July 29, 2008
Committee on Funding for Librarians' Research & Creative Projects
Are you interested in writing a book or article, putting together a
researched exhibit, creating an innovative tool, or pursuing some other unique project?
Continue reading "Committee on Funding for Librarians' Research & Creative Projects"
Posted by kshawkin at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Coffee Talk: Unexpected Things we Collect
The conversations at this month's coffee breaks covered a variety of topics, so it's hard to capture it exactly for those of you who weren't able to attend--the fact that I have a mind like a sieve doesn't help matters. One topic that stood out for me was that of things we collect that you might not expect, like King, "the illest men's magazine ever!" and books by authors such as Danielle Steel or Robert Ludlum. While very popular, these aren't exactly the sorts of things you expect to see in an academic setting. Our collecting of this material, to me, gets to the heart of what it means to be a research library. We don't buy this material for today's users, even though the books can and are frequently checked out. Rather, we're thinking about researchers 50 or 100 years from now who might want to learn more about American society in the late-20th/early 21st century by reading the books that were being read during this time or looking at the advertising in magazines. Publishers aren't always very good about keeping copies of books or magazines once they go out of print so, if we don't collect this material now, we don't know whether it will be available in the future to meet research needs.
By the way, speaking of unusual things we collect for research purposes, AAEL is in the process of building a computer and video game archive. Dave Carter is spearheading the project and is documenting their efforts on a blog called,
Eaten by a Grue. Check it out and, if you've got any old games or equipment in your basement, talk to Dave.
Posted by kfolger at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
