Link round-up: what I’ve been reading

This post on Creating and Maintaining your CV was linked from one of the ProfHacker articles I mentioned in an earlier post. This one is worth checking if you missed it.

I don’t have this bug yet but have a number of friends who’ve succumbed. And now libraries? Cool: 3 Ways College Libraries Are Exploring Pinterest

On the Open Access front:

• Wall Street and open access
• Crossing the Rubicon — Is the UK Going to Enable Open Access for All Taxpayer-Funded Research by 2014

I was on our task force ages ago that made recommendations for K-REx, our institutional repository. This article, “Fostering New Roles for Librarians: Skills Set for Repository Managers – Results of a Survey in Italy”, makes for some fascinating reading.

For the American history buff & librarians:
A new (er, old) Paul Revere work: Stumbling Across a Rarity, Even for the Rare Book Room 

And me, trying to come up with a book blurb.

an inspirational keynote, reading & writing…

“…remember the nature of what it is you signed on for. You’ve come here to make a difference…” LeVar Burton at the 2012 O’Reilly Tools of Change conference. 

Kent A. at the Scholarly Kitchen posted a link to LeVar’s keynote address. It’s 15+ minutes long, but worth every word.

That’s a great way to start a Monday morning, but let me backtrack a bit. Time seems to fly these days. Since my last post, I’ve been to the Kansas Library Association annual conference, lost a tree in my front yard, turned in the ACRL survey, participated in the planning of our Employee Recognition Ceremony, and realize that NASIG is 6 weeks away and I need to work on my presentation & paper!

But let’s go way back in history since one of my longer term goals is to write a novel that takes place in 1776. I’m keeping my eye out for things like this:

@RagLinen: RT @BostonHistory: Rare “lost” letter written by Paul Revere rediscovered and preserved. ow.ly/arxzU

@RagLinen also posted a teaser trailer for Reporting the Revolution! youtu.be/xBIofoTp6U8

I’ve been reading a number of books, fiction and non-fiction, about the life & times of Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade to immerse myself in the ‘flavors’ of the late 12th century. Two of my current fiction reads are King’s Man by Angus Donald & Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman. My own fiction – next year’s project – will feature 2 of Richard’s knights.

Speaking of my writing… my manuscript is sitting with 2 beta readers right now. If you aren’t familiar with the concept of a beta reader, JW Manus provided a great explanation in a recent post:

“Beta readers are not editors. You shouldn’t ask them for editorial help. They should be reading as readers. If you want to get the most out of your beta readers, then along with the chocolate or cookies or other tokens of gratitude you send, you give them these instructions:

Dear Reader: As you read it will be very helpful if when you run across something that confuses you, you mark it with a big HUH? If something bores you, mark it with a big YAWN. If a passage requires you to reread or stop and ponder what it means, mark it DIB! (do it better).

I nearly copied her advice word-for-word! Round 3 of my revisions will begin when I get their comments. You can get a sneak peak at the book description for Keeping the Family Peace - what will appear when the book is available via Amazon & other venues – on my fiction blog. I imagine that blurb will change over the next few months. Let me know what you think of it! Would that make you click “Buy”?

I’ve also participated in a twitter exercise with other writer friends in #luckyseven. Go check out my blog post for short excerpts from my novel and one of my 12th century short stories!

Link round-up: what I’ve been reading

From ProfHacker, one my favorite blogs:

From the Archives: CVs and Annual Reports
New Online Journal Addresses Teaching
Day of Higher Education (like Library Day in the Life but for academic faculty!)

Jenica Rogers from Attempting Elegance has a snippet from her presentation to CARL: “Librarians, it’s not okay to be clueless anymore.” I hope she posts a link to her entire presentation.

Feral Librarian Chris Bourg says “Share Everything. With Everyone. Most of the Time.” That’s always been my philosophy.

Blog posts from UKSG’s 2012 conference. Good stuff!

What have you been reading?

reading round-up…

A sample of my readings in the blogosphere this week…

* Social Networking Experiment at Ohio State – campus admins say let students manage the marketing to other students. –via the Chronicle (not sure if  this requires a subscription)

* on the Elsevier boycott here and here –via Scholarly Kitchen

* cool Library Data on tumblr –via @librarydata

* Joe Murphy’s presentation topics at CIL2012. I’m not into Pinterest (who has time?!?!?!?!) but I’d love to see Joe’s talk on it. Hopefully he’ll post some slides

And on the fiction writing front:

* why writing in isolation is like singing in the shower –by me, on the benefits of critique groups on a new blog I’ll be contributing to now & then. Join us over at Pen in Hand!

* on my personal blog I talk about being stuck in the middle (but you already knew that because you’re following me over there, right?)

* and some disheartening information about Goodreads and mean author tactics — via Wringing Out Words

timely article on tenure…

The debate on tenure for university faculty has raged for years. Given that I recently undertook one of its ‘perks’ – the sabbatical – I’d say there are both pros and cons to eliminating tenure. There is a recent article from the NY Times with discussion from several different viewpoints.

I understand where the naysayers are coming from. I would like to point out that my institution does have means to dismiss tenured faculty (University Handbook, C31.5). Such actions require effective management and supervision and strong support from administrators, traits which are not always present for individual cases that might arise – and that is something very true not only in academia but also across a wide variety of employers who keep unproductive personnel.

“I am in awe of their expertise.”

Yes! That is your librarian!

From Rob Weir, posted to Inside Higher Ed:

Today’s librarians bear about as much resemblance to the tight-bunned owlish matrons of 1950s films as laptops do to manual typewriters. They’re more like the wizened sexton of a sprawling church, the guy with the giant ring of keys who unlocks every door, closet, and coffer. Library specialists routinely direct us to data bases, DVDs, digitized archival material, recordings, hidden stacks, and journals we had no idea even existed. I am in awe of their expertise.

An excellent article on faculty and librarian collaboration!

Reading list

Articles & websites I stumbled across today* but didn’t have time to read:

Open Access Basics – a wiki – a great idea from the folks at PALINET, which is an eastern seaboard equivalent to our BCR.

Is the NIH Mandate Working? – from Library Journal

LibraryThing: Abebooks news – this reminds me that I need to update my StarWars LibraryThing!

+++++++

*I’d cite the blog sources if I could find them again! I opened the articles, left them open on my browser most of the day but never managed to read them. Guess I could be reading them rather than writing this post, but I thought you might be interested in them, too!