Cool!
If you JING, there is a Facebook outbook button in the *free* JING download. If you don’t JING but are curious, check it out! It has made reference work far more interactive. You can create videos on-the-fly and give patrons the url for quick access to your videos.
Have fun!
space travel: a keyword brainstorming chart
I have been looking for tools that would easily help students brainstorm key words and ideas as they begin their research (though their is no quick-fix, easy way to do this!). I work with undergraduates, and have had success using tools like WORDLE and other tagging tools to “teach” research. As instructors, we know a huge obstacle is conveying the importance of experimentation and creativity with keywords in order to help students (re)shape their inquiries. Students will often do one–maybe two searches–and then give up after locating little useful information. Add to that the constraints of time, bad traditions, and curricular limitations and no one librarian gets much more than 50 to 75 minutes with a group of students. Were we given more time, and were we stronger collaborators with other teachers, we would be able to spend an entire 50 minute session on KEY WORD activities.
A worthwhile keyword searching activity utilizing BUBBL.US might look like this:
**A completed key word brainstorm chart may look like THIS
At the end of this type of class, students would have a solid understanding of how to be creative, patient, and inquisitive when doing research. If more instructors and librarians would be open to spending time in the classroom this way–instead of repeating the old worthless demo–students would be well equipped to tackle research. Boolean operators, truncation–basically all of the “skill sets” that dominate information literacy sessions–would come later. Those are little details–things that students can learn after they have hands-on experience with articulating an inquiry, locating precise language, testing search terminology, and re-evaluating their initial inquiries. “Big Picture” instruction is something we can and should be pushing for; but it’s certainly difficult to break bad habits.
In an earlier post, I quoted Kaye Leigh Hagen because her insights rock my socks. She talks about her own experience with the difficult process of discovering her own position of privilege. I really got back into her writing and other writings because I’m hoping to be a part of a panel regarding Sexuality and Librarianship.
But how does normative sexuality manifest itself in librarianship? How can library collections, policies, and programming teach students to deconstruct heterosexuality–to view it as a specific identity, social class, and distinct sexual orientation instead of the default or “natural” class? For example, how might a librarian begin to shape scholarly inquiries by constructing subject guides that separate heterosexuality from Women’s, Gender, and Queer Studies? In other words, I tend to find many helpful guides that organize sexuality studies under a larger umbrella of Sexuality, Gender, Feminist, or Women’s studies; but I’m starting to wonder if those classifications are specific enough–if they isolate heterosexuality enough to be “interrogated” or questioned. I know I take my own heterosexual position in the world and as a librarian for granted–so much so that I don’t feel the need to say: “Oh, yes, I am a heterosexual woman.” Do we even see heterosexuality?
As I write this post, I wonder: what was my main objective in writing it? Why is it important to begin to call heterosexuality into question the way we have done for homosexuality? Why is it important that librarians begin to hold heterosexuality accountable for itself? Quite simply: “mean-spiritedness.” Is that a word? (Tack “ness” onto the end of any kenning and you have a word.) There is a stigma attached to being non-hetero. In fact, aligning yourself with gay activism entitles you to bare the stigma(ta) of gayness. I’ve felt it. Actually, people have questioned my sexuality because I “post all that feminist stuff” everywhere and stuff. (Oh, yeah, it’s assumed that gay and feminist are synonymous.) People have questioned my own sexuality because I support gay rights, post all that feminazi shit everywhere, and say “dude.” So I’ll ask again: what is the point of thinking about the implications of sexuality as it relates to being a librarian? I mean, why bother?
A quoted quote from Mundane Heterosexualities: From Theory to Practices:
heterosexuality’s naturalization means that it is rarely acknowledged as a sexuality, as a sexual category or identification (4).
