Assignment #7

Previous to this assignment, I was unaware that this resource existed. I knew that the Library of Congress had digitized some items, but I had no idea the extent of their digitized photo collection. I chose the historical topic of the Women's Suffrage Movement, as it is a topic near and dear to my heart. I was interested to see what kind of records they would have. A few photos of Susan B. Anthony? A sketch of Elizabeth Cady Stanton?

I had no idea that the collection would be so extensive and varied. Political cartoons, pages from newspapers and journals, photographs of women marching and hiking and protesting, photos of many many women giving their time and energy to gain the right to vote. I wasn't even aware that this many photos of the movement existed, let alone were available for free access on the internet. I was impressed by the extensive collection, as well as the historical record that it represents.

My first search term was “Women's Suffrage”. This turned up 18 search results, several of which being print only collections that could not be viewed digitally. About 8 of the ten were photos that I could view, about only about 5 were relevant. (The remaining three having to do with civil rights.) My second search term, “American Suffrage”, was far more successful. That turned up 108 results, most of which were relevant hits. This set included a wide array of photos of historic buildings, leaders of the movement, and ordinary women coming out to march. It also included newspaper clippings and scanned journal pages.

My main criteria for choosing photographs was trying to represent a complete view of the movement. I tried to pick photos that showed groups of women gathering for marches and meetings. I chose a few of iconic leaders of the movement. I also tried to include some print photos and cartoons to give the sense of the larger societal commentary. I believe that the Library of Congress collection allowed me to do that well, giving me many excellent historical photographs to choose from.

I found this collection to be easy to use and fairly self explanatory. I also admired all of the information attached to the photos. I had all the data that I would need to find, cite, and do further research on these images. I was also impressed that they could be downloaded in multiple image formats. Tiffs are of course wonderful for archival quality photos, but they do have a very large footprint on your hard drive space. Having the jpeg option as well is convenient. I believe that this is an excellent service provided by the Library of Congress and I shall certainly be using it for future projects.

Assignment #6

I had not previously used Flickr before this course, so when I began this assignment I had little idea what to expect. I believe that I imagined a larger version of the facebook photo album application. I had no idea that Flickr had such an extensive collection of photos that were searchable! I didn't realize the many ways that photos could be organized, or the existence of photo “groups” devoted to a specific theme. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a vibrant community behind what I saw as a basic photo sharing site.

I picked the theme “Hamsters” because they happen to be the only pets my family has ever had. (Thus far, eight in all). I was curious to discover what Flickr had for what I considered to be a rather obscure pet. As it turns out, I was incorrect. Typing the search query “hamster” onto Flickr returned exactly 128,377 results. It seems that many, many people have a hamster as a beloved pet. Not only that, but there are several groups devoted to hamsters, hamster cages, and hamsters in unusual places. I had more search results than I knew what to do with, and I could only fit 18 photos into my gallery.

I began to comb through the search results, marveling at how many international users I came across. As the content that I was initially looking for was “pictures with hamsters in them”, I had to refine my criteria. The photos that made the cut were a) deemed by myself to be exceedingly cute and b) clever or unusual in some way. Thus, the photo-shopped hamster pirate was included with the hamster eating a pepper.

I was very pleased with my results from Flickr, finding pictures of hamsters from Japan to Poland. It appears that hamsters are a very popular pet on the internet, as there seems to be a diverse group of hamster owners posting on Flickr. I found the gallery tool to be easy to use, collecting a group of photographs from many users on Flickr. In general, I found it to be a very user friendly tool that has a vast network of search results to call upon.

My gallery is called Access 60001 Summer II, and my user ID is rachel_fichter@sbcglobal.net

Assignment #5

The first difference that I noted between using a reference service and just finding the information myself is that I needed to be much more specific about what I wanted. When I typed the general question into Google “What is a curriculum vitae”, it turned up that exact information, but also lots of information that I knew that I wanted but hadn't implicitly stated, such as “how do I make one” and “what should I include in a curriculum vitae?”. When I typed that question into Google, I was not looking merely for the definition of the term.

