Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

End Of Semester Update, Stephanie Bowen

Blogging the Library

The last half of the semester has been a flurry of activity. I planned an event, created a book display, attended an awesome conference, started applying to grad school, etc. In this post I’ll give a brief overview of my various activities and share what is in store for the spring semester. [excerpt]

Get Them In The Door, Sarah Myers

Blogging the Library

If blowout sales bring crazed shoppers to department stores on Black Friday and the perfect 75⁰ day draws people outside to enjoy the fresh air, then what brings the students to the library? With countless books, journals, and videos available at the click of a button, it might be easy or obvious to suppose that the library building would be an empty space gathering dust. It might be surprising, but quite the opposite is true. What makes a college library appealing? How can the academic library, as a place, continue to be important to the life of campus? [excerpt …

What Words Would You Use To Describe The Library?, Sarah Myers

Blogging the Library

The library is a growing, evolving organism. Without change, the library will cease to be relevant. With the addition of technology, ebooks, virtual reference, and databases, we have the 21st century academic library. Despite the changes over the decades, ask most people what a library is meant for and you’ll still likely get an answer that suggests a quiet space for books and studying. [excerpt]

Promoting The Big Picture: Leisure Reading In The Library, Stephanie Bowen

Blogging the Library

While this internship was an opportunity for me to explore librarianship, it also turned out to be an experience in working for a college. Everything you do in higher education is focused around institutional values and goals. College’s create grandiose strategic plans or epic mission statements (which sound like mandates from the Divine) in order to convey their institutional value. Maybe we should all dress in suits and sunglasses because we’re on a mission from God? [excerpt]

#Paperwork, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

This is history, not bureaucracy, right? I am fairly certain that my methods professor did not mention anything about a thirty-page report, so why the paperwork? In order for Special Collections to request objects for loan from specific institutions, I have to complete what is called a “General Facility Report” which is a comprehensive document that inquires about facility conditions. [excerpt]

Open Access: Student Edition, Stephanie Bowen

Blogging the Library

This week, October 21-27 2013, is Open Access Week! Does anyone know what ‘open access’ is? If you dissect the term, it sounds like being able to get to something that was previously closed. But what does the phrase “open access” refer to opening? government? college education? scripts for this season of the Walking Dead? [excerpt]

Behind The Scenes: Secrets Of Preparing For Successful Research Appointments, Sarah Myers

Blogging the Library

Have you ever noticed how librarians are stereo-typically portrayed in movies and on TV? There is the perception that librarians are extremely uptight, awkward, and boring, that they require nearly complete silence, and they rarely offer any actual help. That is definitely not what being an academic librarian is about. For me, it’s about helping, learning new ideas, exchanging information, and making the research process (which I love!) a bit easier. Remember the librarians in Matilda or on Arthur? They were always willing to help and make the process of finding resources a little bit easier. That’s what I want …

Toeing The Line Between Offense And Education, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

Medical history can be gruesome. People shy away from blood and guts and images of death perhaps because it makes us question our own mortality or perhaps because it reminds us a bit too much about the origins of that hamburger we ate for lunch. Whatever the reason, a lot of humans cannot stomach the truly heinous. [excerpt]

Hoodies And Stress: The Dynamics Of A Library Environment, Stephanie Bowen

Blogging the Library

As a college student, I worked at the circulation desk in the library. One cold December day during finals week, I was sitting at the desk and a professor walked in. Not an unusual occurrence. He approached the desk looking like he was in need of assistance. After a poignant pause, he said: “It smells like hoodies and stress in here.” I cracked up. It was true, and even more entertaining coming from the college’s lone anthropologist. [excerpt]

A New Face At The Reference Desk, Sarah Myers

Blogging the Library

Hi there! I’m Sarah and I’m a graduate reference intern this fall at the Musselman Library. I’m currently in my last semester of completing my Master of Library Science degree with Clarion University of Pennsylvania. I graduated from Susquehanna University with a degree in history. I wanted a profession that combines my love of research with my passion for teaching so that’s how I found my way to library science. My professors and librarians at Susquehanna were helpful in guiding me to this profession where I will never stop learning. [excerpt]

The Life Of A Holley Intern, Stephanie Bowen

Blogging the Library

I’m Steph Bowen, this year’s Barbara Holley Library Intern. What is the Holley internship you might ask? It’s a one year, full time, paid internship for a recent college graduate interested in becoming a librarian! Thanks to a gracious endowment from Barbara Holley, I will get wide variety of library experience. [excerpt]

Do You Doodle?, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

If you were, are, or will become a student, then you have probably thought about doodling during class. Fear not! We are not the only generation to draw in the midst of a lecture. Today’s research escapade led me to investigate George Currier’s notes from his time as a student at the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College. [excerpt]

A Hypochondriac Investigates The Evolution Of Medicine, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

This exhibit will open to the public in February 2014, but until then I have my work cut out for me. I am currently researching various aspects of medical history spanning from the mid-1800s, through the Civil War, to WWI. Thus far I have read accounts of women volunteers during the American Civil War, important changes that went into effect during WWI, and an overly detailed description on how to perform tooth extractions according to the latest science of the 1860s. [excerpt]

Open-Access And The Cupola, John C. Hill

Blogging the Library

I am currently working to develop The Cupola, Gettysburg College’s open-access compliant institutional repository. That’s a mouthful! What, exactly, is an open-access compliant institutional repository? Since I’m a philosophy student at heart, I’ll engage in a little bit of conceptual analysis and explain what each of these constituent terms mean.

An institutional repository is a place where an institution—in this case, Gettysburg College—can store and preserving the research created by its members. The Cupola stores research by faculty, but also students. [excerpt]

At The Desk, John C. Hill

Blogging the Library

During the past few weeks of my internship, I've spent time providing research consultations at the Reference Desk. I initially sat with a librarian during my shift, but I’m now working independently. Since then, I have fielded questions about gender roles in high school guidance offices, the invasive nature of the lionfish species, and the causes of industrialization in early modern Spain. [excerpt]

Instruction And Focus Groups, John C. Hill

Blogging the Library

My internship focuses not only on reference librarianship, but also information literacy and instruction. Accordingly, I’ve been fortunate to sit in on some library instruction classes with Clint. I think that the image of a librarian as a reference resource is pretty well established in our cultural consciousness, at least here at Gettysburg College, but the image of librarian as teacher is perhaps not as prominent. At some colleges and universities, however, librarians are considered part of the faculty. [excerpt]

Introduction Post: John Hill, John C. Hill

Blogging the Library

My first two weeks have been busy and exciting. I have trained with several reference librarians during my shifts at the Reference Desk. Each of them has a different perspective on librarianship, and each of them plays a different role in Musselman Library, but all of them are devoted to making useful resources available to students and faculty and to teaching them how to use these resources. I am excited to practice strategies for answering people’s questions, but I am admittedly nervous to staff the desk on my own. I am confident, though, that with a little bit more time …