Journal Class Day 1 What kind of a learner am I prepared to be?

I would like to think that I am open to new experiences and new methods of teaching and learning. I know from past experience that I tend to resist certain types of change. I fully realize that my favorite way to learn is to sit in a large lecture hall and type my notes in outline form. Thanks to a couple of very persistent professors during my undergrad I am now willing to speak up and make my opinion heard, especially if I feel that people are being less than open-minded. However, I feel that sometimes there is far too much talking and not near enough listening so I will continue to listen until I feel that I have something of value to contribute. Unfortunately I rarely feel that I have anything to add, I suppose this is a throwback to If you cannot improve the silence I find it strange that there is still a large gap between professors and their teaching preferences. I had several professors that stayed with lectures and if you want to ask questions and start a discussion, they would be irritated because they would run out of lecture time. Others had almost no lecture and demanded a committed Socratic discussion. He started out every semester telling us that we were supposed to challenge him and challenge each other.

Class Day 2 Consider Masons coherent picture of an information professional. How does this picture compare with how you see the profession?: A coherent picture of an information professional emerges. Judgment is among his [sic] strongest hallmarks. He also possesses scientific and scholarly knowledge about a subject domain of interest to his clients, and he knows about the sources and characteristics of that knowledge. He must empathize with his clients by understanding their needs and psychological states. He is a master of the technology and methods necessary to satisfy information needs. This knowledge is essentially rational, technical knowledge. It alone, however, is not enough. Because the situations he must cope with are unique, uncertain, equivocal, and conflictual, an information professional must reach beyond his base of technical knowledge and draw upon his experience and wisdom in order to make judgments of application. This includes critical ethical judgments as well. All of this he does in the service of his clients and of the society in which he lives (pp. 136-7). I see an information professional as a type of walking version of Google, only better. For example, I know that when a patron walks into the archives with a question there is a good chance it will be genealogy related. This is excellent because I have spent over half my life doing genealogy and would probably be the person who would get called to answer that question anyway. On the other hand, it is equally likely that the question would come out of left field and be something to the tune of Im looking for specific information regarding the crew that built a certain stretch of I-70, or I think my

grandmother was an Indian because she looked like Sitting Bull, or I was told that you could make my house a historical landmark. In cases such as these the information professional must be prepared to point the researcher in another direction. We often send genealogists to the Family History Center in Independence because they have much more local information than we do such as city directories and local maps of certain eras. We also need to know who to call if we do not know the answers ourselves. Often I find myself calling my supervisor and it is through these calls that I continue to learn about our holdings and the other resources available. With the question about I-70 I would recommend looking at records of the Corps of Engineers (RG 77). While they may not find the names of the entire crew, they would find the person who designed that stretch, when it was designed, and the group of people who approved it. As for the question about the grandmother who resembles Sitting Bull we always ask if the researcher knows what tribe the grandmother was supposed to belong to. Invariably the answer is Cherokee and the grandmother was a princess. After suppressing our sighs we show them how to check censuses and Dawes rolls, reminding them that a lot of people did not want to admit to being Native American and that the Cherokee did not come from Wisconsin. Just last week we had a patron who was looking for a female Native American relative and she mentioned that the womans son was in the Haskell School. Did you say the Haskell School? What year? What was the name? Ok one moment. I called the researcher on duty and less than 10 minutes later she was sitting down with the student files and finding not only the son but several other family members. The last question dealt with a man being told that he could call the National Archives and that we could declare his house a historical landmark. Unfortunately this is not the case. This man had to call the State Historical Board for Missouri. It was lucky for me that my supervisor was in the room when he called. A few days later another person called and I happened to be in the room helping a patron so the person on desk duty waved me in and asked if I knew anything about it. Why yes I do!

