7 posts tagged “reference”

I may use some of these links as part of a short post later in my library's blog. For now, I am parking them here for reference purposes. As always, if any reader out there finds them helpful, feel free to explore. This list is in no particular order.

• From the Reason Foundation, a "Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus." According to the site, the guide "breaks down each section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to explain just how all that money is being spent, who is spending it, and what the whole stimulus means in layman's terms." The site does feature a section on how to read the guide and then links related to the act's provisions. They also provide links to other outside sources. 
• ProPublica has a complete website on "Eye on the Stimulus" where they are "tracking the stimulus from bill to building, and we're organizing citizens nationwide to watchdog local stimulus projects." The site also features a very good FAQ for the federal Recovery.gov website. They also feature a Recovery Tracker database where you can see what is going to your county, or you can just click on your state to see contracts and spending at the state level. They have added items to the database that may not have been reported to the federal government (the fed does not require all recipients to report to Recovery.gov). 
• Recovery.gov is "is the U.S. government's official website providing easy access to data related to Recovery Act Spending and allows for reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse."This is the place to start to learn about the economic stimulus efforts. The site contains a lot information.
  
• The Columbia Journalism Review has put together "Bailout, Stimulus--Your Essential Guide." From the site, "in a specially commissioned study, The Audit [the CJR section that covers business journalism] here takes a look at online resources tracking the bailout and stimulus money, from government web sites to independently run operations. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s pretty good. No need to thank us. It’s what we do." This is a very good and accessible overview.
  
• And if you want to know some of the people and enterprises that should be held accountable, the Center for Public Integrity has compiled "Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown? The Top 25 Subprime Lenders and their Wall Street Backers." This investigation is worth reading. 
• And for a little bit of serious humor, which I would not include on the library post I am pondering, gives a Campus Squeeze Douchebag Report on the Big 3, that is, the CEOs of the big American auto companies, who also took stimulus money and became even more infamous when they were asked about their private jets during Congressional hearings. 

(Crossposted from my professional blog, The Gypsy Librarian).

I bet my four readers at The Gypsy Librarian were expecting the next installment in my small series on blogging mistakes and library blogs (first installment here). I am taking a break today to highlight a very important issue as well as let my four readers know about some of the good work going on in my campus. Ok, this is kind of to let people know where I was last night too. The series will resume next Friday.

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October domestic violence purple_ribbon

 

October has a few observances associated with it. One of those observances is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (link to President Obama's proclamation). Last night I attended a candlelight vigil held on our campus to recognize the issue of domestic violence and to educate people. The event took place at 7:00pm last night in the fourth floor meeting room of the library. They were going to do it outdoors, but the weather did not cooperate. Nevertheless the event was successful, and from a quick glance, I think we had about 50 people or so. We did get some representatives from our campus police, a very strong Greek presence (ladies and gents), and some students. I was the only representative of the library present. The room's lights were down, and the room was lit with candles. At the entrance, there was a display with educational materials.

The event started with an opening statement by Ms. Samantha Dwight, who among her many hats has done work for the Campus Assault Response Effort (CARE) and is an educator/facilitator/presenter extraordinaire on this and other gender issues. She does a bit of everything, so if she reads this I apologize in advance if I can't quite "put her in a slot." At any rate, she read a statement, including a recognition of the important role that law enforcement officers have in domestic violence prevention. Those men and women in uniform when they get a call never know what they may be walking into. So our thanks go to them.

Next, the ladies of Alpha Chi Omega took the stage and did a dramatic reading. Members of the sorority took turns reading statistics and facts related to domestic violence in the nation. This had a moving effect on the crowd, and we learned a thing or two in the process. The last member on stage sang a song.

The activity would come to an end as a prayer was said for the victims as well as those involved in caring for them as well as for us all. And silently the event closed.

Whenever possible, I think it is important for me to attend events like this. In my role as outreach librarian, this is another way for me to reach out to our campus community, another way for the library to say present and that we support the cause. Personally, I just think this is important and needs to be supported. We have a long way to go in educating people, and events like this are a way to do it.

