Learning at the Library

Tonight! The Finding Aid: Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving

Anne Hays — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:07:22 +0000

Tonight at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture there is an event called The Finding Aid: Black women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving. The event features librarians, artists, and writers discussing, through a multimedia presentation, the topic of art and community-based archiving. It looks pretty amazing! Details are below…

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 6:30pm
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Langston Hughes Auditorium //

SUMMARY INFORMATION

Event Curators (Creator): Ladi’Sasha Jones, Joyce LeeAnn Joseph, Kameelah Rasheed

Title and Date:

The Finding Aid: Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving, May 21, 2013

Abstract:

The Finding Aid: Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving is an interactive, multi-media dialogue that explores the intersection of experimental art practices and community-based archiving. The event’s organization is based on the idea of a ‘finding aid’ -a document used in archives for accessibility and discovery. We will transform a finding aid from an archival inventory/guide into an artistic archival experience. Our goal for this event is that people leave knowing what an archive and archivist is or can be, and that people feel empowered to begin their own archival/artistic practice or feel moved to engage with existing archives.

PROCESSING AND OTHER INFORMATION

Event Panelists: Arianne Edmonds, Joyce LeeAnn Joseph, Miranda Mims, Kameelah Rasheed, Shawn(ta) Smith

Event Artists: Salome Asega, Sonia Louise Davis, Arianne Edmonds, Ladi’Sasha Jones, Joyce LeeAnn Joseph, Marilyn Nance, Kameelah Rasheed, Shawn(ta) Smith

Event Photographer: sdNicholas Photography

Event Videographer: Osato Dixon

Live-Tweeting: Natiba Guy

Preferred Citation:

The Finding Aid: Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving, 05.21.2013, NYC, #TheFindingAid.

Subject Headings:

Women archivists

Women artists, Black

Community arts projects

Art and history

History in art

Memory in art

African Americans—History—20th Century

Homosexuality—United States—History—20th Century

a(rt)chive

#TheFindingAid

Balance and Momentum: Spring Education Program

Jennifer Govan — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:57:52 +0000

Pedaling is the way a cyclist goes forward,

maybe for châteaux,

grey road ribboning vineyards green

in a Loire Valley August,

or for sweaters,

woolly spin down

the salt-slippery strip

into Aber town,

or for work,

up past the North Woods

on that crazy-cold NYC day,

hands like birds frozen in flight.

We provide points of attachment,

not unlike a bike frame,

core for all components.

Book talks spin delicious themes -

pro-disabilities (à la feministe),

consulting (for the professionalist),

spearheading debate in South African culture,

questioning class in Asia-America,

tapping talent in our workers,

holding youth at the borders,

pondering classic education theories,

democratizing science,

so that in Jhumki’s prayers

bats are no longer misunderstood.

Habits, love, America’s direction,

exits or endings, creative aging in our population

reflect new parts of the Gottesman collection.

Tomes fresh, e-books flutter, words on wings -

floats the question, a feather.

Pushing from feet, to heart and mind,

gears shift, socratically, Ron to Natalie.

Child abuse, prison-to-pipeline,

we advocate before the brake

that slows our circles down

in sultry urban weather.

Educators speak in splendid cycle.

Turn, HBS, C&T, on revolving topics-

aging, health psychology,

literacy, inclusivity,

queerness, teacher visions!

Bold on gender, FERA whirls

the wheel, Youtube is our university.

Twirl on, Harlem, with CUNY, historical illiteracy,

while leadership, health, psychology, education

shine the spokes for our anniversary.

Colectomy rings a curious bell,

minimally invasive, just as

front lights fall

on drugs or Yod.

We round the corner with a nod,

chain linking the news -

a 125 day display,

commemorates our history.

We tribute Caesar,

Joan, Amanda Smith,

Poe, F. Scott, Walt, AG Bell.

In black and white posters tell

of boy scouts, tax, women’s rights,

Spanish Florida, April Fools,

history of the bicycle,

built for many.

Mounting Brooklyn Bridge,

we dream the journey, our

helmets snug like sky blue beetles

peering down the East River deep.

