Talking in the Library

So...I have this government website for one of my sources. Should I use it?

Absolutely!  In fact, librarians are relieved when students find government websites for projects and research.  Why?  Government websites, unlike a lot of what you might find on the web, are credible and trustworthy.  How can you tell if a website is credible?  Lots of ways!  Let’s take a look at a few things you should consider:

 

1) Who wrote or compiled the information?

Is there an author listed or can you easily identify the organization that published the information?  Or…is it anonymous?  If you can’t find the author or the organization that published the material, it might be time to move on to another source.

 

2) Can you find information about the author(s) or the organization?

Are there credentials listed after the author’s name?  Or can you easily find additional information about the agency or organization?   Look for indications of authority such as a PhD, MD, MS, or other letters indicating that the author has evidence of completing a higher education or graduate degree.  Also, look for affiliations with a university or government organization. 

3) Can you independently verify the information presented?

Can you trace the information presented back to its original source?  Where is the author or organization getting the information?  If you can’t verify the information—you got it—it might be time to move on to another source. 

4) Do they cite their sources?

This goes hand-in-hand with independently verifying the information presented.  Does the source cite a particular study, but doesn’t give any other information about the study? Is there a reference list at the bottom or are references cited throughout the website?  

5) How does it compare to other information you find?

Does the source talk about the topic in a new way that you’ve never encountered?  Is it so out there that you can’t find other sources that talk about it in the same manner?  Remember to think critically and take care when selecting your sources.

These steps give the researcher—you—even more reasons for finding and using government websites in your research.  Want to get started using government information on the web?  Click here to get started.  Also, check out the links below for more information about evaluating websites and other information you find on the web.

 

http://library.duke.edu/services/instruction/libraryguide/evalwebpages.html

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

 

And remember, don't hesitate to Ask-A-Librarian if you have questions!

 

Sources:

Eckman, A.S. (2011, June 28).  Type 2 diabetes – risk factors.  Retrieved from      

                http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002072.htm 

 

--Ashley Stark

Share your Mexico photos!

K-State faculty and staff are working to create an online resource center that will provide a wide variety of information (photos, texts, music) about Latin America (Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean) and Iberia (Spain and Portugal). The ultimate goal of the project is to generate a website that draws upon the experience of the K-State community and serves as an educational resource for all.

Here's the great part: they want *your* photos! Maybe not your bikinis on the beach photos, but any quality photos that help illustrate the richness of Mexico. A "Regions and Photos" committee will select the pictures according to their quality, but also according to their uniqueness and their geographic, cultural and perspectival value.  It's your chance to help shape the learning experiences of future K-Staters.

Please send photos burned on a CD in jpeg format by February 15th to:

Prof. Jeffrey Smith  / 118 Seaton Hall  / Dept of Geography

If you have any questions, contact Jeffrey Smith, Gabriela Sabatés (gabsab@ksu.edu), or here in Hale LIbrary Lis Pankl or Casey Hoeve, who facilitate the K-State Latin Americanist Research Network.

Are You Obscene?

With Banned Books Week still going on, it seems like a good time to discuss why it is some folks think they have the right to abridge what others can say, read, write, and even think, despite protections against such a thing as provided by the First Amendment.  And yet there's this thing with Obscenity Law.  Current US Obscenity Law is founded largely on the 1974 Supreme Court Case Miller v. California.  If you don't want to read the full text, let me break down the essentials for you: if it's obscene, it's not protected speech, and the man can shut you down.  "But what exactly is 'obscene?'" you may ask.  Well, there's the rub - it's subjective.  Chief Justice Warren Burger stated in the court's opinion:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Justice Douglas countered beautifully in his dissent with:

"The idea that the First Amendment permits government to ban publications that are 'offensive' to some people puts an ominous gloss on freedom of the press. That test would make it possible to ban any paper or any journal or magazine in some benighted place. The First Amendment was designed 'to invite dispute,' to induce 'a condition of unrest,' to 'create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are,' and even to stir 'people to anger.' The idea that the First Amendment permits punishment for ideas that are 'offensive' to the particular judge or jury sitting in judgment is astounding. No greater leveler of speech or literature has ever been designed. To give the power to the censor, as we do today, is to make a sharp and radical break with the traditions of a free society.

