Tom's Blog

LaRue Reading Response

tbm6307 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:09:35 +0000

Who: The author is Jamie LaRue, who writes a weekly newspaper column and has been for over 25 years. He is obviously a credible author, and has been published many times. This article was written for the general public.

What: This is a letter that LaRue wrote to a patron who wanted a particular book removed from the library. It touches on the topic of gay marriage and, in the words of the patron, “normalizes” it, which she doesn’t think is appropriate for a children’s book. This particular copy is published on his blog.

When: This was published on July 14^th, 2008. This makes it fairly recent, and I’m sure it is still relevant because there is no doubt that the particular book in question is still on library shelves all across America.

Where: The author doesn’t explicitly say where this takes place, but on his blog it has a link for Colorado’s public library system, so I am assuming that he lives and works in that state. As stated above, the letter was published on his blog.

Why: I believe the author published this particular letter on his blog for a multitude of reasons. First, it goes through the steps that are taken when a book is submitted for review by the library. It also gives an explanation and insight in to what he is thinking as a person who is reviewing the book. Also, it touches on the book and what is and isn’t grounds for removal from the library. This letter could answer a lot of questions that people have about why certain books are or are not banned from libraries.

How: The entire thing is a letter, so it’s not like it was an informative article that needed to be researched and cited. However, as an expert in this particular field, the author references several reputable sources and even cites the handbook that the library uses and the Library Bill of Rights. There is no list of citations at the end, but since it is a letter it doesn’t need one.

My Response: I enjoyed this particular piece. I think it gives excellent insight in to the mind of a librarian. It explains why some books that some people may find offensive are allowed in public libraries. It also gives a detailed explanation of the process that a book goes through when it is reviewed or has a complaint, and makes it easier to understand the inner workings of a library. It touches on the morality issues that librarians face, and all in all I thought it was a very thoughtful, educational, and well written piece.

Biehle Article Response

tbm6307 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:52:08 +0000

Who: Helen Biehle wrote this article. She is a former teacher who is a credible author who has written for many publications, as well as the Library of Congress. This article is written for the general public.

What: This article is published in a book called Opposing Viewpoints: Censorship and is an opinionated article that offers only one point of view to the reader. It didn’t have any spelling or grammatical errors.

When: This article was published in 2002. Although it is not the most recent article, most of its statements still hold true.

Where: The article seems to take place in Cleveland, Ohio since the author talks about calling the head of the Ohio public library system. It is published in a respected publication called Opposing Viewpoints. I could not find any contact information for the author.

Why: The author wrote this piece in an attempt to persuade. It is a very one sided article that takes a lot of shots at the way the public library system is run, at least in what seems to be her home state of Ohio. It seems like she also wants to inform, perhaps in an attempt to persuade, because she has a lot of evidence and logical statements to back up her attacks.

How: There was some research done for this article, but for the most part it is an editorial-style opinion based article. There is not a list of resources attached, but in the article she does talk about calling the director of the Ohio public library system, as well as speaking to librarians, so it’s not like she was completely uninformed.

My Response: I found it interesting that she felt so strongly about something that she wrote an opinionated article basically bashing the libraries, an institution that she admitted loving since she was once a teacher. I am a Conservative Catholic Republican, through and through, but I am not big on censorship. I guess as a young person, I don’t see the need in hiding things from children, although I may think differently further down the road. I disagree with a lot of what she says, but I do think that the libraries should have the right to make moral judgments, especially based on age. If a 12 year old kid wants to check out an album with explicit lyrics even though he can’t legally buy it, then his parent or guardian should have to be there with him.

Brock Read Article Response

tbm6307 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:09:16 +0000

Who: Brock Read wrote this article. He is a credible author who works for and has published many times in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Those were the only articles I could find that were published by him. He is writing for experts since it is in a journal, but his writing style can appeal to the general public as it is very smooth flowing.

What: The publication is the Chronicle of Higher Education. It is an article he wrote for the publication. The information is factual and objective, with data and studies to back it up. It offers both sides of the story, and was clean of grammatical and spelling errors.

When: The information was published on October 27, 2006. It is reasonably current, although minor changes have been made since then to the way Wikipedia operates.

Where: It was published by the journal The Chronicle of Higher Education, which seems to be a pretty respectable publication. The author can be contacted through his email address, although I couldn’t find a physical address to contact him.

Why: The author wrote this article in an attempt to inform people about the pros and cons of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. It also seems that it was meant to persuade at times, as he seems to be somewhat advocating the potential of Wikipedia at different times throughout the article.