Its cables are designed like spider’s silk,

casting comfort in our saddle -

bluegrass, world, jazz, folk, classical –

students lively webbing.

Left on tours, right on workshops,

steers more learning - citation,

stress busting, metasearch,

happily riding in our city.

Now keeping good pace,

laud the delightful database -

apps, women’s innovation,

child abuse prevention -

and tune our vehicle, heading

toward tomorrow’s education.

Upright and moving,

May brings National Bike Month,

just a Schwinn away from summer.

Spring 2013 Education Program


	Offerings	Attendees
Socratic Conversations	7	118
Book Talks	8	110
Guest Talks	16	478
Films	3	69
Instructional	17	96
News Displays	22	n/a
Live Music	14	n/a
Total	87	871

ALA’s frequently challenged books of the 21st century

John Sarubbi — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:08:20 +0000

Each year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The ALA condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information.

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The number of challenges reflects only incidents reported. It is estimated that for every reported challenge, four or five remain unreported. As such, the findings are not comprehensive.

2012

Out of 464 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom

Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey.
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.
Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher.
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James.
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.
Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit

Looking for Alaska, by John Green.
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
Reasons: Unsuited for age group, violence

The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence

What was so fascinating about the top ten books listed are the reasons why these books are being challenged. Consider that the most common challenges are due to “offensive language”, which appears six times and “sexually explicit” content which appears seven times. “Homosexuality”, “Violence” and “Religious Viewpoint” all tied appearing twice. Although the data is not exhaustive, it is interesting to ponder the reasons books are being challenged and how that might intersect with current trending news stories. Consider more recent news stories about gay marriage, violence and religious viewpoint, for example. Then consider popular television shows, beauty and fashion advertisements and popular music that promote either offensive language and sexual explicitness or both. In a more general sense, it is equally interesting that some categories appear at all but there they are.

Below are some graphs courtesy of the ALA website:

Do you agree or disagree that some books should be censored or banned in schools because of the reasons listed? Would you add categories or take some away? What are your thoughts?

Source

Working the “morning pages” from a digital angle

Anne Hays — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:02:31 +0000

If you are an artist of any ilk–fine arts, visual arts, writing, acting, singing, etc–you have probably heard of, and perhaps use, Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. It’s an international bestseller based on the concept of writer’s block and the principals of twelve step programs. Cameron wrote the book after her workshop took off, and after she started getting hundreds of letters from folks who had heard of her methods but couldn’t attend her class in person. In the book, she more or less promises that if you follow the twelve chapters of the book (once per week; it’s a three month program) you will break through artist’s/writer’s block and begin producing work at your real potential. There are weekly exercises, and weekly artist dates, and lots of reading, but the core ideology of her program rests on something she calls “Morning Pages.” Basically, you wake up in the morning and write, longhand, three pages of “junk thoughts” out on the page. When you write, you release your negative, inhibitive thoughts. And once those are out on the page, you are free to access your positive creativity.

It sounds simple, and it is simple, and I can attest to it working pretty well. But for me, I have a conceptual or perhaps philosophical confusion about the role of my journal thought versus my morning pages. I write in a paper journal anyway, every day on the subway ride to work. How are my morning pages thoughts different from my journal thoughts, especially if I write both longhand in the same physical book? And more complexly, if I’ve been writing in my journal all along, how will I break through my writer’s block by writing more in the same space? Maybe I’m as unblocked as I’ll ever be already! And that’s a frightening thought.

Enter: 750words.com. 750 is a digital space programmer Buster Benson created on the concept of Julia Cameron’s “morning pages.” Benson suggests that while writing longhand might work for some people, he lives in a digital world and wants to write his words in a digital space. However, he’s tried writing morning pages using a variety of blogging platforms and found them wanting. For one thing, morning pages are embarrassing (on purpose; you need to release your darkest thoughts for them to really work) and so the last thing you want is anyone stumbling across it on the internet. He found it tedious to remember to mark his blog private each time he posted. He also found it unmotivating; one aspect of social media spaces that works well is they are reinforcing. And lastly, he wanted to be able to tag his thoughts and analyze the data to discover trends in his thinking, and you can’t do that on a private blog.

