How I Almost Started F'ning Hating IFLScience: A Cautionary Tale

One thing that I am always explaining to students, and also random people in the street, is how important it is to properly assess sources. This, I remind them, is doubly important when it comes to things on the Internet. Despite my advocacy and frequent protestations, it is still possible for people to not follow their own advice. This was almost one of those instances.

My news feed on Facebook, much like everybody's I'm sure, is an insane cavalcade of the interests, beliefs, opinions, and suggestions of the people who make up our geographically-spread personal network. Oh, and there are ads. For the last few months, I had seen several weird news stories pop up that people were sharing from IFLScience but the stories were, well, not really on par with what I had come to expect from the site.

The one that kept popping up most frequently was a story about Japanese robotic bears who assisted people to commit suicide. I didn't read the article but I did a quick Google check on the topic. By just reading the titles and brief synapses that came back I saw that this story was a hoax. I didn't follow any of the links (probably because I was desperately trying to complete my practicum and graduate) and just decided that IFLScience decided to break into the obviously lucrative satirical news market.

Soon after graduating I noticed a new story about a previously missing college professor who was found secretly living in a family's home with 50 drums of LSD. Under less stress and having more time, I followed this link and read the story. That's when my Source Sense started tingling. Something about the story seemed "off". I started googling the places, names, and important terms from the story and was getting nothing other than links to the same "news item" on other sites. That is when I was about to fire off an exasperated comment to the person who posted the story in my feed where I was going to rail about it being a fake (or lame attempt at satirical) story, where I was going to deride how (I thought) IFLScience had been going downhill over the intervening months, and where I would exclaim that, "I f'ning hate IFLScience."

It was at that moment that my years of training kicked in (much later than it would have if I was behind the reference desk and helping somebody) and started assessing the site rather than just looking at it.

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The very first thing that I should have noticed after going to the site was the different URL. The real IFLScience site is a .com while this new, attempting to be funny one is a .org. Other than the different top-level domains the URLs are the same:

www.iflscience.com                                     www.iflscience.org

The next thing that was difficult to notice at first was the logos for the two sites. It is possible to mistake the two if you glance at them quickly, especially when the images are often quite small, but more than a second of scrutiny will show how different the two are:

                            

In other words, I had totally forgotten to use my work skills, the ones I try to teach others and help them use in their research and daily lives, myself. I became, for a brief instant, that person who hypocritically chastises, "Do what I say, not what I do!"

So it seems that IFLScience Organization (.org) is just a pretty unfunny satirical site that uses the presentation of information on social media sites to click-bait people onto their page. Which is odd because the site is not swarming with advertisements like most click-bait sites. Maybe they just think they are funny. Maybe they are, who am I to say?

One important takeaway for both information professionals and anyone online is that this highlights a problem with the way that people place trust in top-level domains (TLD). Most professionals often erroneously teach that, because they are unrestricted, .com TLDs should be scrutinized more than .org TLDs. The truth, however, is that .org is also an unrestricted top-level domain whose suggested use is for non-profits. The following is from the FAQ page of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit that has managed .org domains since 2003:

Can I register a .org domain if I am not a 501(c)?

"Yes, .org is an open and unrestricted domain. Anyone is allowed to use .org domain names" (link).

This is why the assessment of sources is so important and why librarians are always pestering you about it.This is also why librarians should always be brushing up on the rules and policies that govern the Internet. I visited several pages operated by public and academic libraries that still suggest that .org domains are more trustworthy than .com: which may be true most of the time but not all the time.

Read on in the next section if you want to learn about a valuable tool you can use to assess web sites.

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When assessing a website most professionals recommend using something called the CRAAP Test. Yes, it's okay to laugh. Originally designed by librarians at the Meriam Library at California State University, Chico, this tool can be used to assess both print and digital sources. The test consists of five categories which are scored from 1 (the worst) to 10 (the best). You then total the scores to discover how CRAPPy the site is. Here is the test device as presented by the North Carolina A&T State University:

Currency: the timelessness of the information

• When was the information published or posted?
• Has the information been revised or updated?
• Is the information current or out of date for your topic?
• Are the links functional?

Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs

• Does the information relate to your topic or answer your question?
• Who is the intended audience?
• Is the information at an appropriate level (i.e. not too elementary or advanced for your needs)?
• Have you looked at a variety of sources before determining this is one you will use?
• Would you be comfortable using this source for a research paper?

