Consuming vs. Living

Just when I thought I was successfully pulling myself away from reading so much news after the election, this class has sucked me back into it.  I've already posted a few links, but this seemed to relate well to class.

I've been thinking about what Greg said to start our class discussion of the readings : "Is this important?"  I'm not sure if I'm getting that exactly right, but it was something like that.  It's an interesting question, because it can be taken in so many different ways.  And it's fascinated me for a while.  Since we're in a recession, it seems like the question of what is important is beginning to creep into more and more conversations.

Late to the party, or just making an entrance?

Hi! I'm Susannah. I am in my final semester of the pro-track master's program in the School of Journalism. I don't really have a concentration, which often confounds my professors, but pigeonholing is boring.

I graduated from UW in 2002 with a BA in music (voice performance). After a variety of jobs and experiences, I settled down in University Communications (the press release people, among other things) in early 2005 before starting grad school in the fall of 2007. I stuck around at UComm and currently have a PAship writing for Wisconsin Week and other releases. I also work part-time at a small PR agency, where we find about 18,652 different ways to say, "____ County has the most amazing forests/small towns/lakes/antiquing/country festivals/snowmobiling you've ever seen!" I would like to stay in the wonderful, horrible world of university or governmental media relations after graduating, but at this point I'll take anything.

In my spare time (or, you know, during a class discussion...), I enjoy knitting. I co-moderate a large worldwide community of knitters on LiveJournal, and I usually spend way more time writing about knitting than actually doing it. On Friday nights, you can typically find me at a Badger hockey game. I also sing, including subbing as a soloist in a local church and doing summer concerts with the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, among other groups. Oh, and I am also a karaoke and Rock Band fiend, specializing in "Ballroom Blitz" and "Call Me."

Libraries & E-Government

I thought I would share this Library Journal article on libraries and e-government. Its about govt agencies depending on libraries to provide internet access and Q&A support for service users and how its changing the traditional role of public libraries. It also touches on the training, funding, and technological advances that will be necessary to fulfill these new roles. I thought it was very interesting and of course very relevant to our class.

Given our discussion today about foreign cultures that feel emotionally distant, it's interesting to think about how the advancement of technology might affect decisions about international relations, particularly warfare. What happens, for instance, when we send in robots?


Or if you want something lighter that actually could become a major issue in the future, how about sex with robots.

Greenspan on the Free Market: "Oops."

WASHINGTON — For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.

But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Now 82, Mr. Greenspan came in for one of the harshest grillings of his life, as Democratic lawmakers asked him time and again whether he had been wrong, why he had been wrong and whether he was sorry.

More here. [NYT]

Article #4- "The Downside of Diversity" by Jonas

In contrast to the melting pot theory taught in elementary classrooms across the country, famed social scientist Robert Putnam recently released a study that suggests that racial and ethnic diversity may have its drawbacks. Putnam’s findings come from a huge study that compiled 30,000 detailed interviews with subjects from 41 different US cities, the largest study ever on civic engagement.

The results are troubling: the more diverse a community, the less likely its citizens are to engage in civic activities. Cities with greater diversity volunteer less, vote less, and give less to charity than their less-diverse counterparts. The author of “Bowling Alone”, a landmark book published in 2000 that suggested Americans were getting less and involved in civic life, Putnam is no stranger to the subject of social isolation.

Researchers looking to refute the study are not likely to find holes in Putnam’s data. The author, well-known for his liberal and progressive views, conducted a rigorous examination on his study. He spent a period of over five years re-examining his own conclusions after initially realizing the “inconvenient truth” he was about to release.

In summarizing his findings, Putnam notes that people tend to “hunker down” and withdraw from their neighbors. He even found that tensions are high between members of the same ethnic group. Conservative think tanks have been quick to latch on to Putnam’s research, suggesting that the study proves the negative implications of lax immigration laws.

Putnam disagrees with such views, suggesting that a more diverse America is inevitable, not to mention valuable.

Glad to be here.

