Wednesday, January 28, 2009

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.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ellen! Since you have an interest in migrant communities I think you'll have some keen perspective as to how new community members, especially those who come from a different culture, might get left behind when it comes to accessing and understanding digital resources.

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  2. Hey Ellen. I think we had a class together in 2005. Did you take East Asian Music history/culture course with Professor Sutton? We may have overlapped in other music history courses as well (like Renaissance Music history with Professor Crook?).

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