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  The fifth edition was published in 2000, so it is a little outdated.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.

I Can Has Reference Question? Antiques

I promised a few posts back to post some of the reference questions I get in my daily life.  I get people asking me for resources or other bits of information on a regular basis.  I’m kind of like a reference librarian, except I’m not employed and I don’t get paid, and I don’t have an office, and…yah…I’m having a wonderful fantasy, aren’t I?  That’s ok.  One day soon the dream will be a reality.  I will be a fully employed librarian.  Until that day, I will have to settle for blogging and dealing with reference questions in a non-job like capacity.

My dear and wonderful Mother has a friend, we’ll call him J, with a really neat antique fish tank.  It’s cast iron, has eagles carved on top of the four corners, and he thinks was made in the eighteenth century.  It’s a pretty piece.  He wants to sell it but has been having difficulty with the local “antique” dealers.  He asked if I could find out more information about how he could identify, value, and sell the piece.  Here's the response I gave him:

            22 March 2011

J,

I’m not qualified to appraise the antique aquarium.  It would be inappropriate attempting to try.  It is a lovely piece, and I do think you were right to not sell it off just yet.  I did some research and think your best bet is to find an actual appraiser qualified in antiques.  Most people can just advertise as appraisers without any training, so you have to be careful. 

With that in mind, I found the American Society of Appraisers.  They require their members pass a test in appraisal, so these are legitimate professionals.  I found the three closest appraisers with this group.  They may be able to help you with the value of the aquarium.  At the very least, they should be able to point you in the right direction. 

A word of advice:  Do not sell your item to the person appraising it.  They will usually undervalue it so they can later sell it at a higher price.  Let me know if you need any other information.  I’m a research junkie.  J

Melissa

American Society of Appraisers-Local Members

Marshall L Fallwell Jr.

Nashville, TN

615-356-8446

Jerry L Sampson

Harrodsburg, KY

859-734-7829

Patricia H Atwood

Rockford, IL

815-316-0032

This is the letter I sent J minus the list of appraisers.  He was happy with what I found out and will soon start the process of appraisal and selling.  And he’s offered me 33% of the sale price.  That’s not bad for one reference question.  Does this count as a job?  Should I put this on my resume?  Probably not.  I should make note that I did not ask for payment. 

With the resources available to me, I conducted a simple internet search about cast iron antiques and relevant appraisers.  It wasn’t a complicated task but did take a few minutes to track down the appropriate people for the job.  I refused to use the internet to conduct an appraisal.  Even with a bunch of antique resources, I’m not a qualified appraiser.  It would kind of be like a librarian giving out medical advice, a big no-no.