Hi there. I'm Brendan McCarty, a SLIS student in my final semester of the program. As with many others in our class, I've had a bit of a roundabout course getting to where I'm at right now.

For my undergraduate studies, I earned a double major in Journalism and German Culture. Since it was not in the stars for me to earn my living as a foreign correspondent based in Munich, I paid the bills by moving pianos, then settling in for a few years working in sales at a digital stock photography company. I eventually realized that there is only so much of a future working at an Internet start-up, and thought fondly of my journalism days, most notably my time spent in the library.

Since entering SLIS, I've gained an appreciation for Public Libraries, and I hope to work in one upon my graduation. I'm especially enthusiastic for the public service aspects of working in a public library setting, so it will be useful to know how the digital divide will factor in to my work.

When I'm not working at the SLIS Library (where I'm employed as a student assistant), I enjoy listening to and making music. I play keyboards and occasionally sing in Awesome Car Funmaker, I'm an avid record collector, and I love to sing Karaoke.

Sharon S. Introduction

Greetings everyone -
I’m in my final class to complete the Master’s in Library Science. I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania and got my undergrad in Anthropology, English and Women's Studies from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. Following that, I went to Washington, DC, where I got a Master’s in public policy and women’s studies at George Washington University and also worked full-time in GWU’s main library for four years.
Then I spent the next eight years working for a non-profit organization in DC that ran conferences, seminars and internships for women college students about policy and politics. In 1999, my partner and I moved to Wisconsin. I worked for a K-12 library for a while and then part-time at a YMCA when my kids were little. Four years ago, I started the SLIS program part-time. I live in Watertown (about an hour northeast of Madison), with my partner (he teaches high school English) and our two daughters, ages 5 and 8. I also work part-time at the Robinson Map Library at UW doing metadata and cataloging. The picture is me and my daughters at the Milwaukee zoo.

"What the Numbers Tell Us" Summary-Article #1

Heather Boushey and Christian Weller’s article “What the Numbers Tell Us,” establishes a statistical basis for the indisputable fact that economic inequality within the United States has been expanding for the past 30 years. Statistics are used to dismiss any theories that these economic trends could be attributed to a temporary situation; rather, they are used to acknowledge an emerging pattern of inequality.

The article states that most economists agree that the distribution of wealth and income are greater today than before the Great Depression. The rich have increased their wealth steadily and by great strides over the last decades, while the income of the poor (largely determined by their wages) has declined. During the 80’s the wages of the poor were lowered by 14.1 percent, the wages for the medium worker were flat, and the wages of those at the top increased by 8.1 percent. In the 90’s, the disparity between the top and middle grew larger, with the top 1percent doubling their income.

Some theories on the causes for these findings were briefly mentioned: the introduction of the PC and the proposition that perhaps the circumstances of a singular demographic could have accounted for the increase in inequality. Both have since been dismissed after further research.

It goes on to say that ‘hardly any’ economists would say the United States economy provides the opportunity for personal mobility. Evidence shows that economic advancement for those at the bottom of the income ladder is less likely to happen today than it has been in the past. Higher inequality has not been matched with higher mobility, causing the concentration of wealth and income we see today.

Introduction-Ellen

Hello all!

I am a special student applying to be in SLIS for the fall. I started my graduate career at UW Madison in 2003 in Ethnomusicology, which is essentially studying music within the context from which it is created or used. I received my master's in 2005. I began the journey towards my Ph.D. in the same field in 2006, with a minor in LACIS, and got pretty far until we all decided that I was better suited elswhere. I want to work more closely with public arts and public institutions than in academia, which is what a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology would presume.

So, I looked into Folklore and related programs, but realized that hey, I've been working in a library for five years, I work in archives, I enjoy researching for articles and hard to find books, so here I am, going for SLIS degree. Hopefully. As an added bonus, I've already taken numerous courses that are cross-listed with SLIS, so it was a logical leap.

I have numerous research interests, including music of Andean migrants in the Upper Midwest, Irish music, migrant communities, the use of technology in music and in libraries, audio preservation, and audio streaming. I've been working in Mills Music Library for over five years and also work with the Oral History Program at the UW-Archives. I believe oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork are neglected by academia as a whole (not necessarily in folklore, anthropology, and ethnomusicology). So much can be gained by talking to people.

