Friday, September 30, 2011

My Banned Book Reading

The following is the introduction from my presentation at the Banned Books Reading in Morris Library. Following the reading, I received confirmation of the rumor that the request had been for the books to be destroyed. The dean, associate deans, and director at Morris Library have been suggesting alternatives, such as redaction or restricted access, to the University Legal Counsel that would protect the books while also protecting the privacy of students' records. 

The book that I’m reading from is special to me. On the inside cover there’s a bookplate with my name and note that it was put in the book in 2010 in honor of my five years of service to Morris Library. I could have put a book plate in any book in Morris Library outside of Special Collections and thought carefully about which book I would put it in. I sentimentally decided that I would choose a book and if I continued my career at SIU, I would put another book plate in the same book at my 10-year, 15-year and other special anniversaries of my employment. My book is the SIU Personnel Listing, sometimes called the Salary Book. This one in particular is the 2005-2006 Salary Book from when I started working at SIU.

On Tuesday afternoon, I received the following message from an associate dean in the library.
“If you are looking for the Personnel Listings (also known as the Salaries book) that was kept in the office collection, I have all the volumes upstairs.  We have been asked by Legal Counsel to pull these volumes from the shelves because they contain information about student employees (GA’s, TA’s, Research Assts, etc) and this violates FERPA laws.  I am waiting for further information before proceeding.  I will keep you posted.”

I’ve heard rumors that the original request made of the library administration was to destroy these books. I’ve also heard speculation and alternative stories about the reason for this request. Given that the timing of this announcement coincides closely with the timing of strike authorization votes for four unions on campus, union supporters and even some union opponents are wondering whether FERPA is being used to justify hiding other information about salaries on campus.

The odd thing about that conspiracy theory is that the information can cut both ways. The information in the book might lead someone to question the priorities of a university that pays its basketball coach not just more than its chancellor but more than twice as much as its chancellor. But it also might lead someone to question the amounts that the union presidents are paid. In Texas, the kind of information found in the Personnel Listing is being used to publicize the teaching loads of faculty relative to the amounts that they are paid. Quite simply, the salary books contain information to help concerned citizens understand how this public university spends money.

You’ll notice that I’m not going to read directly from the Personnel Listing but rather from a photocopied page of the book. I’ve redacted the graduate students’ information -- partly to protect myself from the trouble I could get into for reading this information and partly to point out that a lot more than just the graduate student information is being hidden by pulling these books and could be lost if the books are destroyed.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

University Home Page Update: THANK YOU!

The university's home page now has a link to Morris Library.

Thank you to everyone who encouraged the university to add the library to the home page. I've heard that a few members of the Faculty Senate even spoke with Chancellor Cheng to emphasize how the library contributes to the academic image of the university and to the academic success of our students. Everyone's emails to the Web Advisory Group and the senators' conversations with the chancellor worked.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Banned Book Week

Melissa Hubbard, the main organizer of Morris Library's Banned Book Reading and her co-conspirator, Megan Lotts, had the misfortune of choosing the afternoon of Thursday, September 29 for the event. I call this a misfortune because they may lose some people to the Chancellor's State of the University Address. They scheduled and announced the reading before the address had been announced.

I will be one of the readers. The book that I have selected is one that a patron called the "naughty book" when I helped him access it in the library. One librarian told me that she considered reading from it but didn't "have the balls" to do it.

Are you intrigued yet? If so, come to the reading in the library rotunda next Thursday afternoon from 12:35 to 3:00. Students from a University 101 section will read from banned books from 12:35 to 1:50, and other people will be reading from 1:50 to 3:00. If you would like to read a selection yourself, contact Melissa Hubbard at mhubbard@lib.siu.edu.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

How Do I Cite this Citation Management Comparison Table?

I really like Cornell’s table of similarities and differences among RefWorks, Zotero, EndNote, EndNote Web, Mendeley, and Papers. I also enjoy the irony that it has two dates, July 2009 and the last update date, currently March 4, 2011, so it would be difficult to choose the appropriate date to cite this table.

Recently a librarian listserv had a discussion of comparative merits of different citation management tools. A few of the messages pointed out advantages or disadvantages of particular tools. The differences were small. One handled citations with journal abbreviations worse than another. A couple exported references to BibTeX better than the others. The differences would be important for people in specific situations, but they wouldn’t matter much to most people.

I switched from EndNote Web to Zotero for my last paper for my own quirky reason. The version of Word on my office computer didn’t have an up-to-date Cite While You Write plug-in. I could install the Zotero add-in to Word without administrator privileges, but I would have had to contact a system administrator to install the one for EndNote Web. Administrator privileges aren’t a make-or-break concern for people on their own computers, but it mattered to me.

When students ask me which citation management tool is best, I honestly say that I don’t know. I usually suggest that their field, and so they can find other people in the department when they run into (inevitable?) technical glitches. I’m just glad that they are asking. I can’t imagine how someone could study for comprehensive exams or write a dissertation without something to help keep track of what they’ve read and to take care of most of the citation formatting.