Category: 643

Honing in on the Homeless

In building a webinar, I definitely found that trying to plan our presentation to make sure everyone was on the same page was one of the most difficult parts, especially when it came to splitting up content. Our decision to hold an “introductory” portion of the webinar, I believe, was helpful, but I also think it hindered the content we were capable of presenting on the subject as a whole. While it was pertinent, I feel, to provide these definitions because some of the jargon we were using was confusing to us as we began research, the first part of the webinar was also not as engaging as the content we wanted to be able to provide. Of course, our biggest fear, as a group, was having technical issues and how we would handle this, as my partner and I are not confident in our use of technical products. This happened near the end of our presentation and, I was surprised, the participants were very patient and we were capable of identifying the issue and fixing the problem while remaining in our time frame. While I wasn’t surprised by the helpfulness of our fellow students, I was taken aback that we addressed the issue so well and were capable of continuing our presentation. I think the quick reaction from our participants actually represents the helpfulness I have experienced with most information professionals I have had the pleasure of working with, which makes the thought of doing this in a setting that isn’t with only people we have class with a little less daunting, though I am sure I would be just as nervous about completing a similar presentation of a webinar in the future.

Reading the Rainbow

I really liked this webinar because I feel that their focus on the crucial aspect of queer representation in libraries was essential to many of the crusades librarians are trying to make to be inclusive. Specifically, addressing the idea of separation versus inclusion was extremely interesting. While singling out queer materials could be considered a way of “othering” the patron population, sometimes highlighting the existence of these materials can be important for individuals in the population. The balance of these things so that full integration doesn’t lead to the population feeling excluded seems to be extremely delicate. As I engaged with this webinar, it made me think of the trend we are beginning to see in specific popular forms of media where representation, especially accurate representation is being provided for the population as a whole. There is now an entire convention dedicated to highlighting the television and movies that get queer representation right due to tropes that have been prevalent in the media in recent years. I made several connections to the importance of conventions, like Clexacon, and how libraries are also trying to play their part by representing their queer populations in thoughtful, respectful, and real ways.

Language Barriers in Public Libraries

I found the language barriers webinar to be extremely interesting because it is something I fear I may struggle with as an information professional in the future. While I am interested in learning other languages, especially ones that are prevalent in the areas I have lived and been to, I have always had trouble learning other languages. Even this summer as I begin to embark on a trip to Eastern Europe, the language barrier holds a lot of anxiety for me. While I’ll be able to communicate in my professional setting with my colleagues, I wish I was more prepared to speak with everyone in their native languages, but learning Czech has proved to be just as difficult as my attempts at other languages. Still, in the few encounters I have had at libraries with international students where communication was difficult, I have experienced how those barriers can be mitigated just by taking the time. I think this webinar was good at taking this a step further. The discussion had in the chat about language requirements for information professionals was extremely interesting and the tools and resources they provided seemed to be helpful for anyone interested in going into the information profession.

Copyright Abolition

My main take away from this webinar was the continuous reminder of how difficult copyright has become in the Digital Age. While this was not the main focus of the presentation, each section seemed to come back to that particular idea for me, at least. The discussion in this webinar’s chat, I think, led to some very interesting points that were further highlighted by the presenters themselves. Specifically, the idea about translation rights and who has the permission to allow works to be produced in multiple languages proved to be interesting. It highlighted an often forgotten idea that creators sometimes do not have the rights to their own work. The copyright and academics article that was shared by a participant also seems to hold some similar ideas, though I have only had the chance to skim this article.

Visually Accessible Design & Data Viz 101

I really liked the idea of visual accessibility that was set forth in this webinar. I often think of visualization as a form of accessibility for people, which, in some cases, is true, but this presentation really highlighted how this type of data can also be inaccessible depending on the person. I had previously not put much thought into the design of data visualization, because I often connected those two ideas into representing a singular approach to visual representations. The presenters were great at explaining why this is not the case and even were helpful by discussing how design can go into better representing the data you are trying to articulate. They furthered this by talking about how these design thoughts can make data more accessible, as some tools used to enhance accessibility do not deal with visual data well. I think the personas that they used in this webinar really enhanced the content by allowing participants to understand what they were saying with the ideas of a single user instead of generalizing about various populations and issues they may face with data visualization.

