Last week I attended the conference of the major professional society for academic librarians, the Association of College and Research Libraries. I’ve been to every one of their conferences, which are usually held every other year, since 1986. While there, I ran into a Davidson alum, Tammy Ivins, who was thoroughly enjoying the conference and finding much of relevance to her work. As someone who’s been in the profession much longer, though, I’m sorry to say I was rather disappointed. I went … [Read more...]
Happy New Year!
January 7, 2015 By
Library staff have returned from the holiday break and are gearing up for the spring semester, and some of us are having some re-entry adjustment (getting up early in the morning—eeuuw!), so I offer something light to help us all ramp up to the new year. I’ve just started reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, a novel by Robin Sloan. I’ll participate/lurk in an online book discussion on Friday afternoon, organized and hosted by the TLT Group as part of its series on using cognitive science … [Read more...]
“I Don’t Like E-Books”
November 5, 2014 By
Brian Mathews, the librarian at Virginia Tech who writes the “Ubiquitous Librarian” blog for the Chronicle, posted something the other day that was so simple and so smart that I can’t stop thinking about it. He said, “I met with a group of students earlier this month and the topic of eBooks came up. They unanimously expressed a preference for print. I was curious. What I found was that none of them had read a book on an eBook Reader. Their exposure was limited to viewing content via a web … [Read more...]
Home (again): locally-owned & home grown
July 23, 2014 By
It's July in the South. The humidity is high, cicadas are buzzing, crepe myrtles are slowly dropping their blooms, and gardens are producing plentiful supplies of tomatoes and squash. It's the perfect time to grab a glass of iced tea, sit out on your porch, and read. What to read? There are lots of lists of recommended titles, but I want to highlight two new collections for summer-time browsing. Both are local and home-grown. Fire up the wifi and check out: BrowZine BrowZine is a library app … [Read more...]
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
July 31, 2013 By
Some of the smallest elements will be bringing big ideas to Davidson this coming school year. Cells are the focus of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Davidson 2013 Common Reading book, which all incoming Davidson students will read over the summer and discuss during orientation. Author Rebecca Skloot traverses the disciplines of science, history, and sociology in her quest to understand the full story of immortal cells – and the woman they came from. As African-Americans living in … [Read more...]
