Given the overwhelming response to Bryan’s post, “What is a Librarian?” and Michael’s follow up post, “Librarians: We Open Access,” a few more of the LITA bloggers thought we’d weigh in on our roles and how they fit within the profession. READ MORE: Further Thoughts On Tech Roles + Librarianship | LITA Blog.
Author Archives: infophile
Watch Thousands of Free Movies at Documentary Heaven | Lifehacker
Documentaries aren’t just informative; they’re also fun to watch. And if you’re a fan, Documentary Heaven has thousands of titles to choose from. The website doesn’t host any movies itself, but it curates and embeds free titles from sites like YouTube and Vimeo. You’ll find both the popular and the obscure…Topics range from politics to economics to biographies, and some topics are a bit more specific: gangs, conspiracies, evolution. You can browse these topics from their list, or use the search tool to find something specific.
via Watch Thousands of Free Movies at Documentary Heaven | Lifehacker
50 Great Novels About Madness | Flavorwire
Not so much into March Madness? Well, perhaps you should look at it another way. March is the perfect month for reading books about madness — it is a transitional time, after all, possessed of both lion and lamb. Plus, you’ll have ample reading time, both outside and inside. The books herein, it should be noted, are those that deal with a kind of literary madness — obsession and absurdity and hallucination — not directly focusing on mental illness proper, whenever the two can be separated. So you won’t find The Bell Jar or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or The Yellow Wallpaper here, though those are all excellent reads. MORE: 50 Great Novels About Madness | Flavorwire.
Emerging Roles and Possible Futures for Librarians and Information Professionals | Emerald Group Publishing
What professional roles do you play as a librarian/information professional? How have they changed during your career? And perhaps most important, how do you see them changing and evolving in the future?
These issues are discussed in an intriguing recent article in New Library World, “A systematic literature review informing library and information professionals’ emerging roles.” Evgenia Vassilakaki and Valentini Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, of the Library Science & Information Systems Department of TEI of Athens, Greece, uncovered their findings from peer-reviewed literature published between 2000 and 2014.
Although a variety of libraries were included, the authors state that “the majority of the literature focused on academic libraries.” All of the papers are in English, and “the majority of studies reported on research conducted in the United Kingdom and North America.”
Their findings have implications given the changes taking place in work, society and education, and how those changes affect our institutions. Six emerging roles were discovered, all of which would seem to be applicable within many types of libraries and information centres…READ MORE: Emerging roles and possible futures for librarians and information professionals | Emerald Group Publishing
The Insane History of How American Paranoia Ruined and Censored Comic Books | Vox
One of the most hurtful things you can say to a comic book reader is that comic books are for kids.
It’s a chilling insult that the stuff they read — the stuff they love — never advanced beyond its funny-page beginnings. But it’s also — often unknown to comics fans — a blunt reminder of one of the worst things to ever happen to comic books.
Some 60 years ago, during the era of McCarthyism, comic books became a threat. The panic culminated in a Senate hearing in 1954. This, of course, isn’t to say that McCarthyism and the comic book panic were comparable in their human toll. But they share the same symptoms of American fear and a harsh, reactive response to it.
The reaction to the suspected scourge was the Comics Code — a set of rules that spelled out what comics could and couldn’t do. Good had to triumph over evil. Government had to be respected. Marriages never ended in divorce. And it was in the best interests of publishers to remain compliant.
What adults thought was best for children ended up censoring and dissolving away years of progress and artistry, as well as comics that challenged American views on gender and race. Consequently, that cemented the idea that this was a medium for kids — something that we’ve only recently started disbelieving.
READ MORE: The insane history of how American paranoia ruined and censored comic books | Vox
The Five Types Of Mentors You Need | Fast Company
When we talk about mentorship in the workplace, we often focus on finding one person who can help to guide us through the challenges we will face at work. It might be better to think about the set of people you need to have around you to help you succeed.
With that in mind, here are a few people who should be part of your mentoring team. READ MORE: The Five Types Of Mentors You Need | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
The Gorgeous Typeface That Drove Men Mad and Sparked a 100-Year Mystery | Gizmodo
No one seemed to notice him: A dark figure who often came to stand at the edge of London’s Hammersmith Bridge on nights in 1916. No one seemed to notice, either, that during his visits he was dropping something into the River Thames. Something heavy.
Over the course of more than a hundred illicit nightly trips, this man was committing a crime—against his partner, a man who owned half of what was being heaved into the Thames, and against himself, the force that had spurred its creation. This venerable figure, founder of the legendary Doves Press and the mastermind of its typeface, was a man named T.J. Cobden Sanderson. And he was taking the metal type that he had painstakingly overseen and dumping thousands of pounds of it into the river.
As a driving force in the Arts & Crafts movement in England, Cobden Sanderson championed traditional craftsmanship against the rising tides of industrialization. He was brilliant and creative, and in some ways, a luddite—because he was concerned that the typeface he had designed would be sold to a mechanized printing press after his death by his business partner, with whom he was feuding.
So, night after night, he was making it his business to “bequeath” it to the river, in his words, screwing his partner out of his half of their work and destroying a legendarily beautiful typeface forever. Or so it seemed.
READ MORE: The Gorgeous Typeface That Drove Men Mad and Sparked a 100-Year Mystery | Gizmodo
Related
- Resource: Typography and Type Design
Unusual Library Collections Around the World | Flavorwire
A few interesting library collections noted here…I’m sure there are many others that are not mentioned in this Flavorwire list.
Imagine walking into the home of a recently deceased resident after getting a mysterious phone call about a massive collection of maps. That’s what happened to Glen Creason, the map librarian at Los Angeles Central Library and author of Los Angeles in Maps. Creason walked out of the home with boxes of historical maps and coveted city guides that instantly doubled the library’s collection. L.A.-based filmmaker Alec Ernest captured the story of Creason and an unknown map collector named John Feathers in a mesmerizing short film about the beauty and power of physical objects, and the strange passions people have for them. Ernest’s film inspired us to travel libraries around the world and explore their unique and sometimes bizarre collections.
READ MORE: Unusual Library Collections Around the World | Flavorwire.
30 Useful Apps For Students You Probably Don’t Know About | InformED
The number of college students taking at least one online course has nearly doubled over the past five years according to a report by market research agency Refuel.
Online students are often faced with the challenge of juggling their academic responsibilities alongside families or full-time jobs, which is certainly no easy task.
Technology can help students better manage their learning by providing everything from study aids and research tools to time-management apps, so it’s somewhat surprising to learn that few students are actually using such tools for learning purposes.
The majority of students use online and mobile apps primarily for entertainment according to the Refuel report, with over 70% using them for games, 67% using them for music, and 64% using them for social networking.
If you want to encourage your students to start taking advantage of the many technology tools available to them, here are a few examples of the types of productivity and learning apps that can support them in their studies.
SEE THE LIST OF TOOLS: 30 Useful Apps For Students You Probably Don’t Know About | InformED
26 Contemporary Books That Should Be Taught In High School | BuzzFeed
We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us what contemporary book should be taught in high school. Here are the brilliant results. READ MORE: 26 Contemporary Books That Should Be Taught In High School | BuzzFeed
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