Wednesday, March 30, 2016

More Reference books on the move

Lots more Industry Surveys this week.


Plus! Such a nice collection of Historical Abstract of the US. I'm gonna miss these buddies when they reside in the stacks.




This feels like a milestone because I love grabbing one and riffing on its usefulness when training the new student workers. I always say, "Nearly any imaginable statistic you could ever need is in this little ditty."

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Cart 100

Yesterday was a milestone... Cart 100 of books on the move from Ref to the Stacks. This cart was composed of H call numbers... still trucking through the business reference books.






With any luck, we'll have everything moved before I go to Prague on May 14!

Friday, March 4, 2016

Catching a breath to reflect in the H section

We're making incredible progress moving the Reference print collection to that stacks thanks to all my colleagues' joint efforts in Cataloging and Access Services. On Wednesday I was struck by the vast empty black shelving as I walked into the room.

This week the Ref student workers packed up no less than 14 carts of Reference books for Cataloging to work their record magic on, covering call numbers N31 H84 v. 1 -- HN 49 V64 A47 2008.

It's starting to move so fast I am worried about emotional fall out.

I also wonder if it is time to tell our external stakeholders (students and faculty) what in the world is going on... time for a blog post on Gleeson Gleanings?











Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Visual Literacy Workshop

Last Friday (2/26/2016) I attended a Visual Literacy Workshop in Berkeley hosted by the Visual Resources Association and led by the engaging and funny Jessica Sack.

In the morning, we looked at original art in the new Berkeley Art Museum.

Ms. Sack instructed us in the art of open questioning...

What do you see?



What's going on?


And then narrowing questions to focus seeing.

Use the list of words your partner supplied to identify the art object they described... what from those words guided you to the art?





Draw what you see.




We freed ourselves from the analysis of language by lingering in the visual impression rather than jumping to our discoveries.

At the end of the first half, we were armed with question to cultivate visual literacy with viewers of art and a list of teaching outcomes.

View from the women's restroom, 4th floor Doe Library

In the afternoon, we looked at reproductions of art in the art slide room of the Visual Resource Center in UC Berkeley's Doe Library.



Ms. Sack instructed us in the art of critique of digital reproductions.



Three different color saturations of a Van Gogh painting...

A painting by Winslow Homer that was mistaken for depicting a school bell...
... seemingly connected to a Winslow Homer etching depicting a bell summoning men, women, and children to work in a rural factory published in Harper's Weekly.

How does the poem "The Morning Bell," published with the etching in Harper's Weekly, give meaning to the painting, which was held in a private collection for many years?



And we closed the workshop by writing a reflection... On how to question... How to engage with a work of art... How to critically assess context and bias.

Above all the workshop provided an intersecting space for open and congenial librarians, educators, art history students, and museum curators and I left feeling inspired by the fulfillment of learning to look and learning to teach how to look. Judging from the new colleagues I met at the workshop, I'm in good company in that pursuit.