Distributive Justice Summary, Reading #3

Julian Lamont’s entry on “Distributive Justice” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy briefly summarizes six different principles on how best to distribute goods and services including the main critiques of each principle. Strict Egalitarianism states that all goods and services should be distributed equally to all people, no matter what. The main critique on Strict Egalitarianism is that people’s material goods do not have to be strictly equal in order for people to be better off. The Difference Principle states that wealth does not have to distributed equally as long as the least advantaged have a larger benefit. The Difference Principle focuses on the relative position of different groups rather than exact equality. This principle is heavily criticized. Resource-Based Principles grew out of the Difference Principle but seeks to distribute goods based on people’s choices and talents. Welfare-Based Principles seek to increase welfare of the people with a focus on the Utilitarian line of thought. It is almost impossible to determine a person’s welfare quantitatively, making it almost impossible for proponents to agree on how to apply this principle. Desert-Based Principles examines people’s contributions, efforts, and/or compensations to determine how to distribute goods and services. A criticism is that economic distribution is based on factors out of an individuals control. Libertarian Principles look at the market as being just in and of itself based on the exchanges made. Implementing these principles is nigh impossible so they exist more as gedankenexperiment rather than viable alternatives to goods distribution. Not that any of them seem to really address the current unequal distribution to goods and services.

[Intro] Jen Moore

Hi, I'm Jen. (Hi, Jen!) I'm in my first year in SLIS; before I went back to school I worked a menial, soul-crushing job for two years, and before that I got my degree in anthropology from Beloit College. (I still haven't ruled out higher education in anthropology, but I nixed it for now because field work scares me.) I wrote a senior thesis on the relationships of the Livejournal fan community for Stargate: Atlantis (and it killed any love for that show I might have had left).

Obviously I'm tremendously interested in how we use the Internet to communicate, build communities, and shape our relationships. I'm particularly interested in the ways that the personas we wear online do (and don't) break down traditional categories like race and gender, socioeconomic status, physical and mental ability, and so on ad infinitum. Can you really be someone totally different online than you are in person?

In that vein, it took me upwards of half an hour to give myself access to this blog. Due to a bit of technological inattentiveness on my part when Blogger first associated itself with Google, I ended up with blogs attached to this Google account (you know, the one with my real name on it) when they should have gone onto another, because I do blog about things I would rather not have associated with my professional career. I, for one, am certainly trying to maintain a divide between one part of my online life and another.

GOOOOGLE

Here's an interesting article about the future of books and Google.

Incidentally, I was made aware of this article from Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dish. It's a great blog. He often covers issues about the digital divide, and does an excellent job creating and publishing thoughtful discussions. So I'd recommend you check him out if you have the time.

Liz E. (Introduction)

Hey y'all. I'm Liz, and saying "y'all" is a persistent habit that this northern girl picked up living in DC for six years. I did my undergrad at Georgetown, majoring in something called "Culture and Politics" and women's studies. Then, I stuck around working as a web developer for Feminist Majority/Ms. Magazine for a couple years. I liked web work a lot, and I met tons of awesome nonprofit people, and I got to feel like a grown up professional person. But the schedule was exhausting, and I was ready to go back to school.

I came to UW in 2006, got my MA, and now I'm a PhD student in the Communication Arts department, the media and cultural studies track. This means that I spend half my time teaching undergrads about radio, television, and film, and the other half pursuing my own interests in online media content and platforms.

I'm particularly interested in media forms that are "native" to the Internet - blogs, wikis, social networking sites, IM software, etc. I like to explore how these media forms do and do not replicate the structures and means of communication that we see in older media and communication technology, and I'm especially curious about the social justice ramifications of access to these tools. As I mentioned, a lot of what I do is about disability studies and web content accessibility - how can sites be coded to be used by the widest range of people in the widest range of situations? Using the Internet always involves our bodies - can nonnormative bodies express themselves and their identities through tools designed for the norm?