I used the same initial question in both of my queries to AskALibrarian and the KSU service. For AskALibrarian, she immediately asked me if I wanted just a definition, or if I wanted to know how to make one. She required further clarification from me. The KSU service simply gave me a definition, leaving me to ask follow-up questions to get the more accurate information that I needed. It caused me to realize the important of being very specific when another person is filtering results for me. If I am doing the filtering, I'm already on the lookout for the unspoken information that I want. When another person is performing this service, I need to speak the unspoken.

The results were also slightly different. While several of the search results were one that I had also found for myself, the AskALibrarian was also able to let me know that Microsoft Word has templates that can be downloaded. I did not know this, and probably would not have come across this in my own search because I was not asking the correct question. Simply finding the additional bit of information about these down-loadable templates made the additional query to a second party worth it.

I came out of this experience much more impressed by AskALibrian than the KSU service. Upon going to the service site, it asked me to enter my zip code and gave me the choice of the two closest libraries to my location (Lakewood Library and Cleveland Public). I chose Lakewood and within a minute I was in a chat with a librarian. As the page loaded, it told me that I was first in the line. While my line number didn't much matter, as I was first, I imagine it would be helpful to learn where you are in line if you did have to wait for the librarian's attention. Once in the chat, it provided me with the name of the librarian that I was speaking to. She did a good job of finding out what I specifically wanted, found me 3 good resources, and asked if there was anything else that she could help me with. At the termination of the chat, I was sent a transcript of our conversation in my e-mail. The transcript is as follows:

Rachel Fichter: What is a curriculum vitae?
Joelle: Hi! Are you looking for examples of how to format one, or just a definition?
Rachel Fichter: Examples of how to format one, please
Joelle: About.com has a selection of samples and templates: http://jobsearch.about.com/od/cvsamples/a/blsamplecv.htm I'll see if I can dig up some sources for you.
Rachel Fichter: Thank you!
Joelle: If you use Microsoft Office, you can download templates for Word, as well: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/curriculum-vitae-TC010169559.aspx
Rachel Fichter: That's great! I didn't know that Word could do that
Joelle: These look pretty good, too, and they're compatible with older versions of Word: http://www.cvtips.com/resumes-and-cvs/cv-example.html
Joelle: Word can be pretty helpful, sometimes!
Rachel Fichter: Thank you, JOelle
Rachel Fichter: * Joelle
Joelle: You're welcome! Can I help you with anything else?
Rachel Fichter: Nope, that was very helpful. Thanks!

KSU's service, on the other hand, is using a common screen name in the AIM service. I did not know to whom I was speaking, and it took that person a while to respond to me after my initial IM. They gave me a simple definition and it was up to me to ask additional questions. After giving me a single source, they did not ask me if I needed any more help and did not formally “end” the conversation in any way, simply ceased to respond. The transcript (which I copied from the chatbox) reads as follows:

Rachel: Hi! I'm a Kent student with a reference question
Rachel: What is a curriculum vitae?
imaksulibrarian: That is a professional version of a Resume
Rachel: How do I format one?
imaksulibrarian: it basically lists publications and professional associations
imaksulibrarian: There are many different ways to format one
imaksulibrarian: http://technicaljobsearch.com/resumes/center_7.html
Rachel: Thank you!

As this is done remotely, I have no way of knowing if that librarian was swamped at the reference desk with many people demanding their attention. This could account for the delay and the cursory answers. Not knowing if there were extenuating circumstances, I was more impressed with the customer service of AskALibrarian and more satisfied with the resources that I was given. I think that KSU's service was certainly satisfactory, but I was very impressed with the time and effort the state of Ohio has obviously put into their virtual reference resource.

Information Awareness Report

A. As my time at the Kent School of Library and Information Science begins to wind down, with my coursework finishing in September, I have begun to turn my attention to the arena of finding employment. As I began to educate myself about job searching strategies and pinpointed the job searching sites that I've begun checking daily, one serious gap in my knowledge became apparently. What in the world is a “CV”? And how do I get one? Because apparently, this is something that is important to have.

I realize now that I had somehow missed an important step in being a professional adult. Was I simply out of the room every time someone mentioned a Curriculum Vitae? How could I have never come across such a ubiquitous part of the professional toolkit? I still have no answers to these questions. Suffice to say, I somehow missed ever hearing of a Curriculum Vitae and I had no idea where to begin. But since quite a few job postings I was interested in required the submission of a CV, it became apparent that I was going to need to create one.

