Your Tour Guide on the Information Superhighway

I love being the virtual “on-call” librarian for the New Media Studies class (and I’m getting used to the new #nms_f10 hashtag this year…)  It’s always a little interesting trying to keep up with what’s going on in the class when I’m over across campus in my office, watching your tweets scroll by…  Remember, the more content you tweet, the more I can help you with links and other bits of info.

I can also help with:

• For many questions, I can help with finding information. As a librarian who works mainly on the web, I have some pretty major Google-fu and can find things in out of the way corners of the Internets and things that are behind paywalls too!
• Research questions. Not just for this class, but for other classes. Have a research paper or project and you don’t know how to start?  I’ve got strategies for you.
• New Media! I’m always scanning the horizon to see what’s out there, what are the new technologies. If you have a need which you think some technological solution might be able to help you with, ask me. I might be able to find some cool new app, or piece of software or gadget that might help.

All you have to do is ask!  Via Twitter (@efilgo), email (Ellen_Filgo@baylor.edu) or stop by in person (Jones 111).

I found this link in my Twitter stream this morning, and I thought I would share it with you.  I am very curious as to your reactions to this article especially in light of all you’ve been learning about education this semester.

This is a faculty member writing about what he feels an academic library should be (and not be).

The classroom is where students connect, collaborate, learn, and synthesize, under the guidance of faculty who are, at the end of the day, responsible for teaching. Students can continue the process over a cup of coffee in the local college coffee shop, in the common room of their dorms, or when they run into each other in the computer lab or library. The library exists as a means: to support the members of the classroom, the students and faculty.
…
The library is a means to an end: enabling students and faculty to access archives.

Thoughts? I have mine, of course, but I’d love to hear what yours are.

Throughout the semester, I have been collecting articles, books, book chapters, websites, etc.  Much of it is what has been listed in your readers under “Further Reading” for each of the sections you read, what has come up during class, or other things I’ve found.  I’ve been collecting these items with a program called Zotero (more info about Zotero here) and publishing them online the class’ group library, which can be found here.

I really think that all of you should take some time to learn about how to use Zotero to capture, manage and cite your research resources.  It’s a powerful, free, open-source program that is a Firefox extension.  Take a look at the group library I created, and then at the other links I’ve posted here.  I am happy to help you get started using this program, just let me know.  Zotero will be one program that will serve you well throughout the rest of your time at Baylor and beyond!

I’m not a huge comic book fan, but there is one that I own that is really meaningful to me. It’s called Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco. I lived in Bosnia for 3 years, and this graphic novel, while not pleasant to read, does a fantastic job explaining the war in Eastern Bosnia. Joe Sacco has written several other graphic novels about war zones – one called Palestine, another called Footnotes from Gaza, and several more about Bosnia. He’s a journalist as well as a comic artist.

When I set out this morning to assess our library’s collection in regards to comics, I was delightfully surprised! Our amazing Zeta collection of children and young adult books has a wide variety of comics and graphic novels. If you do a keyword search in BearCat for “Comic books, strips, etc.” you will come up with a wonderful list of comics and graphic novels located in the Baylor Libraries. Here are a few that I’ve chosen to highlight. Some in this list are reference works and scholarly studies on comics.

Aoki, Keith. Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain. New expanded ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.

Burgan, Michael. Frankenstein. Minneapolis: Stone Arch Books, 2008.

Garrett, Greg. Holy Superheroes!: Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels, and Film. Rev. and expanded ed. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

Lent, John A. Comic Books and Comic Strips in the United States Through 2005: An International Bibliography. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2006.

Nakazawa, Keiji. Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. San Francisco, Calif: Last Gasp of San Francisco, 2004.

Pawuk, Michael. Graphic Novels: A Genre Guide to Comic Books, Manga, Andmore. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2007.

Pendleton, Jeff. The Story of Dublin Dr Pepper: Dr Pepper, Texas. Limited ed. [Dublin, Tex: Dublin Dr Pepper, 2007.

Sacco, Joe. Palestine: #1. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 1993.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Thoreau, Henry David. Thoreau at Walden. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Weiner, Robert G. Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide to Comics, Prose Novels, Children’s Books,articles, Criticism and Reference Works, 1965-2005. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2008.

One of my favorite blogs about (for the lack of a better word) web stuff is the ReadWriteWeb. Last week they ran a series of posts documenting what the top web trends of 2009 are. I thought it might be an interesting enterprise to list those trends here to see if anyone can make connections between what Doug Engelbart was writing and thinking and demoing back in 1968 with the cutting edge web trends of 2009.

ReadWriteWeb’s top web trends of 2009:

• 
  Structured Data

  The basic principle of the Web of Data is “unstructured information will give way to structured information – paving the road to more intelligent computing.”

• The Real-Time Web

  the Real-Time Web is a new form of communication, it creates a new body of content, it’s immediate, it’s public and has an explicit social graph associated with it, and it carries an implicit model of federation.

• Personalization
  

  Ultimately personalization is about web sites and services giving you what you want, when you want it.

• Mobile Web and Augmented Reality
  

  Augmented reality is “the addition of a layer to the world on your mobile device”

• Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is “when real world objects (such as fridges, lights and toasters) get connected to the Internet.”

So, anyone want to jump in and list where they might see connections with what’s going on now in the world of the web and what Doug Engelbart’s original vision was? You can either respond here in the comments, or on your own blog.