When I first starting looking into influencers, I had trouble because there are so many things that I am interested in that will hopefully culminate into the career path I intend for myself. There wasn’t anything I could boil down to encompass all that I look for when I consider those to “follow” on social media for their professional presence, so, in this same strain, I didn’t do that here either. Interested in running a very specific type of institution, I considered a specialist in that subject matter, a director of a small institution, and people that are interested in community and outreach, especially when it comes to the point of underrepresented members of society. I found it heartwarming, in a way, that when I finally identified five people that fell into these categories in one way or another, they were all women.

The influencer most removed from the library

profession would be Dr. Kat Williams. She is the president of the International Women’s Baseball Center, an American Sports Historian who focuses on women’s baseball, and an avid activist when it comes to promoting the place women hold in sport’s past, present, and future. She operates under the alias “TellHerSheCan” for her professional work and runs an active Facebook community page. Recently, to increase access, she started posting on Twitter through this handle, separating it from her personal accounts.

 

The most interesting aspect of the information profession is the special place it holds for community programming and outreach. In my search, I discovered several identified “Movers and Shakers” of 2018 that focused on these aspects, along with a researcher from the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).  April Hatchcock is a lawyer-turned-librarian whose dedication to librarian values, like diversity, accessibility, and inclusion has led her to blog extensively about intersectionality and inclusion while running an active Twitter. Another community builder in this year’s Movers and Shakers class, Jennifer Ferretti, has taken this a step further by cultivating the “We Here” community to provide connections to underrepresented members in the library community. Her Twitter and Instagram echo this call for inclusion, as does her publicly accessible personal website. The OCLC researcher Merrilee Proffitt posts regularly on the “Hanging Together” blog run by the OCLC as well as her Twitter, discussing unique approaches that librarians can take to reach their patrons and break down barriers.

Finally, wanting to direct an institution myself, Allie Stevens, another 2018 Mover and Shaker, provides a helpful professional presence to learn from. Her Twitter discusses the strides she’s been able to make in her library while her Facebook community page, “Tiny Library Think Tank,” has begun to connect librarians that have minimal resources to crowdsource ideas and give and take advice.

Each of these five people attributes something else to my wanted career goals. Advocacy for a place at the table and accessibility to materials by community members that don’t always have a say is crucial in the strides to put and keep the International Women’s Baseball Center on the map. The strides that Dr. Williams makes specifically in that area and women like Hatchcock and Ferretti make for other underrepresented community members can help guide how to best approach these issues in different circumstances. The dedication of people like Stevens allows for smaller institutions to make their mark as well. Finally, the ever-evolving relationship that the information profession has with online culture is also crucial for the development of new institutions, making the efforts of researchers at the OCLC worth keeping an eye on.

In class this week, small groups attended 20 minute one-shot workshops on a variety of topics. The topics our group covered include algorithms that automate some government decisions, ethics of corporate actors, the ethics of digital libraries, and creating our own code of ethics. All of these subjects definitely caught my attention in one way or another.

While I was aware that some decisions have been automated by algorithms, I had never thought of how these algorithms could pose possible discriminatory problems. The example that this group used determined the response to possible domestic issues in New York, but many of the factors considered were out of the control of the individual being monitored, which led to a disproportionate number of people with lower socioeconomic statuses being investigated for potential abuse. This particular workshop above the others really stuck out to me due to the discussion we had following our activity about how best to address these types of practices as a community.

The discussion in How People Learn about expert teaching from various disciplines made me really connect with the reason that I got interested in history so late in life. I had a professor that taught “perspective history” as a way to engage her students. Instead of being someone who focused on facts and dates, she provided opportunities to connect with historical events by using stories from various people of differing genders, races, lifestyles, and socioeconomic statuses to allow more relatable lectures, which, for me, made it easier to learn about the complexity of history. I feel that approaching this chapter by giving stories was also critical, because it showed how these teachers were more relatable. In the opening of the chapter, it is stated that great teachers are more than teaching methods and content knowledge, but this was enhanced by providing stories about how certain teachers are truly more than the expected connections that people think of when they think of great teachers.

I chose to watch a UX-related webinar for this week and evaluate it. I am not very familiar with the way that people in this profession approach their work. I found a webinar that addressed “10 Research Guiding Principles” from two women that have made a career in user experience. What I found extremely helpful about this was that they are really principles that can be applied to everyday life in general. While I really liked the talk, this webinar seemed to lack in the way of interaction with participants and failed to provide adequate time to answer participant questions and assess what they had learned. To me, it seemed to run more like an informational podcast with visuals. While I found it compelling and appreciated the ability to relate some of the things I knew back to a profession I know very little about, I think that the presenters could have done a better job of engaging their audience instead of just talking at them for an hour.