His project, 750words.com, does all of those things. It’s an extremely simple website that only does one thing: hold your three pages of morning pages in a private online digital space. After you post your words, you can review graphs and charts that analyze your thought patterns. Try not to get too excited about this aspect of the site, because it’s pretty rudimentary, but it does add a fun and dorky extra element to the morning. (But librarians are never dorky!) This morning, for instance, 750 told me I am “happy” about “success” and that my post was introverted, negative, certain, and feeling. Um, okay!

Still, it’s interesting to consider how the same concept (morning pages) can play out so differently in different spaces. I no longer feel conceptual confusion when writing in my paper journal, which is for my “what’s happening” thoughts verses my morning pages, which I now write exclusively online. I absolutely write and think differently in these two spaces. When I want to sort something out, I say, “I’m going to 750 that.” And lo and behold, by the end of the 750 words I usually have a solution to whichever problem I’m facing. My journal does not help me accomplish the same mental feat. I also write out my creative thoughts far more vividly in the 750 than I ever did in my journal. I simply use the paper journal for different purposes. I think the connection might be that the digital space closer mimics the space I use to write creatively. Some people can draft short stories on paper, but I can’t; I have to do it on a computer. My creative thoughts are digital thoughts.

750words.com lives here.

You can pick up a copy of the Artist’s Way at Burke Library: BF408 .C175 1992

On the education bubble, being unemployable and in debt

John Sarubbi — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:06:10 +0000

Earlier today, I came across this blog post from Penelope Trunk via LinkedIn. Penelope Trunk is an American businesswoman, author, and blogger. Her work focuses on the intersection of work and life. In her post “The Strongest Careers are Non-Linear” she makes the argument that colleges charge tons of money for school and then graduates are unemployable and in debt. Colleges are responding by becoming job preparation centers. She, along with Frank Bruni, Opinion Editor for the New York Times, claim this maneuver is a waste of time and resources. She suggests the following instead:

1. Skipping college.
The real issue we have with admitting that college is not a path to the work world is then we have to ask ourselves why we send our kids to high school. There is plenty of data to show that teens are able to manage their lives without the constraints of school. The book Escaping the Endless Adolescence is chock full of data, and a recent article by my favorite journalist, Jennifer Senior, shows that high school is not just unnecessary, but actually damaging to teens who need much more freedom to grow than high school affords.

2. Focus on internships instead of school.
Kids should be working in internships in high school. Because the best path to a good job is a bunch of great internships. But great internships don’t go to people who need money. They are mostly for young people. Yes, this is probably illegal and classist and bad for a fluid society. But we will not debate that here. Instead we will debate why kids need to go to college if the internships are what make them employable? Kids should do internships in high school and by their college years, they are capable of real jobs where they are doing work that people value, with cash.

You cannot take this route if you’re saddled with huge student loans. You can’t take this route if you’re inundated by homework in required subjects you don’t care about. You can’t take this route if you have no work experience when you graduate college. It’s too late. (Don’t tell me you need to go to school to learn, okay? People just do not believe this anymore.)

I was reading the Fortune list of 40 under 40 and I was struck by the career history of Kevin Feige (number 11 on the list). He’s president of Marvel Studios at age 39. He wrote that he interned with the Superman movie director as a film student and that was the last job application he filled out. That’s because if you get an internship with someone great, and your performance is great, your network will cover your employment needs for a very long time.

3. Start a company instead of writing a resume.
I’m struck by Marissa Mayer (number 3 on Fortune’s list) whose announced acquisition strategy is buying small, cheap companies. Which is, in effect, buying the team. Silicon Valley calls these acqui-hires. She is looking at young people who start companies that are not necessarily successful in terms of product or sales but successfully market the founders as visionaries, self-starters, and hard workers. You can’t show those traits in school, so if you have those traits, you slow yourself down by going to school where you cannot exhibit your best, marketable traits.

