New Semester - Mixed Bag

I'm opening the new year with an eclectic mix of items. I continue to be interested in digital history, so I'm going to mention a new website, and I'm also going to touch on a topic that (unfortunately) is becoming a perennial one - public rudeness and incivility.

Digital History

Considering last month's post regarding digital history, I've been on the lookout for good digital history sources. And, now that the semester is underway, I'm particularly interested in keeping my collection of history links up to date. A really good site that's come to my attention lately is called Digital Vaults. Created by the National Archives, this site was recently reviewed in History Eduction News, a publication of the Center for History and New Media.

Digital Vaults is an interactive website containing more than 1,200 items - official documents, images, maps, etc. It can be browsed easily through a system of tags indicating subject areas, and searches can be further refined through "filters" that sort by media type, time frame, or relevance. The site is visually appealing, and employs a visual search interface that graphically displays links. Each item has a brief annotation, and can be viewed in detail with a zoom function. You can also collect items, and manipulate them to create posters or videos. There is a free login that enables users to create an account so they can save and email their collections and projects. I've created an account, and I'm excited about experimenting with it, and sharing it with our faculty.

Incivility in the Academic Library

On a less than exciting note, there is the issue of the growing problem of bad public behavior, or incivility. Certainly, this is a problem that's been festering in our public culture for more than a decade, but it seems to have been more strongly manifest in recent years. I've just read an interesting piece from the ACRLog, in which one of the bloggers, an academic librarian from Pennsylvania, summarized a discussion on this topic by Frank Farley, Psychology Chair at Drexel. Referencing current research, Farley points to a number of factors that are driving the phenomenon of public incivility, mostly emanating from an increasingly juvenile and debased popular culture, as evinced in the narcissistic zero-sum-game ethos portrayed in "reality TV" programs. According to Farley, these influences, along with a "culture of complaint" fostered in the mass media, are amplified by anonymous and ubiquitous technologies like the Internet.

I think that those of us who have worked in academia for any length of time are only too familiar with these issues as they affect the college classroom and the academic library. The likelihood, however, that colleges and universities will ever see a return to some mythical halcyon days of buttoned-down quiet, scholarly contemplation, and polite discourse is probably remote. Nevertheless, Farley recommends an article that summarizes research into student incivility and suggests methods than can be used to cope with the problem. That's something that we can all profit from. See: Jennifer Schroeder and Harvetta Robertson. "Civility in the College Classroom" Psychological Science 21, no. 10 (Nov. 2008).