The First Amendment was not fashioned as a vehicle for dispensing tranquilizers to the people. Its prime function was to keep debate open to 'offensive' as well as to 'staid' people. The tendency throughout history has been to subdue the individual and to exalt the power of government. The use of the standard 'offensive' gives authority to government that cuts the very vitals out of the First Amendment. As is intimated by the Court's opinion, the materials before us may be garbage. But so is much of what is said in political campaigns, in the daily press, on TV, or over the radio. By reason of the First Amendment—and solely because of it—speakers and publishers have not been threatened or subdued because their thoughts and ideas may be 'offensive' to some."

Right on Justice Douglas.

So are you obscene?  Take this quiz and see how you rate.  Just remember, you're only as obscene as you think you are, and that's also true for everyone else.

What if the Earth Stood Still?

When my cousin's oldest son was just a tiny tot, she taught him to say "centrifugal force" because he asked her why he leaned in his car seat when they went up a steep onramp to the highway. (This is the kind of thing that happens when engineers have children.)  Now I always hear his 2 year old voice saying "It's centriffical fors, mommy!" when I see the phrase.  Like today, when I saw it in the subtitle to this fascinating article about what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning.

Long story short, K-State would be a lot closer to an ocean: 

If this kind of thing fascinates you, too, you should check out the GIS Info Commons in Hale Library.

Moose it!

Conversations in the coffee line can take a bizarre twist or two. This morning's involved a challenge to make a noise like a moose (something like a snorting bellow). While happy to describe that noise, I cheerfully declined to actually make the noise.

Fortunately, not everyone is so demure about the moose bellow, and some will even agree to be recorded for posterity, as did this Canadian gentleman. (Sorry, the link will only work for current students, faculty, and staff--or those on campus!)

Double-fortunately for K-Staters, we subscribe to the Smithsonian Global Sound Database, so whenever I want to find a sound recording of world or folk music, or cool animal sounds (or Canadians making cool animal sounds) I can.

Image Source: Two Moose by kearnssk on Flickr.

May flowers

Back in April, I posted photos from my family's burn. I swore that in May there would be green grass and flowers where there was only blackened pasture.

Here's what those smokey hillls look like now:

If you want your own photos of wildflowers,the Konza Prairie is a great place to hike and snap photos. In fact, you can even sign up for a two mile Wildflower Walk on Sunday, June 6th.

My new favorite flower is the musk thistle--I learned it's name from the ever-so-handy Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses website. The book is handier, but I forgot my copy at home.

Openbook

I'm curious-how do you use Facebook? Is it a fun way to keep in contact with your peeps? Who do you let see your page? I bet more people than you think. Ever heard of Openbook I just discovered it and it is eye opening and scary. Openbook lets you search for a term , let's say "Hale Library" and you can see a list of folks who mention Hale Library in their status, along with their profile picture and sometimes their gender. What to do…what to do…

PS-Openbook automatically fills in the search box with a popular search, which can be...let's go with dirty

Mind the Gap: Embracing Wikipedia

A colleague in the English Department forwarded to me Rob Weir's column, "Does Wikipedia Suck?" from Inside Higher Ed. In case you are expecting me to immediately jump up and declaim, "YES, Wikipedia is the spawn of ignorance and laziness," well, don't. I'm one of many librarians who extol the virtues of Wikipedia as both a starting point and an idea generator in the research process. We always point out the citations and more reading section at the bottom of an entry as a way to discover sources.