4. Refuse to present yourself in a linear way.
Do any workaround that lets you forgo the linear obsession the standard resume format. Because linear presentations favor people who have long, rule-following careers – which don’t necessarily make you look good anyway. I could write a post ten thousand paragraphs long of all the new things people with nonlinear work histories are doing to get jobs.

People use twitter as a resume, according to the Wall Street Journal, which requires only that you publish ideas, not any sort of academic experience.

Young people are selling stock in themselves – paying out dividends for decades at a time.

Agents represent workers who pick and choose projects that match them rather than signing on for indefinite amounts of time. The Harvard Business Review calls this supertemping. Business Week calls it going Hollywood.

But here’s the big takeaway. A fundamental shift is taking place, where the path to getting a job is massively circumventing college credentials. And, at the same time, the American public is fed up with the insane debt that college are expecting new grads to take on in order to graduate. (Good essay: How College Ruined My Life.)

If you are not going to school in order to “fit” into the adult world, then why are you going to school? The love of learning, presumably. But school reform pundits are 100% sure that kids will choose to learn if you put no constraints on them. They will just learn what they want. Best example: The MIT program that gave iPads to illiterate kids in Ethiopia, and they taught themselves to use it, program it, and read it in English. No teacher. No curriculum.

The biggest barrier to accepting the radical new nature of the job hunt is the reverberations throughout the rest of life. If you don’t need school for work, and you don’t need school for learning, then all you need school for is so parents can go to work and not worry about taking care of their kids.

Although this is an interesting perspective, it would seem that there are certain careers for which one would need formal schooling, like becoming a doctor. There are also inconsistencies with her argument. First she claims that student should skip high school and college and, instead, focus on internships. Next, she says that students should focus on internships in high school and get paid positions in college. So, which is it?

What are your thoughts? As educators or for those who work in education, does this argument have validity or not? Please explain your position.

Talk Back to the Internet

Brian Hughes — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:50:19 +0000

Sounds like a great digital art event! See you there?

ResearchBroker: Get hands on experience conducting research with professionals in education

John Sarubbi — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:33:46 +0000

Education is a field of study in which people have opinions – usually strong ones. To improve our understanding of the field of education and its practices, research is often needed. Research, of course, serves many purposes. According to Educational Research: A Guide To the Process by Norman E. Wallen, Jack R. Fraenkel (2011), a major purpose of research is to provide evidence to help identify which opinions have more validity than others. A second purpose of research is to help develop better ways of thinking about the field of education.

This Summer, consider getting hands on experience conducting research with professionals in education. To help connect you to companies and organizations looking for skilled researchers, look no further than Research Broker.

Research Broker aims to connect researchers at Teachers College, Columbia University with the companies and organizations who are looking for researchers to analyze data, study their system or design a research study. In this way, the researchers can get hands on experience working with professionals in the education industry and also potentially use the research towards their thesis or dissertation.

Create your profile now to get started!

Research Broker is developed by the Edlab at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Festival Report: Brooklyn Zine Fest 2013

Anne Hays — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:57:13 +0000

Yesterday, I attended the second annual Brooklyn Zine Fest held at Public Assembly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The event was packed with tablers and with visitors, an impressively successful event. Tablers ranged from independent zine authors displaying their own zines to zine distros to zine librarians (Barnard represented) to arts organizations. It was an impressive mix of talent and, after wading my way through the tables to buy or trade zines with fellow zinesters, I can attest that zine quality was very high. The festival itself got press from the New York Times (who reported that zines have made a major comeback since their heyday in the 90’s) TimeOut Magazine, Gothamist, L Magazine, The Village Voice, and others. While I was attending the zine fest, Lea was writing for this very blog about open access and self-publishing options for writers online. I have a personal interest in zines as a DIY form of personal expression, but it’s also interesting to me to consider zine-impact on education, and possibilities for student involvement.

