Open, Controlled, and Limited Access

What does all this mean?

As Catherine pointed out in her last blog post, we’re not even close to everything being on the internet. However, because of the internet, we do have unprecedented access to books, journals, and a multitude of other information materials. Many of these resources we could never have seen or even found without the internet. Perhaps describing internet resources more specifically will help us to better evaluate and understand their usefulness for our research.

One way of classifying internet resources is by their accessibility. Internet resources may have open access, controlled access, or some form of limited access. A prime example of open access is our online catalog.

Anyone with internet access can see, manipulate and explore the SPST, Kansas City Cluster, and MOBIUS catalogs free of charge, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The cost of these catalogs is paid for by the member schools of the MOBIUS library consortium.

Another type of open access information is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This is a collection of 7437 journals (and growing) intentionally published online, and for which there is no charge. There are 81 journals dedicated specifically to religious studies. DOAJ is where you will find Methodist Review, Homiletic, and the Journal of Religion and Society. Only 1351 of the 7437 journals are published in the US. Many, if not most, of the journals are published in English as well as the source language. Of course, the scholarly practice of critical review that applies to all materials is important when evaluating open access materials. Just think of the breadth of new thought the internet is enabling us to reach! Take a look and explore how these journals might impact the quality of your research.

Stay tuned for more on controlled and limited access resources and their role in your research.

Storytelling in the Theological Library

Storytelling has a long history in modern librarianship.  A big part of librarians’ jobs is promoting literacy, and storytelling hooks potential readers.  Most librarians who include storytelling in their work, however, are children’s librarians.  Here in the Saint Paul libraries, we know that deadlines are enough to keep our students and faculty reading.

But that doesn’t mean that storytelling has no place in the theological library!  Anyone involved in ministry knows the importance of narrative in preaching and in group communication–because adults need stories just as much as children do.  Stories are one of the best ways that we learn and understand.

To find information about incorporating storytelling in your preaching and ministry, do a keyword search in the library catalog or the ATLA database for storytelling.

To learn more about how the writers of the Bible used storytelling techniques, do a subject search for Narration in the Bible.

And if you really love stories, look up some materials on the theology of storytelling by doing a subject search for Narrative theology.

One-stop Shopping for Bibliographic Organization

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It “lives” in your Firefox browser as a 2.4MB add-on. You can easily capture bibliographic information from library catalogs, online journals, databases, Amazon, and web pages with one click of the mouse. You can also collect and store PDFs, images, screenshots, and links to websites, preserving them for later access.

Zotero Homepage

Zotero allows you to edit collected records to correct errors, or standardize bibliographic format. You store records in logical files, relate items directly to one another, or group them via tagging. Insert notes about how you found the source, create abstracts, or comment on the item’s usefulness to other research opportunities.

You can output data in many formats including bibliographies, html code, lists, reports, and more. Zotero integrates fully and directly into Windows or OpenOffice so that footnotes and bibliographies are pre-formatted to the desired citation style.

Your data is available to you both on and offline with up to 100MB free server space. Your personal account login allows you to access, add to, update and edit your information with online synchronization from different locations and equipment. Collaborate and share resources openly or privately with others with similar research interests.

Zotero is developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Andrew W. Mellon and Alfred P. Sloan foundations.

See John at the Dana Dawson Library circulation desk for help in setting up and personalizing your Zotero account. It took me 15 minutes to install Zotero and enable all of the features listed above. How long does it take you to type footnotes and a bibliography for a 10-page paper? Oh, and did I mention it was free?!

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

Because I’m a cataloging librarian, much of my job involves creating accurate descriptions.  Lately I’ve been puzzling over some viewer’s guides from the PBS television show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly:  are they print guides that include a DVD, or are they DVDs that include a print guide?  (It’s a small distinction in most contexts, but in a library it affects everything from the way the catalog record is constructed to where we shelve the item and how it circulates.)

Examining these guides, however, led me to a larger resource:  the website of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, which provides streaming video, podcast downloads (for iTunes), lesson plans for elementary school through high school age groups, and links to other online resources.    Individual stories can be accessed by date, by faith, or by topic.  At the bottom of each page is a link to the archive, which goes back to 1997 in transcripts.   Most of the video segments are between 5 and 10 minutes long, which doesn’t allow for much depth but does make them excellent for conversation starters and an easy way to keep up with some current events.

The website, by the way, also helps you find the local TV schedule for the program.

Things New and Old in the World Library!

The fall semester is clearly underway and no doubt much of your time is already spoken for. I would like to thank all in the community who have taken some time to send me purchase requests for the Dana Dawson Library in KC. I’m also very grateful for the recent spate of donations to the library and archives. Additions both New and Old are always welcomed and encouraged.

Let me encourage you to take a moment at the beginning of each month to look at the list of materials cataloged and made available to you in the month before. It’s easy. Here’s a url that will take you directly to the September acquisitions list for the KC Library: http://www.worldcat.org/libraries/1713. This link is also located near the bottom right of the Saint Paul Library blog page. Look for “Recent Acquisitions.” You can book mark the above link to visit it each month or even use RSS to subscribe to the feed. I’ll tell you how to do that in a future blog.

If you’re curious about urls, you’ll notice two things about the link.

First, our items are listed on WorldCat which is different from WILO and Mobius. WorldCat is an international/world online library catalog that makes it easy to find which library owns what items and to share those resources through interlibrary loan.

Second, the Dana Dawson Library is number “1713” among libraries on WorldCat. What do you think would happen if you changed the url from 1713 to 1712 or 1714? Two free books of your choice from the library sale table will go to the first responder who replies to this blog with the correct names of libraries 1712 and 1714. Even better yet: five free books from the sale table to a different person who can name library 2389.

Go WorldCat!

Logan

Finding Books about Ministry

Welcome to our new students, and welcome back to our continuing students!

I think that all students at Saint Paul find themselves looking for library resources about the topic of ministry.  Most students like to start searching for books in the catalog by using a simple keyword search.  As John is often reminding library users, once you have found a book that looks good in the catalog, you can click the links in the record to browse other titles by the same author or on the same subject.  This research technique is called “pearl-growing” because you start with one source as a grain and collect others around it like the layers of a pearl.

Links to subject terms Pastoral theology and Church work

Pearl-growing is a very useful approach because you don’t have to start your search with an exact term.  However, one very good subject term to keep in mind is Church work.  “Church work” may not be a phrase we would immediately think to search for, but it is the subject that library catalogs use for books on ministry.  Doing a subject search for “church work” not only finds books on general ministry, but also gives you a list of topics on ministry in specific places, with specific groups of people, and with specific tools.  Here is a much-shortened list of examples, just from books available at the Dana Dawson Library on the KC campus:

Church work — Blogs

Church work — Pennsylvania — Erie

Church work — United Methodist Church (U.S.)

Church work with abused women

Church work with African American youth

Church work with apartment dwellers

Church work with children — Sermons

Church work with migrant labor — Missouri

Church work with older people

Church work with stepfamilies

Just remember that when you are looking for books, ministry=church work, and you will find a wealth of information for your project.