It was a crazy semester, with lots of highs and lows
1) LIS 690: Internship
This semester's internship was more trouble than it was worth! It was at Hawaii State Library(HSL), with a emotionally unstable supervisor Tisha Aragaki!I wrote about her and my time at HSL at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/04/problems-at-hsl.html
I also wrote about the corrupt LIS internship coordinator Noriko Asato at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/05/professional-victim-professor.html
If anyone at the LIS program has a problem with those 2 blog posts, I'll just remind them with this
This blog is my use of Intellectual Freedom to protest corruption at HSL, LIS and UH-Manoa. Any attempts to expell me from LIS or UH-Manoa over this blog is a violation of my Intellectual Freedom and my freedom to express grievances on an academic siutation! Any attempts to expell me from LIS or UH-Manoa over this blog will be challenged in multiple ways!
OK, enough about that stuff, I want to talk about something more exciting!
2) LIS 678 :Personalized Information Delivery
Now, THAT class gave this semester some special meaning!
I took that class just to fulfill a technology course requirement! Also, because some of the students who had the same professor for a different course the previous semester said positive things about her style of teaching.
Whereas the other courses in the LIS focus mostly on the L (Library) side of LIS, this class focused on the IS (Information Science) side of LIS!
This class also had students from CIS (Communication and Information Science) program, who come to the Information Science field from a different perspective!
Basically, this class is about search engines!
While that class is called "Personalized Information Delivery", I think it should be called "Information Retrieval and Information Filtering"
The Information Retrieval part is about how people search for information, and how search engines retrieve information.
Now, when I mean "search engines", I'm not just talking about the famous ones like Google, Yahoo! or Bing! I'm also talking about databases and even the search tab you find in online shopping websites!
We learn about the various algorithms search engines use to rank the relevant documents (files, videos, websites, whatevers) when we type in a query.
I gave an interesting presentation about queries and how they get tracked, which you can view the power-point version at http://media.wix.com/ugd/c8d67a_573ba83a667043599e0443cb13c5d4f2.pdf
The Information Filtering part is about how search engines (ie Google, Yahoo, Bing) and social media outlets (ie facebook, LinkedIn, etc) and other online platforms (ie YouTube) tailor what they show to you to match what interests they have tracked from you in the recent past!
So, if you are on YouTube watching a lot of videos from Taylor Swift, when you enter YouTube's homepage, you'll see Taylor Swift's videos recommended to you!
Or if your interest in other countries are travel oriented, when you type in a country's name (for example - Egypt), you'll see travel-oriented sites on Google! However, if your interest in other countries are focused on human rights, you might see more results about police brutality and prison torture when you type in "Egypt" instead of seeing travel-oriented sites.
We also had projects that we can chose of any topic as long as we can relate it to Information Retrieval or Information Filtering.
So one project I did was on "Information Literacy for Youth". My partner for this project has work in both the university and at high schools. She actually taught sessions on how to find information on library catalogs and academic databases! So we talked about how to get students to not just rely on Google or Wikipedia but to also navigate academic databases and library resources.
The other project I did was on "Information-Communitiy Technologies for Underserved Populations." One partner was interested in mobile devices for women in rural communities. Another partner was interested in helping older adults with fitness-oriented technologies. And I had some experience researching library services for people with visual disabilities. For my part, I focused on BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download), which provides access to online audiobooks for eligible users.
I had such good relations with my teammates during our group projects, someone should tell Tisha Aragaki (of HSL) that I'm not hard to deal with if you're not hard to deal with!
For my individual work from this class, check out http://pwegesen.wix.com/pablowegesendlis#!lis-678-projects/c22pj
----------------
3) Special Activities
a) Graduate Student Organization
My main form of student involvement this semester is with the Graduate Student Organization (GSO). Every academic major that has a graduate student program has one representative in the GSO! So for the LIS program, I am THE representative in GSO!
Basically, the GSO general assembly has one meeting a month! In that meeting, various UH admin. officials, faculty members and student activists come to speak to us about their initiatives for the campus. We in the GSO get to question them.
After that, we get to eat dinner (I like the yellow rice, lettuce and chicken, others like the eggplant).