As you might expect, I'm a voracious Internet user. My RSS reader is enormous, I think slash fanfic is fascinating, and I love Ravelry, a social networking site for knitters. I'm also a near-constant Twitterer (trilliz). It was hard to write this in more than 140 characters!

Group Gryffindor Articles

Hi friends,

Group Gryffindor has posted supplementary articles for this week's class on our wiki page. So check it out, please!

Richard Intro

Hey I'm Richard. I am the other special student in our class. This is my first class in SLIS, actually its the first class I've taken in awhile.

Originally I am from Brookfield which is right outside Milwaukee. There isn't much there, mostly malls and more malls so I'll move on. I did my undergrad here and got a BA in Psychology though I spent a couple years in engineering. Since then I have mostly been working and traveling when I get the chance. The picture of me is from Costa Rica near Playa Hermosa.

Currently I work at the Legislative Reference Bureau in library services. I do a lot of clippings scanning, meta tagging, circulation, all that fun stuff. I also worked for the WI State Law Library for quite a long time as the circulation assistant. I suppose I should try to get a job with the executive branch next so I can cross all three branches off my list.

Jessica Fairchild Intro

Greetings,
I'm a second year, last semester SLIS student with interests in electronic records, digital information/technologies, archives and records management. Lately I've become interested in the social and cultural aspects of digital information/technologies and how they shape the records we create.

I received my BA, what seems like many moons ago, from UCSD in Sociology and English Lit. While an undergrad I found myself working at Geisel Library and had many wonderful opportunities working in a number of different departments. After several years at Geisel, I took a leave of absence to work for Semester at Sea. I sailed with them on their fall 2002 voyage, and we traveled to many great places, such as Vietnam, Kenya, Brazil, Cuba, India and several others. (FYI: At least when I traveled, they hire 1 librarian position each voyage. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who loves to explore the world, meet interesting people, and eat amazing food.)

Before moving to Madison three years ago, my husband and I lived in Juneau, Alaska. I worked for a whale watching outfit for a few summers and then worked at the Alaska State Archives. I found myself in Alaska, by way of Panama, hoping to make some cash to fund an extended life of leisure back in beautiful Panama. However, I met my husband in Juneau (I know cliche) and as they say...the rest is history. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on September 4th, 2008, and each day she inspires me to be a better person and to see the world with new eyes.

I currently work at the University Archives and Records Management Services on the RM side of things. Upon graduation, we plan to move back to sunny San Diego.

Meagan P. (Introduction)

Hi. I'm Meagan Parker, a second semester student in SLIS. This is my dog Dipsy, who is both cute and incredibly naughty. She likes to eat coins.

I grew up in Wauwatosa, WI. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to live in a big city someday, and so moved to Chicago for my undergraduate studies. I attended DePaul University and got my BA in English and a minor in Peace Studies. While at DePaul, I became involved with various social justice organizations both within the university and around the city. Chicago stole my heart, and I'm hoping to move back and work in the public library system there. Through my work at both a homeless shelter/resource center and an after school program on Chicago's West Side, I realized that public libraries combined many of my passions. Deciding that this was how I wanted to "do my part" and be a part of the community led me here to Madison.


In my free time, I enjoy reading, baking, spending time with friends, riding my bike, and looking at cats on Petfinder.com. Unfortunately, several important people in my life are allergic, so I just covet friends' cats and stare longingly at them on the Internet.

Hi. My name is Katie and this is my second semester in SLIS. And also my first blog post. Ever. Seriously.

I grew up in the great city of Milwaukee, WI with my lovely parents and two brothers. I spent the first two years of my undergraduate career at the University of Colorado-Boulder. in 2004, I transferred to UW-Milwaukee and received a B.A. in English and art history. After graduating, I traveled around China with my boyfriend, who was living and teaching there for a year, organized a kick-ass street festival for a local non-profit, and worked as the office manager/factotum for a local restaurant group after breaking my foot while waitressing at one of their restaurants. It’s probably one of the cooler events of my life: breaking foot leads to ginormous promotion. Awesome.