Authority: the source of information

• Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
• Are the author's credentials or organizational affiliations given?
• What are the author's credentials or organizational affiliations given?
• What are the author's qualifications to write on the topic?
• Is there contact information, such as a publisher or e-mail address?
• Does the URL reveal anything about the author or the source?

Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content, and

• Where does the information come from?
• Is the information supported by evidence?
• Has the information been reviewed or referred?
• Can you verify any of the information in another source or from personal knowledge?
• Does the language or tone seem biased or free of emotion?
• Are there spelling, grammar, or other typographical errors?

Purpose: the reason the information exists

• What is the purpose of the information? to inform? teach? sell? entertain? persuade?
• Do the authors/sponsors make their intentions or purpose clear?
• Is the information facts? opinion? propaganda?
• Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
• Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or other biases?

By totaling the amount you scored each category it is possible to quantifiably measure of a site's quality:

45 - 50 Excellent | 40 - 44 Good | 35 - 39 Average | 30 - 34 Borderline Acceptable | Below 30 - Unacceptable (link)

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The takeaway here for those who use or teach the Internet as an information source is to always remember to analyze what you are looking at, while you are looking at it. 

I hope this serves as a reminder and I, for one, am happy that I can go back to f'ning loving science!

April 19, 2015 (Sunday)

Time: 4pm-9pm  (5)
Hours completed (IST): 135.5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 150.5/150

The goal for today is to finalize the LibGuide so that Tammy can approve it and it can go live. Most everything from my original plan came together except the video. With everything else going on at the moment it just was not going to work out; however, I felt it was necessary to have some kind of visual or interactive element in the guide. After thinking about it for some time I chose to paste the text of an article from a news site into the guide. Then, underneath, I used the Libguides survey tool to create a test element where students could read the article and the choose whether they think that the article was a legitimate or satirical news story. So that they could get an immediate response to their guess, I had the survey call out to a Google Doc file that explained which it was and why, and it also gave the link for the original story. I feel this activity is a good alternative for an instructional video and, with it creating a more active environment, may actually prove better than the passive nature of watching. I had some concerns about copyright issue, however, but left it in place until I could consult with Tammy. I did change the guide's status to private.

[Update]

Tammy was really concerned about copy/pasting material into the guide. She asked if I could just provide a link to the site or use some other solution that would not err the library on the wrong side of copyright law. I had been playing around with iframes quite a bit in constructing this blog and my ePortfolio, so I decided to give that a shot. I discovered that LibGuides allowed the use of the iframe HTML code and use that to embed the news story from the external web site into the guide.

I then rechecked the library's policy for LibGuide construction and found that I could modify the page from three columns to two as long as I maintained the guide's presets. I removed the right column which made reading the story in the iframe much easier. Afterwords, I added a link underneath the iframe in case a student was using a browser that does not support iframes. I also modified the instruction for the exercise and the  Google Doc that appears after they answer the question so it better explains how to assess the story as a web page.

Finally, a colleague in the library expressed an interest in using the LibGuide for his journalism students so I asked if he would like to be added as a co-owner so that he could edit and update the guide after I graduated.

I will have Tammy review the changes that I made before changing the status.

Here is a link to the LibGuide.

*This is the last daily log entry for my practicum.

April 16, 2015 (Thursday)

Time: 8:30am-11:30am; 2pm-3:30pm  (4.5)
Hours completed (IST): 130.5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 145.5/150

Today I observed two BI sessions with Tammy. The first was an outreach session with a local high school and the second was with a group of Ph.D. candidates in the English department. I did not actively participate in either because the former was more specific to Tammy's expertise (British Poetry) and the latter was my first time with a group of Ph.D.-level students. Typically, it has always been our procedure that I only observe the first instance of an instruction session.

The first session was similar to the outreach that we do high schools except that all the example searches and discussion of databases was geared more toward the topic. The session with the graduate students was interesting to observe as Tammy was able to introduce skills and tips that were much more in-depth than the session that I have observed or participated in. On one of her handouts for the graduate students Tammy used a series of Venn diagrams to explain how Boolean Operators work which I thought was a great way to visualize the information. The Ph.D. students were much more interactive and excited to discuss aspects of Tammy's presentation which made it difficult to fit in everything she planned to talk about. No matter what it is so important to properly plan a lesson but, just as important, it is necessary to react to the class and follow their interests. In other words, plan but don't be too rigid.

After the session, as Tammy and I discussed how things went I suggested that the Venn diagram may work well with undergraduates to help them visualize what Boolean Operators are doing. She said that it was something that she used to include and was meaning to add back into the handouts for undergraduates. Tammy also reminded me that my approach of explaining it as "and is less, but or is more" is also effective. I like the idea of presenting information in a way that students can learn through the modes that learn best, so in my own sessions I would likely use the Venn diagram on handouts and also explain how or is more.

