My List of Ten Novels to Read

1. The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow

2. The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler

3. The Blind Assassin (2000), By Margaret Atwood

4. The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers

5. Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace

6. Invisible Man (1952), by

Ralph Ellison
7. Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner

8. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis

9. Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike

10. To the Lighhouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf

My Search

About a year ago I decided to try and wade through TIME Magazine's top 100 novels. I have made a small dent, but I still have quite a ways to go. This search helped to decide the next ten on my list. Because I am attempting to read the entire list, there really was no rhyme or reason to which books I chose, however, using these tools I was able to determine which ones I want to read first. A lot of the novels are written by authors I am familiar with and enjoy, so most of the challenge was finding where I wanted to start.

Search Terms Used:

Top 100 novels

TIME's Top 100 novels

Top 100 books

Top books list

TIME's top novels

Goodreads

I had been a Goodreads user before this class, and I am really a fan of the site. However, this was my first time searching on Goodreads for reviews and user comments. My first attempt began with To the Lighthouse by Virgina Woolf and wasn't too successful. The search returned 20,599 reviews, but I wasn't impressed by the reviews I skimmed through. It would be a nice feature if they reviews could be categorized by those who have read the book and those who haven't.

I did like, however, that groups and discussions were immediately linked at the bottom. I found the "popular shelves" function very useful. This book was listed under several different shelf types, which made it seem to have a wide-ranging audience. I also enjoyed that under the description of the novel, users could click on a link to LibraryThing and Amazon in order to find it on other sites. That is the kind of thing that beckons to the semantic web.

LibraryThing

I centered my LibraryThing search on The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I was a little disappointed that none of my selected books were tagged. I would have liked to see what kind of tags were given by other users. I am a big fan of tag clouds and LibraryThing had a successful tag cloud located right on the book's page. The recommendations were right on target with books that I thought would appeal to other readers. Another great feature of LibraryThing is the "top 50 similar libraries". This gives a user the ability to see other users with similar tastes and view their comments on particular books.

My favorite aspect about LibraryThing is the "Will you like it?" scale. The more a user tags, comments, and rates their books, the more the web site will actually be able to predict whether or not they would like a book. This is what LibraryThing predicted for me for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter:

LibraryThing thinks you will love The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (prediction confidence: very high)

With this prediction, I am even more excited about reading the book!

WorldCat

I started my search on Worldcat with The Adventures of Augie March. Quite to my surprise, this site had no reviews or comments for the prized novel. However, I am a fan of the tag cloud options, as well as, the subjects topics available for the novel. This helped me get

a general idea of what the book was about. One really neat thing about Worldcat is the mobile availability of it. They even have an iPhone app. This would make searching, browsing, and selecting an option for users at any time.

Google Books

One upside of Google Books is the ability to search without making an account. Sometimes it can be tedious to create and hold accounts in all of these sites. Google Books starts out with a book overview. I liked that the overview didn't give anything away but definitely gave a feeling for the book. My search for Rabbit, Run returned 152 reviews while on LibraryThing it only returned 25 reviews. One interesting feature of Google Books was the scanned pages that were available for viewing. This gave an inside look the book

Google Books also offered references to the book from novels and from web pages, which I didn't see on any other site.

Conclusion

I absolutely love books and reading, so this was a really fun assignment for me. One of the best things about all of these sites is the usability and intermingling of the web sites. Almost all of them share links with the others and this really creates for a web 2.0 experience.

Another favorite thing about researching these books was the vast opinions of each novel. No matter how loved or hated a book is someone else out there will think the complete opposite. It is interesting to see these differences written out and shared. It all goes back to our conceptual states of knowledge and how much context really plays into our lives, even in something as important as literature.

I feel very excited and comfortable with my list of 10 books. I can't wait to read them all and continue my goal of reading all 100 novels. These sites enhanced my experience in researching and learning about each individual novel. Each site has its own benefits and offers something to the user. I will definitely continue to use Goodreads and probably become more active on LibraryThing and Worldcat. All of these sites combined really create a world where literature can be shared from any place and by anyone.

Library Conservation and Preservation Bibliography, Part 2

•I created this bibliography on the topic of Library Conservation and Preservation using Google Scholar.

- Baker, Soroka. Library conservation: Preservation in perspective (The Information sciences). New york: Distributed By Academic Press, 1978. Print.

