2,915 research outputs found
"Slavic Studies and Slavic Librarianship" Revisited: Notes of a Former Slavic Librarian
No full textThis article revisits the author’s essay in Solanus on the state of
Slavic librarianship at the turn of the twenty-first century in order to assess how the profession has changed in the interim. Trehub
notes that the single most important effect of the proliferation of new library information technologies has been a gradual shift in emphasis from curation to creation. The library may no longer be the first stop in a student’s research, but it remains the preferred venue for study, collaboration, social interaction, Internet use,
and access to and help with specialized resources. The job of
librarians—including Slavic librarians—is to build on their
comparative advantage in these areas and re-integrate libraries
into the students’ information workflow. The author suggests that
the best way to maintain Slavic studies’ viability as a discipline is to participate more fully and be represented more prominently in
the technology-driven scholarly digital initiatives that are transforming librarianship in general.PublishedYe
Open Access Publishing, AUrora, and You
No full textJaena Alabi (Libraries), Jo Mackiewicz (Technical & Professional Communication), and Aaron Trehub (Libraries) discuss the benefits of open-access publishing through AUrora, Auburn’s institutional repository. Among the questions we address are these: What is open-access publishing, and why does it matter? What’s an institutional repository (IR), and what do examples at other universities look like? Why would I want to submit my research to an institutional repository, and how might doing so fit in with the promotion and tenure system at Auburn? What would be involved in submitting research to AUrora (i.e., what are the basic steps)? What do I need to know before I get started? What kind of support is there at Auburn for faculty who are interested in open-access publishing? And finally, how can interested faculty members promote open-access publishing at Auburn?UnpublishedN
Slavic Studies and Slavic Librarianship in the United States: A Post-Cold War Perspective (Excerpts)
No full textThis article reprints excerpts from Aaron Trehub’s piece about the relationship between Slavic studies and Slavic librarianship in the United States in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The author, who at the time was Slavic librarian and bibliographer (and former Soviet affairs analyst), notes that through a curious quirk of history, the collapse of communism coincided with the birth of a powerful new communications medium (the World Wide Web). Together, these geopolitical and technological developments have fundamentally changed librarianship in general and Slavic librarianship in particular. Trehub’s discussion of the various day-to-day difficulties experienced by Slavic librarians in the post-Cold War period pays special attention to the challenges that new information technologies create for patrons, as well as the instructional burden that this places on librarians. He suggests that excessive reliance on the Web may erode the capacity to reason critically, but admits that the longterm effects of digitization on education and research are unclear. In effect, Trehub’s essay provides the historical background for reevaluating what competencies constitute Slavic information literacy in the twenty-first century.PublishedYe
William March (William Edward Campbell)
No full textEntry on the Alabama-born author William March (1893-1954) for the Web-based Encyclopedia of Alabama (http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/)PublishedN
Economic Sustainability and Economic Alignment: Examples from North America
No full textMuch of the literature on digital preservation focuses on
technical solutions. However, recent experience from North
America suggests that questions of governance and economic
sustainability are equally if not more important than technical
issues. This paper examines how three community-owned and
community-governed digital preservation networks in North
America have crafted policies aimed at achieving long-term
economic sustainability and discusses their relevance for digital
preservation initiatives in other countries.PublishedYe
Applications of Digital Technology to Slavic Librarianship
No full textThe purpose of this article is to examine recent developments in information technology and suggest some ways they might be applied to the practice of Slavic librarianship. I have qualifications in both fields: originally trained as a Russian-affairs analyst and a Slavic bibliographer, I have for the past seven years been the director of library technology at Auburn University, a large land-grant university in east-central Alabama, in the American Deep South. Unlike the other large land-grant university where I used to work—the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—Auburn does not have a strong Slavic Studies program or a large Slavic library collection. Nevertheless, I continue to lurk on the Slavlibs e-mail forum, and so have an idea of what Slavic librarians spend at least some of their time doing. Most of it seems pretty traditional: answering questions or responding to requests from patrons, weeding collections of duplicates, swapping information on vendors, and speaking as a community on issues of concern (for example, gaps in the online version of the Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliography). One thing I have noticed is that there is hardly any discussion of Big Questions on the list—questions like the one considered in this article—and very little discussion of technology and its effects on the field.PublishedYe
Eugene B. Sledge and Mobile: 75 Years After "The War"
No full textBrief magazine piece on Eugene B. Sledge and his boyhood in Mobile, Alabama on the 75th anniversary of the battle of Okinawa and the end of World War II.PublishedN
Libraries in the Digital Age: A View from the United States
No full textAn overview of technology-related trends affecting academic libraries in the United States and elsewhere. Includes digital repositories, virtual libraries, Web-scale discovery, open-source library systems, digital preservation, cloud-based services, and mobile devices. Ends with recommendation for more international collaboration.N
William March and Eugene B. Sledge: Mobilians, Marines, and Writers
No full textThis article discusses the lives and literary works of William March and Eugene B. Sledge, southern identity, and the southern military tradition. March and Sledge were born in Mobile, Alabama, served in the U.S. Marine Corps (March in France in WWI, Sledge in the Pacific in WWII), and wrote books based on their experiences.PublishedYe
Safety in Numbers: Distributed Digital Preservation Networks
No full textIt has long been recognized that there is safety in numbers and that redundancy enhances
survivability. This principle has been applied in many spheres of human activity, from
engineering to military science. It is now being applied in librarianship and digital preservation,
through the creation of distributed digital preservation (DDP) networks using the open-source
LOCKSS (“Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe”) software. This paper describes two Private
LOCKSS Networks (PLNs) based in North America: the MetaArchive Cooperative, an
international preservation network serving more than 50 member institutions in the U.S., Brazil,
Spain, and the U.K.; and the Alabama Digital Preservation Network (ADPNet), a state-based
preservation network serving academic libraries, public libraries, and the state archives in
Alabama. The paper argues that PLNs offer a technologically robust, administratively
manageable, and economically sustainable way to protect digital assets and ensure the
continuity of digital libraries in the face of natural and man-made disasters.PublishedN
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