Linda Doran, Assoc. Provost, doran[at]etsu.edu, for more info] Wheaton College has a "New Century Challenge" that incorporates technology and its use. Info is at http://www.wheaton.edu/President/newcentury.html [thanks to Karen Leach at Colgate University, kleach[at]mail.colgate.edu] Caroll College (Wisconsin) "...has a computer competency graduation requirement that is supposed to be satisfied in the freshman year. Until this last fall, this was normally satisfied through a computer lab attached to the freshmen year seminar and taught by the comp sci dept. A half-semester compsci course was an alternative. Last summer this responsibility was moved to ITS.." Their web page describes this as a "...Freshman Year Seminar...Computer Familiarization course. The purpose of this part of FYS100L is to introduce you to computing tools that will be useful both in your work here at Carroll College and also in your off-campus life...FYS100L consists of 7 modules that are essentially tutorials on topics related to computing at Carroll College and using computers in general...FYS100L also includes optional in-class tutorials that cover the same information contained in the on-line modules..." The web site is at: http://carroll1.cc.edu/~fyscl/ [thanks to Janet Price at Carroll College, jprice[at]carroll1.cc.edu] The University of Rhode Island has "...developed a 3 credit Information Literacy course that can be taken as part of the general ed. requirement here at URI. We also have developed a 1 credit lab course that can be added into general introductory courses in a particular major. Thus far, on an experimental basis. we have offered this 1 credit course in conjunction with an introductory business course..." Information about the courses can be found at http://www.uri.edu/library/instruction_services/instruction.html#LIB 120 [thanks to Paul Gandel at URI, gandel[at]uriacc.uri.edu, who suggests contacting Mary MacDonald, a library faculty member, for more details, marymac[at]URI.EDU] The University of New Brunswick (Canada) is addressing this issue with what they refer to as their FITness program. This is based upon a book entitled "Being Fluent with Information Technology" which was created by the National Resource Council (see http://stills.nap.edu/html/beingfluent/). UNB wants to "...develop a Web based literacy program that all students will be required to complete. We then want to encourage all faculty to build on this program by having students use their FITness skills in upper year classes to post material to Web sites, plot and analyze data, give presentations, search for on-line resources, etc.... The members of the UNB Teaching and Technology Roundtable group recommend that the University move aggressively to adopt a FITness initiative aimed at improving the information technology skills of the entire multi-campus community. Every student who graduates from UNB should have a good working knowledge of basic IT skills and these skills should be used extensively throughout the entire curriculum...We feel the University should develop (and maintain) a Web-based FITness course. The on-line course would be available 24 hours a day to all students (from the day they are admitted) and to employees. Students completing this required course would receive credit on their transcript. The course would consist of several modules, on- line testing for each module, and automatic recording of progress. The on-line material would be supplemented by hands-on tutorials conducted in an instructional lab... This FITness program should be in place by September 1, 2001. UNB should promote its students as being very well prepared to live and work in the Information Age." [thanks to Greg Sprague of UNB, gls[at]unb.ca] Greg Sprague of UNB also offers the following additional sites of interest: "...Ohio State: A 100 level course on computing is available, based on NetTutor a web based page developed by the OSU library. Not yet required, but highly recommended. http://gateway.lib.ohio-state.edu/tutor/ However, I am most familiar with Susquehanna University...They have a required course called Using Computers" The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has a Computer Literacy component of their General Education requirement. Information can be found at http://www.utc.edu/GeneralEd/ComLit.html#CLRequirement (make sure to read down towards the bottom of the page). [thanks to Richard Gambrell at UTC, richard- gambrell[at]utc.edu] EDUCAUSE has a number of relevant items. They include "IT Literacy for General Education and Online Community, Summary of a presentation at the EDUCAUSE '99 conference, http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/abstract.asp?ID=EDU9938 Being Fluent with Information Technology , 1999 book by the National Research Council, available online at http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/abstract.asp?ID=URL0198 Readin', Writin', Arithmetic, and Information Competency: Adding a Basic Skills Component to a University's Curriculum, Paper from a presentation at CAUSE '97 conference, http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/abstract.asp?ID=CNC9750 Making Being There as Good as Being Here, 1999 CAUSE/EFFECT article -- includes a section about the University of Minnesota Libraries' information literacy initiatives http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/abstract.asp?ID=CEM992A CAMPUS PROFILE: Santa Barbara City College, 1996 CAUSE/EFFECT article -- mentions the development of an information literacy course http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/abstract.asp?ID=CEM9647 [thanks to Edie Clark at EDUCAUSE, eclark[at]educause.edu] In South Dakota "...we have a General Education Curriculum policy...