B. My first step was to call my parents and indignantly exclaim “Why did you never tell me about CV's?” As this was not a productive line of questioning, the conversation soon turned to what this strange and mythical document was. They explained that it was a documentation of your professional life and accomplishments thus far, beyond the scope of what can be contained in a resume. Skills, qualifications, publications, and relevant experience should be included in this document. They offered to send me a copies of their CVs so that I could see how they were formatted. Somewhat mollified, I thanked them and hung up the telephone.

My second step was a Google search, which turned up an enormous number of hits. As many people are searching for employment during this recession, a multitude of resources have sprung up detailing how to make a CV and what should be included, complete with sample CVs to show users how it is done. It was a little difficult to wade through these resources to pinpoint the “best” ones, but after I had read through a few of them I began to recognize common recurring steps for CV creation and maintenance.

C. My search query, for both in person and online searches, was the same. “What is a Curriculum Vitae?”. This query to both my parents and Google turned up so much information that I did not need to formulate a second query. At first I feared that it was too general and that I would have to refine the search term, that I had too many results. But after going through the first ten search hits, I found that most resources had both the answer of “what is it” and “how do I do it?” Many resources also focused on how to make your CV competitive for a tough job market, which I did not think to query but gladly learned about.

D. My first resources consulted were “My Parents”. My Mom is a public speaker who runs her own business and trains corporations on topics such as “Dealing with Difficult People” and “Balancing Work and Family”. My Father is a high school religion teacher. Their CVs both covered different aspects of professionalism, with my Mother's focusing on publications and committees that she's been affiliated with, while my Father's focused on different kinds of training that he'd received. Looking at their CVs gave me a basic template to start from, a general understanding of what I was trying to learn about.

The first hit that Google turned up for me was on jobsearch.com. (http://jobsearch.about.com/od/curriculumvitae/Curriculum_Vitae.htm )It outlined how to write a CV, when it was appropriate to use a CV, and included many templates and examples. The domain “jobsearch.com” made me more likely to see if it was a reputable source of information, and the step by step guides were very helpful in breaking the process down into smaller chunks.

The wikipedia article on CVs also proved to be helpful. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculum_vitae) This focused more on the history of CVs and how they are used in the job market. It also details many different CV practices between counties, alerting me to the fact that I should look for information from sites in American domains and not from, say the UK.

I then came across the following pdf from MIT: www.mit.edu/~career/guide/cv.pdf . I was interested in seeing what this guide has to say, as MIT is a very respected school that turns out many professional graduates each year. It provided a short checklist of all of the items that should be included in a CV, and also provided several links for more information. Many of these links seem to have a science career emphasis, which does not apply to my situation, but some of them may be useful.

Dartmouth also has a page about how to create a CV. (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gradstdy/careers/services/vita.html ) I found this one more helpful as it does not simply list elements that should be included, but gives a description of what those elements are and how best to display them. I felt that this was a detailed and secure guide to follow, now that I had a better idea of the basic structure of a CV.

E. I was very satisfied with the results of my search. I felt that I had found 5 resources that explained to me how this process was accomplished and what its goals should be. I felt that I had a list of items to include and a step my step method for creating my CV. I understood the why, when, and how of the Curriculum Vitae. Now I simply had to undertake the daunting task of summarizing my life's experience in print.

F. At this point in my search process I decided to cease because I felt that I had the information that I needed to get started. I understood what a CV was and I had a battle plan at the ready. I felt that I could follow the steps outlined in several of these resources and come out with a working CV. I also planned to make an appointment at the Kent Career Center to give me a critique when I have finished, so that I can have a second opinion about anything I may have missed. I felt at this point that I could proceed with my project and do it well, and thus I ceased my search.

E. My first instinct was to consult people that I felt would be familiar with my information gap – in this case, my parents. Having gotten a basic idea of what I did not know, I was then able to strike out online and find it. Because of the nature of the information gap (in this case, a fairly well known document that most professionals have to create), there was an abundance of easy information available to me online. Had it been a more obscure topic, I may have consulted more print sources. But I think that my age has reinforced a belief that information found online is reliable providing that it comes from a reputable source. By being careful which sites I relied upon (and by looking for agreement between the resources), I felt that I had amassed information on my knowledge gap that I could trust. It was a fairly quick process and enabled me to get to work on a very important part of my job search.