How: There is not a list of sources attached to this article, although it is possible that the online version through the library left them off and that they may be published in the Chronicle of Higher Education along with the article. The information was gathered through different interviews and experiments, all of which are explained in the article.

My Response: I thought it was interesting that he treats Wikipedia as a somewhat credible source. Most of my professors despise Wikipedia, but that is probably because I am a Communications Studies major, and as Mr. Read touches on in the article, some of Wikipedia’s weakest articles are in the humanities. They are stronger in fields such as science and history, where it is much easier to check facts. In a field like Communications, it is more difficult to check facts since a lot of the theories and ideas are the work of one person. I think this reading was assigned so that we could get a better idea of whether or not we can use Wikipedia as a legitimate source in our research.

Google Scholar Thing

tbm6307 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:50:38 +0000

2. Available through library in Bound Periodicals

4. PDF Available

6. Available online (through UNCW)

8. Inter-library loan

“The Lancet”

tbm6307 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:05:12 +0000

Burnham, Gilbert; “Department of Error,” Erratum; Yes
Burnham, Gilbert; “Mortality in Iraq,” Letter; No
Horton, Richard; “Iraq: time to signal a new era for health in foreign policy,” Article; Yes
Burnham, Gilbert; “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,” Article; Yes
Apfelroth, Stephen; “Mortality in Iraq,” Letter; No
Roberts, Les; “Mortality in Iraq,” Letter; Yes
Abad-Franch, Fernando; “Mortality in Iraq,” Letter; No
Raisman, Geoffrey; “Does medicine have a moral message?” Letter; No
Horton, Richard; “The war in Iraq: civilian casualties, political responsibilities,” Article; Yes
Al-Rubeyi, Bushra Ibrahim; “Mortality before and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003,” Article; Yes
Kleihues, Paul, et al; “Correspondence,” Article; Yes

Response to Hass Article

tbm6307 — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:15:30 +0000

Ever since I first got to college, my dad has been hounding me about Facebook. I made my profile when I was a senior in high school, back when you still needed a .edu email address to make one. He used to get on me every few weeks about making sure that there were no pictures of me with alcohol on my profile. My dad is a retired New York City Police Officer, and now he works with the UNC school system, so I trust what he says. He was telling me even back then that Universities and companies alike were using Facebook to check up on prospective students or employees. If they saw something they didn’t like, it could stop you from getting a job or get you suspended from school. If you look at my Facebook profile now, you won’t find one picture of me with alcohol until the photo albums of my 21^st birthday, when I could legally drink. I was good about untagging pictures of me with alcohol when I was underage, which is why I have less than 400 pictures on my page and some of my friends have thousands. I think that it would be stupid for companies and schools not to use this tool. It’s not an invasion of privacy; anyone who was born after 1960 knows that anything you put on the internet can quickly become public information, and often does. The key is to make sure that you’re smart about what you let become public. Smoking weed and drinking underage are illegal; that is common knowledge. If you publicly advertise that you take part in illegal activities, then I feel no remorse for you if you get caught. Everyone in this Library 103 class has grown up in the internet age. You know the risks and you know the consequences. If you choose to disregard those things, then you are taking those risks at your own peril, and should be well aware of that. Nowadays, Facebook is open to anyone with internet access. This means that anyone can see what you put on there, and with this being the case, we need to be even more careful about what we allow to become public information.

First Post

tbm6307 — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:44:01 +0000

Tom Michell

Class 2 Assessment

January 11, 2010

2 – Organization of Information

1. Using the library catalog, do a search in the catalog to find out the proper subject heading for cars. In other words, what is the Library of Congress subject heading for all materials on cars?

Automobiles

2. How many library materials BEGIN with that subject heading?

313

3. How many library materials have that exact subject heading (not subdivided)?

4. How does that subject heading subdivide? Give two examples.

It breaks up into different components of the car, such as Automobiles Air Conditioning and Automobiles Audio Equipment. It also goes off into subdivisions like Automobile Advertising and Automobile Maintenance.

5. Do a keyword search in the catalog for recipes. Click open the first 12 titles and look at the subject headings only. How many of the first 12 results have to do with cooking?

6. Do a keyword search in the catalog for cook books. Click open the first 12 titles and look at the subject headings only. How many of the first 12 results have to do with cooking?

7. From the two searches above, what are some of the common subject headings for books about cooking?

Food, Cookery, Diet

8. What would you guess would be the Library of Congress subject heading for books about French cooking?

Cookery – French

9. What is the real Library of Congress subject heading for books about French cooking?

Cookery French

10. How many books do we have with that subject heading?

11. Describe how a keyword/natural language search works compared to a subject/controlled vocabulary search works.