I am now an associated Christian librarian.

In addition to the perquisites of lots of listserv emails and the “free” copy of the journal, I hope this means I will have the eventual opportunity to help with the Christian Periodical Index.

This officially explains why swot is my new favorite word.

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We now have four occasional and recurring featured posts here at CommonPlaces:

1. commonplaces, where I provide a list of sometimes related new books here where I serve as a theological librarian,
2. book provenance,
3. random quotes from stacks,
4. and now chorea scriptorum, a latin phrase which, roughly translated, means “writer’s cramp.”

Given my newly self-imposed deadlines for research and writing over the next few months, I thought I would record the effects of my swotting and write summaries, reviews, and whatever else I may find helpful from the books I am reading or which cross my desk. I will try to make recommendations that would be helpful to libraries discerning the appropriateness of a book for their collections.

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As you can see, I finally fixed the php code I broke when toying with the template for this blog. Now we are back to where we began, and I (for one) feel much better. This look just feels better.

I’ve also added a couple of new features.

1. The leftbar now contains a list of books I plan to read, am currently reading, and have recently finished reading, each of which links to a page where I will eventually provide reviews. Those pages still have some formatting bugs I need to work out, but they shall be fixed soon. Let me know what you think.
2. I have also removed the page links from the header, so if you are one of my students and are looking for the link to your class page please email me and I will forward it to you.

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The good people over at Monergism.com have begun a new service, takeupandread.com. In their own words:

At takeupandread.com our goal is to sift through the thousands of good volumes to recommend the very best literature for your time and money. Our goal is to expose you to historically important volumes, old books that are timeless in application, excellent contemporary books hot off the press, multi-volume facsimile reproductions, small single-volume books you can read in one day, and searchable electronic books on CD-ROM. Our weekly reviews are published in the hopes of helping you build a diverse library of Christian volumes with tested theology and reliability.

Thanks to The Conventicle for pointing this out.

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I am devoting the next five months to reading and writing about history. April will be on the history of books and libraries, May will be for writing an analysis of justification in Peter Martyr’s Romans locus in comparison with three of Thomas Cranmer’s homilies on the subject. June, July, and August are for finishing my Th.M. thesis before beginning a library science degree in August.

So, hold me accountable to this schedule.

As for the April books, I plan to read one book on the history of the written word, one book on the history of bookshelves, and another on the history of libraries. First up: A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, followed by The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski, and Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles. Reviews to follow, D.V.

I wonder if this site is covered: Books on Poster, entire texts, legibly printed on a single poster. But where do you put it? In the loo? On the ceiling above the bed? Above the microwave? On the ceiling in the dentist’s office? In the elevator at work? Others?

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Reading this on Michael Stephens’ Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology blog:

Lazereow Lecture: Does Print Still Matter?

Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science Presents The 2007 ISI® Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lecture Program, Does Print Still Matter? By Brian Kenney, editor-in-chief of School Library Journal

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. Dominican University 7900 West Division Fine Arts Building Eloise Martin Recital Hall Reception immediately following

Major media companies—some blatantly, others more subversively—are attempting to shift their print products entirely online. Virtual communities (such as MySpace® and Second Life®) have emerged as major social networks. Visual content (found in Flickr™ and YouTube™) is accessible in new ways, serving as both rich databases and as means for communication. This lecture will consider how print—and especially books—fit into this rapidly changing information ecology, with special attention to the lives of young people.

As editor-in-chief of School Library Journal, Brian Kenney believes he has the best job in the world in that he spends most of his time reading, writing, and talking about books, technology, kids, and learning. And he gets to meet some of the most fascinating people in the country: librarians…

Reminded me of this quote:

From Matthew Battles, Library: An Unquiet History (New York: Norton & Co., 2003):

What we face is not the loss of books but the loss of a world. As in Alexandria after Aristotle’s time, or the universities and monasteries of the early Renaissance, or the cluttered-up research libraries of the nineteenth century, the Word shifts again in its modes, tending more and more to dwell in pixels and bit instead of paper and ink. It seems to disappear thereby, as it must have for the ancient Peripatetics, who considered writing a spectral shibboleth of living speech; or the princely collectors of manuscripts in the Renaissance, who saw the newly recovered world of antiquity endangered by the brute force of the press; or the lovers of handmade books in the early nineteenth century, to whom the penny dreadful represented the final dilution of the power of literature. And yet, the very fact that the library has endured these cycles seems to offer hope. In its custody of books and the words they contain, the library has confronted and tamed technology, the forces of change, and the power of princes time and time again.

So what do you think? Is there indeed more at stake than just the loss of librarian job security? What about cultural preservation? Will research skills even be necessary in ten years? What impact will the loss of traditional libraries have on the intellectual development of our kids? our students? our faculty? our churches?

