LIS 623 Course Summary: Information in the Humanities

As usual with graduate school, this course had an uber ton of readings.  I’ll be honest.  When I had a sense of déjà vu out of an article, I’d usually skim it.  The course textbook was neat.  The Humanities:  A Selective Guide to Information Sources, by Ron Blazek and Elizabeth Aversal, was primarily one big annotated bibliography.  The fifth edition was published in 2000, so it is a little outdated.

One of our main projects consisted of updating the textbook.  My group worked on the sections covering Philosophy and Religion, Mythology, & Folklore.  It was fun (yes, I’m a geek).  I updated some of the resources already included and added a few more relevant sources.  Since 9-11-2001, the atheist community has grown and gained more visibility.  Since the textbook had absolutely zero resources pertaining to freethinkers, non-religious folks, and/or atheists, I added a handful of sources on those topics.  The professor informed us she wanted to update the text and had been in contact with the publishers.  However, I’ve yet to hear anything back from her regarding the update.

I suppose the most important knowledge, in addition to the tons of humanities resources, I took away from the course involved the information needs of humanities scholars and students.  Since I have a MA in Literature and I’ve worked in a small academic library, I can attest to the general accuracy of the claims.

As a general rule, Humanities scholars:

·       Work independently, as opposed to more team efforts by scientists (look at article by-lines to see this in action)

·       Like to browse

·       Use a variety of subjects and sources as opposed to other fields (personal experience: I’ve written conference papers requiring the use of sources from literature, history, religion, philosophy and the sciences-all in the same paper)

·       Utilize “chaining” (citation tracking, following works cited of relevant articles in order to find more resources)

·       Utilize technology to a lesser degree than other fields (this is changing with the newer generations of humanities students and scholars)

We also worked through numerous sets of reference questions.  Each set contained ten ready reference and five more complicated reference questions.  The professor forbid the use of Google “on pain of death.”  Each set covered a different subject in the Humanities and gave me lots of reference practice in addition to my library assistant duties at WKCTC.

LIS 608 (Research Course) and LIS 603 (Management Course)

LIS 608 focused on researching in the field of library science.  I think the Annoyed Librarian had a wonderful summary of the research and publication experience in our field.  It can seem oddly simple.  However, this course did cover the details of interviews, observations, surveys, etc.  I actually conducted an observation of a circulation desk at a local academic library.  I discovered I have better observation skills than I realized.  Anyone who’s worked on a graduate degree has taken a research methods course (I even had one for my Lit MA), so I’m not going to bore you with the details. 

The textbook for LIS 608 was The Practice of Social Research, by Babbie.  It’s an awesome book.  Considering it’s a book on research in the social sciences, that is a major compliment.

LIS 603 focused on Management techniques in libraries.  I’ll be honest.  I hated this course.  I only scored a B in this course, mainly because I’d wait until the last possible minute to complete assignments (bad Melissa).  I’m not fond of management theories.  I’m specifically referring to the management theories found in the twentieth century, which is what 603 covered.  I think they paint employees as mindless drones requiring constant manipulation and training (kind of like the training you might attempt on a really stupid dog).  However, I did like the strategic planning segment of the course.  It appealed to my control freak nature.  You should see me plan vacations or moves.  I’m always planning. 

It’s important for libraries to plan, especially in hard economic times.  It provides a framework and keeps everyone focused on the library’s mission.  Yes, planning can get grating, but it’s less annoying than everyone running around like headless chickens later.

LIS 603 also had an interesting textbook.  Library and Information Center Management, by Stueart and Moran, conveyed management theories in a practical and organized way.  It wasn’t my favorite textbook ever (mainly because of the subject material), but it was well organized. 

Oral History LIS 642 Course Summary

As an MSLS student at the University of Kentucky, I went through the LIS 642 course, which is Oral History.  The course was fascinating and felt more like an interactive workshop than a regular class.  The professor taught us how to conduct oral history interviews along with going over several oral history examples and studies.  She recorded her weekly lectures so students could listen through Blackboard (my degree was totally online).  The final portion of the course was spent on an oral history project.

I don’t want these course posts to get insanely long, so I’m going to restrict my comments to the most important aspects and provide some links. 

We had three textbooks:  The Oral History Reader, Doing Oral History, and Curating Oral Histories: from Interview to Archive.

 I’m also going to link a Google doc of my first weekly assignment.  We were asked to briefly answer if oral history is useful or not to the study of history. 

My final project was an interview with a tattoo artist (the interview now belongs to the KOHC, but I do not yet know if it has been archived), a paper detailing my experience, a partial transcript, and submission to the Kentucky Oral History Commission. 

I think the transcription process was one the most nerve-racking things I’ve done.  I thought the interview process would have me pulling out my hair, but it was enjoyable.  This is the recorder I purchased for the class.  It worked like a charm and let me get my hands on some new tech learning experiences. 

Overall, the course forced me to pay attention to individual experiences in addition to the overall historical perceptions of events.  It also had me watching my behavior and interactions with people from which I’m trying to get relevant information.  I listen more, allow those very important lulls and pauses to happen, and find myself experiencing peoples’ memories in a new way. 

I hope to, one day soon, do a series of interviews with my Mother.  She’s lived a fascinating life, and I’d like to preserve her memory and experiences.  The Oral History course gave me the tools to (let’s hope) pull this off.