I really appreciated the discussions that were fostered in each of our book clubs and the unique perspectives that came out as we all talked about how reading selections affected us differently. This led to some missteps in speaking that, I feel, were capable of being navigated better because of the intimate setting we were in compared to the reaction we may have gotten in a larger group. I know, for me personally, there was a reading where I really didn’t understand the  content being discussed because it isn’t a medium that I used, but I was capable of using my experience as an individual to understand the issue being talked about. I connected back to things that were common knowledge to me that I often don’t think of as not being something that most people are unaware of. When this was pointed out to me in discussion, it really made me stop and think, but because our moderators were prepared for open discussion, I was capable of navigating these comments in a way I don’t think would have been nearly as easy in a larger group.

I chose the Nonprofit and SAA codes of ethics because the other organization I was interested in (the ALA) I had read before. These were quite comparable to this previous reading though. The nonprofit reading provided a brief overview of how such organizations may adopt their own, unique codes of ethics, as they should consider their place as a nonprofit and in the context of the work they were doing. The SAA code, I feel, represented many of the same things that the ALA code does. Keeping in mind the expectations and foundations of archives and libraries, each of these codes of ethics creates guidelines that will uphold these beliefs.

In the examples I read for class, both explicitly stated that the codes of ethics were sets of guidelines. While individual organizations may expect people to act under them, there is no governing entity to make anyone follow the principles set forth in each of these documents. Still, reading them makes them seem like common sense. If you are an archivist, for example, and you have chosen that profession because it is something you care about, why would you risk the integrity of maintaining collections by turning away material that fits into your organization’s mission due to some beliefs you as an individual may have? I think the codes of ethics are a way to remind people that, within an organization, it is the organization and not the individual that should be guiding decisions that further the integrity of the group one works for. Of course, I think that such documents also make it possible to uphold decisions that go against detrimental practices that may be harmful to the integrity of the profession.

Class discussion focused on how to best build a book club setting and concluded with an experiment in the Socratic Seminar setting. While I think that our small group discussions could have been extremely beneficial if all of us had read different articles, my first group all read the same readings for the week. This led to a consensus about how Socratic Seminars are constructed and what those guidelines might look like, but we did not have a good discussion on how those ideas might contrast with book clubs until we merged into larger groups. I think that this took a bit from the understanding we could have reached due to the lack of cohesion I think the small groups of two or three allow over the slightly larger groups. Still, I found the entire exercise helpful in working out some of the thoughts and ideas I had had in my own reading experience.

The group discussion culminated into a discussion of what all of our thoughts yielded into a group document. Comparing that to a previous year’s ideas, I found, was helpful to see how different groups of people understand these instances of learning differently. This was also a good way to introduce how to build the types of questions that may be asked in these settings. With the use of examples, these ideas were further enhanced.

I found the exercise of the Socratic Seminar to be the most useful though, as it provided an example of what our projects could result in. As an observer, I found it interesting to see how the inner circle interacted with one another. It also provided me with even more ideas that both supported the thoughts I had on the reading and contrasted with some of the things I noted. These observations were extremely helpful, I feel, for understanding the reading on an even higher level.

I think the increase of group discussions and seminar-like courses have really enhanced my learning experiences throughout my years in university because they foster discussions that make you think about how you interpret material compared to how others with different experiences do. That is why I found this class so helpful in helping me to understand how different approaches to group discussions can have different effects on the outcomes. With the LEO exercise, I found it helpful to see that I mostly aligned in thinking with most of the people that shared the objective I had had, but I found it more helpful to understand the reading from the various perspectives of our jigsaw group. One of the points that our group made was that by approaching a text in this way, we were forced to think in a different way, due to the objective of our LEO, which led to some interesting revelations, but discussions with others that had gone through similar ways of thinking for various objectives provided even more perspectives for us to think about. These varying roles led to open discussions not only about the text but about the approach to these perspectives and the issues that some had with them because of how they think as individuals.

I think that these small groups prior to large class discussions also allow for more voices to be heard because we are more comfortable working out our confusions in smaller groups which can give us confidence to speak to the group at large and those that do not feel comfortable in speaking to the big group often catch the attention of others in smaller groups, which allows for their thoughts to still be heard. Our final discussion about the readings in the small group really opened up how even groups of five or six can have greatly varying perspectives on the same information. It was also interesting to see which questions fostered decent amounts of discussion while others seemed to just fall dead.