Times Cited: 6

- Beagrie, Neil, and Maggie Jones. Preservation Management of Digital Materials: A Handbook. London: The British Library, 2001. Print.

Times Cited: 57

- Chapman, Patricia. Guidelines on preservation and conservation policies in the archives and libraries heritage (PGI-90/WS/7). geneva: Unesco, 1990. Print.

Times Cited: 11

- Cunha, Dorothy G., and George M. Cunha. Conservation of Library Materials: A Manual and Bibliography on the Care, Repair, and Restoration of Library Materials (Volume I). 2nd ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1971. Print.

Times cited: 37

- Darling, Pamela W., Jan Merrill-Oldham, Jutta Reed-Scott, and Duane E. Webster. Preservation Planning Program, an Assisted Self-Study Manual for Libraries (Preservation Planning Program). Revised ed. Washington: Association of Research Libraries, 1993. Print.

Times Cited: 17

- Dureau, J. M. Principles for the preservation and conservation of library materials (IFLA professional reports). The Hague : Ifla Headquarters, 1986. Print.

Times Cited: 15

- Eden, Paul, John Feather, and Graham Matthews. Preservation Management: Policies and Practices in British Libraries. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, 1996. Print.

Times Cited: 14

- Feather, John. Preservation and the Management of Library Collections. 2 ed. London: Library Association Publishing (Uk), 1996. Print.

Times Cited: 25

- Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access. Andover, MA: Northeast Document, 2000. Print.

Times Cited: 43

- Higginbotham, Barbara Buckner. Our Past Preserved: A History of American Library Preservation, 1876-1910. New York: Diane Pub Co, 1990. Print.

Times Cited: 9

- Eden, Paul, John Feather, and Graham Matthews. Preservation Management: Policies and Practices in British Libraries. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company, 1996. Print.

Times Cited: 25

- Kenney, Anne R., and Oya Y. Rieger. Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives. 1 ed. Washington: Research Libraries Group, 2000. Print.

Times Cited: 34

- Morrow, Carolyn Clark. A conservation bibliography for librarians, archivists, and administrators. Troy, NY: Whitston Pub. Co, 1979. Print.

Times Cited: 7

- Porck, Henk J. Preservation science survey: An overview of recent developments in research on the conservation of selected Analog library and archival materials. --: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2000. Print.

Times Cited: 16

- Preservation of Library & Archival Materials: A Manual. 3 ed. Andover, MA: Northeast Document, 1996. Print.

Times Cited: 22

- Ratcliffe, F. W. Preservation policies and conservation in British libraries: Report of the Cambridge University Library Conservation Project (Library and information research report). London: Distributed By Publications Section, British Library Lending Division, 1984. Print.

Times Cited: 25

- Rothenberg, Jeff. Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation: A Report to the Council on Library and Information R. Washington D.C.: Council On Library & Information Resources, 1999. Print.

Times Cited: 218

- Swartzburg, Susan G. Preserving Library Materials: A Manual. Toronto: Scarecrow Pr, 1980. Print.

Times Cited: 47

Using the same topic, I created a bibliography using two different sources: OhioLINK's online database and Google Scholar. The following is my critical analysis of the two services.

OhioLINK

This was my first time using Kent State's online library service, and I have to say that there was definitely a learning curve. It took me a while to figure out the system and the best ways to navigate through the site. Once I decided what topic I wanted to research, I jumped right in and began looking.

Unfortunately, I had a very difficult time locating articles in both the Library Literature and Information Science Full Text Database and the Social Sciences Citation Index. Often I would find a relevant article in the database, but then not be able to find in the index. I actually used Knowitnow.org again to see if I could get any help on finding articles, but that inquiry provided not much help. I resolved this by expanding my search and reducing my number of keywords. I was able to locate more articles, but had difficulty finding articles with enough citations. Eventually after a lot of searching back and forth, I was able to create this bibliography. An upside of this database is the ability to personalize it to the user, even though it is only offered to students. I also appreciated the ability to download citations and email and share sources. It is a useful tool that I would use again.

My opinion on OhioLINK and Kent State's database system is still very high, but the system is a little difficult to learn and navigate. Perhaps with a broader topic I would have been able to find more information, but my topic returned very few relevant results.

