Communication

     For some reason, I got the impression in my undergraduate career at Kent State that getting a degree in Communication was something journalism and design drop-outs did.  Obviously this is not case. Communication sounds like such an interesting field of study, applicable to almost any situation. Dawn Popoff's article proves that it is a diverse and unfocused discipline (I think we are seeing a trend in academia for disciplines being unfocused and diverse).

     The job of the librarian, of course, is to understand the nuances of their patrons information needs and wants; it may be more important to understand how people are going to perceive communication studies rather than to concern yourself defining it. However, Popoff's study is interesting in how different institutions define core collections. There is little consensus over what constitutes the core body of literature in communication; what are libraries and librarians to do? In consulting lists, there is little risk in consulting multiple lists; a collection development librarian can make their own decisions on what makes up a necessary communication collection based on need. However, the implications of disagreement between proprietary indexes are large. Discovery through the databases will be limited by what each index has deemed "core". As cost is ever an issue, most libraries will have to make decisions on what index to purchase and subscribe to. These sorts of issues must be navigated through communication with scholars and faculty, to determine what is best for the departments, faculty, and students. 

     The Communications databases that Kent offers provide a range of resources to researchers. The standard EbscoHOST journal index is available through Communication and Mass Media complete, which fully indexes over 620 publications, and provides full text to many of these. A full list is available here. 

http://www.ebscohost.com/titleLists/ufh-coverage.pdf

     In addition to scholarly research, the University provides several news databases in the form of Factiva, America's News Magazines, LexisNexis, and Newspaper Source. LexisNexis and Factiva have always bothered me in that it is difficult to browse the sources. In Ebsco databases, it is easy to navigate to an issue of your choice publication and scan the article titles. In these databases, I have not found a similar way to do this. It makes it difficult to research news coverage of specific events and overall these user interfaces are unsatisfactory to me. The SRDS Media Solutions database was really interesting to me, even though some of its functionality was limited at the time. This is a much more "practical" database which stores data rather than research. 

     Citizen Journalism is something that librarians should take a special interest in; our whole doctrine revolves around free access to information, as well as freedom of speech. The internet has increased our freedom to access and speech by leaps and bounds in both its technological capabilities, and its impact on culture. We take for granted that it is so easy to share our opinions and thoughts on the web that we forget it was not always so easy to do this. Citizen journalism is important in that it empowers individuals to report the world as they see it; the internet facilitates this by providing an outlet. However, citizen journalism is also fascinating from the academic standpoint. Just search "citizen journalism" in Communication and Mass Media Complete and you will get 400 some articles. It is changing the way people perceive and interact with "the news" and information. Anyone can be a journalist.

     

HIstory of the Mass Media in the Untied States: An Encyclopedia

     Margaret A. Blanchard's History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia is a comprehensive survey of mass media in the U.S. from the first newspaper in Boston in 1690 to the 1990s, when the book was published. The topics of the entries cover events, people, laws and regulations, technology, and general issues and discussions.

     The book is made up of entries in alphabetical order. The articles range from less than a page to several, depending on the importance of the topic. Some entries include further reading, while others do not. There are also sometimes cross-references to other articles. The author is listed at the end of each entry.

   While the book is generally concise, there are some features that make it stand out. It features not only an alphabetical listing of entries but also a topical listing. This makes finding entries of interest much easier. The general bibliography is also very helpful, providing reference sources to the following topics: General Media History, Advertising, Alternative Media, Books, Broadcasting, Magazines, Media Law, News and Newspapers, Photography, and Presidents and the Press. I could see this list as aiding collection development, and for finding more detailed sources for patrons. The contributors are all listed with their credentials in the back of the book, along with an index. The inclusion of photographs and photocopies enhances the experience of reading articles.

   Unfortunately, a second edition of this book has not been issued, making it a rather dated reference source. For historical research, I can still see its utility. It seems more geared towards general reference, and would be most appropriate for undergraduates or high school students. Graduate students and faculty would most likely use it to gather other sources for their research.

Blanchard, M.A. (Ed.). (1998). History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia.
     Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.