I think my largest issue with Marc Prensky’s article is that he seems to disregard some of the issues that arise with going all-digital in a university because his major example for said position did not go through. While Prensky’s argument was valid when he made it in 2011 about South Korea planning to go fully electronic with their textbooks by 2015, the country reneged from this stance just four months after Prensky made his post. I think that some of Prensky’s ideas would be extremely interesting in a learning environment if they could be implemented, I spent most of the article questioning what access would look like in this digital university and how such collaborations would work as time passed. He seemed to dismiss the argument about screen fatigue in his article as well, which seemed like an interesting thing to do. I am one of those people that prefers to read on paper, not because I get some nostalgia from doing so as he would suggest, but because reading constantly from a screen gives me migraines and I tend to remember more reading from paper than I do from a screen. Now, I have actively worked against this to consume more information electronically, but I still hold that paper has an important place in higher education still.

Another example he used to bolster his argument laid with the surge of electronic materials in comparison to print materials being created and distributed. While it is true that these electronic sources caused a dip in print productions for several years, recently print materials have made a resurgence. Still, my thoughts go back to access regardless. At the end of this article I was left with the following questions:

• What about when students leave the university?
• On most campuses, when alumni leave the university connectivity privileges are revoked or, at least, come at a fee. Would this trend be altered in this all-digital university?
• If a campus is truly going digital, and replacing physical books with electronic versions, are they also providing equal access to devices for students to use?

Interested in learning more about the Socratic Seminar, I read the following readings from the provided selection: Metzger ,1998, “Teaching Reading: Beyond the Plot; Tredway, 1995, “Socratic Seminars.” Educational Leadership; Chowning. 2005, “Socratic Seminars in Science Class.” HHS Public Access. I think it was helpful to see how these three readings worked and referenced one another because they continuously built on the same idea to provide a fuller picture of how such seminars could be helpful in the classroom and how they could properly be conducted by an instructor. While I have been in courses where seminar-like discussions are the norm, the type of structuring introduced in the Socratic Seminar is not one that is fully familiar to me. I think that many of these discussion-based classes strived for this type of learning, but, for many reasons, fell short of the goal because they did not know how to adapt when something wasn’t working.

I seemed to take one main idea from each of these readings and a fuller understanding of the Socratic Seminar as a whole from the culmination of the three. From Metzger, I found the idea of the inner and outer circle to hold an interesting place. “Peer pressure worked in the favor of education” by not only providing formative feedback but by enhancing the ability to take notes and comment on how to improve while allowing students to hold one another responsible for work and to guide class in a way that their needs were met (Metzger, 243). Tredway emphasized how this could work by discussing the key of the Socratic Seminar: focusing on the “why.” By focusing on motivation and emotion, these types of discussions allow for students to connect to the ideas more fully and enables them to mature as students. Still, neither of these would be helpful if it weren’t for Chowning’s comment about remaining in the realm of evidence-based reasoning. Motivation, emotion, and peer observation are important to keeping students connected and engaged, but this means nothing if the information they are engaging with leaves the realm of evidence-based reasoning. Therefore, the three works connect with one another to help enhance the argument about the importance of the Socratic Seminar and to allow both the learner and the instructor to see how these types of discussions can be beneficial in the classroom.

In class, our main discussion focused on providing feedback, which I really appreciated because the importance of feedback is often talked about but is rarely conceptualized as more than just a term. With a general overview of different types of feedback and how these approaches may be helpful in a variety of different scenarios, I feel that the overarching question “How do we give feedback before the stakes are high?” was adequately answered. In the university setting, this type of feedback is often provided in the seminar-like discussions most classrooms engage in, and, for many, this is enough for a professor to understand where most in a room stand on a topic. I appreciated working in smaller groups, like we did in previous weeks to set up larger discussions, but the “turn and talk” and its applications in younger demographic settings also became clear.

I think that Bradford’s discussion on education versus training and the overarching concept of transfer played well with our discussions of assessment and feedback. The concepts of transfer we have been focusing on fit into the philosophies of education, not those of training, as “the belief that it is better to “educate” people than simply “train” them to perform particular tasks” is essential to all of the topics we have discussed (Bradford, 51). The fact that Bradford recognizes the different learning styles of all people, I feel, is essential, as teaching cannot be just a blanket lesson with the expectation that everyone will take the same things from it. With that in mind, I feel that his highlighting of processing, feedback, and learning- versus performance-oriented learners is crucial for instructors to understand how to approach the classroom.