April 14, 2015 (Tuesday)

Time:10:30am-3:30pm  (5)
Hours completed (IST): 126/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 141/150

After speaking with my on-site supervisor and showing her what I accomplished so far with the LibGuide it was suggested, as I thought it may be, that I was going in the wrong direction. Namely, the policy for guides at KSU is to keep them from becoming too weighed down in text. Because I was designing this as both a source of information and as a quasi-standalone lesson, I was including far too much text. Tammy commented that what I had written was good and that I could probably add it to a blog and link out to it. That way it was still a resource students could look at and it would bring my LibGuide in line with the standards.

This meant completely gutting two pages. The Home and Satire in Brief pages remained unchanged. The latter included about 250 words of text which I felt was central to students becoming grounded in the topic. Where I originally planned to have about five pages, I cut that number back to four. The third page will now be titled Identifying Satirical News. For this page I am planning a short video using screen-capture technology that will give a guided tour of a satirical news site and show how difficult it can sometimes be to locate disclaimer information. The Resources page will be split into two with one including a list of free and academic resources about satirical news and the second will provide a list of online satirical news sites.

After developing a new strategy, I set about making changes. I opted to take this blog, which was originally just meant to house my daily logs, and open it up to act as a professional blog. I reworked some of the text from my LibGuide and used it to create a post that I could link to. I then set about preparing to make the video to embed in the guide. I began by experimenting with several free screen capture tools. While I have previous worked with Screencast-O-Matic, I felt that the free version lacked some valuable feature and chose instead to go with NCH Software's Debut capture software.

With the software decided, I now had to determine a host. Initially, I planned to use Kent State's video hosting service KSUtube; however, I had concerns about accessibility with doing a video. After some research I discovered that YouTube provides a transcription service for people who upload videos. I ended the day by doing a few test runs with Debut and writing up a general script.

While I think the video is a good fit for my goal and I had satisfied some of my concerns about accessibility, I worry that making the video may take more time than I have to invest.

April 12, 2015 (Sunday)

Time: 7pm-10pm (3)
Hours completed (IST): 121/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 136/150

 I spent today preparing for the BI scheduled on Tuesday. This is the English class that is writing a paper relating to the homeless in Cleveland, OH after reading the book Derelict Paradise. Because we have met with this class several times already, I decided to draw from my academic experience and speak to them a little about primary and secondary resources and historical analysis. Mainly, I want to impart to them how to critically analyze a document from the past. After looking at several sites I decided to use this on from WikiHow as a model because it is short and accurate.

In addition I planned to pass out copies of these simplified primary and secondary source resource analysis sheets for the students to use, if they want. These are a more simplified version of the kind of source evaluation worksheets that are available through the National Archives.

Satirical Content as an Information Literacy Problem

Satire is a way for writers, artists, and performers to critique the societies in which they live. It often creates characters based on real people and puts them into situations that exaggerate the behavior that the satirist wishes to expose. Speaking specifically of TV in 2009, several researchers argued that "the sad irony that contemporary satire TV often says what the press is too timid to say, proving itself a more critical interrogator of politicians at times and a more effective mouthpiece of the people's displeasure with those in power, including the press itself" (Gray, Jones, and Thompson, p.4). When presented online in the trappings of legitimate news sources, satire can be difficult to discern by people who lack sufficient Information Literacy training.

The Problem with Satire

Satire seems like a pretty amazing thing, so what exactly can be wrong about it? Well, satire can go wrong in two very important and interconnected ways. The first is when the audience does not realize that something is satirical. The second is when the author or performer does not give the audience context or cues that something is satirical.

Let's consider the first issue. In Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, a wonderful parody of the Star Wars movies, there is a scene where one of the main villains, Dark Helmet, gets angry at one of his subordinates for not reporting something to him, but going instead all the way up to the main villain.

Dark Helmet: [appearing in the room, lifting up his visor] I can't breathe in this thing.

Colonel Sandurz: We're approaching Planet Druidia, sir.

Dark Helmet: Good. I'll call Spaceball City and notify President Skroob immediately.

Radio Operator: I already called him, sir. He knows everything.

Dark Helmet: What? You went over my helmet?

Radio Operator: Well not exactly over, sir... more to the side - I'll always call you first, it will never happen again, never, ever.

