My Thesis Research

When I was an undergrad history student working on my thesis I remember trying to use the library but ending up buying most of my major resources. The topic was Women's Roles in Tudor England. I had a decent collection of books to start off with but not enough to write 50 pages. I went to my college library and was unable to find much to supplement my research. I found through the interlibrary catalog that West Virginia University Library had a excellent collection of works I coulc use. I got up early one Saturday morning and traveled to the hour to Morgantown to check out the collection. The collection was awesome. I found many so many sources I could use. I was so happy until I found out that I could not check them out. Not because the library did not allow you to check out books, but because I was not a WVU student or staff member. I was so upset. I did my best to photocopy the best material and wrote down some titles and authors of others. I knew I would probably not be able to make the trip to Morgantown again before the thesis was due and was very upset. When I got home I did a search on the titles I did not photocopy on the Internet and I found that the majority of them on used book websites, especially alibris and abebooks. So I purchased them for around 5 dollars a piece. For me the price was worth the hassle of travelling to Morgantown and photocopying at the library.

If this is how I felt I can imagine many others who are doing research feel the same way. If the books are available to be purchased and used at your leisure but are not available to be lent through the library it makes sense to purchase the books. If WVU had opened up there lending policy I would have become a frequent patron to there library. It was a wonderful library and had what I needed, but because I could not use the material in a way that I needed I did not return.

Well I found out that the google search library database already exorcists. In the version of WorldCat at www.worldcat.org. The only thing it is lacking in my opinion is the amount of eResources. It is well worth checking out and I think I will use it in the future and recommend it to my fellow library users.

Librarians Go Gaga Video

I thought I would share this with all my MLIS followers

The Children's Section

In one of my classes I was informed that the majority of public library users are parents with school age children. This seems to be a true statement to me. As a small child my mother took me and my 2 siblings to the public library once a week. Every week we would get out books from the wonderland of shelves that was the children's section. My brother and I would always try to guess how many goldfish were in the 100 gallon fish tank just outside the children's section. Now that me and my siblings have grown up my mother no longer goes to the library. It is sad but fits the statistics.

Library Google Search

I am going to share with you the response from my friend Kurt who is a programmer and website developer for Q-Industries in Washington DC to my question of whether a library collection could be search in a google-type way, however this blog will not let me cut and paste. So essentially he said it is possible and would be extremely useful to the academic community. That the best case scenario would be to digitize as much of the full text as possible. He also said a number of projects are already digitizing books and put on the web and that these could be used.

I really like the idea and can envision a situation where several prominent universities get together to create a google-type search hub for academic material in there collections and on the web. I believe this would be a huge step in the right direction for academic research on every level.

Zotero Presentation

I spent today trying to figure out how to use Jing to do my Zotero presentation. I used Jing to narrate a few lolcat photos before deciding to attempt the download presentation. I feel like an idiot and I think I should stupid but it is done.

The presentation is in the link below

http://www.screencast.com/users/MOmewitt/folders/Jing/media/0c4199f7-935a-41e9-83f7-072b1b84f02d

Medieval Manuscripts

My dream position within the library spectrum is to be a Medieval Manuscript archivist or preservationist. Looking over my book collection that have been accumulating for years I realize I have been collecting books in that vein. I have Anglo-Saxon/English dictionary, volumes of spectrum journal. hundreds of English and European Medieval and Renaissance history books. I have copies of Everyman, Piers Plowman, copies of original manuscripts dealing with Medieval and Renaissance woman's history, including letters from Elizabeth I. I have books on the Medieval and Renaissance art and books on books collecting and repair. These books make up over a third of my extensive collection. I have read most and never get sick of learning from them. I am not sure if I will ever hold the position I dream about, but either way it will be a great journey.