Things to think about: Accept the challenge to become an independent learner Learn to think critically about your own work, now and forever Persevere in the face of setbacks Model productive behavior, lead by example Have the courage to be different Take an active role in the school governance Hold yourself accountable to others Value the learning process as an opportunity for growth

Aug 19-27 This week, while in the process of moving from one state to another, I have done the readings. I think my favorite was the Hansen article. It pinpoints where the educational system has gone soft and gives a few suggestions to get it back on track. Mysteriously it does not mention the Montessori method. In general I agree that the student should take responsibility for their shortcomings instead of blaming the instructors. Of course there will be times when there is an instructor who is difficult to comprehend but that is why we must encourage self-learning. If people enjoyed learning for learnings sake then when someone did not understand something they would let curiosity get the better of them and they would do research on their own to further their understanding. Self-learning is like an avalanche. Perhaps you look up one thing. You may find a reference to something else that piques your interest. You look that subject up which leads you to more information and creates new questions. It is a never ending cycle. Aug 28-Sept 4 These two weeks I have focused mainly on starting readings for 802 and making and reading posts on Blackboard. One of the discussions asked What should the future of the library look like? I admit, I have hesitated, and still hesitate to answer this. In fact, I still havent written an answer on Blackboard and I will probably go back and edit this before I post it on there. The majority of the class thought that virtual books were neat, but they prefer the touch and smell of real books. I think that virtual books are great in theory, but we cannot trust everyone to return a Kindle on time so there would probably never be enough for everyone. Additionally it is much cheaper to replace a paperback book than a Kindle. A book that has gotten a few drops of rain on it is still usable. Any electronic book would probably need repaired and Im betting that rain would void any warranty. Additionally its not cost-conscious to have only have a few electronic books. This couldnt possibly help the library fulfill its goal of servicing an entire community. There are people who use libraries who may not want to use an electronic book due to inexperience or age or a bit of both. On the other side of the coin however, we may be able to encourage those in the younger generations who may not want to read books by telling them that a Kindle is really just like reading on the internet and who doesnt read on the internet? Electronic books have a lot of good things going for them. Theyre small and they can have several books on them. It would be harder to misplace (but if you did misplace one, you probably misplaced several others and that could get very expensive. Paperbacks could be replaced for less than five dollars if you go to Half-Priced Books.). My husband and I live seven hours away from our family. From what I understand, I could read a kindle in the dark. I could even eat while I read because I wouldnt have to hold a book open. However Im still strongly in favor of real textual books. I can highlight, write in margins and read the backs before I buy them. O choose a lot of my

books by title and what the cover looks like. Granted I have a long list of books that I read reviews about online or were recommended by Amazon but I would still say that I am much more likely to buy a book that I have seen in person. I certainly hope that the future of libraries includes books, otherwise we might as well consider the library of today as the internet caf of tomorrow. Luckily I think this would have to be in the distant future, or we would not still be enrolled in SLIM. Sept 5-13 Another major post was on purging information or not providing certain types of information such as how to build car bombs. We spoke about this in class and it was definitely a hot button for most of us. What really irked me was that everyone just assumed that the hypothetical researcher was probably of Middle Eastern descent and obviously up to no good. We spoke in class of our duty to abide by the ALA code of ethics. This means providing information whether or not we agree with it. We are not pharmacists who have the right to refuse birth control. Books are not inherently bad and neither are the people who read them. If the patron is an adult then they should be responsible for what they read and how they use it. It was suggested that these bad books should be kept in a different section. How would we decide what goes there? Would we also put the religious texts such as the Bible which encourages marrying more than one wife but also comes in direct conflict with science or would we just put the Koran away because it may incite violence? I read a news story where an inmate was not allowed his Koran for that very reason. The entire idea of segregating books just seems ridiculous to me. Who would decide what books are segregated? Every single book could be found to be offensive to someone. Someone in class brought up Mein Kampf. Obviously this would offend many of Jewish descent and plenty of non-Jews but if we got rid of it, or hid it away we would be no better than the Soviets trying to purge their libraries of false history. Just because not everyone agrees does not mean that it does not have its own worth and significance! I might just be one of those people who hope that people are generally good with nonterrorist intentions. Or maybe Im just one of those people who receives strange looks when I ask librarians to help. I can think of several times that either a friend or myself did not receive the help we requested just because the librarian probably thought we were just weird teenagers who wanted to kill people or something. I mentioned this instance on Blackboard, but a friend of mine was doing research on extracting poisons from plants and forensic tests that may or may not show what poison was used. Our school librarian made her leave without even asking why she wanted this information. The teachers were for the most part, equally unhelpful. My friend was not trying to kill anyone but they assumed that since she was a band kid and a drama geek that she was weird and therefore, up to no good. She actually wanted this information for a paper where she was planning on talking about the play Arsenic and Old Lace and wanted to show that because of technology and change in social dynamics that the entire premise would have been possible at one time but that the two elderly ladies probably wouldnt get away with it these days. Due to all the help she received from the librarians and teachers she was forced to change her paper to a more mundane topic.