[that] has several references to information and technology literacy requirements. Some of the most specific requirements though are institutional requirements." [thanks to Warren Wilson at the South Dakota Board of Regents, WJWILSON[at]ris.sdbor.edu] Cal State University Hayward offers "...10 sections of "Fundamentals of Information Literacy", a 10-week formal, credit-bearing course (linked to General Education thematic "clusters") taken by all entering freshmen...The classes are taught by library faculty, rather than jointly with other discipline-based faculty or computer professionals." The web site is at: http://www.library.csuhayward.edu/liby1010.htm [thanks to Ilene Rockman at CSU Hayward, irockman[at]csuhayward.edu] At "...Richmond: the American International University in London have recently incorporated just such an induction into our English foundations/principles of writng program. Our scheme was piloted in Spring 1999, and ran for the first time properly last semster. We are currently on our second semester and the results so far are encouraging...we have a one hour session in the computer labs (soon to be the library seminar room!) as part of the ENG 102 course. We aim to introduce students to the variety of resources (book, journals, newspaper, CD-ROMS, Internet etc.) AND try to encourage them to critically evaluate their sources. thes eare the two main strands of our program..." [thanks to Frank Trew at Richmond, trewf[at]richmond.ac.uk] ============================================================== Bret Ingerman e-mail: ingerman[at]lclark.edu Assistant Vice President for phone: 503-768-7227 Information Technology fax: 503-768-7228 Lewis & Clark College 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road Portland, OR 97219-7899 USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ____________________________________________________________________________top 4. Indexes of Conference Proceedings ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter West" <peter.west[at]pei.sympatico.ca> To: "ResPool Research Network" <respool[at]listbot.com> Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 12:41 PM Subject: Indexes of Conference Proceedings? > ResPool Research Network - http://rtiess.tripod.com/respool.htm > > ResPoolers, > > I am looking for indexes to conference proceedings, preferably with the > proceedings available on-line. Subject areas of particular interest include: > knowledge management, learning organization, and information technology. > > Regards, > Peter West > > > ______________________________________________________________________top > To unsubscribe, write to respool-unsubscribe[at]listbot.com > Date: Mar 04 2000 06:29:48 EST From: "Shirl Kennedy" <sdk[at]tampabay.rr.com> Subject: Re: Indexes of Conference Proceedings? http://www.hcibib.org/ HCI Bibliography : Human-Computer Interaction Resources "non-profit multinational volunteer effort to provide a free comprehensive online bibliography of the field of Human-Computer Interaction" -- sources: ~19,600 books and reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, and online publications http://phoenix.trentu.ca/jci/ Journal of Computing and Information electronic journal which publishes the proceedings of the International Conference of Computing and Information http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/index.html Database Systems and Logic Programming Bibliography ables of contents of conference proceedings and journals http://www.computer.org/ IEEE Computer Society "Members and nonmembers alike can explore highlights of important recent coverage from the Computer Society's magazines, journals, and conferences in our current focus: The State of the Internet" http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/ Lecture Notes in Computer Science WWW-Database The Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) file is a bibliographic database covering the literature from volume 500 to current volumes of LNCS of Springer-Verlag. The file contains actually about 22.400 citations. Citations are in English and contain bibliographic information, indexing terms, abstracts (facsimile of the first page of each contribution and its corresponding ASCII-Version) and classifications according to the ACM Computing Classification System. Access to tables of contents and abstracts is free for everybody. http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/docs/ci/bibtex_collection.html CI Collection of BibTeX Databases databases for a growing number of journals and conference proceedings http://dweb.waikato.ac.nz/research/ejrot/cmsconference/papers_infoknow.htm INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Conference papers are listed alphabetically by author surname (A-Z), followed by the title of their conference paper. Conference papers are in .pdf format (Acrobat Reader). (Only a few here, but full-text is available.) http://riss.keris.or.kr:8080/pubs/contents/proceedings/series/cikm/ ACM Digital Library: Conference on Information and Knowledge Management http://www.bus.utexas.edu/kman/ Knowledge Management Server Mix of papers, publications, etc. http://www-db.ics.uci.edu/pages/links/proceedings.shtml database research group of the Department of Information and Computer Science of the University of California Online Proceedings and Journals You