While the above scene is not about people's ability to get or reaction to satire, it certainly fits what can happen. The joke or point goes over their "helmet," which means that the satire failed to either inform or entertain their audience. Most people get frustrated when they feel like they are not in on the joke. Worse still, because satirical writing often ratchets situations up to "11" to make their point, when the audience fails to identify satire they can react to it as if the author or performer was being earnest. In other words, they get angry.

The second issue is created when the author or performer does not let us in on the joke. The first problem is contextual. What is context? To be honest, this is a question that is difficult to answer, which is probably why so many academics spend so much time thinking and writing about it. Context in this instance is the additional information that the audience needs to understand what is being said. Returning to Spaceballs for a second, a person who has not watched the Star Wars films will miss many of the jokes in the film because do not "get" what the jokes are referencing. What about those of you who have never watched Star Wars or Spaceballs, you need to understand this stuff too.

 Let's consider people who wear t-shirts "ironically" as another example. One day you see a person walking across campus wearing a Justin Bieber shirt. How do you know if they like Justin Bieber or if they are wearing the shirt "ironically"? Unless you already know that person and their views on Justin Bieber or ask them directly then your do not have the contextual understanding to know for sure. This leads directly to the second part of this issue: the person in the shirt assumes that people will get the "joke" without providing any clues about their intent. If you don't like Justin Bieber but are wearing a shirt with him on it then you better be prepared to spend most of your day explaining your "joke" to people.

Missing the Joke

Surely, this cannot be that much of a problem. Surely, people can easily identify when they are presented with satire. First, don't call me Shirley. Second, people failing to identify satirical content and reacting to it as if it were factual is a problem that seem to only grow each year.


The Academy Speaks

In 2009, researchers from The Ohio State University published a study on audience reaction to The Colbert Report. They found that whether the people they polled thought that Stephen Colbert was funny or not, that "conservatives were more likely to to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatives also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism" (LaMarre, Landreville, and Beam, p.212). In other words, despite the amount of information available that Stephen Colbert was a satirical character some people, likely due to their own political opinions, believed that Colbert's political opinions were earnest.

Obvious jokes are often a great indicator that something is being presented satirically, but what happen when the obvious humor is removed from the equation? While most people can properly identify The Onion as a satirical site because of its use of humor, there are a great many satirical sites on the Internet that use a more decidedly low-key approach. Of course, some people still fall for an Onion article on occasion despite its prominence.

The Press Speaks

In June 2014, New Republic published an article called "The Great Satirical-News Scam of 2014" which examined many of the newer breed of satirical news sites that have gone out of their way to ditch obvious jokes and transparency. Much of the article focused on the Daily Currant, a satirical newsite that was used as a legitimate source by several real news agencies. The article explains that these class of sites purposely hides their true nature so that it is easier for them to generate traffic from outraged people. That traffic equals money for the sites as they get paid every time a user views the plethora of ads on their websites. The end of the article sums up the problem as follows:

"For those who have fallen for these stories, the consequent humiliation can inoculate them against making the mistake a second time. But you can’t vaccinate suckers as fast as they’re born. Unless Google and Facebook change their algorithms—or humans suddenly become less gullible, and less prone to confirmation bias—these sites will likely persist, metastasizing across the internet like a profoundly unfunny cancer" (Link).

The Social Media Speaks

Facebook, beginning in August 2014, began testing a system that will tag posts posts from satirical news sites as "satire". These tags will appear in front of the link of items that appear in users' newsfeed. The system is not yet live but there are images of it running that appear from time-to-time. A spokesperson for Facebook the reason for this feature is "because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles" (Link). This is similar to a feature available in Google News: "To offer a diversity of opinion and content Google News does contain some satire, often humorous or hyperbolic stories with the intention of social commentary. We identify these types of articles with the tag (satire), so that you'll know when you're reading a satirical article" (Link).

Now What?

Yes, it appears that social media site are making attempts to help clarify a problem that plagues both casual readers and journalism professionals. But is that the only opinion? I'm glad you asked because the answer is a resounding, "No!" Your local or campus library is a great place to learn more about Information Literacy skills. Additionally, it is important to remember to evaluate who wrote something before excepting it at face value. If you find a news story in your social media, follow up on it. Do a Google search for the publication, go to the site and look for links to an "about" or "disclaimer" page, or use a specialized tool like Real or Satire?.

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Additional Sources

Gray, J., Jones, J. P., & Thompson, E. (Eds.). (2009). Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. New York and London: New York University Press.