Sociology

     The ANSS website is an interesting mix of organization-specific news and features and resources helpful to any librarian. In each newsletter, there are reviews of new databases, websites, or print resources, as well as insightful articles which discuss issues important to academic librarians. The authors often write about their own experiences with day-to-day librarian work; using a new tool to create a library guide or working with a new research database. The newsletters also provide updates as to what events are going on, and what different organization members are up to. While I wouldn't read these typically, it is a good way to stay up to date on trends going on in the social sciences and to look at model-librarians for inspiration. Aside from the publications, there are also resource bibliographies, links to select subject guides from which to draw inspiration, and various assessments and standards to put to use in your library. I really liked the linked tool kits from the ALA, which provide key resources not only for patrons in sociology and anthropology but resources for librarians, such as publications through which to find book reviews, and best practices.
http://connect.ala.org/node/173714

     I had never looked at the Library of Congress Teacher Resources before, but I will definitely consult this page in the future. The guide for non-LOC sociology resources is extensive, and while some of the links are dated or broken, most of the resources are valuable. I would recommend them to teachers and librarians alike. There are similar lists for other subjects and I will be sure to look in to them in the future.

     I like videos like Cale Brook's sociology theories introduction. I think these are great ways to brush up on a subject. As librarians, we will undoubtedly come into contact with more subjects and information-situations than we could possibly be prepared for. We won't be able to go in to every reference transaction already matching the patrons understanding of a topic, nor will we be able to enter every classroom with the same grasp as the students or professor. While we are surely equipped with the tools to find any book we could need on a subject, sometimes little explanations like these are all we need to get up to speed on a subject, at least until we have a better understanding. If I was asked last minute to provide bibliographic instruction to a sociology class, I might not have time to wade through all of the necessary material to understand sociological theories in full. A short video like this, made specifically to teach people would be a great resource to consult for a quick refresher. The multitude of informational videos on Youtube from amateur and professional teachers alike eases my mind that I will never know nothing about a topic, even on short notice. The same can be said for free online courses and podcasts. Understanding even the gist of sociological theories would allow me to provide better instruction to sociologists. The same goes for any topic.

http://libguides.bc.edu/content.php?pid=174749&sid=4431332
     When I'm looking for resources on my own I always try and look for ones that are open access. I liked this guide provided by Boston College for open-access sociology resources. The Directory of Open-Access Journals is a great portal to journals freely available to anyone. The link in the LibGuide takes you to the social sciences section, where there are many journals to look through. You can also search the entire DOAJ for articles of interest. The other pages include the open-access publisher/repository of the University of California. It would be great to one day see all state universities follow suit!

https://support.google.com/fusiontables/answer/2571232?hl=en
     Fusion Tables is a visualization tool that sociologists can use to analyze and publish their data in an accessible environment. I have not played around with it too much yet, but it uses spreadsheets to visualize or map data. What makes it special is that you can take other people's public data and incorporate it into your own projects. The "merged" tables are live and will change as others modify or add their data. This could be a really interesting collaborative tool students and researchers. Of course, it works with Google Drive, and so any spreadsheets you already have will be ready to go. Unfortunately, it does not seem to do statistical analysis, so one would have to do that sort of work in another environment.


   



   

Encyclopedia of Social Measurement

     The Encyclopedia of  Social Measurement is another methodology resource for social scientists. This 3 volume set is an extensive kit of research methods, models, tools, data sources, and other topics relating to social sciences. I think this source would be appropriate for undergraduate levels and up, for any area relating to the social sciences.

     The subject areas included in this encyclopedia are: analytical techniques, constructs and variables, data collection, data sets and websites, data sources and subjects, fields and applications, historical events and figures, interpretation and data limitations, measurement models, research designs, and sampling design. If this list seems exhaustive it is because there are 356 articles in total. The different areas covered allow for all facets of social measurement to be covered; this is not limited to one part of research, but to all. A foreword by Bent Flyvbjerg lauds this text for its comprehensive and inclusive approach to social science, particularly for its equal consideration of qualitative and quantitative methods. He calls the text a guide on "how to do science." This is as apt a description as any that I could come up with.

     Each article includes its main text, along with an introduction, glossary, cross references to other articles, and a bibliography. When appropriate, the articles include illustrations, graphs, charts, equations, and other visual aids. I think the inclusion of a glossary for each article makes the encyclopedia more accessible. The well over 200 contributors come from a wide range of subject areas and institutions. The articles are arranged alphabetically but are also listed at the beginning organized the subject areas I listed. The index has 130,000 items, so this can be a very helpful tool for locating needed information as well.

     This resource is especially interesting because it is not limited to simple instruction on how to formulate research, but provides background in to the different schools of thought and methodologies in social science. It includes historical context in to methods, disciplines, and people, as well as covering emerging trends in the social sciences (as of 2005).