The concepts about transfer that I found most intriguing from this chapter were the links that were made to initial learning and its connection to previous knowledge, which has also been a common subject in class. While it wasn’t surprising to see that misconceptions and conceptual understanding can block successful transfer or that prior knowledge is also connected to a learner’s social role and culture, I was surprised about the connection to collaborative, tool-based, contextual reasoning and its connection to transfer. That is not due to my lack of understanding of such transfers, but due my understanding of the United States public school system and, through my experience, their disregard for such learning experiences. It is only in my late years of university that such learning environments have been provided. So, does this mean that to enhance transfer in students that U.S. education should begin shifting to such foci? Aren’t other cultures’ education systems focused more in this way? How do their education benchmarks compare? Should the United States be taking a lesson from them?

I think the discussion that followed the podcast on This American Life really brought to life the many discussions we have been having over information over the last few weeks. Having heard this particular podcast before and having listened to several this producer has created in the past, the class discussion made me think a little more in-depth about the “show” of these particular broadcasts. While I had recognized the notions of misinformation, despite a want to be well-informed, I had never made the connection of how this information gathering was portrayed by This American Life to the audience. I really appreciated the comments about how this broadcast was clear to point out that mistakes had been made, there was no effort to show how these mistakes could be avoided in the future, for either the listener or the subject of the podcast.

The parallels between this incident and this producer’s other major podcast “S*Town” were made very apparent as I listened and discussed the information issues at hand. Like Ben, the main subject of this series was also misinformed about issues he deemed extremely important. The difference here is that Ben was researching an action by local government and John thought that a murder was being covered up in his home town. The contrast in these two is that John was very well-informed about the world around him prior to the event that led him to reach out to This American Life, where Ben seems to indicate that his launch into politics and researching immigration were spurned by this particular event. These comparisons were very much at the  forefront of my mind as we discussed literacy throughout the rest of class, and, it makes me consider listening through the other series again and seeing how I react to the information issues throughout it.

With the question “What do we do about it?” being posed late in discussion, it was a little disheartening that there doesn’t seem to be a good answer. How do we introduce children early enough to sort through what can be deemed credible information? Are the tactics we use to determine the credibility of information good enough? Are we possibly not doing a good enough job of making these decisions about credibility for ourselves? If we are coming up short in information literacy individually, how are we supposed to be preparing the next generation to sort through the plethora of information we are bombarded with daily?

The readings this week shifted away from literacy though, and began discussing the development of formative assessment. I think that there are still parallels there though. Bradford states early on that “learning theory does not provide a simple recipe for designing effective learning environments,” which I feel speaks to the issues of developing effective formative assessments and our failings to properly address information literacy (Bradford, 131). Yet, the explanations of how to create good learning environments and the visual of how these learning environments work together were extremely helpful. The ability to develop community-centered learning environments that are leaner-centered, knowledge-centered, and assessment-centered seems like the way to provide valuable teaching. Though, I did wonder about classrooms that may not be homogenous in the way of cultural norms. As I read how all of these elements aligned to create successful learning environments, I thought of large areas, like New York City, where school populations are extremely diverse in many areas, and, therefore the cultural and social norms in the classroom may vary widely. How do these types of classrooms affect the ability to build community learning environments that account for the diversity of the students in these areas?

I really appreciated the slightly different approach that Greenstein took to the same tool. While it is also stated that formative assessment is student focused, instructionally informative, and outcome based, aligning with Bradford, a discussion about how this may look in the classroom provided a different perspective. Specifically, the importance that Greenstein places on transparency really spoke to me, as it seemed to pull students more directly into the discussion about their education. This idea of inclusion indicated that transparency with students about outcomes that directly related to their education helped keep them involved and understand their expectations. I feel like if these types of discussions had been had throughout my schooling, I may have been able to have more understanding about how my education would have been more applicable to life in the real world.

I really appreciated the approach that was taken in highlighting some of our screencasts, as seeing how other people approached the assignment made it easier to think of other ways that I could have done things. Being able to comment and discuss these approaches allowed me to ponder how I may approach future projects that may involve some of the same skills needed here. From comments made throughout this discussion and conversations I had with individual students, it was also nice to realize that there were portions of the project that everyone struggled with, although those varied from person-to-person. I really liked the rounds of discussion that followed regarding the readings. I think that having small groups helped our ideas to be heard a little bit more, as some people are not as comfortable talking in large groups,  and,  by coming together at the end, we could see the culmination of our discussions and how they fit into our own thoughts about the reading.