I basically flipped when I read this because hell would freeze over if I could articulate such a complex idea in such an eloquent way. My quick reaction?: librarianship, among many socially responsible and conscious things, needs to do the thing that it so rarely does: acknowledge heterosexuality as “a sexual category.” A separate category….just as separate as homosexuality. Librarians have to be aware of how sexual orientation is socially constructed–aware of how sexuality is normalized and taken for granted. Library collections will only be as diverse and as imaginative as the librarians who develop them. Maybe librarians who work closely with other teachers and academic departments can start talking about these important distinctions. Maybe, in addition to teaching Gender, teachers could teach 4 months of Heterosexuality. People could even just start saying the word “heterosexuality” more often. In fact, people, when asked, would self-identify as hetero. (I’ve started doing this….try it. It weirds people out. If you act kind of nervous before you say, “well, I have something to tell you: I’m a heterosexual,” it creates positive awkward tension that we can all benefit from.)
There’s a lot to be said about “naming” things, about bringing them out of the silent backgrounds where they too often wait, unrealized. Librarians could create programs and resources that really aim to realize hetero culture as a sexual category. Try saying heterosexual a lot. If you find yourself at a party, and you’re pretty sure you’re not even politically gay (as Parker Posey’s character is in Drunks), say: “hi, I’m ________. Wait awhile and develop a natural conversation with someone you trust. You might tell them at the party. Maybe even wait several years to cultivate a lasting friendship. But don’t make assumptions about others’ perceptions of your straightness.
A recent post by Peter Godwin asks “Is Youtube the Next Google?” As a librarian-teacher, and as a regular user of Youtube (content-creator not implied here) I realize that I consult Youtube videos to supplement the print texts that shape my (perceptions of) reality. I do this constantly and obsessively. Along with millions of others, I actually construct and draw knowledge from interviews, news broadcasts, and user-generated video content. Subsequently, I view it as not only legitimate, but even as essential and authoritative, if I am to construct an opinion or world-view that takes multiple perspectives into consideration.
That said, it is not a surprise that english departments, for example, are moving beyond text or print-centered academic inquiry and approaching learning and knowledge construction from myriad angles. For instance, the english department at the institution where I work has shifted from a monolithic paradigm to an interdisciplinary focus: students conduct historical research, field research, and “traditional” (i.e. print or text-based) research from multiple disciplinary perspectives. A course on representations of “madness,” for instance, must consider psychological, sociological, medical, philosophical, religious, and legal standpoints.
That shift has clearly come from a much larger socio-economic-cultural transformation promulgated by unfathomable technological advances. The student of the 21st century has to think interdisciplinarily and incorporate multi-media representations of (hyper)reality into his or her intellectual repetoire. The student of the 21st century engages his or her place in this info-saturated universe by assembling fractals of information slivers animated on LED screens into ornate and labrythine~esque mosaics. I wish I could point out some poignant Baudrillard statement that articulates the influence that these massive changes have on history, on culture, reality, and on our brains and behaviors. I wish I could remember it here, but I can’t. I’m sure there is a Youtube video that would explain it, though….Ah yes: Baudrillard’s Murder of the Real Also, here is a reading of Baudrillard‘s Seduction.
Youtube videos will be required, eventually, if not already, to appear in the works cited pages (bibliographies) of college student essays. The definition of essay will have and is already changing. Students will probably assemble narratives, projects, reports, historical essays–entirely from Youtube videos (or a comparable video-hosting site). Courses will culminate in video-ographies that will be entirely video-based. The only text present will be in video format. And they will upload their video narratives to course management sites and blogs where they’ll present their projects in video conferences. They will not post textual, web-based reflections to class blogs because they will instead upload video responses to classmates’ projects. And it’s already omnipresent on Youtube. Entire conversations are based on visual rather than textual modes of “writing.” Any faithful Youtuber, however, is not hard-pressed to find plenty of text reactions to the most banal or intellectual content on Youtube. But one Youtube search yields a noteable number of video responses. This is how people converse and have relationships. Maybe an obviously understated question is how the role of the librarian will shift as the education panacea (in this case) shifts along the information highway of insanity.
And now my incoherent ranting comes to an end….