I encountered this same type of helpfulness just a year or so ago when I was taking a class on the Holocaust. We were required to do creative projects and I was inspired by a video we watched that showed bolts of fabric that the Nazis made from the victims hair. I was certain that I was going to be kicked out of the library when I asked if they had any books or any ideas on where I could find information on textiles or other Jewish products of the concentration camps such as the lamps made from tattooed flesh or the soap and candles sold to the S.S. The librarian looked a little less upset when I told her that it was for a class but she asked if I couldnt find a more pleasant topic. Pleasant? The Holocaust? No, Im afraid I cant. In the end I had to go to my professor and ask if he had any ideas for me because everyone was trying to stop my research. I know that human products are a terrible thing but they are part of our history and if we decided to ignore that we are doing a great disrespect to the many victims of Hitler and his regime. In the end I had only a VHS tape to use to map out my project. I spun wool and human hair (my husband needed a haircut anyways) into yarn and hand wove it into fabric. My end project was a prayer shawl with embroidery in honor of those forgotten victims who became those bolts of cloth found at the concentration camps. I firmly believe that we have a responsibility to live by the ethics we preach and make sure everyone gets what theyre looking for, even if it makes us uneasy or we dont agree. I may never have to make this type of decision since I may never even work in a library, but if I did, I would do my best to help the patron. One of the examples brought up was car-bombs. I would probably assume and hope that they werent going to use the information for nefarious purposes but in this particular case I would probably send them to the local law enforcement since they would be able to give better information on the subject than I would.

Sept 14-26 What are the roles of information agencies and the information infrastructure in the global society? It is my opinion that people use information agencies far more than they think they do. I think that any entity that provides information can be an information agency, not just libraries. In any given day a person may look for a phone number. Even if they Google it on the internet they are receiving the information from a source such as the white pages, which are usually compiled by telephone companies. When a person moves they usually consult the local chamber of commerce website to find out all the rules on pets, trash and so forth. In these examples the telephone company and the chamber of commerce have gathered, organized and made available important information for the use of consumers. However, this question was probably aimed more at libraries and similar institutions. Almost every discussion we have in 801 or 802 always comes back to whether libraries and librarians are going to be needed in the future. I have to say yes, we will be needed. After all, what good is information if no one knows how to find it, or use it after it has been found? While it is true that more and more information is going to be digital it is

also true that there are die-hard fans of physical books. There will always be researchers needing to know how to sift through the sea of information to find what they are looking for in the most efficient way. The tasks of the librarian may change, the media may change, but the roles of the information agency will be doing exactly what they do now-helping users to find, use and understand the information they seek. Sept 27-Oct 11 A big topic these two weeks was the homeless in libraries. I feel very strongly about this. Call it a throw-back to chivalry, but we have a code of ethics and we should feel obligated to follow it, whether or not we have personal prejudices. We talked about one of our textbooks saying that the code of ethics are more like guidelines than a firm set of rules. I do not like it when things are left to interpretation, I like rules. The code of ethics is a set of rules to me. I think the part that really got my goat was how people felt that the homeless shouldnt be part of the public included under the banner public service. It makes me so angry that people think that they should have the option of what patrons to serve. They made that choice the moment they decided to go into a public service profession; if they dont want to serve everybody, they should choose a new job.

