On Jan. 31, the Jack Ridl Visiting Writers Series will feature two of Hope College's English professors, David Cho and Heather Sellers.
David Cho came to Hope in 2008. He was born and raised in Chicago and earned degrees from the University of Illinois, Purdue, and the University of Washington. His creative and scholarly works have appeared in journals such as Amerasia, Many Mountains Moving, and Theology Today. In 2010, Cho's chapbook of poetry Song of our Songs was published. His most recent chapbook Night Sessions, published last summer, was nominated for the 2011 National Book Awards.
Heather Sellers has taught at Hope since 1995. Her memoir You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, released in 2010, gained much national attention and was featured in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and O, the Oprah Magazine, where it was a book of the month pick in November 2010. Sellers has several other books published, including three volumes of poetry, three books on writing, a children's book, and a short story collection entitled Georgia Under Water, which was a Barnes and Noble Great New Writers selection.
You can find many of their works available in the libraries Featured Collections on the 1st floor. Cho and Sellers will present a reading at 7 p.m. on Jan. 31 in Winants Auditorium in Graves Hall. In addition, a question-and-answer session with Cho and Sellers will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the Herrick Room on the second floor of DeWitt the same day.
Christine Cho, a Metadata Librarian at Van Wylen has been working with Geoffrey Reynolds from the Joint Archives of Holland to add historical images to Image Collections. Currently, Cho is using Envisioning Hope College, a collection of letters written from A.C. Van Raalte to Phillip Phelps in the early years of Hope's existence, to help prepare another collection of historical images for inclusion in the database.
Though Image Collections @ Hope College is in its early stages right now, eventually the site will have even more image collections that will be helpful to students. One collection that is planned is a group of images from the history of Holland.
"Hopefully we get a lot more content up there, so students find it useful for their research and faculty can also use it in their teaching," Cho said.
When teaching students about Internet research and how to think critically about sources that can be found freely online, we librarians may at times sound like broken records, giving repeated “warnings” followed by a list of tips on how to scrutinize and evaluate web content. Who wrote this piece?Is it credible? Why?Does it cite any sources? Etc. It is not that we want to discourage students from using the Internet as a legitimate research tool, but rather we simply want to make perfectly clear the fact that not all sources drawn from this seemingly omnipotent portal to information hold the same weight. Broken record or not, I will continue to emphasize these things to students as they are profoundly important to both scholarly and personal research.
But, there is more…
It is a common misconception that, at any given time, when you “Google” something, the results will be the same for everyone, everywhere, pulled systematically from the same vast, universal pool of available information. In The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, political and Internet activist, Eli Pariser explains some of the ways in which online searching has drastically changed in recent years.For example, in December 2009, Google began using “fifty-seven signals—everything from where you were logging in from to what browser you were using to what you had searched for before—to make guesses about who you were and what kinds of sites you’d like. Even if you were logged out, it would customize its results, showing you the pages it predicted you were most likely to click on.” Just as sites like Amazon and Ebay offer suggestions based on your prior purchases, Google now tries to feed content (not just advertisements) to you based on your web browsing history and personal interests as they are perceived, or “guessed,” by an algorithm.Sure, in some circumstances, being told “if you liked _____, then you most certainly will like _____” is convenient and helpful in making decisions, but what does this mean in the context of real Internet research?In the “filter bubble,” the curiosity of the genuinely inquisitive researcher may be radically curbed.Do you want information that is relevant to your query or just relevant to you?
Pariser refers to this personalized cycle of information access as the “you loop” in which we are all at risk of becoming broken records, fed the same kinds of search results, over and over again in our own comfortable and familiar “filter bubble”―a virtual information echo chamber.According to Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, “most people don't want Google to answer their questions …They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."This sounds to me like something I would like a cool new app on my phone to do, not my Google search results when delving into a serious research question.However, with the way things are going, Schmidt predicts “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we stress the importance of looking beyond the first page of results produced by a Google (or whatever) search. Many times I have heard people misinterpret their ability to get results fast as proof that they are a good researcher. Efficiency ≠ good research skills.
This adds an entirely new element to the practice of critically analyzing our Internet search results.When the “filter bubble” becomes too small and the “you loop” too tight, many topics may eventually not stand a fighting chance at being thoroughly researched online. Indeed, the apparent dearth of information reporting alternate viewpoint of an issue (the stuff floating outside your bubble) and the abundance of information that mirrors the position of the researcher could alone be enough evidence to infer, "More people agree with me than disagree -- I must be right!" Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? The first step in countering this is simply knowing that now, perhaps more than ever, a single Google search will not suffice, and not just in the context of academic research. Pariser warns, “If identity loops aren’t counteracted through randomness and serendipity, you could end up stuck in the foothills of your identity, far away from the high peaks in the distance.”