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Now this is cool. Anyone know how to do it for theology papers? Maybe using Google Scholar’s citation search capabilities?

As to what the image depicts, it was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 scientific papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as red and blue circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved lines) were made between the paradigms that shared common members, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms closer to one another when a physical simulation forced them all apart: thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers. Labels list common words unique to each paradigm.

A description of the “feather boa” label layout algorithm, how it is used, and some related work is posted at Mr. Paley’s site [deadlink]. This same image, at its true (readable) 42″ x 43″ size, was recently viewable in person as part of the traveling exhibition Places & Spaces: Mapping Science currently at the New York Hall of Science; it’ll soon be in Chicago.

A copy can be purchased from Information Esthetics for ten dollars.

HT: Seed Magazine, March 7, 2007

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As you can probably tell, CommonPlaces has a new look. Don’t worry – the blogroll is not gone, it has just been moved to the very bottom of the page along with a new recent comments widget. I thought the other theme was becoming a bit busy, plus I actually broke it while editing the php. I then decided that if I must labor to rebuild parts of it, may as well just go with a whole new look. What do you think?

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Dr. Steve Halla, an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the new Center for Theology and the Arts at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, will be presenting two lectures on theology and the arts Thursday, March 22, 2007. Dr. Halla is a trained woodcut artist and has taught at the University of Texas at Dallas and Dallas Theological Seminary. These lectures will be in the Cooke Choral Rehearsal Hall:

• 1:00 P.M.: “Pestilence, Death, and Worship in the Throes of Despair”
• 2:30 P.M.: “Light, Line, and Worship through Transformation of the Everyday”

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By now the open-source, web 2.0, collaborative creation of content debate is no longer new, and indeed, no longer a debate. The movement is here and it is not silent. And it continues to grow into just about every segment of culture, some of which I must confess I did not see coming. And some of which, I must confess, I am glad to see coming.

Most of the griping about this movement seems to be popularly expressed by those whose livelihoods are built on responsible information architecture and discovery. It seems, though, that the world would rather have greater, more ubiquitous, unrefined, customizable access to unevaluated information rather than learn to navigate the rather cryptic systems designed not so much to assist the researcher as to assist the cataloger. Wikipedia, then, becomes the standard reference source. Del.icio.us becomes the new internet guide.

But here is what I didn’t expect: rather than competing and attempting to convince the world of the value of professional information folks, they have now joined the fray. From libraries, to journalism, to religion, open-source is increasingly the new American way even among the establishment authorities.

Get ready for crowdsourcing, a trend to reassign a job traditionally performed by an employed authority in a particular field to an undefined large group of people in the form of an open call over the Internet. Two examples:

Open-Source Journalism

From the Assignment Zero project website:

Welcome to Assignment Zero.

Inspired by the open source movement, this is an attempt to bring journalists together with people in the public who can help cover a story. It’s a collaboration among NewAssignment.Net, Wired, and those who chose to participate.

The investigation takes place in the open, not behind newsroom walls. Participation is voluntary; contributors are welcomed from across the Web. The people getting, telling and vetting the story are a mix of professional journalists and members of the public — also known as citizen journalists. This is a model I describe as “pro-am.”

The “ams” are simply people getting together on their own time to contribute to a project in journalism that for their own reasons they support. The “pros” are journalists guiding and editing the story, setting standards, overseeing fact-checking, and publishing a final version.

In this project, we’re trying to crowdsource a single story…

Here’s the unexpected part: rather than competing with “open-source” journalism such as the Assignment Zero project, the Washington Examiner is joining the movement with its WECAN project.

Open-Source Theology

I have three examples here. Okay, maybe four.

1. Open-source religion is a topic being covered at the Assignment Zero project’s Assignment Desk. It will be interesting to read their collaborative conclusions.
2. The Detroit Free Press had an article yesterday (March 17, 2007) in which it profiled a particular church “as among Michigan’s pioneers in embracing the idea of crowdsourcing congregations — inviting the members to express themselves and shape the church’s worship and programs.” Okay, so I’m somewhat sympathetic here.
3. There is even a blog dedicated to what it calls “open-source theology.” They claim to be “a model for doing community-based ‘theology’.” Theological crowdsourcing, in other words.
4. And finally, a question. What is the relationship between the various congregational church polities and open-source ecclesiology? To what extent does this explain the occasional tension between church leaders and “lay” members (the perceived establishment of hierarchical authorities similar to the role of librarians vs. internet in libraries, traditional journalists vs. bloggers at newspapers, or even the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia)?

This blog maintains a modified open-source policy to comments. No spam, but otherwise please feel free to add your two cents.

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