I would like to wrap this up by offering some links and resources that I hope people will find useful. Please, if you happen to be a victim, or you know someone who is, know that there is help out there. Some of the links will include phone numbers and contacts. On our campus here, the folks at C.A.R.E. are one such resource. Need more information, and you are local, you can contact them, or you can contact me, and I will refer you to the right place or find you the information you may need.

The resources then:

• The Domestic Violence Awareness Project. These are the folks who promote and maintain activities for the observance, which started as an awareness "Day of Unity" back in October of 1981. The Project is coordinated by the National Center on Domestic Violence. You can learn about campaigns, find educational materials, and get links, and phone numbers if you need help. Of course, if you are in imminent danger, dial 911.
  
• The National Coalition on Against Domestic Violence. Among the things this organization does, "the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), in conjunction with Ms. Magazine, started the Remember My Name project in 1994 to create a national registry of names of those who have lost their lives to domestic violence. Since then, NCADV has continued to collect information on incidents of people who have been killed by an intimate partner and produces a poster each year for Domestic Violence Awareness Month listing the names of those submitted to the project. To date, over 7,753 people have been memorialized through the project." Names are added daily to the list, which you can view on the website.
  
• The U.S. Department of Justice has an Office on Violence Against Women. In addition to listing national hotlines, the site contains a lot of good information, including statistics.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a handbook on domestic violence awareness. This seems geared to employers so they can be supportive in the workplace. Provides some good information.
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The number is 1−800−799−SAFE (7233) or TTY 1−800−787−3224. Their contact form can also be used to get assistance if you prefer, though they encourage calling more. You can also find some information on the site.
  
• The National Youth Violence Prevention Center also has resources related to the observance here. Yes, it is not just spouses or significant others; children and youths in families where an abusive situation exists suffer too.
• The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) is also a good resource.
• In Texas, the Attorney General has some resources here. A bit more geared to sexual assault, but still good information.
• There is also a Texas Council on Family Violence.
• Locally, you have the good folks of the East Texas Crisis Center. If you need help locally, this is a place to go.
  

This small list is certainly not comprehensive. I have tried to put out some resources that I have looked over and seem to provide good information. Readers are invited to comment, respond, and if they have other suggestions for links, add in the comments as well.

And yes, I tagged the post under "celebrations and holidays." It is not because I think domestic violence is to be celebrated; it is not. But this is also about a monthly observance, which is what I use the tag for. Just to be clear.

I am not sure where I want to go with this piece. Initially, I just wanted to do a basic note on the article for my professional blog, but then I was interested in the questions the article posed. I listed the questions as part of the note. I guess I would like to expand the piece and answer the questions, using them as a way to explore a bit about how I think about reference services and collections. Maybe it would go along with the eventual statement of philosophy for librarianship I would like to finish writing out someday. Of course, as usual, time is a bit tight for me at the moment to work on a good draft, so I am storing it here for now in the hopes I can revisit it later.

Colson, Jeannie. "Determining Use of an Academic Library Reference Collection: Report of a Study." Reference and User Services Quarterly 47.2 (Winter 2007): 168-175.

Read via WilsonWeb.

With the summer over, the weeding in the reference collection is done for the moment. There are still items that can go, but they will have to wait until next summer (probably) when I might have some time for the project. Then again, given certain changes going on, I may either get back to it a lot sooner (if the space issue suddenly becomes more urgent), or we might put it off further in the future (if other things take precedence). I will spare my two readers the details. At any rate, this article goes well with some others I have been reading on the topic of reference collections and weeding (see here and here for examples).

In brief, the article describes a five-year shelving study at a small academic library. The study does not seem hard to replicate, and the author does include lessons learned from the study. What caught my eye was some of the questions that the study prompted, questions drawn from references in the literature review of the article (goes back to Nolan's 1991 article on "The Lean Reference Collection" published in C&RL).

Some of the questions I wanted to ponder on:

• What is the intended purpose of a reference collection?
  
• Should a librarian limit selection of reference items to the heavy use areas? Should areas with lesser use be weeded out with no new additions? What about new areas of knowledge?
  