Ever since the archives moved downtown we have constant contact with the homeless. We had a man come in who was insisting that the person watching the front desk watch his shopping cart. Yes, he was homeless and he smelled, but for the most part he was fairly polite. He wanted to find out about his family. Unfortunately I couldn't help him very much because when he walked in he said "You know, I'm almost 40 and I don't know anything about my family." and every 10-15 minutes he got 10 years older and had no idea about any names or places. We tried to help him, but couldn't. Atleast the guy got out of the 100 degree heat for a little while. He was wearing about 3 coats. At our old building there was a man who always came in to look at microfilm, but the other patrons complained because he smelled. He wasn't homeless, he just wanted to do research. Our boss had to go talk with him and she felt terrible about it. She still feels terrible about it. Would we lump anyone who has an odor or anyone in less than pristine clothing in this group?? Just because they have less does not make them any less a person or any less a patron. Sure there are some homeless people who can be a little creepy and frequently you can tell that something isn't quite right but we have a responsibility to them. They are our fellow man after all. This doesn't mean that I will or will not park in the parking garage at work this winter; it is dark when I get here and dark when I leave and I don't like the idea of being pregnant and having to walk past people sleeping on the stairs. Even parking outside has those possible (and I stress the possible, not probable) dangers. From where the employees park you can see at least 3 or 4 people sleeping under the bridge. Unless these people (or anyone else!) are breaking the rules or endangering people or documents then I will treat them as any other patron. Our code of ethics is not a list of suggestions, it is a list of our responsibilities. We cannot consider ourselves loyal to our

code of ethics unless we treat people as people and try not to apply labels to them. How can we call ourselves professional if we choose when and to whom we follow our code?

Oct 12-26 This week was difficult for me to concentrate as I was having a miscarriage during most of it. We discussed on the boards about Achleitners article and how he made a case for change. Megan commented that she thought that the shift was already taking place. It was mentioned that this article was written in 1995. I would agree that the times, they are a changin'. I have had a computer in my house since 1988. My mother considers herself technologically challenged. She is. Up until a few years ago she had never sent or received email. She needed written instructions on how to turn on the computer. She hounded me all summer to help her set up a paypal account and I kept telling her that it had instructions, just follow the instructions. She *really* wanted that paypal account so that she could sell her crafts online. She did not want to wait until my husband and I came home for Christmas. My mother falls into that category of people who are very resistant to changes in technology. However, she is also proof that people can adjust to change. You have no idea how happy she was when she realized that I wasn't lying to her when I said she could manage to sign up for paypal all by herself. Obviously, bullying the patrons and telling them that they're not stupid and they can figure it out isn't good practice, but it works with my mom. Every time she has a victory she becomes more experimental. I doubt she'll ever write code or make a website, but atleast she doesn't need directions to turn on the computer anymore. There are several more stories about my mom's battles with technology (her dvd player, her digital camera, the photo printer at walmart) but I doubt she'd like those shared, even if it's for educational purposes. At the archives we have been holding classes to teach people how to use Ancestry.com to find censuses and other records. These classes are very popular with the over-40 crowd. I'm really happy we're doing this because atleast once or twice a week there are patrons that come in and see that we have computers, but all the microfilm is kept offsite. They look like deer in the headlights and even after we reassure them that we can help them find what they're looking for they run for the hills. Technology can be intimidating if it isn't what you grew up with. Oct 27-Nov 9 What significance does this work have in terms of the work of information professionals? From what perspective is the author writing? Do you agree with the author's point of view? Disagree? Explain.

Libraries have a history not unlike many great civilizations. They rise and fall. They burn or are taken over by new authorities. In Library: An Unquiet History Matthew Battles tells us of what we have lost such as the library at Alexandria. I especially enjoyed the part about the last book of Louvain in the chapter Knowledge on Fire. It shows us that there can still be mystery in the world. I will be completely honest and admit that I'm a huge Indiana Jones fan and I went into history hoping that I could discover great things and save them for civilization. The real life of a historian is not that glamourous but I may still get an archeology degree one day. I digress, my point was that I love mysteries and lost objects and it is completely amazing to me to think that there can be a book somewhere in Europe in an iron box just waiting for me to go over and dig it up and fight off people and use the phrase "It belongs in a museum!" I remember learning about the Louvain library in one of my history classes. They wanted to rebuild it after it was destroyed in WWI, but they wanted it to have a tower that played a new national anthem at each hour. Luckily this was voted down, but they did get the tower. This tower stood mocking the Germans as an everlasting symbol of their defeat. Hitler just couldn't have that so again, the Germans went to destroy it. Historians give several possible reasons for the destruction of the tower. It could have been used as a sniping post or watch tower. However, the Germans felt the need to create a story about the British destroying it and tried to coerce people into testifying to that effect. Why did they feel the need to validate what would otherwise be viewed as an act of war? As Battles vaguely suggests (and I agree) the Germans probably didn't want that tower of shame standing anymore. Furthermore, it contained a lot of books that were confiscated from Germany after WWI. I doubt the person in charge would want to explain to the S.S. that he gave the command to destroy a library holding valuable German manuscripts. Battles teaches us a lesson that as librarian we have to come to terms with, whether we like it or not, we shouldnt expect the libraries to exist forever. On the other hand, he also notes that the most complete ancient library accessible to us today survived because it burned. (pg. 55)