Google Scholar

I had much more success using Google Scholar. My search included the term "Library Conservation and Preservation" and returned lots of results that I was looking for. The site also easily displayed how many times the article was sited. I found my list of sources much quicker and felt that the articles were more substantial. This was my first time using Google Scholar as well, and I found the site extremely useful and accurate. Unfortunately though, I did later realize that I didn't have access to all of the articles and had to either pay or subscribe to view the complete source. This is definitely a downside to Google, but will still be useful when I no longer have access to the Kent State databases.

Conclusion

I think that if Kent State's Library Literature and Information Science Full Text Database and the Social Sciences Citation Index could combine forces, they might make a more effective system. It was very time consuming and tedious and if the number of times an article was cited was listed in both places, it would make things go a lot faster. I also found that the Google Scholar articles were cited a lot more times than in the database. This could be because Google has a larger pool to pull from, but it was nice to know the articles were so well known.

Library Conservation and Preservation Bibliography

• I created my bibliography on the topic of Library Conservation and Preservation. My sources were found using the Library Literature and Information Science Full Text Database and the Social Sciences Citation Index.

- Brown, MS, and WB Seales. "Image restoration of arbitrarily warped documents ." IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 26.10 (2004): 1295-1306. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 27

- Cappitelli, F, and C Sorlini. " From papyrus to compact disc: The microbial deterioration of documentary heritage ." Critical Reviews in Microbiology 21.1 (2005): 1-10. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 17

- Chen, YN. "Application and development of electronic books in an e-Gutenberg age ." Online Information Review 27.1 (2003): 8-16. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 3 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 16

- Correia, AMR, and MD Neto. "The role of eprint archives in the access to, and dissemination of, scientific grey literature: LIZA - a case study by the National Library of Portugal ." Journal of Information Science 28.3 (2002): 231-241. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 6

- Coyle, K.. Mass Digitization of Books [An article from: The Journal of Academic Librarianship]. St. Louis : Elsevier, 2006. Print.

Times Cited: 5

- Esler, SL, and ML Nelson. "Evolution of scientific and technical information distribution ." Journal of The American Society for Information 49.1 (1998): 82-91. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 9

- Ke, HR, and MJ Hwang. "The development of digital libraries in Taiwan ." electronic Library 18.5 (2000): 336-346. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 5

- Lopatin, L. "Library digitization projects, issues and guidelines - A survey of the literature ." Library Hi Tech 24.2 (2006): 273-289. Print.

Times Cited: 8

- Marcum, DB. "Research questions for the digital era library ." Library Trends 51.4 (2003): 636-651. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 3 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 5

- Marcum, DB. "The future of cataloging ." Library Resources and Technical Services 50.1 (2006): 5-9. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 7

- McGrath, WE. "Explanation and prediction: Building a unified theory of librarianship, concept and review ." Library Trends 50.3 (2002): 350-370. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 6

- Quandt, RE. "Title: Scholarly materials: Paper or digital? ." Library Trends 51.3 (2003): 349-375. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 5

- Sreenivasulu, V. "The role of a digital librarian in the management of digital information systems (DIS) ." electronic Library 18.1 (2000): 12-20. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 12

- Stemper, J, and S Barribeau. "Perpetual access to electronic journals - A survey of one academic research library's licenses ." Library Resources and Technical Services 50.2 (2006): 91-109. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text. Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 7

- Teper, TH, and SS Atkins. "Building preservation: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's stacks assessment ." College and Research Libraries 64.3 (2003): 211-227. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 5

- Wei, CP, CS Yang, and HW Hsiao. "Combining preference- and content-based approaches for improving document clustering effectiveness ." Information, Processing and Management 42.2 (2006): 350-373. Library Literature and Information Science Full Text . Web. 1 Aug. 2010.

Times Cited: 13

The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

Florida Beaches

I centered my gallery for this assignment on the beaches of Florida. I was born and raised in Florida and didn't leave the Sunshine State until my early 20s. Although I moved away, Florida still means the world to me, so I wanted photos that really captured the feeling of the state and not just the setting.

My goal was to find pictures of people and action rather than landscapes or buildings, but unfortunately, my search generally returned the latter.

I started with my focus on Daytona Beach in the 1950s. There were tons of photos from Bethune-Cookman College, which were really lovely, but again, not what I was looking for. When most of my searches only returned one page of results, I expanded my search to all Florida beaches. This search brought up 147 pages of results. Again though, I wanted fun and happy photos portraying the beach in Florida and this was hard to come by. The only term I had much luck with was "Florida Beach" — all of the other terms turned up very few results.