So, where in the present information environment can one still find "randomness" and serendipity"? Well, the library, for one. Take a look at the American Library Association Code of Ethics. Librarians are committed to building and maintaining balanced collections and helping users navigate information in a completely neutral manner. Most libraries (ours included) don't have "liberal" or "conservative" sections, only "subject" sections in which librarians will be more than happy to help you navigate or set you free to explore. If you want information on a particular topic, we'll always do our best to help you find it, but don't be surprised if in the process we come across something you never would have thought of or even thought we would own or be able to access.
Check out Pariser’s TED Talk in the video below.He explains this all much better than I have here, first in the context of facebook and then moving on to Google searches and online news providers.
On exhibit in the first floor of Van Wylen Library is a unique gift of Chinese landscapes by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. This edition of Chinese landscapes is a private personal edition published around 1962 and personally inscribed in 1976 to George Zuidema, who recently donated his edition to the library. It includes 24 landscape lithographs. The paintings depict the serenity of nature and Chinese culture, an interesting contrast to the tumultuous life of Madame Chiang.
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek took up painting around 1953, relatively late in life. She first exhibited her paintings at the age of 102 in January 2000 at the World Journal Art Gallery in New York and in February 2000 at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.
Mayling Soong was raised as a Christian and graduated from Wellesley College in 1917. She later married Chinese nationalist general Chiang Kai-shek who led China during World War II but fled China in 1949 to set up his government in exile in Taiwan after losing a civil war to the communists. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek took a leading role in nationalist politics and was influential with the U.S. government. She became the first Chinese and only the second women to address a joint session of Congress, where she sought to increase support for China in the war against Japan.
In 1937 Life magazine claimed that she was “probably the most powerful woman in the world,” and she graced the cover of Time Magazine in 1931, 1938 and 1943. She died in 2003 at the age of 106.
The Van Wylen Library has many books about Madame Chiang Kai-Shek including:
Looking for a way to stream ad-free Christmas music? Consider using the Naxos Music Library. This online music library allows users to stream music over the Internet from over 60,000 classical (and some popular) albums.
While Naxos allows you to listen to individual songs or entire albums, you can also create a playlist to listen to music from a variety of CDs. Click on the "Playlist" tab, and after you've created a free account you'll be able to search the entire Naxos library for Christmas music and develop your own playlist from their recordings. Just contact the library if you have any questions about how to do this.
Think you'll need a study break during finals week? From Dec. 11 to Dec. 14 in the evening, the Cup and Chaucer will sell 12" thin crust one topping pizzas for $7.00. You can add additional toppings for 50 cents each. Available toppings are extra cheese, pepperoni, sausage, ham, pineapple, red pepper, green pepper, onion, mushroom, tomato, green olives and black olives.
The cashier at the Cup and Chaucer will take orders between 7:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. and pizzas will be delivered on the half hour. You must pay for your pizza when you order it. Your delivered pizza cannot be eaten in the main part of the library, but you're welcome to sit in the Cup and Chaucer and enjoy your food.
Looking for some visual effects for your posters or just a fun study break? In addition to pop-up books and teaching materials, the curriculum library on the second floor of Van Wylen is also home to two Ellison die cut machines. Ellison die cut machines use dies to punch shapes, letters, numbers, and nearly anything else you can think of out of paper.
While the Ellison die cuts may be located in the curriculum library, anyone is welcome to use them. The cuts they make are great for posters and projects for class but can also be used for a variety of craft projects, including cards, signs, or simply a study break craft. Colored paper is available for purchase at the Media Desk.
Ambrose Video has over 1200 streaming educational videos in their archives, and, for the next month, Van Wylen library users have access to three complete Ambrose collections. During this trial period, you can stream all 37 of the BBC productions of Shakespeare's plays, six hour-long episodes tracing the history of Christianity from its beginnings to the modern day, and a six episode series detailing Western art history. The trial expires on December 30.
This is one of the library's first explorations of streaming video subscriptions. We would appreciate your feedback on the contents, quality and usability of this service, as we decide if this would be a worthwhile investment. Please send your comments to askalibrarian@hope.edu. You can also browse a list of Ambrose's complete offerings to see what other series are available from this vendor. Let us know if there are other titles that would be of interest to you.
Van Wylen will once again be holding a collecting drive to benefit the Community Action House from November 22nd until finals week. The Community Action House provides a variety of social services to those in need in the greater Holland area.
This year, the Community Action House hopes to collect 150,000 pounds of food, personal care products and 2,500 items of winter weather clothing in their annual holiday drive. Donations of the following will be accepted at the library:
