Fall 2016
Course DetailsInstructor
Dr. Betsy Van der Veer Martens Course Experience After over a year of anticipation in starting the program, I was ready to dive in to learning about the fundamental concepts of library and information studies. I loved learning about the past, present, and future of the discipline. Returning to the groove of school, I remembered how much I enjoy finding research and exploring ideas to learn and write. ALSC Competencies At the time of this course, I was a Bilingual Children's Associate responsible for children's programming at the Martin Regional Library. This course offers a broad foundation for every information professional. I used my focus of and experience with services to children to inform my understanding of the concepts in this class. I. Commitment to Client Group: I.1, I.2, I.3 I.6, I.7 V. Outreach and Advocacy: V.3, V.4, V.6 VII. Professionalism and Professional Development: VII.2, VII.3, VII.4, VII.6, VII.7 |
Samples of CourseworkAs I started the OU MLIS program and this first core class, I learned many new terms and concepts. One such concept that I explored was folksonomies, the creation of taxonomies by laypeople. Having been a user of a variety of online services in the early 2000's and the Web 2.0 period which used folksonomic structures (such as the now defunct platforms Delicious and StumbleUpon), prior to my entry into librarianship, I was and remain fascinated by the way laypeople create their own sorting and cataloging systems.
For another project, I chose a book from a provided list on LIS related topics to read and review. When I went through the list, I looked specifically for a book written by a woman of color. I selected Lauret Savoy's Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape. This work became a foundationtext for me as I moved forward in my MLIS career, encouraging me to remember and to pay attention to history and the diverse world we inhabit. I also later published an edited version of this book review as part of my writing on the library school student blog HackLibrarySchool.
Reading and reviewing this book helped me to achieve the ALSC competency area of Commitment to the Client Group, especially I.2, "Recognizes racism, ethnocentrism, classism, heterosexism, genderism, ableism, and other systems of discrimination and exclusion in the community and its institutions, including the library, and interrupts them by way of culturally competent services." While the library is not necessarily the focal point of Savoy's work, the library is inextricably linked with the issues raised about America in this book.
For the final essay in this course, I chose to explore e-books in the public library. Reviewing this paper now for the purposes of adding it to my portfolio rekindles (pun intended) my interest in the research of e-books, especially in the context of the Amazon Kindle universe.
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Course Description from Syllabus
Acquaints students with the nature of knowledge and information; national and global organizational information infrastructure; the role of information and knowledge professionals in the knowledge society; information policy; economics of information; information industries; legal and ethical considerations in information and knowledge systems.
Student Learning Objectives from Syllabus
Acquaints students with the nature of knowledge and information; national and global organizational information infrastructure; the role of information and knowledge professionals in the knowledge society; information policy; economics of information; information industries; legal and ethical considerations in information and knowledge systems.
Student Learning Objectives from Syllabus
- Trace the historical development of management as a discipline, including contemporary theories of leadership.
- Describe the concepts of organizational structure using examples to illustrate the concepts of specialization and coordination.
- Summarize the communication and controlling functions of an organization.
- Identify the tasks of human resources management in an organization.
- Apply a variety of theory-based techniques to organizational problem solving.
- Apply planning and assessment processes to management activities.
- Formulate appropriate responses to environmental changes affecting organizations