Terms searched:

• Beach 1950s
• Florida Fun
• Daytona Beach
• Florida ocean
• Florida Swimming
• mid century Florida
• vacation
• fifties
• Florida beach

Although I was very excited to search this site, I was disappointed with my experience. The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog site was very difficult to search and browse. I didn't like that once a user clicked on a photo you had to actually browse back to return to the search page. The photos were small and difficult to see, and very few searches supplied any results that I was looking for. The quality was also quite poor in viewing these photos. I would have liked a clearer picture of the image.

I believe my search would have been much more successful on Flickr. Because the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog is a history-based archive, it was much more difficult to unearth exactly what I wanted. The photos were catalogued based on historical importance, and fewer photos of people were included. If I was looking for a specific site with historical importance, such as Bethune-Cookman College, I would have discovered a lot more photos.

Check out my bookmarks at Delicious to see what photos I chose for Assignment 7.

The World of Flickr

A Spot of Rouge

The color red inspired my gallery because it is one of my favorite colors and a universal color that represents warmth and love. The color really resonates in photographs and expresses so much meaning in a single snapshot of time.

A Spot of Rouge consists of photos all featuring the color red in some way, shape, or form.

I used Flickr to search, find and select the photos for this gallery. I explored previously designed galleries to get inspiration and ideas from users I liked, and I checked out different groups and users' galleries to find certain photos.

It was amazing to find so many photos representing this color in such beautiful ways. There were several groups specifically built on the color, and even one called rot-rosso-rouge-rood. I have a very specific taste when it comes tophotography, so I spent a while searching for the perfect images to be included.

I was particularly looking for photos that used red to represent a feeling or emotion. I wanted photos with a vintage or retro feel so I could portray a reflection of what I like in the gallery.

My search was most successful when I used searches containing two key words, such as "vintage red" or "artsy red;"otherwise the search was too expansive and didn't really provide what I wanted. I also was a little disappointed Flickr's gallery could only include 18 photos. It could have been more telling if a couple more could have been included. I also found it difficult to search for photos with a specific feeling. With such a large number of photos to browse through, it was hard to narrow it down as much as I wanted.

I also would have preferred if Flickr made it easier to go back and forth between photos. It became tiresome to click forward and backward to choose photos for my gallery. On the upside though, every time I clicked on a photo I was led to something else. This helped me find particular users' photos that I really enjoyed, and made my search more interesting. Flickr is a good representation of how Bates' Berrypicking Model works in a digital world. Each new search led me to new photos, users, and galleries, and each new click took me on a different path. Overall, the third order of Flickr's organization was successful in delivering what I was looking for. It just took a lot of searching on my end to find the right photographs.

Flickr is a wonderful source for online photography sharing and archiving. There are so many images to browse and the ability for tagging makes photos easily searchable.

The following are the terms I searched for:

• the color red
• red
• rouge
• a world of red
• red in photos
• photos featuring red
• artsy red
• retro red
• vintage red
• red art
• animals and red

You can view my gallery here.

(all photos from Flickr)

Knowitnow.org Vs. Ask A Librarian

For my Information Awareness Report I sought out information to answer my question, "How do I make sure I am a healthy vegan?" After assessing the information I gathered on my own, I sought the same information using Knowitnow.org and Kent State's "Ask a Librarian" online services. The following is a critical analysis of my experiences.

Knowitnow.org

Here is a transcript of our conversation:

Jessica Crossfield: How do I make sure I am a healthy vegan?

wcpl615: Hello. You've connected to your 24x7 online reference service staffed by librarians across the state. Please wait one moment while I take a look at your question.

wcpl615: I am going to send you links to some articles - click on the I'm going to send a web site link. If you click on it, the page will open in a new window or tab. Please take a look, and let me know if this helps answer your question. Enter your zip code when prompted

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=111&sid=5d1a63ed-d3a7-4363-bf81-4a678dca8664%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&hid=111&sid=5d1a63ed-d3a7-4363-bf81-4a678dca8664%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&hid=111&sid=5d1a63ed-d3a7-4363-bf81-4a678dca8664%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: Is this the type of information you are looking for?

wcpl615: Or do you need more scholarly articles?