may also want to go picking around in here: http://www.brint.com/interest.html BizTech Research Library & Searchable Knowledge Map Shirl Kennedy Web Doyenne City of Clearwater (FL) http://www.clearwater-fl.com ____________________________________________________________________________top 5. Interview with Shirl Kennedy Shirl Kennedy's name became familiar to me as a member of the "RESPOOL." She is a frequent poster, regularly contributing the most thorough and quickest answers to many upon many queries to list (as in the previous item). List members have even been driven to break the rules governing postings to ask her publically how she does it. I asked her if I could interview her for Library Juice, and she said yes. The interview follows: > Hi, Shirl > > I've been tied up with other things, such as work, and also thinking about > what I wanted to ask you. To start I'd like to get clear on your bio. I > know you work for the city of Clearwater, Florida, as their webmaster, > right? And do you still write the Internet Waves column for Information > Today? Yes. > > Okay, some more questions: > > Q. Are you now, or have you ever been, a librarian? Did you make a > transition from librarianship to webmastering or is it not like that? What > has your career path been? Where are you headed? What a long, strange trip it's been! Sit back, enjoy, edit as you see fit. I really have to get all this stuff out in some coherent form, so bear with me. My first "real" job after undergraduate school was writing installation manuals for the telephone company. I did some other corporate-type work -- p.r., speechwriting, etc. -- did a stint in journalism graduate school, and the became a newspaper reporter. After working at two afternoon newspapers that folded, I decided...what the heck. Maybe it's time to have a child. When number one son was a baby, I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up...again. In the meantime, I took a part-time job as a reference assistant at the public library in Largo, FL (just south of Clearwater - http://www.largo.com/departments/library/library.html). This seemed like a natural thing to do, coming as I did from a family of avid readers and booklovers, where the library has lways been like an extension of home. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that I really liked reference work -- the thrill of the chase -- and was pretty good at it. So I enrolled in the graduate program at the University of South Florida School of Library and Information Science (http://nosferatu.cas.usf.edu/lis/), and after I got my masters degree, went to work as a youth services librarian at the Clearwater Public Library (http://www.clearwater-fl.com/cpl/). Subsequently, I worked at Clearwater as a branch circulation manager, a reference librarian and coordinator of The Database Place, which was the reference department's online search server. In August 1991, number two son was born. Since he was to be my last chick, I decided to take an extended leave from full-time work. I continued doing freelance writing, and volunteered to do the newsletter for our local professional organization, Suncoast Information Specialists (http://www.tblc.org/sis/). A local colleague by the name of John Iliff *a name that might be familiar to you if you were on the Internet since way back when) suggested that I get an e-mail account on the Florida Information Resouce Network (FIRN - http://www.firn.edu/), the state network that links all of Florida's public education institutions and entities. Back then, you could get a free Internet e-mail account if you were a public educator or a librarian. I already had a computer and a modem so I figured...what the heck? At that time, FIRN was kinda primitive -- clunky old DEC All-In-One shell wrapped around VAX/VMS. I knew vaguely that something called "the Internet" was behind all this, but there wasn't a heck of a lot you could do on it back then. There were some listservs. Most of them were pretty geeky, but I signed onto something called WX-Talk -- for meteorologists and related academics. Weather is A Big Deal in FL, so I figured I'd learn something. Little did I know I was about to have a life-changing experience. I was your basic lurker on WX-Talk, understanding maybe 2/3 of the content that was landing in my inbox. One day, I read a message from some professor who said he had a graduate student that wanted to interview people who had been struck by lightning and survived. Coincidentally, I'd been clipping articles about this, as it was something I wanted to write about at some point. So, good librarian that I was, I wrote up a concise bibliography and sent it off to the list. A day or so later, I received an e-mail from a guy who wanted to know if I was "the same Shirley Kennedy who..." He turned out to be a fellow I attended kindergarten with a whole lot of years ago, at a tiny Quaker school outside Philadelphia. He also turned out to be a Unix guru. With his help, I figured out how to escape from FIRN's DEC All-in-One shell and get to a dollar ($) prompt. I learned telnet. I learned command line FTP. I was wandering all over the Internet, day and night, marveling at the resources "out there." My youngest son learned to make modem noises before he learned to talk. This child was fully capable of stealing long distance service. John Iliff (http://nosferatu.cas.usf.edu/lis/faculty/ilif.html) and I and a few other adventurous local librarians began pooliing our knowledge of Internet resources. After discovering Diane Kovacs' Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences (http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/), all of us signed up for way too many mailing lists, to the point where we had to begin a "just say no to listservs" support group. We also started building the Suncoast Free-Net (http://www.scfn.net/), Tampa Bay's free community computing network. And John and I were giving Internet dog-and-pony shows...first to teachers and librarians, later to business people who were amused by the novelty of it all, but didn't really get it...yet. I had been doing part-time doing reference in the library at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport (http://www.law.stetson.edu/lawlib/), and the took a one-year part-time gig as a private school media specialist. 