Lamarre, H., Landreville, K., & Beam, M. (2009). The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report. International Journal Of Press/Politics, 14(2), 212-231. doi:10.1177/1940161208330904

Image from: http://literallyunbelievable.org/post/113594893209/this-is-what-wrong-with-country

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April 7, 2015 (Tuesday)

Time: 10am-11am (1)
Hours completed (IST): 118/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 133/150

Today was the first IST meeting that I have been able to attend in awhile. We spent the time discussing the usability testing that we had done previously. Our instructional tech. librarian discussed some of the general things to consider as we determine which skill modules we should update and in what order. She explained that prioritization is very important when updating web-based resources. We spent some time discussing the findings of many members which led to several productive ideas to make the modules better.

I was asked to find a more up-to-date website that we can point to as an example of a hoax site for one of the modules. I will likely look for a few but may also put forward some of the satirical news site that I have been working with as a contender.

I was also asked to conduct more usability tests on some of the other modules if I have the time.

As the current plan is to have these updated by the beginning of fall semester, this is also the planned topic for next week's meeting.

April 2, 2015 (Thursday)

Time: 8am-4pm (8)
Hours completed (IST): 117/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 132/150

When I first got to the library today I borrowed a book cart from the circulation department and went about selecting books out of reference for the BIs. We have several volumes that dealt specifically with pop culture but I also grabbed several others that were more specific but still related to the topic: volumes on graphic novels, music, general US history, and even baseball.

The first BI went well for the most part. The class itself was very quiet and very resistant to participating much. I managed to get a few people to answer questions and, though less interactive, to laugh a little and raise their hands a few times. Generally, they seemed to understand the information well and during their workshop time I was able to witness several students using the tools and strategies that I suggested for them. The faculty member asked a few questions about how the students could go about getting help from the library: I glossed over that too quickly early on. I think I was worrying about time too much.

After the session was over Tammy told me that everything seemed to go well but she had a few areas that I needed to work on:

• I needed to explain the VPN in greater detail, mainly to distinguish that students only needed to download the software once but need to activate it every time they want to connect to resources off campus
• She mentioned how I needed to better explain the ways that students could contact the library for help. She was pleased that the professor saved me on that one but I needed to remember to do it myself.
• My lesson plan for using the two searches (general and specific) works really well; however, in my hypothetical "I am a fellow student" presentation I called myself an "bad student" when explaining the general search. She rightly reminded me that might be off-putting to students. She suggested that I reframe it as being undecided about my topic which is much better and much closer to what I am trying to explain to them.
• I need to remember to show the students how to find the subject databases even if they aren't going to be using them during the session. She explained that this may be the only time a student gets library training for a long time, if ever, and it's important to introduce them to these tools when we have the chance.
• I need to spend more time talking about the tools available in Discovery: email, permalink, folders, etc.

Between sessions I worked on internalizing Tammy's notes but I also decided to work on a new specific search. One thing that we discussed in the first session was that it may be difficult to find scholarly works on certain topics just because they are so recent. I wanted to integrate that into my presentation so I could show the students how to broaden the search if they run into this problem, which seemed highly likely.

Search Example #3

Topic: Gamergate (A recent dispute in the video game community that revolves around female representation and media ethics; it's entire to complex to explain here)

Search String:   video (game* OR gaming) AND (gamer gate OR gamergate) AND (media OR journali* OR review*) A quick note: I used (game* OR gaming) because truncating to (gam*) would likely add bad hits.

video (game* OR gaming) [4,332,871 hits]
(gamer gate OR gamergate) [333 hits]
(media OR journali* OR review*) [122 hits]
SPRJ (limiter) [2 hits]


First I explained the necessity of the second part of the string (gamer gate OR gamergate). If I just enter it as "gamer gate," the way that it makes sense to write, then there are no returns. This is because the term is typically written as a hashtag (#term).

I also was able to explain that two hits is likely too few and suggests that the search is either too limited or that there just is not enough out there in the scholarly community. So I showed them how to look for information that is related to their topic but is expressed in entirely new terms. For example, Gamergate is, at least in part, defined by feminist critique:

Search String: video (game* OR gaming) AND femin* AND (media OR journal* OR review*)
SPRJ (limiter)
2010-2015 (date range limiter)
English (language limiter) [218 hits]


This small change provides a much strong base from which to work. In fact, we could still limit this further using Subject limiters. What I wanted them to see was that there were ways to modify searches to get results that will work despite a search not going so well initially. Of course, in this case the initial search may work because the minimum number of scholarly resources needed is two.

