Soldier for Literacy

A Stand Against Wikipedia

2007-01-30T15:01:00.000-05:00

From Inside Higher Ed:

As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia.

While plenty of professors have complained about the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries, and some have discouraged or tried to bar students from using it, the history department at Middlebury College is trying to take a stronger, collective stand. It voted this month to bar students from citing the Web site as a source in papers or other academic work. All faculty members will be telling students about the policy and explaining why material on Wikipedia — while convenient — may not be trustworthy.

Read the rest of the article here.

Minority Librarians Seek To Update Image of White ‘Bun Lady’

2006-12-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

This article was in a recent issue of Diverse Issues in Higher Education.

Minority Librarians Seek To Update Image of White ‘Bun Lady’
By Associated Press
Dec 19, 2006, 07:56

Librarians have long been portrayed as the little old White lady with her hair in a bun and glasses on a chain around her neck, “shushing” noisy people, but Deborah Lilton represents a more modern image.

In a profession that in fact has been largely White, Lilton is a Black student at the University of Alabama who is pursuing a degree to become an academic librarian. She is one of a disproportionately small number of minorities entering a field that is trying to get past stereotypical images of the “bun lady.”

[Click here to read the rest!]

Facilitating Scholarly Communication in African Studies

2006-03-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Abstract

Web publishing and its technical possibilities, as well as the open access movement that has accompanied it, have resulted in a number of tendencies with mixed implications for scholarly communication. This article examines the impact of these changes in the field of the African studies, where the North-South divide in scientific publishing poses an additional challenge to the issues at stake. It looks at several initiatives taken by the Africanists community in the Netherlands to bridge the divide, in particular the establishment of a digital platform for African studies. It concludes that these initiatives are all geared towards redressing the balance and establishing open scholarly communication on an equal footing, but that true open access can only be achieved if practiced both ways (by North and South) and not at the expense of academic quality standards. In addition it requires the active commitment of each and every individual scholar. This commitment still needs to grow in Africanist circles.

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Literary lust

2006-03-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

Literary lust from Guardian Unlimited: Culture Vulture

An Athens County (OH) librarian in the news!

2006-02-22T12:19:00.000-05:00

Librarian warns proposed tax 'reform' would gut local services

"A state constitutional amendment favored by Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell would bring sweeping changes in local government funding, and pubic library officials say its impact would be massive."

Read more here!

EPA Library Funds Cut 80% under Bush Budget

2006-02-19T02:11:00.000-05:00

How do you spell idiot? G-E-O-R-G-E-W-B-U-S-H.

Yeah, I said it.

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Welcome to my new blog!

2006-02-19T01:47:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to set up a libraries/librarians/literacy blog for quite a while now, and today while procrastinating about grading papers I finally did it! Stay tuned for posts, comments and other neat things that are library-related...probably related mostly to academic libraries since that's the direction my career is headed, but any "librariana" is liable to show up.

You may be wondering where I got the name for this blog. This past June at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, I was attending the BCALA membership meeting, where I heard a talk given by the esteemed Michael Eric Dyson. I was jotting some notes in my Palm Pilot. One of the most memorable things I remember him saying was that "...black librarians are soldiers for literacy..." I didn't know it then, but it was at that moment, that a blog name was born!