1994. The Tampa Bay Library Consortium (http://www.tblc.org/) had gotten a grant to provide Internet access to roughly 80 libraries in 10 counties in west central Florida. There was a salaried position in that grant, which became the Network Information Manager, which became me. I did everything from running cable through dropped ceilings to nursemaiding servers to teaching workshops. It was such an exciting time, introducing so many librarians to the Internet, desperately wanting them to love it as much as I did. I also built one of the first gopher servers in the Tampa Bay area, and TBLC's first Web site. Well, the grant money ran out -- as grant money is wont to do -- after about 18 months. I knew I wanted to -- had to -- keep working with the Internet. But jobs in this niche were still very hard to come by in 1995. I landed a gig as an Internet trainer for the Bibliographic Center for Research (BCR -- http://www.bcr.org/), a large library network serving Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. I traveled constantly and, since my family was still in the Tampa Bay area, commuted back and forth regularly. In about a year, I was completely worn down, and knew that I had to go back to FL. Somewhere around this time, I took over writing the Internet Waves column for Information Today (http://www.infotoday.com/it/feb00/kennedy.htm) from my friend, Michael McCulley (http://www.best.com/~mcculley/Travels/index.html). And luck stayed with me. I'd been approached by an editor at ALA Editions (the publishing arm of the American Library Association) to write a book about...ta da! The Internet! I got a small advance, and also took a part-time job as technical information specialist at Honeywell Space Systems, in Clearwater (http://www.sac.honeywell.com/), and subsequently began contracting to do intranet work for them as well as project management in the I.T. Department. My book -- Best Bet Internet: Reference and Research When You Don't Have Time to Mess Around -- was published in June of 1998. The URLs from the book live here: http://www.ala.org/editions/openstacks/beyondthebook/bestbet.html and when I checked today, it was number 42,053 on Amazon.com's "hot list" -- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0838907121/o/qid=952213018/sr=8-1/002 -7946053-2197815 Later that year, I got a call from former colleagues at the Clearwater Public Library, who asked me to apply for the Webmaster's job. And here I am, almost back where I started. Although the Webmaster maintains the site for the entire City, the position at this time is based in the technical services department of the main library. It's a wonderful place to work...on the top floor, where all the new books come in, with a big window overlooking Clearwater Bay and the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. (http://www.clearwater-fl.com/cpl/hours.html) Beats the heck out of working in a cubicle in the I.T. Department over in the Municipal Services Building (http://www.clearwater-fl.com/facilities/msb.html). And score one for the librarians... Last year I was one of 20 finalists in Hewlett-Packard's National APpreciation Day Challenge. There's a picture of me and the other winners here (http://www.hp.com/printers/is/ -- the page was acting funky when I checked it just now.) They made us all put on black plastic "nerd glasses" for this picture. Where am I headed? Who knows? I love the job I have now, but I am a writer first, last and always. It might be nice to be a full-time technology pundit. On the other hand, I have this novel I'd love to get published... > Q. I am constantly amazed by the depth and amount of information you supply > to people on RESPOOL, and the speed of your answers. First, how do you do > it? What resources do you use? And second, Why do you do it? I am sure > it takes up a fair amount of you time, and you aren't getting paid for it. > Do you do it at work? (You don't have to answer that if you don't want). > I've been in the Internet searching game so long now that I just have an innate feeling for where stuff might be. The first question I always ask myself is "Who would have a vested interest in making this kind of information available?" And I go from there. I've done reference work in so many different types of libraries by now that I have at least a passing acquaintance with a variety of subject areas...and a killer bookmark list! Most people begin their Internet research by heading straight for one of the major search engines. Many times, that's not the best way to go, unless you're dealing with something very specific or esoteric and you're not even sure there's anything "out there." The Web is so huge today that, whatever it is you're looking for, the odds are very great that someone else