The second session went very well, though this group was even more adamant to not participate than the last. I managed to make the changes Tammy suggested and the new search example seemed to make sense to students and, if nothing else, started a lively conversation between myself, Tammy, and the professor.

In a way I like "making mistakes" in front of the students. We spend so much time search databases and so much time preparing for our instruction sessions that we can make searching to effortless or, worse, like magic. People make those comments to me quite often. By show that things can go wrong and that there are ways to fix the situation when it does, I think we make the students less intimidated and, hopefully, more receptive.

April 1, 2015 (Wednesday)

Time: 8pm-11pm (3)
Hours completed (IST): 109/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 124/150

 Tomorrow I will be soloing two English BIs with Tammy observing. It will be two sections of the same class which means that I am really just preparing for one. The professor sent over the two assignments that we are meant to help with which is an annotated bibliography and a thesis-driven argument. Tammy said that she liked my approach from Match 10 and that she would like to see me use that, so I created two search string examples: a general search and one that is based on a more fleshed-out, specific topic. Tammy also suggested that I could get some books together from reference to bring to the class, which I plan to do tomorrow.

The students have a very open topic: they need to write about an aspect of pop culture that affects modern society. She is more interested in journals though the students can use some books, so I am going to focus on Discovery and then explain/show how these searches can be duplicated in KentLINK.

Search Example #1

Search String: pop culture (I debated using pop* but felt that it would return more bad hits than good)

pop culture [238,910 hits]
SPRJ (limiter) [26,827 hits/ 88.7% less]
2010-2015 (date range limiter) [6,157 hits]
Academic Journals (source limiter) [5,002 hits]
English (language limiter) [4,526 hits]
United States (geography limiter) [199 hits/ 99.9% less]

Search Example #2

Topic: That reading comic books does not lead to juvenile crime.

Search String: (comic book* OR comic*) AND (child* OR juvenile* OR teenag*) AND (violen* OR crime* OR crimin*)

comic book* OR comic* [1,760,552 hits]
child* OR juvenile* OR teenag* [187,191 hits]
violen* OR crime* OR crimin* [4,751 hits]
SPRJ (limiter) [710 hits]
2000-2015 (date range limiter) [541 hits]
English (language limiter) [510 hits]
United States (geography limiter) [30 hits]

March 31, 2015 (Tuesday)

Time: 10am-12pm; 2pm-4pm (4)
Hours completed (IST): 106/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 121/150

 For the first part of the day today I spent some time looking at the ready reference materials to see if there was anything useful that I missed the previous night. I also showed Tammy the lists that I had prepared and she thought they would be good for the students to have so she asked me to make copies to hand out. Tammy also showed me the handout that she created for the day and suggested that we co-teach. She also explained that we would have less time than we originally though as the professor needed to speak to her students for the first fifteen minutes or so.

I was given the choice of what I wanted to discuss with the class and in the end, after choosing what we should and should not show based on the time change, the session broke down to Tammy and I trading off every other section.

The session itself, given the time constraints and the amount of information that needed to be covered, was pretty hectic. Tammy and I did a good job of segueing back and forth to each other. More than once as one of us was finishing up or answering a question the other would be at the laptop bringing up the next site on the list. I tried to make the session fun for the students by tossing in some jokes about how fast we were talking.

"I know we're going pretty fast. Are there any questions," I asked at one point. Everybody shook their head. "Is everybody keeping up okay," I continued, "raise your hand if you need us to slow down." One student raised her hand. "I'm sorry but that is not a majority so I guess we may as well go faster," I responded which made the students laugh. I did, however, try and slow up a little bit and also reminded the class that we'd be happy to answer any questions at the end.

For my part, I spent a lot of time explaining how the different resources we provided for them could be used in concert to find the most information about a given topic, person, etc.

We managed to speak about everything that we wanted except for possibly reviewing the Discovery Layer, which wasn't that necessary in most likelihood.

I felt like I stumbled a bit and the time crunch made the session very difficult, but Tammy felt that everything went well. The professor asked if we could return once more to speak with her class again to discuss research and using sources. I'll probably begin prepping for that soon.

Tammy designed this handout for the class by adding many of the items that I had previously found and combining it with some more general library information. She said that she feels it's important to add pictures to the handouts, and I think I agree. If anything, it makes them more inviting and professional-looking:

March 30, 2015 (Monday)

Time: 7pm-10:30pm (3.5)
Hours completed (IST): 102/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 15/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 117/150

 Tonight I prepped for a scheduled instruction session tomorrow. No decision had been made as to whether I would solo this one or not so I chose to prep as though I would, that way I'd be ready for any contingency.