Jessica Crossfield: No, this is very helpful. Do you have any information on important vitamins or health supplements needed?

wcpl615: Ok, just a minute

wcpl615: Here's a few articles

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=14&hid=111&sid=5d1a63ed-d3a7-4363-bf81-4a678dca8664%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=111&sid=d755d6d7-e7b2-47cc-8d75-b398a6abe380%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&hid=111&sid=d755d6d7-e7b2-47cc-8d75-b398a6abe380%40sessionmgr114

wcpl615: http://web.ebscohost.com.kin.oplin.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&hid=111&sid=d755d6d7-e7b2-47cc-8d75-b398a6abe380%40sessionmgr114

Jessica Crossfield: Thank you so much, this has been very helpful!

wcpl615: Your welcome, is there anything else I can help you with?

Jessica Crossfield: No, I think that is everything. Thank you!

wcpl615: Thanks for using KnowItKnow 24x7 Local.

• The Knowitnow.org librarian was very helpful in offering me articles. She sent me 7 articles on the topic of a vegan diet. The first set the librarian sent me basically centered around recipes, so I then asked the librarian again, "What kind of vitamins or supplements should I make sure that I get?" To this question she sent me an additional 4 articles. Unfortunately, one of them I thought was kind of inaccurate, according to the research I have done. I did enjoy one article she sent me on being vegan on a low-budget diet. It is quite a misconception that it costs a lot of be vegetarian or vegan, when in reality it is possible to eat cost-effectively when you center your diet on whole foods.

This librarian was helpful and definitely open to helping me find materials; however, a lot of the material she sent me I really didn't find that informative. I also felt that some of the articles were a bit dated. On the upside, I liked that the materials she sent were complete and not just links or snippets of the article.

I did think that the site in general is a great idea. It was very nice to know that I could have a librarian immediately available to answer my questions. I also found it well designed and easy to navigate. I liked that the librarian asked if it was what I was looking for, and if I needed more scholarly articles. I also liked that the entire conversation, including links, were emailed to me after our meeting was through. This will be helpful in revisiting sites.

Kent State's Ask a Librarian

Here is the transcript from our conversation:

meeboguest395259: How do I make sure I am a healthy vegan?

imaksulibrarian: Check with a doctor and do a little research.

meeboguest395259: Can you recommend any books that would be good for information?

imaksulibrarian: Sure, let me check!

imaksulibrarian: Hang on a sec

imaksulibrarian: Check out some of these materials: http://www.vegancoach.com/best-vegan-books.html

meeboguest395259: ok, thank you!

imaksulibrarian: No problem!

•First of all, I was a little disappointed with this librarian's initial response. I felt that is was a bit obvious and unhelpful, so I decided to probe some more and ask another question. Again, I was a disappointed in the offering of only one web page when there are thousands of websites and books out there offering information.

On the up side, this wasn't a website that I was familiar with, so it did offer some new information, and although I was already familiar with all of the books listed, it might be a good start for a new vegan. The librarian did respond quickly to my inquiries, but I would have liked if the librarian had asked me more about what I was looking for, or tried to narrow down the search.

Conclusions

This was my first time using these programs, and overall I was a little disappointed with both experiences. There could be a couple reasons for this, one being because I asking a question that I already knew a lot about, and two, because it is a topic that very few people are informed on. Either way, both services seemed willing to help but didn't really teach me anything that I didn't already know. I was extremely disappointed that neither services recommended any of the best sources of information on this topic and that a person who might be interested in researching this topic and adopting this lifestyle, wouldn't get access to some of the best materials out there.

In my personal research I found a lot more helpful information that led to my successful life choice. This could be because libraries are lacking in materials about this topic, or that librarians just aren't as informed about the topic. Either way, knowitnow.org and Ask a Librarian are wonderful services for some instances, but in my case, they were not as informative as I would have liked.

I think these services would be most useful with inquiries on the right side of the continuum of specifiability at the cognitive level. With a defined problem or question, answers would be easier for these librarians to come by, but with a question like mine that doesn't really have a defined answer, the librarians didn't seem to be sure what information to find. I believe I would possibly use these services again but for a different reason. They might be more helpful in finding scholarly sources or specific answers, but I really found they lacked in helping me find information on my question.

Despite the unsuccessfulness of my search, I do think that Kent's Ask a Librarian is a great service that is offered to its students. Under different circumstances I think it could be a very useful tool. In both cases, I only had to wait a minute or two for the librarians to come back online, and once that happened I received information quickly. The sites were quick and efficient and easy to navigate. Both librarians seemed very nice and willing to help, but just didn't share the information I was looking for.