Kempf-Leonard, K. (Ed.). (2005). Encyclopedia of Social Measurement. Oxford, U.K.: Elsevier.

Geography

     Geography really does encompass any and all topics you could possibly think of.  I think Reddit user the60thparallel sums it up nicely...when asked the question, "What is geography?" they make the case that it is more appropriate to ask "What isn't geography?" I think this is spot on. In fact, every module we have studied so far in this class could be considered geography. Political science? It is hard to separate geography from that field. History? How can you understand the events and people of the past and present without taking in to consideration space and place? Even psychology can be related back to geography; how we mentally perceive and create places, how our mental maps function, etc. The60thparallel says, "There is a spatial component to every aspect of this world," and I think this is what geography is all about. In geography you learn to think about how every little piece of the world works together as a system. There are no islands. We are constantly looking at both the big picture and the little picture, and everywhere in between. Scale is a word that gets used a lot in introductory courses; we learn about map scales at a relatively early age, and this same principle holds true in geography. There is always another of looking at an issue, and another way we can frame what we are looking at.
    This fall in Kent State's geography department, students can take a variety of classes: Community Landscapes, Memory and Heritage, GIS and Health, Environmental Justice, Conservation of Natural Resources, Marxism and Geography, Spatial Programming, Geography of East and Southeast Asia, and my favorite, Geography of Wine; the list goes on. Many students from other departments enroll in geography courses; and likewise, we as geography students were encouraged to explore courses out of our department. At the reference desk and in the Map Library, I've helped students in anthropology, geology, translation, and public health look for geographic information. And I've helped geography students look for information on public health and musicology research. It's a little ironic how infrequently geography students need maps from the map library.
    Of course geography IS also the study of places. Many geographers devote their research to studying a particular part of the world. Most of our introductions to geography involve a map or photographs of somewhere far away. National Geographic, though it may have forever biased many non-geographers to think that geography is just the study of places is a wonderful example of geography in action. Aside from telling people where they can find the magazine on our shelves, I can see the Education section of the webpage being a valuable tool to provide to education majors looking for resources to include in their lesson plans, where resources are organized by grade level. Is a patron going to be studying abroad next semester? I would direct them to the Travel section of the website to learn a little more about the culture they will be living and learning in.
    Taking things a step further, Atlantic Cities is a really cool website that features articles with a geographic mind. The articles here would be interesting to geographers and non-geographers alike, and one of my favorite things about it is that the news that gets featured here does such a good job of showing how place and space matters, while rarely seeming to get academic. Readers would have to go a step further and research the principles and concepts behind the events and developments, but if you want to show someone why geography matters, Atlantic Cities is the place to send them.
   

Websites that I frequently use or would use are:

http://wikimapia.org/ This one totes itself as a map version of Wikipedia; anyone can edit the map, just like OpenStreetMaps, but Wikimapia lets you take the process a little further by describing the feature in Wikipedia like articles. Its a great tool for simple discovery and exploration of your neighborhood, but I could see this a good resource for documenting and mapping geographic phenomena.

http://walking-papers.org/ Walking Papers is a DIY paper atlas creator. It allows you to print off detailed maps of an area, mark up your paper maps however you like, and then upload the marked-up maps back up to the server. The website introduces itself as a way to improve on OpenStreetMaps data, but I think this would be valuable for researchers who want to map phenomena on the ground without having to use expensive and sometimes un-intuitive GIS interfaces. This could be another form of grassroots mapping. One cool thing about geography is that many researchers are concerned about not only learning more about a phenomena, but spurring social justice through change. Maps allow us to record something that is happening and communicate it geogrtaphically to others.

http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/ OSGeo4W is a package of several high-quality opensource geospatial programs. The industry standard in GIS is ArcGIS, a software package from ESRI. It is high quality but very expensive. Students and faculty at Kent are entitled to a free license, but I think libraries should be investing more in implementing open source software whenever possible. QGIS and GRASS, as well as the other programs included in this package are very capable. If individuals, groups, or whole departments and institutions needed to use GIS and were unable to get access to proprietary software like ArcGIS, I would definitely recommend looking in to OSGeo4W.