While I was reviewing material I began to think about what would be really useful for the students to hear about this time around. This was to be the second BI with this honors English class and I felt that we were going to need something more specific and in-depth than the usual BI that I had participated in. I was sure that Tammy was preparing for something along those lines as well because she told me to stop by her office tomorrow to see the handout that she was working on.

I decided to put off reviewing the rest of the standard BI material until tomorrow and instead went to work crafting a list of reference and circulating material that the class may find helpful for their assignment. This was the class that was writing a paper based on the topics covered in Derelict Paradise, which I discussed looking at earlier in the month. Following on the themes that I pulled from the book, I made the following lists:

Reference Resources

American Decades

               Call # E169.12 .A419 1994 (1900-1999)    

                 

The Atlas of American Migration

               Call # Q G1201.E27 F5 1998

Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States

               Call # JC328.3 .S64 2009 (vol.1-2)

Datapedia of the United States: American History in Numbers

               Call # HA202 .K87 2007

Dictionary of American History

               Call # E174. D52 2003 (vol.1-10)

Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History

               Call # E169.1 .E624 2001 (vol.1-3)

Encyclopedia of American History

               Call # E174 .E53 2003 (vol.1-10)

Encyclopedia of American Religious History

               Call # BL2525 .Q44 2009 (vol.1) (vol.2) (vol.3)

Encyclopedia of American Social Movements

               Call # HN57 .E594 2004 (vol.1-4)

The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

               Call # HV6017 .E5297 2014 (vol.1-5)

Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History

               Call # HD8066 .A78 2006 (vol.1) (vol.2) (vol.3)

Encyclopedia of Women in American History

               Call # HQ1410 .E53 2002 (vol.1-3)

Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace

               Call # D5 .M55 2007 c.2

Great Events from History: American Series

               Call # E178.M22

A History of the U.S. Political System: Ideas, Interests, and Instructions

               Call # JK31 .H57 2010 (vol.1) (vol.2) (vol.3)

Lifetimes: The Great War to the Stock Market Crash: American History through Biography and Primary Documents

               Call # E766 .L48 2002

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of World Economic History since 1750

               Call # HB61 .B36 2010

Polling America: An Encyclopedia of Public Opinion

               Call # HN90.P8 P645 2005 (vol.1-2)

Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, and Policy

               eBook

The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History

               Call # E183 .P85 2010 (vol.1) (vol.2)

Rebels and Renegades: A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent I the United States

               Call # HN90.R3 H354 2002

The Value of a Dollar: Prices and Incomes in the United States, 1860-2009

               Call # HB235 .U6 D47 2009

Circulating Resources

AlabamaNorth: African-American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland, 1915-45

               Call # F499.C69 N46 1999

Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1990

               Call # F499.C657 M55 1990

Cleveland: A Tradition of Reform

               Call # HN80.C6 C58 1986

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

               Call # F499.C657 E53 1996

               Call # F499.C657 E53 1987 c.2

Helping Others, Helping Ourselves: Power, Giving, and Community Identity in Cleveland, Ohio, 1880-1930

               Call # HV99.C54 T83 2001

Lake Effects: A History of Urban Policy Making in Cleveland, 1825-1929

               Call # HN80.C6 W45 2005

Parishes of the Catholic Church Diocese of Cleveland: History and Records

               Call # BX1417 .C5 P2x

A Warm Friend for the Spirit; A History of the Family Service Association of Cleveland and its Forebears, 1830-1952

               Call # HV99.C55 W3 (Off site and online at Hathi Trust)

 

An "Interesting" Resource

This is a review that I worked on for a class last summer. I played with it a bit more after this and sent it out to get published. The journal that I sent it to already had a review in the pipe for this site but they offered me a few other resources to write about. This has been languishing on my hard drive since.

 

Review Subject: Biographical Dictionary

Publisher Name: S9.com

Internet URL: http://www.s9.com

Last Visited: July 5, 2014

Price: Free

Reviewer: Edward Anthony Koltonski

Reviewer Affiliation: Kent State University School of Library and Information Science

References:

Hades. (2008, August 25). Nikola Tesla: high voltage genius [Web log post]. Retrieved from            http://apolloshouseofhades.blogspot.com/2008/08/high-voltage-genius-of-note-nikola.html

Nikola Tesla: 2007 schools Wikipedia selection entry. Retrieved from           

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/n/Nikola_Tesla.htm

Nikola Tesla II. (2014). the Biography.com website. Retrieved 02:04, Jul 05, 2014, from            http://www.biography.com/people/nikola-tesla-9504443.