The boy and I moved here in August and have been working/schooling ever since. I currently work at the Kohler Art Library and at Digital Collections. I am interested in art and academic librarianship, print culture, and digital curation. Some non-school/work things I like are reading, gluten-free dairy-free cooking (it’s way more delicious than you think), sewing, pilates, listening to Radio Lab and This American Life podcasts, Netflix, and playing with my two cats, Charlie Baxter and Mimi Lou.

This is a picture of myself celebrating the beauty of a piece of moss (held up to my neck) that I recently found on a hike outside of San Francisco. It was lovely. Unfortunately, soon after my brother destroyed it. Older brothers are horrible. I have two. I'm not even going to get into the time they told me they had put my favorite teddy bear in the oven and turned it into a spoon.

Anyways, this is my second semester in SLIS and my interests are predominately in the public library sphere. I have recently begun working at the CCBC and find children's and young adult books quite interesting. I also work at the Hawthorne Branch of the public library. I received my undergraduate here in Madison, in English and Women's Studies. I am a true and blue Wisconsinite, hailing from the Musky Capitol of the World- Hayward (also home to the World Lumberjack Championships).

I always knew that I eventually wanted to end up in library school, but I took two years off and worked as a personal care assistant to people with disabilities, which I found to be a very rewarding and invaluable experience.

I'm looking forward to the semester!

High Fives All Around!

please allow me to introduce myself:

my name is chris lay, and i'm finishing up my fourth and final semester in SLIS. i am originally from north carolina, having been born and raised in the currently booming ("next atlanta, y'all!") city of charlotte. i accomplished my undergrad at appalachian state in the sleepy mountain town of boone, nc. my alma mater is known and liked in this city due to the fact that our football team stunned michigan state a couple of seasons ago, beating them on their own turf. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," as they say.

i earned my undergrad degree in the discipline of interdisciplinary studies, which is a fancy way of saying that i took a bunch of very cool humanities courses and strung them together with the metaphorical bubblegum provided by post modernism. i also minored in english lit. for all intents and purposes, as far any career opportunities go, we can all see that i was kinda screwed.

i started working in an elementary school upon graduation and found myself spending more and more time in the library. after working for a year as a first grade teachers assistant, the position of library assistant was created and i very quickly submitted my application. not long after working in the media center, i decided that it was high time to take adulthood by the horns and get a degree in librarianship, which led me to the place i am today.

i am interested in a lot of digital and technological issues, usually pertaining to copyright and the general umbrella of the "free culture" movement. currently i work in the computer lab of second floor college library and in the digital liab of the historical society.

Introduction {Alyson}

Hello. I am Alyson. I did my undergraduate career here as well. I studied Music History and Spanish Literature. I studied abroad in Sevilla, played French horn in a woodwind quintet called “A Plethora of Distractions,” and played French horn in a Punk/Ska band called “Sunshine Policy.”

After undergrad, I took two years off before coming back to grad school. I lived and worked in Argentina for a year. I was in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. I was a volunteer at a nursing home where I did actually play bingo at least once a week. In the afternoons I worked with a feminist Lutheran pastor on issues of Gender Justice and Women’s rights.

The second year, I was an AmeriCorps*VISTA at Inver Hills Community College just south of Saint Paul. I worked their Service Learning Program. It was great place to work and I really enjoyed collaborating with both students and instructors on integrating service into their courses.

This is my first year as a SLIS student, though I took the other 640 with Louise Robbins last spring. I am in second year of the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies program after starting Fall 2007. I will be working on my thesis this semester as well as finishing up with my last two classes for them. My thesis is on the response of different groups to femicides in Ciudad Juarez.

Introduction [Sara A.]

Hello. I'm Sara, this is my second semester taking classes as a special student, have applied for SLIS grad program fall of 2009. I moved to Madison about a year and a half ago from Milwaukee.