has already "been there, done that" -- someone who probably knows more about the subject in question than you do. My favorite fishing holes -- the places I return to again and again -- are: The Librarian's Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/) The Argus Clearinghouse (http://www.clearinghouse.net) The Internet Public Library Associations on the Net (http://www.ipl.org/ref/AON/) Infomine Scholarly Internet Resource Collections (http://infomine.ucr.edu/) Scout Report Signposts (http://www.signpost.org/signpost/) Gary Price's List of Lists (http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm) Note that all of these resources are largely the work of librarians. Why does this not surprise you? Why poke through a bunch of search engine results when you can access resources that have already been vetted by folks who know what they're doing? Whenever I'm really, really stumped in a particular subject area and none of "the usual suspects" is helpful, I tend to go poking around in university library Web sites. I try and track down which institutions have strong departments in certain subject areas, and then go looking at their library Web sites to find relevant Internet resource "pathfinders" built by subject-specialist librarians. I'm rarely disappointed. Why do I contribute so heavily to Respool? Well, first of all, it's a way of keeping my Web searching skills sharp since I don't do reference work anymore. Also, I feel it's well-suited opportunity for me to "give back to the Net." I've gotten so much from the Internet -- a whole new life, mainly -- and I've benefitted so much from the work of others. And no, I don't do it at work. <grin> (I don't access my personal mail from there at all. I'm a "public servant," and under Florida's Sunshine Law, anything on my City computer is fair game for the media or interested citizens.) I usually do Respool stuff at home (where I have a cable modem connection), at night, after the kids are in bed, to wind down before going to bed myself. It's satisfying. It's relaxing. It beats watching the ol' idiot box. > Those are my basic questions - I might ask you more specific ones based on > your answers. Don't worry about length - I will work with whatever you > want to give me. But I think the longer it is the more interesting it will > be for my readers. Well, it did get kind of long, didn't it? But it was a good opportunity for me to reflect on where I am and how I got here. > > And my last question will be, > > When are you going to have your personal website up? You've heard the old aphorism about the shoemaker's children having no shoes. Actually, I do own a couple different domain names; just have to figure out what to do with them... > > Okay, that's a start. > > Looking forward to your reply, > > Rory Litwin > I did my best. Over to you! S > Obviously since it's a web zine and itself full of internet resources > Library Juice tacitly advocates the internet as a resource, if not the > fundamental resource, for librarians. But at the same time, I am > sympathetic to critical voices on the "information age." I am wondering > what your thoughts are on the broad issues of the information society, the > digital divide, and virtual life. Subjects of interest to you? I think > that the people most heavily involved with the internet are often in the > best positions to ask critical questions about it and its place in society. > > Or tell me anything you want! > > Rory Sorry, Rory. I've been having the proverbial week from hell. Rushing around to get read to leave town for Computers in Libraries Conference this coming week. Actually, I do have a favorite rant that bleeds across a few different issues. Re: The Digital Divide... I see evidence of this every week, when I volunteer in my younger son's second grade classroom. I've been teaching the kids word processing -- setting up a document, adding graphics, using the spell checker, etc. Fortunately, I've been able to work with each kid individually. And what I've noticed is that some kids are whizzes at this stuff, and others are just struggling. Inevitably, the presence or absence of a computer in the home -- I ask each child if he or she has one -- is what makes the biggest difference. Even if pretty much all a kid does on the home computer is play games, he or she is still comfortable with the whole keyboarding situation. Kids who don't have the advantage of regular exposure at home to a computer are hesitant...fearful, even, that they might break something or that every keystroke is a matter of life or death. Certainly at this point in time, where home computers are not universal, Internet workstations in public libraries fill a vital need. It's not just a matter of...well, who else in the community would provide this service. It just makes a heck of a lot of sense to offer Internet access to the public in a location that is already a nexus for information resources -- and where trained professionals can nudge people along the rocky road to information literacy. To be blunt, any librarian worth his or her MLS degree knows that the Internet is not always the first, best choice...and that even when it is, there is an awful lot of crap out there in the ether. At the Clearwater Public Library, where I have my office (such as it is), the Internet computers are almost always fully booked for all the hours the building is open to the public. Our reference staff boasts an exceptionally high level of Internet literacy as well as technical expertise, and they offer (free) weekly