   
     

Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography

This was my required course reading for a special topics Geography course, Qualitative Research Methods, two years ago. When I was looking through Kent's reference section for this assignment, I found The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Geography (http://kentlink.kent.edu/record=b3344097~S1). I read through the introduction and while I'm sure it is an informative text, I don't think I would have selected it to be included in the reference collection. I think Oxford's Qualitative Research Methods is much more concise and usable as a reference text and I was happy to see that I hadn't gotten rid of the book so that I could write about it.

Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography is written as a comprehensive guide to various methods of research used by social geographers. It also introduces the idea of qualitative research as opposed to quantitative research, and discusses its place in the field of geography. Following the enumeration of methods, there are also sections that discuss communicating and constructing research proposals and findings. From start to finish it can be a very important text, priming someone new to research to the process. As a reference text, though, it can aid in the planning and design of one's own research. Each chapter covers the logistic considerations associated with each method of research, as well as ethical concerns.

The chapters are written by contributing authors. Most of the authors hold PhDs in the field. They typically write by combining concise instruction on the method or topic with personal experiences they have had in their own research. This makes the text an easier read and also offers insight that might not be gained from a simple "how-to" guide for research. The authors elaborate on mistakes they may have made or nuances to research that they have discovered by doing. There is also an emphasis on considering your role as the researcher, and how you are affecting the "subjects" of the study. We referred to this as reflexivity.

This is the third edition (2010), with the original appearing in 2000. The editor, Iain Hay, writes that the text has been updated to reflect changes in how the Internet and other technologies have changed qualitative research. I think this text should make its way in to more reference collections; there are 20+ copies in OhioLINK of the different editions, but none of them seem to be marked as reference books. I would recommend this as a guide for research to anyone in the social sciences, and especially to geography undergraduates and graduate students.

Hay, I. (ed.) (2010). Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography (3rd ed.). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. 

Psychology

     I had never truly considered how broad the study of psychology is. It is not surprising that in 1962 Kuhn speculated that psychology might not be a true "science" due to its disjointed theories and lack of general consensus. This does however make psychology an incredibly exciting and diverse field of study, no matter how you define "science."

     Bennet and Simmings explore the effect that "embedding" a librarian in to a course has on the students, faculty, and library. Their study of Capella University's embedded librarian in psychology courses offered conclusions that embedded librarian increase student access to librarians. When students are encouraged by their professors to consult librarians, and are given direct contact to the librarian in the form of an online message board, we see that utilization of librarians increases. This model allows librarians to demonstrate their value at the point of need, rather than waiting for student patrons to approach them. Particularly in the online environment of many of today's institutions, I think this is an important method to take. While this is not by any means applicable only to psychology, the sheer number of psychology classes that undergraduates take may make these classes a good starting point for universities to implement embedded librarians.

   While searching in PubMed, I found a similar study by Alison Konieczny (2010). Konieczny writes in the first person describing her own experiences. She writes that the time commitment varies greatly depending on the need of the class, the class size, etc. She also comments on the variety of roles a librarian might take in the class; sometimes a librarian may only be present in the class at the beginning, preparing introductory content on how to perform research. Other classes might require the librarian to remain embedded the entire time to assist on research needs. Konieczny is sure to note that in particular, online students benefit from embedded librarians because librarians are not as visible to distance learners as they are to students physically attending classes on a traditional university campus. Nevertheless, I think that the concept of embedded librarians is worth exploring even in traditional, in-person classes. Librarians take on more of a central role and students are given more opportunities to explore them as a resource.

      In terms of actual reference sources, there seem to be a huge variety on the web and published in print. Because of the many different areas of study in psychology, these sources are often quite specific. Resources like AmoebaWeb from Vanguard University provide users with websites, blog posts, and resources in specific psychology subtopics like memory, language, social psychology, culture and psychology, etc. There are also the standard databases like PsychINFO and the other APA databases. The APA offers a broad range of products for libraries, from journals, databases, to books and other educational materials.

     In particular, I will be on the look out for more resources related to data and datasets. The APA offers this page as a guide: http://www.apa.org/research/responsible/data-links.aspx. There are also various LibGuides from different institutions providing links to data sets. One nice thing about these LibGuides is that frequently the datasets are not proprietary, even when most LibGuide resources at that institution are. I thought UCLA's guide to datasets was helpful as well. http://guides.library.ucla.edu/content.php?pid=32842&sid=2408190

   




Konieczny, A. (2010). Experiences as an Embedded Librarian in Online Courses. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 29, 47-57. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02763860903485084.