I frequently have conversations with students about the appropriateness of sources, including Wikipedia. My favorite example is the "coconut milk transfusion" investigation. It was my last in a long day of classes and the students were chatting before class about how much money you could earn selling your plasma. We decided to research selling and donating plasma. As part of an exercise to come up with other search terms, one student insisted that they write down "coconuts." I was as baffled as you are. The student explained that he had heard that soldiers in the Pacific during World War II carried coconuts with them because the coconut milk could be used like plasma. If you look at the Wikipedia article on coconuts, you will find that "fact." I turned to the rest of the class and asked if any of them would inject coconut milk in their veins on the say-so of a Wikipedia article. I am delighted to report that not one of them would. We then set about trying to answer the coconut milk transfusion question--and each time someone found a source, we asked, "Would I inject the coconut milk into my veins based on this source?"  In the end, we found one article in PubMed. Not one of us ever reached the point when injecting coconut milk seemed like a good idea. If, at any point, it seems like a good idea to you, I strongly advise that you consult a doctor. If you want to research this further, you should try the term "coconut water,"  which, as Wikipedia tells us, is not the same thing at all as coconut milk.

So, for me, Weir's column made me go "Hmmm" and  immediately wonder how we could use Weir's assignment evaluating Wikipedia (and truly, any other information source) here at K-State. My first thought is that such an assignment could be readily incorporated into any intro/research methods/capstone course, particularly those courses that focus on how research in the field is communicated. I also like one of the comments that suggests assigning students a Wikipedia entry to revise entries that have been identified as needing more citations. (Or cowbell. Everything could use more cowbell.) I would suggest that the coconut article could use a few more sources.

What are you doing with Wikipedia?

Image source: coconut.http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

"Miss Average College Girl" and her wardrobe

Have you ever noticed how tiny closets in older homes and buildings are? Mine would make a cat claustrophobic. If you take a look at this 1941 poll of women college students it becomes clear that, at least on the K-State campus, people didn't have that many items of clothing. K-State women reported owning, on average, three skirts and three sweaters. Also courtesy of the poll: I'm curious to know more about the boyfriend question--were women at Texas dating seven men simultaneously or is that a cumulative number?  And, can we all breath a sigh of relief that our K-State foremothers forebore the dickey?

You may be wondering right now, "How do you librarians find these cool things?" I'm tempted to reply, "Magic and librarian ninja skills." The truth is a mix of serendipity, curiosity, and following other libraries on blogs and Twitter. For instance, this poll was passed along to me by a co-worker who follows the New York Public Library blog that posted the poll, and thought it was cool that K-State was one of the colleges sampled for this survey.

Curious to learn more about fashion at K-State over the years? Try the KSU Historic Costume and Textile Museum (warning, make sure your volume is turned down) or pop up to Hale's 5th floor and visit our University Archives. You can also learn about fashion in the U.S. by browsing our books in Hale. I, personally, would start with the GT 615 call numbers on Hale's 4th floor. Want to research more intensely? Check out the Apparel and Textile subject guide for ideas of where to search.

How four cups of coffee desegregated luncheon counters

Names to remember: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond. 50 years ago today, these four African American college freshmen sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. They asked to be served coffee at the counter, as white customers were, and refused to leave until they had been served. While this wasn't the first sit-in (Carol Parks-Haun and Ron Walters staged a sit-in at a drugstore in Wichita in 1958), this was the one that spread and led to the desegregation of Woolworth's the summer of 1960.

Khazan, McCain, McNeil, Richmond, and Parks-Haun and Walters, weren't the only ones to demand equality. They were joined by Ronald Martin, Robert Patterson, Mark Martin and hundreds of others. To every person who participated: thank you.

North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro (where the four men were enrolled) is hosting commemorative events today--despite a storm that has otherwise closed the university. If you aren't in the area, check out www.sitins.com. This site chronicles the peaceful protest and includes photos, audio clips from interviews, and other resources.

Want to read more? Check out:
Civilities and civil rights : Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black struggle for equality by William Henry Chafe. Did someone grab the copy off the shelf before you got there? We have a copy online, too. Or, try Lunch at the five and ten, the Greensboro sit-ins: a contemporary history by Miles Wolff.