Among the exhibitors at the zine fest were two zine libraries: Barnard, and Brooklyn College. Both house specific collections with academics and educators in mind–zines are excellent primary resource material for studying counter-cultural movements, as well as intimate first-person perspectives. Also in attendance were Parsons illustration students, who created such a diverse array of artistic materials I couldn’t figure out which student project to purchase (I ended up grabbing the one that was free) and Students for a Free Cooper Union, who used the zine format to express a form of protest against charging tuition (traditionally, Cooper Union does not charge its students tuition). Because zine culture embraces diversity in form and content, zines provide their creators an inexpensive and open format for personal or political expression. And because (as the New York Times pointed out and as the success of this zine fest attests) zines are making a comeback, they also provide zinesters an avid audience. Zines tap into a long history of pamphleteering and are an edgy step-cousin to the more refined chapbook, or the design-savvy artbook. As ephemeral and handmade print objects, zines carry a sentiment blogs can’t easily recreate. And compared with creating a self-published e-book, zines require little to no technical expertise to create. The low-stakes aspect of zine creation is, I think, the most compelling reason for why art instructors or creative writing instructors could consider using them as a teaching aid in the classroom, as Parsons illustration instructors did this year.

It’s with this last point in mind that poet Kimiko Hahn and I are moderating a panel for Creative Writing MFA students at the CUNY Chapbook Festival on May 3rd, called “Zines: Creative NonFiction on the DIY.” It’s at 3pm on May 3rd. Bring your students! Bring yourself!

TEDx at TC

veronicarodriguez — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:29:44 +0000

This week TC is hosting its own TEDx event in the Cowin Auditorium. The non-profit TED conferences have become well-known for their promotion of innovative ideas which range from technology and design to education, just to name a few. In 2009, the TED folks took their forum to the global streets with TEDx events, which allows communities to host their own homegrown event in connection with the larger TED organization. Last year, TC held its very first TEDx event, Speaking From the Head and the Heart on International Education, which you can read about here . This year’s event, Be Here Now, is focused on mindfulness! You may have noticed a the flip chart set up in the Library’s cafe asking for your thoughts on what being mindful means to you which was inspired by TED fellow Candy Chang’s talk :

TED Talk by Candy Chang

For more information about TC’s TEDx event next week check out their site (rsvp there too!) and their facebook.

Scalar: The next big thing in scholarly publishing?

Leanora Lange — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:39:51 +0000

To all those following our commentaries on open access, e-books, the scholarly communication crisis, and educational technologies, there is a new platform out there that touches on all of these while tossing in a taste of the Semantic Web and information visualization too.

The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture recently released Scalar, described as a “born-digital, open source, media-rich” venue for scholarly publishing. The idea behind Scalar is to give authors a place to publish extended work that takes advantage of the possibilities of digital technologies.

Educational and scholarly publishing platforms like Scalar are increasing in numbers (see for example the New York Times‘ coverage of other self-publishing options and the push from Kathleen Fitzpatrick to bring rigorous peer reviewinto her own online publishing platform MediaCommons).

What makes Scalar stand apart from other self-publishing platforms is that it matches open source software with the ability to easily produce rich content. To see what this looks like in action, see the list of projects that have already leveraged Scalar to publish.

Scalar is also the result of extensive collaboration among some pretty impressive groups. So if what the platform can do doesn’t impress you, perhaps you can give it some credit (and some more development time) for the admirable folks who are behind its development.

However, most scholars will likely stick with the bread-and-butter of peer-reviewed monographs and journals, at least for the time being. Those with a taste for the exotic (or in positions that allow them to take more adventurous turns in their scholarly work), however, will likely be testing out these new options more and more.

Learning at the Library

Tonight! The Finding Aid: Black Women at the Intersection of Art and Archiving

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Balance and Momentum: Spring Education Program

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ALA’s frequently challenged books of the 21st century

Working the “morning pages” from a digital angle

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On the education bubble, being unemployable and in debt

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Talk Back to the Internet

ResearchBroker: Get hands on experience conducting research with professionals in education

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Festival Report: Brooklyn Zine Fest 2013

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TEDx at TC

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Scalar: The next big thing in scholarly publishing?

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