Monthly Archives: November 2012

A friend from library school wrote this blog about some projects we were assigned. It’s a good point to make about the pros and cons of certain styles of assignments. Let me know your thoughts!

HLS

Your task is to develop a persona, and make up a research question that persona might ask.  It can be anything you want.  Once you have a question, take it to a reference desk at a library/archive/historical society of your choosing. Then write a paper about the experience.

Sound familiar? No, it’s not a rejected subplot from Skyfall.  It’s an assignment I’ve encountered in two different classes this fall, which is my first semester of library school.  And from talking with other LIS students, it seems like this is a common assignment regardless of your school.  It’s the “secret shopper” theory of observation at work.  An anthropologist might call it “extreme participant observation.”  The theory says you’ll learn more about something if you immerse yourself in it, giving no impression that you’re REALLY doing research.  That the other participant doesn’t know they’re part of an experiment should make their…

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Bonfire, anyone?

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

The mustachioed man himself.

Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t a revolutionary looking to rid England of a supposedly tyrannical parliament, but was actually a super conservative Catholic who just hated on the Protestants and wanted to put the Catholic king back in place. Not exactly someone who represents liberation from an unjust system. But anyway, we still like V for Vendetta and bonfires (who doesn’t like bonfires besides Smokey the Bear?) so here is a post dedicated to Guy Fawkes, the crazy conservative with the stylish mustache.

 

 

Guy Fawkes’ Confession at the National Archives, UK
Cracked Article on what certain lauded Revolutionary figures actually stood for.

Guy Fawkes included.

Zombies and Librarians

I know Halloween is over, but the interest in (and threat of) a Zombie Apocalypse is ever present. But am I writing about zombies on my particular blog, you may ask? Well, for a class project we are currently working on we needed to  create an Annotated Bibliography for a reference need. Many groups in the class chose things such as a high school class that needs sources for a paper on American wars, or looking lessons for the new chef. However, being the coolest group (we planned the weekly library class happy hour, after all) we decided that a common reference need is to know how to survive a zombie-virus outbreak.

So  if you’re interested in Information Access/Reference projects, zombies, or librarians being chased by zombies in a library, check out this blog. But please keep in mind, it is still currently a work in progress, but it will be perfected and updated frequently. We also plan to continue it after the project/presentation is due.

ZOMBIE REFERENCE