• What about subject bibliographers? What is their role in ensuring a balanced collection? Should they select items because they are "right" or because they will be used?
• As for the Z call number range, like the author, I think subject bibliographies should be in their subject area to facilitate browsing and finding by the users.
  
• From the article, to consider: "Generally, online databases do not contain the content found in the high-quality volumes that populate academic reference collections. If print reference use is decreasing, can it be assumed that our students, faculty, and even librarians are less scholarly in their quests for information?" (174). I don't think it is as simple as that. A lot of the content in Gale books, to pick an example, is present in their virtual collections, which means, in theory at least, we could stick with the electronic and do without their print. But, having said that, it is not always the case. There are a lot of good print reference sources without an online counterpart.
  

I came across this post on "Think Local" over at the GovGab blog. It discusses a variety of ways to find local government information on a broad range of topics. For me, this works as a bit of an update on my previous entry about local information. Previously I was thinking about looking for local blogs. This takes things a step further to think locally in other ways. The GovGab blogger is pointing to a section on the USA.gov website with various ways of finding local information about the government and other services. Definitely worth a look, and it can definitely be something to find resources to add to our guides. 

Citation for the article:

Luo, Lili. "Chat Reference Evaluation: A Framework of Perspectives and Measures." Reference Services Review 36.1 (2008): 71-85.

Read via Emerald.

I just wanted to make a note of this article, but I don't have anything substantial enough for the main blog. It provides a review of procedures for evaluating chat reference services. It basically goes through the literature, and it summarizes the various approaches available for evaluating chat reference. Overall, a decent overview. 

I always thought that a librarian should be pretty knowledgeable when it comes to his or her local community. Public librarians tend to be better at this than academic librarians. However, I think it should be all librarians. And yet, for me, keeping up with the local stuff is not easy, and I don't have much of an incentive to do so. When I worked at UHD, which was right in the city downtown, at least knowing where some of the local agencies and resources were was helpful. Here, I don't get many locals wandering in asking where the homeless shelter is. Yes, there are some homeless in Tyler, just not as many as in a big city like Houston. Here in Tyler we have our colleague who is a local historian, and she pretty much knows just about anything. A part of me wonders if we could somehow distill her knowledge so we could share in it After all, if she retires, her knowledge would go with her. This goes along with the idea of institutional memory, which is something I have given thought to here and there, but as usual, time keeps me from giving it more than a cursory thought.

Anyhow, the reason I find myself thinking about it again is this post I read from the Eclectic Librarian where she is making notes of a CiL 2008 session on "Going Local in the Library." Here is the part that caught my attention:

"Local blogs also provide information about communities, so creating a local blog directory might be useful."

Now, wouldn't that be a cool idea? To get together a decent list of local bloggers, link to them someplace on your library website, maybe in the same spot you have other local information links? A little more from the post:

"Most local sites are generated by passionate individuals. Libraries, which are not revenue generating sources anyway, are better poised to take on the responsibility of aggregating and generating local information. Particularly since we’re already in the role of information provision.

Libraries can be the lense into local information."

It would be a way for us to become more involved in the community. It would something I would love to do, but then the old usual issue comes: it is yet another thing to add to the already full plate. But I think this could be a good reference asset.

I have been thinking for a while about using wikis here in the library for a few things. Pathfinders are actually one of the materials I would love to move over to wikis. However, our choices in terms of wiki tools are severely restricted. Since we lack servers in the library, the option of downloading any wiki software is out of the question. It would probably have to be some hosted option, and even then I am not so sure. It is something I need to investigate. Would something like PBWiki work for us? At this point,  I am thinking about opening an account myself with PBWiki (or any other free solution) and taking it for a spin with one of the library guides I have made. I could see how the system works out, ease of use, so on, then show the others. It's an idea I have been bouncing around for a while.

Seeing Joyce Valenza's post on "Ten Reasons Why Your Next Pathfinder Should Be a Wiki" has definitely added some fuel to my inspiration. Some of the reasons she presents are things I have been saying here for a while: the organic nature, the ability to collaborate with the editing amongst the librarians (and possibly faculty for pathfinders in their areas), and ease of use (no need to know things like HTML). We'll see how it goes.