My undergrad is from UW-Milwaukee in Information Science. While a student (and for a bit afterward/before) I was also a bookseller, 8 years total. After graduation I worked in a small bindery doing antique book/document restoration/preservation. Before moving to Madison I worked at a large hospital doing medical records management.

Currently I work at the Madison central library. My main jobs right now are the Internet/Computer Sign-Up/Help Desk and Interlibrary Loan processing (which I actually like). I have also worked quite a bit in technical services. I volunteer in the preservation lab at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and will most likely be starting at LTE position there shortly.

I have a variety of library interests but my main interest is preservation and access to antique/rare/historically valuable materials. Specifically creating digital systems and records of fragile materials to prevent loss, but also long term storage, repair, and care. I really enjoy the "crafting" part of book and document repair. Does it seem like I should be getting a conservation degree? Yeah, sorta, but I am also very interested in other aspects of librarianship (and many other things as well, including social justice, public education, environmental issues, information access etc etc etc).

In my non-school/career life some of the things I enjoy are reading (duh), cats, vegan cooking (I'm not strict, but all my cooking is), the Internet, crafting (mostly knitting & embroidery), archery, bookbinding, politics, and tea.

Shauna M. (Introduction)

Hi there. I'm a first-year Master's student at SLIS. I'm still solidifying my areas of research interest, but I enjoy examining issues surrounding digital divides, games, learning and society, LGBTQ issues, tribal libraries, and visual culture.

Prior to coming to SLIS, I was a Reading Specialist in Portland, OR. During the academic year, I taught elementary-aged children at two Title I schools. The funding for my program was geared towards servicing the needs of youth of color and youth from families living below the poverty line. I miss teaching and having the rare opportunity to provide individualized instruction to my students. It was an extremely difficult situation to leave my job and pursue a Master's degree.

That said, grad school has consumed my life. When I'm not on campus, you can find me drinking copious amounts of coffee at Barriques while working on homework. I enjoy crafting, playing video games (mainly RPGs and Strategy/RPGs), reading, making art, thrifting, spending time in the woods, among other things. I also like hanging out with my nearly toothless feline friend, Muppet (aka. Muppettron 2000).

[Intro] Sarah R.

Greetings. I am a second-year Master's student in SLIS. My areas of academic interest include:

The Information Society and its sociocultural, economic and ethical implications. Issues of digital divides, Internet/networked culture, the nature of digital information, information transmission and dissemination,information as commodity, information as currency. Digital technology and Internet policy development. Open source movements. Information organization and access. Findability. Fair use and copyright. Information and/as control. Games, gaming and society. Machine-assisted information search, ranking and retrieval. Undergraduate LIS education. History of technology.

If you're wondering if that might be cut and pasted directly from my CV, you'd be right.

Prior returning to academia to pursue my Master's degree, I had a decade-long career in academic IT, the majority of which was undertaken at this place. I was a TA for LIS 201, and am presently TAing for LIS 202.

I used to have hobbies and outside interests, but I've mostly forgotten them since being in school. I like road biking when the tundra thaws. I am too lazy to go to yoga but I like it. I played Fable 2 as much as possible over break, and I think it's the first time I have ever, ever, ever "finished" a game (as much as you can finish a game of this nature) in my life.

Reading #2, Summary for class

In "The Picture: Growing Economic Insecurity and Inequality," Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel attempt to illuminate a trend of greater economic inequality in the United States.  The article includes statistics to reveal the economic disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest, occasionally focusing on the differences between African-Americans, Latinos and White Americans.  Racial groups like Asian-Americans are not discussed and the differences between men and women are only briefly touched upon.  

The authors use graphs to visually represent their data and often use comic strips as a tool of social commentary, which they try to avoid directly engaging in with their prose.  They don't pursue deep reasons for the causes of economic inequality, nor do they offer potential remedies.  Instead, the article works as an introduction and is intended for an audience with little or no experience in economics, as they define terms like "real income," "wealth," and "median net worth," which experienced economists would already understand.

