Librarians In The Movies

I was looking up information on Librarians in movies. Turns out someone has already done the work for me:

http://emp.byui.edu/RAISHM/films/bibliography.html

I’m particularly interesting in reading Bitch Magazine’s take on Librarians in films:

Abigail Leah Plumb.  "The Dewey-Eyed Decimal System: Checking Out Librarians on Film."  Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture 14 (Summer 2001). 

I mentioned before Dr. Radford’s work is also on my radar. Looking forward to reading this:

Marie L. Radford and Gary P. Radford.  "Librarians and Party Girls: Cultural Studies and the Meaning of the Librarian."  Library Quarterly 73(1): 54-69.

The site also hosts a link to this with even more resources:

http://coolspotters.com/articles/breaking-the-stereotypes-in-film-and-pop-culture

I hope someone has time to enjoy these with me.

Loved This Book!

This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cyrarians Can Save us All.

Marilyn Johnson

2010 – Harper Collins

978-0-06-143161 (pbk)

I finished reading This Book is Overdue today on my way home. What a fun read. I recommended it anyone interested in the Library world especially those who want to know about the digital side (which I assume is everyone). It’s an easy read and had me very much looking forward to my NYC commute. Here’s a few of my favorite pieces, I won’t give the whole book away.

Marilyn Johnson ropes you in with talk of an old lawless town and how its library is functioning on a giant scale in Second Life. Second Life has an entire chapter dedicated to it later in the book, and as someone who hasn’t been near Second Life, I’m not oddly captivated by the whole idea.

Anyways- Deadwood, South Dakota.

This is where the book starts. How can someone not keep reading? You’re a sneaky one Ms. Johnson. Getting the reader hooked early.

After reading the chapter I felt obligated as a library person to check out the Deadwood Library Website. While there isn’t much to see on the site itself, it makes me want to check out the Deadwood Library collection all the more in Second Life. The chapter also made me want to go to Deadwood and be a part of the reenactments, so take that as you wish. What I’m trying to say while getting very much distracted in the regularly forgotten awesomeness that is South Dakota, is the Deadwood Library, according to Marilyn Johnson’s book has an amazing digital collection in Second Life.

Next Point – Sickness…

Information Sickness.

I learned about this in passing in my Digital Libraries class last semester at Rutgers. Marilyn Johnson seems to share the sentiment of it being a humorous idea, while at the same time, in a weird way being absolutely plausible in some fashion. The idea comes from Ted Mooney’s novel Easy Travel to Other Planets. While I have not read this book myself, it seems that there is a character who comes down with information sickness having taken in too much information and they lose their mind or control of it or something to this affect. Like I said, I haven’t read the book; all of this is secondary information. Marilyn took a gander over at NYPL in the very building I spend much of my time, so perhaps on a slow day I’ll meander down that way and take a gander of my own. See what all the fuss is about.

The book goes on to talk about catalog upgrade nightmares and the realities of being a front line librarian including a section dedicated to poo, which was especially funny and upsetting.

More upsetting were the changes for the New York Public Library. While I have mad love for this library, I am very much a new comer to the city and The Library. The changes that went down were kind of outrageous and detrimental to the researchers of the library and the writers who used the collections as inspiration. Interestingly, I think the library has learned what it has lost in a way. For the centennial celebration, The Library hosted hundreds of writers over night to help write a book inspired by the collection and marketed the idea as revolutionary (see Find the Future). However a chapter in Marilyn Johnson’s book shed light on how the library had actually been doing this on a much greater scale where specialists and reference librarians noted for their greatness were helping writers get what they needed and become inspired. This service must have not been publicized very well, because surely there would have been uproar with the shifts away from these aids. It’s these types of things that have academically minded people flocking to The Library and why people think so highly of NYPL.  Now it seems the library is trying to reverse the damage while at the same time making it seem like something new and not really hoisting themselves back to the standards they once held. This is great publicity for the library but only mildly exciting for fans of books and those who write them.

On a lighter note, I was exposed to the American Kennel Club Library, which I now have on my top libraries to visit. Very excited it's not far.  

Her descriptions of Book Cart competitions at ALA conferences and the over all bad-asses that Librarians tend to be - Very enjoyable.

So- thank you Marilyn Johnson. I’m glad to have been exposed to the wonders of Libraries, Second Life, eccentric librarians and the bureaucracy that often overshadows the greatness of the libraries through your book. This Book is Overdue is certainly much more positive, fun, informative, ADVENTUROUS, and I encourage you to check it out.

First Submission To ASIS&T and The Six Lessons I Learned From It All

Tuesday (or very early Wednesday morning) I did it. I submitted a paper to The American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). While I did not do this alone (thanks Lupita, Chirag, and Pam), it sure felt like I was come 4:30am. Oi, it was a long (lonely) night.

The week before was unexpectedly rough, and did as unexpected family things can certainly do to a schedule, which made for a not so pleasant Tuesday deadline. The entire day I was cursing myself for having thought research was a good idea:

“What was I thinking?”

“Why am I writing this? School is finished for summer.”

I must say, despite questioning my ambitions, the next day I felt pretty good about myself. I can honestly say if I wouldn’t have been up editing this paper would not have gotten submitted. No one else had time (or energy?) to get this thing pushed to the end. My group was pooped. 

Even if it doesn’t get accepted, it’s a piece I’m proud of. 

It was definitely a learning experience for me as well, not just the topic of the paper (privacy habits of Millennials in social networking sites), but the process of putting a paper together. A lesson well learned I assure you. 

If you’re looking to publish, the crucial steps are all set up. It’s very easy to be guided through the basic steps of research, so I’ll spare the details. Here are six lessons I’ve learned that are not in the books. 

First- Do your own literature review (at the very least, play a very large role): As much as someone goes over the documents they would like to have included in the paper, when it comes to writing you’ll have no idea what’s going on in this integral piece of the work. 

Second- When working on a time sensitive project, only work with people you know you work with well. Do not try and jump into a project with someone whom you have never met. Although this person may be very sweet, there is no telling what types of things that are seen as a priority and what are not, and there may be conflicts. 

Third- When conflict arises and people seem confused, take charge. Make the project your own and delegate work rather than waiting around for people who had taken leadership to continue in this role. 

Fourth- Know all of your team mates writing styles BEFORE you need to start writing. This will help when sorting through everyone’s work and making it one. It will also help to know who writes most eloquently when in a tough spot. 

Fifth- Have every member of the team write the methodology section independently then compare as a group. This way everyone is on the same page as to what information the group is looking for, how it’s going to be found, and how the data will be analyzed. 

Sixth- Write a paper you can be proud of. People are going to read it and you want to be taken seriously.

When I read over the paper I can spot all the details I helped gather, ideas I had, themes I discovered (the paper was based on questions I thought up), tid-bits from my interviews, and the sections I wrote well the first time. All that thinking ahead I did in the beginning paid off big when it came to writing.The piece is going to be read as one, but to me certain parts shine brighter because their mine and I'm allowed to be proud of them.

I look back and think of the weeks I spent thinking of how to put this project together, how I thought about the details I wanted to include in the paper for weeks before they were written down, and how good it felt at 4:46am on a Wednesday to lay down in my bed and know I have accomplishing something, a milestone of sorts, and now have very little on my agenda for the summer.

It feels good.