Nov 10-23 Think about what it taught you about information transfer and change, and how you learn from a visual medium. Did you see anything in the film that related to class readings and discussion? The Name of the Rose is a lot like playing Clue. Clue is one of my very favorite board games. The idea behind Clue is to figure out who killed Mr. Boddy, in what room and with what weapon. Each player gets a few cards at random. By rolling a die each player takes turns and enters various rooms where they can ask questions to rule out possibilities and discover the guilty party. My favorite strategy is to use information that I already have to acquire new information. For instance, if I have the Billiard Room and Colonel Mustard I would say I suggest that it was Col. Mustard with the wrench in the

Billiard Room. If none of the other players have the wrench then I have discovered the weapon. I can also learn things from the suggestions of the other players. If someone else asks for Col. Mustard in the Billiard Room with the rope and I have Col. Mustard and the Billiard Room but all the other players have nothing to show, then I know which players do not have the rope. A quick synopsis of The Name of the Rose: A group of monks are meeting to debate the level of poverty they should live in. A very important scholar died right before William of Baskerville and his novice show up. The abbot suggests that William looks into it. William of Baskerville may not walk into a room saying I suggest... but he does employ this sort of technique. This movie is not as sophisticated as more recent movies so it can be rather predictable. I will not go through the entire process of how he determined the murderer, but I will give some examples of how he acquires information. The first hint we get is in the dining room when the reader makes a huge show of licking his finger to turn the page. The Name of the Rose is one of the cheesiest movies Ive ever seen, so we know that this will be important. The next hint comes when we see the albino practicing flagellation and then weeping during prayers the next morning. The albino is the assistant librarian and one of two people allowed in the tower. He was involved, but was later murdered. While William is in the kitchen examining the first person to die after his arrival we learn that this victim was a scholar of Greek and has a black finger and tongue, presumably from licking his fingers to turn pages. While in the scriptorium we learn the elderly man is adamant that a certain book in Greek never existed. We also notice that they have very few books on the shelves. To back up a bit, the novice thinks that the hunchback looks like a good suspect. As William explains, the hunchback didnt do it because of his history as a certain type of heretic. This group of heretics went after fat friars and rich bishops as William puts it. It is through hints like these that he figures it out. One thing I wanted to note that had nothing to do with how he obtained information, was the library itself. I loved the library. It was a huge labyrinth and as they demonstrated, very easy to get lost in. It would be very difficult to find anything unless you were one of the two people allowed in there. The novice had to unravel his tunic to make a path that they could follow out! I would highly recommend the book The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World by Guillaume de Laubier if you were interested in looking at gorgeous libraries. Nov 23-30 Reflections of this semesterIn my first semester as a library student I have learned many things, some of which are obvious and some are so internalized that I am not sure that I can verbalize them. I feel that I have more respect for librarians in all capacities, but especially for school librarians in Kansas. I love kids and Ive recently been thinking about changing my focus from archives to childrens librarianship, but I really dont feel that I should have to have an education degree to help them pick out books. Whats next Kansas? Are you going

to require a doctorate before people reproduce? I feel like I have more career options than I did at the beginning of the program. As I said, Im thinking about changing my focus to youth or childrens services. Ive learned first-hand how little job security there is in archives, even in the government. My supervisor who had been at NARA for 11 years has just been replaced by Washington with someone who is less archives and more museum. I will continue working on my Archives Certificate but I think Im going to pull my focus over to youth services.