The article frequently takes an historical perspective in order to show not only how things have changed over time, but also how things are potentially reverting to levels of the past.  For example, one graphs shows the top 1% of the population's share of the household wealth from 1922 to 2001 (p. 53).  The numbers dip in the middle of this period and then seem to be rising again to previous levels.  A rhetorical question lingers behind all of the statistics: are we making any progress in creating economic equality?

intro

Hello

Welcome to My Life

Hey there-

My name is Zack and I am currently a sophomore at UW-Madison. This semester, I will be applying for the Strategic Communications (advertising and PR) program within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Also, I am applying for the CIB program from the School of Business in order to have a little financial knowledge under my belt when I enter the field marketing/advertising after college.

Originally, I grew up in a suburb outside of St. Paul, MN. Although I am the youngest person in LIS 640, being the "baby" is nothing new to me - that is, I have an older brother (UW graduate and current medical school student at the University of Minnesota) in addition to my mother and father.

In my spare time at Madison, I am either working as an intern at the UW-Morgridge Center for Public Service, planing events as the VP-Membership of a professional-business fraternity on campus, playing a little bit of ultimate frisbee, working out at the SERF, cooking for in my apartment for my friends (the photo above is me with one of my dessert creations), or studying at one of the various UW-Libraries around campus. If you look around College Library or the Grainger Business Library, you will most likely find me attempting to study.

L. Wynholds

Intro:

I'm a second year SLIS student in the technology track. Before coming to the Library School here in Madison, I had worked my way around a univerisity library system in central California. I grew up in California in a predominantly poor, rural area and majored in Environmental Sciences and German as an undergrad. I was an avid reader as a child and enjoyed a hobby of writing candidly of the velocity of living, although graduate work pretty much precludes having much of a personal life.

Since moving to Wisconsin, I've been working for the Wildlife Disease Information Node, which is a federal information gathering and disseminating agency. I also have a project assistantship with the folklore department working with issues of digital archives.

Lori Bird Intro

Hi, I'm Lori, and I'm a second-year SLIS student. I work at the Beaver Dam Community Library as the youth services librarian. If you looked at the photo in my profile you may wonder why I'm so happy to be on a Segway (Segway the Door Tours). They ARE strange machines, but also kind of fun. No, it's not my main form of transportation. Yes, I'm wearing a helmet. Too bad for you that I didn't post the picture where I'm also wearing an enormous yellow poncho (during a hail storm). I'm looking forward to this semester. I'm also in LIS 645 - Intellectual Freedom, and I think the two classes will work well together.

Announcement: For-credit service-learning with digital media

This is a great community technology project which I encourage students to explore if they have the time and seriousness of purpose to devote to it. (I am willing to sign on as the "directed study" faculty member for any LIS 640 students who are interested in doing it for one credit.)

Want To Help Local Non-Profits With Their Technology Needs?

Want to Earn Course Credit and Gain Valuable Experience in Your Community?

TechShop Madison has service-learning opportunities available to students for the Spring 2009 semester. Credit is given through directed study or a 1-credit add-on to an existing class.

Work with our committed team of student leaders, UW-Madison faculty and staff, and non-profit partners to build the technology capacity of local community organizations. Students work one-on-one with non-profit staff in order to meet the technology needs of the organization over the course of the semester. The Spring 2009 project theme is using Web 2.0 technologies (social networking, blogging, online photos and videos, podcasting) to advance the work of our non-profit partners.

Students from all disciplines are welcome! Good communication skills and willingness to develop expertise in the selected technology topics are required. The 40-hour commitment (over the semester) includes all training and service requirements.

Visit our website to fill out an application:
http://comm-org.wisc.edu/techshop/news.php

Applications are due January 26 at noon.

Contact Nikki Gilbertson at ngilbertson@wisc.edu for more information on the application and interview process.

Course readers are in

The LIS 640 xeroxed course reader is ready at ASM Student Print, for the low, low price of $24.60

Getting ready for Spring 2009

Hi folks. I'm reworking our "digital divides and differences" class for the new semester (as usual) so check back once classes start. This year we have a "One Laptop Per Child" machine to play with, and I'm going to build in some interesting wiki-based writing as well.