I think the Stanford History Education Group document was the most interesting of the readings this week, due to the approach they took to the study. I found that I had also held some of the misconceptions about student engagement with online material as many of the authors and teachers seemed to indicate throughout the study. Here we saw some of the same language that came up in our larger discussion, such as a need to “vet the information” that people encounter. The study’s definition of “civic online reasoning” was helpful as well. As with our larger discussion, “literacy” just doesn’t seem to be the right word, but this suggests a cognitive process to consider the information that students are being hammered with constantly.

Marchi’s article took a similar approach, looking at how teenagers placed themselves in the information world. I found it interesting how these participants filtered the information they ended up looking into further. The information that this study revealed though left me thoughtful about how students place themselves in the world at large. Though, I also considered that some of these questions were raised due to the authors and the wording that they used. For example, the study states that most teenagers believed that news was important to make decisions. Yet, due to the ambiguity of this statement, or lack of clarity directly following it, it was hard to tell if this was being taken as that teenagers felt that adults should be informed by traditional understandings of news to make decisions, as they did not see themselves needing to be informed in the same way, or if these were thoughts that reflected the participants’ approach to finding information in the news sources discussed throughout the study. I also found it interesting how the term “fake news” has really changed in meaning in the years since this article was written, as I would not have made the connection to the sources of information Marchi was discussing if it had not been defined in the article.

The remaining readings did focus on literacy, but I think each approach was unique and worth considering in a way to provide well-rounded understandings of how students should interact with information. The News Literacy Project tied back to the Stanford study and Marchi article and approached the idea of literacy in a way that I had not considered. Though, as I read this after all the other documents, it struck me as odd after reading Marchi. If students are extremely skeptical about journalistic objectivity, how do journalists break through that skepticism when addressing a classroom? It does seem like an interesting approach though, and the rather quick development with journalists willing to work with classrooms and students introduces this idea of communities coming together to be better informed.

I feel that this idea of community development is the crux of the C3 Social Studies Standards as well. Understanding that learning standards shouldn’t just prepare students to continue their education, these standards explicitly address the idea of citizenship and how this can build better communities. I think one of the ways this document addresses the idea of community building well is its reference to collaborative work. Postulating that group efforts are welcome and productive, students that work collaboratively and can engage well with information develop the ability to discuss and build their communities on informed matters. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts builds on these ideas by introducing literacy standards, but allowing for the idea of content standards to drive the main points that social studies should articulate in the school setting.

 

Having a vested interest in my alma mater and their ability to help students get the information they need, I chose to create a screencast to introduce students to the Special Collections at the university that often goes unnoticed, due to library services being focused elsewhere. Aware that most library services are introduced in a required freshman course known as UNI, this screencast provides a scenario that could be familiar to many students. To keep the content focused, the topic focuses on an integral part of Marshall Univeristy history that every son and daughter of Marshall has been introduced to since 1970.

Below you will find the screencast and the transcript:

Marshall University Special Collections

 

Hello, I’m Kate, a proud daughter of Marshall, and today I’m going to show you Marshall University’s Special Collections website which you can get to by going to marshall.edu/special-collections. Marshall’s Special Collections is home to the university’s archives and numerous West Virginia specific materials that students across campus have access to. To help you connect a little better with what you might use this website for, I’m going to walk us through a scenario of how the site could be used to show you some of the key features Special Collections provides you

So, say you are in your UNI class and the professor is introducing you to the library services offered at the university. It’s closing in on November, so to help you connect with the present day and our community’s history, an assignment is provided where you are asked to find a primary source about Marshall in in the 1970s. All you really know about this time period is the movie that had Matthew McConaughey in it, but you have heard about the upcoming fountain ceremony and think it’d be interesting to maybe learn a little more about the actual event.

On the website, we see a list of popular links down the left hand side and promoted information by Special Collections in the center of the page. By clicking on Search Our Collections, we are given a few options, including access to the online database, a list of university archives, and a link to digitized photos and images. While the university archives could be promising, they are not digital, but if you want to check out the library, our Special Collections staff would love to help you.

We reach our best online option by clicking on the database link. From the movie, you remember the name Red Dawson, so you start there. This search gives a photo, and clicking on this provides information down the right hand side. If Red isn’t the end result that you’re looking for, you can always use the search terms underneath the photo for related links. If you were to click on the Marshall University plane crash link, for example, results would appear related to that integral part of Marshall History that you could browse, fulfilling the assignment and teaching you about the community’s history.

Marshall University, Special Collections, and numerous sons and daughters of Marshall help maintain these materials as a way to keep memories like our beloved 75 alive.