Nikola Tesla III. (July 2014). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_tesla

     Biographical resources hold an important place in reference collections as they are likely to be used by all levels of users. General users may become interested in discovering more about a person that they heard about on the radio or who stars in their favorite movie. Students commonly go to biographies for writing papers. Serious researchers and academics turn to biographies to familiarize themselves with a new topic or to add content and scope to their writing. Given its importance to so many users, it is no surprise there are so many sources for biographical information.

     This is a free, web-based service that claims to model itself on Wikipedia. It has an extremely broad focus with entries including Charlemagne, Jesus Christ, Mike Meyers, and Dick Dale. The home page contains a brief statement of purpose, featured biographies, and a search field. There are also navigation tabs provided for home, browse, search, and challenge (a biography quiz). The browse feature allows users to peruse entries by first letter, category, and nationality. Browsing by category provides an extensive list of occupations with larger sets, such as Musicians and Writers, divided into subcategories. Both the category and nationality browsing option provides the total number of entries in each heading. Browsing by letter lists entries alphabetically by their last name along with the current revision date for each entry. The search tab provides the same quick search as the home page. There is also an option for advanced searching with fields that include: person’s name, keyword, and drop-down fields for dates of birth and death.

     Individual entries, like the homepage, are free of clutter. The page header includes the subject name and known derivatives, a single image, birth and death dates, nationality, categories, a user rating field, and a status bar indicating whether the entry is locked or editable. The site’s Terms and Conditions page states that the site can lock or remove entries without cause. The rest of the biography is formatted as a list of, usually sequential dates with a short (typically 1-3 sentences) statement. Exceptions to this format can be found. For example, the biography for American politician James Richard Perry (Rick Perry) conforms to the format in the header but the main entry drops the timeline format for a narrative. This entry has been locked and it is possible that the site is planning to bring this into line with the rest of its entries. Individual entries provide no citation which, as discussed later, is problematic.

     The “Wikipedia type system” this services aspires to means “everyone can edit biographies or even create their own.” Despite several attempts, every effort to register with the service to see how this worked ended with a server-side error. Entries provide no information about who created or edited them other than an update notice at the bottom of the page. The fact that it is impossible to attribute the entries to anyone is further exacerbated by suggestions of plagiarism. For example, the site’s entry for Nikola Tesla appears to be copied from other sources. Three of the four sentences of the 1856 entry are almost identical to sentences from the 2007 Wikipedia Selection from Schools DVD (Nikola Tesla, 2007): the only differences are the removal of inline citation and that the Biographical Dictionary reports Tesla’s mother’s name as “uka Mandi,” where Wikipedia (Nikola Tesla III) and other reputable sources (Nikola Tesla II) report her name as Đuka Mandić.  This Google search uncovered another disturbing discovery. The timeline format on Tesla’s entry on Biographical Dictionary had a unique discrepancy. The final few entries progressed as follows: 1915, 1917, 1916, 1943. A blog post (Hades) was discovered that is identical to the main section of the Tesla entry on Biographical Dictionary (comparisons made at www.text-compare.com). The blog post was created on August 25, 2008 while the last date given for the Tesla entry was December 6, 2013. In other words, directing a user to this entry is equivocal to sending them to a blog. 

     It is impossible to know who is responsible. There is, unlike Wikipedia, no discoverable log of the edits made to this page. Maybe registered users have access to such information but, as mention above, it was impossible to register. Further, there is little information about the publisher S9.com. No people are attributed in their mission statement, their contact page, or through Internet search tools such as WHOIS. This casts serious questions about the authority of this service. 

     There is also little enforcement of the site’s policies. The Terms and Conditions page states that the site “is not a venue for advertisements in any way,” but at least three biographies on the main page, two of which are labeled “featured,” provide links to their companies or, in one case, a commercial on YouTube. 

     Libraries and information centers of all stripes have been experiencing a crisis of funding for some time now. This has many librarians looking to free options to bolster their licensed tools and provide their users with access to the information that they need. Free tools also have the added benefit of allowing users to access these services from anywhere. A good free service is a great boon to librarians and users alike. This service is, unfortunately, a boon to neither. The site is easy to navigate; however, Biographical Dictionary is full of spelling and grammar mistakes, questionable information, and inconsistent policy practices. I cannot foresee an instance where a user should be directed to Biographical Dictionary when more accurate and authoritative free options are available at Wikipedia and Biography.com.