Reading, Writing, Research

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Who? or whom?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by dmguion

Sometimes it's just impossible to find something that has anything to do with the topic!.

Do you ever wonder when to say or write “who” and when to say or write “whom”? Nowadays in informal speech or writing, most people just use “who.” Perhaps most people don’t care, but sometimes it matters. If you are writing a graduate thesis or dissertation (or even an undergraduate term paper), chances are the faculty will care. If you write for Internet content sites where a human editor chooses what to accept, chances are the editor will care. You can’t get away with not knowing the difference. There is a very easy way to know with certainty which is … Continue reading →

Online library catalogs: using them despite their imperfections

Posted on July 20, 2011 by dmguion

In this post, I will summarize the development of online library catalogs. Once I have pointed out the problems and the reasons for them, I will explain how you, the ordinary users, can make the most efficient use of them for finding the information (or entertainment) you want. No perfect technology for library catalogs has ever existed. The earliest catalogs were bound books. Every time the library got something new, a record of it had to be written in the catalog. With the card catalog, the library could update its holdings continuously without ever having to disturb previous entries. For … Continue reading →

How the public library can save you money

Posted on July 9, 2011 by dmguion

Public libraries have always been a good deal, as most of their programs and resources are free and the rest are inexpensive. Nowadays, with the economy sputtering, library budgets are suffering along with everyone else’s. Even so, chances are they still offer an array of free and inexpensive services. Oh, and if your community has a college or university, chances are the general public can use many of its services, too. What’s the first association anyone makes with libraries? Books, of course. Libraries collect all kinds of books. Chances are anything you can find at a bookstore you can find … Continue reading →

Sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary

Posted on June 29, 2011 by dmguion

Everyone does research, because everyone looks for information at some time or another. Wherever anyone finds information is, of course, a source. Whenever we find a source, it follows that someone wrote it or spoke it into some kind or recording devise or is otherwise responsible for the fact that it exists. There are three general kinds of sources: primary, secondary, and tertiary. These terms mean something a little different from one discipline to another. The distinction is ordinarily introduced in order to prepare college students, and especially graduate students, to write term papers, theses, and dissertations. It is useful … Continue reading →

Helping the reference librarian help you

Posted on June 18, 2011 by dmguion

Go ahead and ask. She's not doing anything more important than your question!

Do you need help answering a question? Ask a librarian. Specifically, ask a reference librarian. You’ll usually find at least one at the library’s reference desk. Now, some libraries are starting to do away with reference desks as a special service point. In some cases, at least, that means they have decided to have the librarians roam the library, or parts of it, looking for people who need help. If you see a librarian at a desk who seems to be busy with paper work, go ask your question. You will not be interrupting anything important. The librarian needs something … Continue reading →

Search engines, online library catalogs: how they work

Posted on June 11, 2011 by dmguion

Most people begin to search for information using Google or other search engines. They turn to library catalogs later, if at all. When they get to the catalog, they have trouble using it if they expect it to work anything like Google. Some library and information technology professionals have drawn entirely wrong conclusions from that fact. One faction says it demonstrates that online library catalogs are obsolete, that the software system that runs them is old fashioned and difficult to program in, and therefore that we need to abandon the catalog. Another declares that people would use the catalog more … Continue reading →

Libraries uphold the public interest in copyright issues

Posted on June 4, 2011 by dmguion

Copyright is a part of intellectual property law and is explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 8, Clause 8): “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”Libraries have a great interest in copyright issues, and librarians (not individually, but at the national association level) are among the major voices trying to influence the interpretation of just what the clause means. When a work is under copyright protection, only the copyright holder is allowed to use it to make … Continue reading →

Libraries preserve the past

Posted on May 27, 2011 by dmguion

In previous posts, I have stressed that the library is more than a warehouse for books and other physical materials. But after all, it is in part a warehouse, and that is one aspect of an important function: Libraries preserve the past. Are you interested in history? genealogy? biography? novels set in the past? Do you want to know the background to today’s news stories? Today’s books, magazine articles, web sites, etc. are possibly only because libraries have collected and preserved all manner of documents that historians, family researchers, and authors need in order to gather their information. Since time … Continue reading →

The librarian’s job

Posted on May 18, 2011 by dmguion

Library action figure with real shushing motion. Modeled on a respected librarian with a good sense of humor!

According to an old stereotype, a librarian is a socially awkward woman with bad hair who checks out books to some people and tells others to be quiet. Librarians have fairly successfully battled that stereotype. At least no one assumes that a librarian has to be unattractive, incapable of having fun, or even a woman. But as long as people still think of a library as just a warehouse for books, people will misunderstand the job of a librarian. Just as a library is much more than a warehouse, a librarian is much more than a clerk who works in … Continue reading →

FYI: initialisms in OED

Posted on May 13, 2011 by dmguion

What have texting and its conventions, abbreviations, and shortcuts done to our language? And what does it mean that some of them have even ended up in the Oxford English Dictionary? The end of civilization as we know it? Calm down! Can’t the spate of common initialisms be traced back at least as far as the New Deal? Isn’t the Oxford English Dictionary itself known as the OED? Granted, finding LOL, IMHO, FYI, BFF, and the gang in such august company as antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification is a bit of a departure. I have lately managed to reconnect with lots of … Continue reading →