Open-Access and The Cupola

I am currently working to develop The Cupola, Gettysburg College’s open-access compliant institutional repository. That’s a mouthful! What, exactly, is an open-access compliant institutional repository? Since I’m a philosophy student at heart, I’ll engage in a little bit of conceptual analysis and explain what each of these constituent terms mean. An institutional repository is a place where an institution—in this case, Gettysburg College—can store and preserving the research created by its members. The Cupola stores research by faculty, but also students. [excerpt

Final Post

It’s hard to believe that my last semester at Gettysburg College is almost over. My senior year has gone by so quickly! Yesterday, I helped with the Finals Study Break. We served almost 12 gallons on ice cream to students working in the library. I also managed to win my first game of Uno with Clint, Mallory, Meghan, and Chelsea. I have learned so much from my internship. Our library is a complex organism with various moving parts, and it takes coordination and hard work to keep things running. I am glad that I was about to focus on one aspect of librarianship to see how it connects with the other parts of the library. [excerpt

Instruction and Focus Groups

My internship focuses not only on reference librarianship, but also information literacy and instruction. Accordingly, I’ve been fortunate to sit in on some library instruction classes with Clint. I think that the image of a librarian as a reference resource is pretty well established in our cultural consciousness, at least here at Gettysburg College, but the image of librarian as teacher is perhaps not as prominent. At some colleges and universities, however, librarians are considered part of the faculty. [excerpt

Introduction Post: John Hill

My first two weeks have been busy and exciting. I have trained with several reference librarians during my shifts at the Reference Desk. Each of them has a different perspective on librarianship, and each of them plays a different role in Musselman Library, but all of them are devoted to making useful resources available to students and faculty and to teaching them how to use these resources. I am excited to practice strategies for answering people’s questions, but I am admittedly nervous to staff the desk on my own. I am confident, though, that with a little bit more time and experience, I’ll be okay. [excerpt

At the Desk

During the past few weeks of my internship, I\u27ve spent time providing research consultations at the Reference Desk. I initially sat with a librarian during my shift, but I’m now working independently. Since then, I have fielded questions about gender roles in high school guidance offices, the invasive nature of the lionfish species, and the causes of industrialization in early modern Spain. [excerpt

"We are GREAT Britain": British newspaper narratives during the London 2012 Olympic Games

British newspaper narratives were examined during the 2012 London Olympic Games to discern how the British press promoted specific “narratives of the nation.” For the London-based British press, the home Olympics became the ideal medium not only to sell newspapers and electronic format subscriptions, but also to (re)present their views on Britain and what it stood for. Using a qualitative textual analysis methodology, this study drew on Anderson’s theory of the “imagined community” and Edmunds and Turner’s concepts of benign and malign nationalism to provide insights about how Britishness was framed. For a country struggling to shake off the economic recession, early narratives about the Games were imbued with concerns about the escalating costs of hosting the Games and fears of terrorism. However, the critical early tone of British newspaper narratives was supplanted with uplifting, inspirational stories about the unprecedented success of Team GB athletes. This provided British journalists with an opportunity to reengineer Britishness to reinforce some traditional values and inject some new inclusive ones. Although at times, complex, contested and contradictory, the narratives generally linked the internationalism of the Olympics with a progressive, benign version of Britishness that emphasized inclusion, tolerance, and creativity and, at least temporarily, redefined how Britain regarded itself and was viewed.</jats:p

DRUMMING AWAY DRUGS: AN INNOVATIVE ALTERNATIVE TOWARDS DRUG REHABILITATION

Drug use poses a serious threat to the quality of life for many Kentuckians and their families. Recent statistics indicate drug offenders account for a significant portion (in one year, 52,597 arrests were made for drug violations statewide) of individuals within thecriminal justice system, directly affecting the economic vitality within our state (Bunn & Slavova, 2012; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2012). These statistics signify an overwhelming need for effective prevention efforts and innovative treatment alternatives. This study provides an innovative alternative treatment for drug offenders that infuses social and emotional coping strategies using percussion as a context. During the innovative program participants were able to express, recognize, articulate and evaluate themselves and their peers’ emotional coping strategies while developing peer camaraderie. They did so while being introduced to rudimentary drumming skills, fusing emotional intelligence with the art of drumming. The hypothesis is that this innovative program will enhance participant emotional intelligence to express, learn an effective coping skill, and establish camaraderie with their peers

Carruthers and Constitutive Self-Knowledge

In his recent book, The Opacity of Mind, Peter Carruthers advances a skeptical theory of self-knowledge, integrating results from experimental psychology and cognitive science. In this essay, I want to suggest that the situation is not quite as dire as Carruthers makes it out to be. I respond to Carruthers by advancing a constitutive theory of self-knowledge. I argue that self-knowledge, so understood, is not only compatible with the empirical research that Carruthers utilizes, but also helps to make sense of these results