Internet training classes to the public, in addition to the day-to-day help and tech support. (These folks are amazing, by the way. Last year, according to the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois -- http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/research/lrc.html -- the Clearwater Public Library System ranked # 1 out of 410 reporting libraries serving populations over 100,000 in the category of Reference Transactions per Capita-- that is, the number of reference questions answered. I can't brag on 'em enough...) I'm especially proud of our library system when I read messages from colleagues on library-related mailing lists asking things like: "How can we block access to chat?" "How can we keep people from doing e-mail?" "How can we keep patrons from playing games online?" I'm thrilled beyond belief that this mindset doesn't exist at Clearwater Public. Patrons come in and sign up for their hour or half hour at an Internet workstation, and what they do with their online time -- within the limits of the law and the library code of conduct -- is their own business. I can see where staff members in an academic library might be concerned if all the Internet computers are occupied by people checking their e-mail, especially if there are campus computing centers where this could just as easily be done. But in a public library? I don't think library staff members are in any position to make value judgements on what is or is not a "worthwhile" use of the Internet. The patron using e-mail could be communicating with another amateur genealogist, reading messages from a mailing list on southern history or sending a quick hi to a grandchild spending a semester abroad. The person in the chat room may be participating in an online AA meeting or a Bible study class. And online gaming....well, my 8-year-old son plays chess at http://games.yahoo.com/. Are you going to stand over a patron's shoulder and police what he or she is doing? If so, then you are in the wrong profession. Those who think e-mail, chat and online gaming are "frivolous" should also be working to rid their collection of romance novels, Arnold Schwartzenegger films, pop music CDs and anything else that qualifies primarily as entertainment. Why single out the Internet? Shirl ____________________________________________________________________________top 6. Marxists Internet Archive http://www.marxists.org/ Touted as the "most complete database of Marxism hitherto made," The Marxists Internet Archive is an extensive collection of Marxist material, compiled and distributed completely by volunteers. The materials are organized into focused collections which are found in the site's four main sections: Writers Archive, Non-English Archive, History Archive, and Reference Archive, an ever-expanding collection of secondary material. The most developed compilation is the Writers' Archive, which contains large collections of writing and information about Marxists including Trotski, Lenin, Draper, DeLeon, and of course, Marx, as well as smaller collections on Cannon, Guevara, and Morris, among others. This site is an invaluable resource for both novices and experts interested in Marxism. [EM] > From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ____________________________________________________________________________top 7. The Real Beer Page http://www.realbeer.com/ This amazing site, coming in at over 75,000 pages, is the ultimate online resource for beer lovers and homebrewers. Among its many offerings are breaking beer news, spotlight features, an events calendar, a searchable brewery and pub with over 3,500 entries, a searchable library with original publications and a host of links to related online offerings (a trial search for "porter" returned 1,100 hits!), a BREWMall with retail items, and a collection of classified beer and brewing links. Other features include contests, games, and polls. Whatever their depth of interest or knowledge, Beer enthusiasts of all stripes will quickly lose themselves in this site. [MD] > From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ____________________________________________________________________________top 8. five golden rules to librarianship Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 14:42:24 +1300 From: "Alistair Kwun" <a.kwun[at]auckland.ac.nz> To: "New Librarians" <newlib-l[at]usc.edu> Subject: five golden rules to librarianship MIME-Version: 1.0 Hi everyone: Here are my "rules". What do other people have? 1) equality and openness 2) lucid communication 3) accuracy 4) flexibility 5) sense of humor Alistair Kwun ____________________________________________________________________________top L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://libr.org/Juice/ | | Library Juice is supported by a voluntary subscription | fee of $10 per year, variable based on ability and | desire to pay. You may send a check payable in US funds | to Rory Litwin, at PO Box 720511, San Jose, CA 95172 | | Original material and added value in Library Juice | is copyright-free; beyond that the publisher makes | no guarantees. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited and published by Rory Litwin. | Original senders are credited wherever possible; | opinions are theirs. If you are the author of some | email in Library Juice which you want removed from | the web, please write to me and I will remove it. | | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | | Rory[at]libr.org This page was created by SimpleText2Html 1.0.3 on 14-Mar-100.