And then we get into our little groups and discuss some of the grant requests. Those grant requests are from other graduate students who want to go on research trips or do conference presentations. We try to accommodate as many as possible, though we do have to stick to the budget. So far, I have great relations within our group!
-----
I also did some other optional activities with GSO. For example, we had the Student Lobbying Day, which I wrote about at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/04/my-adventures-with-state-legislature.html
-----
We also had the social gathering at the campus Sustainability Courtyard. I was super-close to not going, in fact, I had to be reminded about this event on that very day! And I went!
It was great to gather with other GSO people in a less formal gathering! I get to speak with students from other academic programs and learn what other students are doing on campus! It was my way to get out of the LIS Bubble!
---
I plan to continue with GSO next semester (unless there's a coup d'état within the LIS program) and I hope to give it one last shot and making some impact on the campus!
b) Preservation Project
The LIS Program has classes on preservations of library materials. They are elective courses, that unfortunately never fit into my schedule.
But on one Saturday in February, any LIS student (even those who didn't take the preservation course) was invited to take part in a preservation project where we took labels off books, using a special chemical called methyl cellulose! You need to be careful and gentle so you don't cause additional damage!
It was a fun project, and now I wish I had more time in my LIS career to take preservations. Maybe if I get hired at UH in a full-time capacity, I could take the course with a tuition waiver.
c) Grad Fair
ASUH (Associated Students of UH; aka the undergrad version of GSO) sponsored a Grad Fair, which promoted graduate student programs to interested undergraduate students. I requested a table so that the LIS program can give out brochures and flyers.
The Grad Fair took place right in the front of the stairs at Campus Center. It was where many students hang out for their lunch break.
It was a very windy day, so I had to buy a padded notebook to keep the papers from flying!
I had 3 other students to help me on the tables. 1 was there for an hour, 2 was there for the last half-hour! It's great to have others help explain our program to other students, as well as to talk story with during the down-times.
After it was other, I took the extra flyers and posted them around campus! It was a great way to get the other students to know that the LIS program exists!
d) Community Library Day
This event was sponsored by the Hawaii chapter of the Special Library Association(SLA).
It took place on a Sunday in April, right outside Hamilton Library!
I helped with set-up in the morning! After so much sitting down in libraries and standing around in schools, it was great to do some physical work. I'm just glad I don't have to do it everyday though!
Some of the library organizations (ie. HSPLS, UH Law Library, UH West Oahu Library, HPU Library) as well as some archives (ie Ulu'ulu - a film archive) had their tables under a tent. Scholastic also sold some children's books as well.
As for the SLA, they had their own table selling used books. I helped out with their table, encouraging the customers to buy some of the books.
I only helped in the first few hours, then I went inside Hamilton for the kahili exhibit in the preservation room.
Then I had to go study.
But I had fun with the Community Library Day and wish I could stay longer.
see a picture of me, under a tent
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrew_wertheimer/16944650529/in/album-72157650190223555/
e ) Guest Speakers
-- Adam Jansen
He is a digital archivist at the Hawaii State Archives and taught a course on Digital Archives in the LIS program. I didn't take that class, but I heard it was a lot of work.
Adam Jansen did come as a guest speaker and talked about the importance of keeping recorded information and the struggles of storing information formats, ranging from the paper to the digital. Paper take a lot of space, but digital formats go obsolete quickly as the public just jumps on the latest trends.
It was obvious that Mr Jansen had a lot of passion for his field of work and it was great to hear from him!
see a picture with me and Adam Jansen standing up, and the 4 ladies sitting down
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrew_wertheimer/17070311476/in/album-72157650190223555/
-------------
I also heard a speech from Dainan Skeem, another archivist, this from Hamilton Library.
He also a taught another class I didn't take (Archival Management) and is a popular instructor.
He talked about the archival profession and talked about the WW2-era photos and information materials collected for a special project.
f) UH Law Library Tour
This took place on Saint Patrick's Day, so I had my green UH Rainbow shirt on!
It was me and 2 other LIS students on the tour. The tour guide was a recent LIS graduate who is now working with the library's circulation and archives!
The Law Library has a public area in the front, and a large area reserved for law students. In the back, we have the archives, with posters and historical artifacts related to the UH Law School! There was also the Sam King collection, in honor of a former judge and politician.
One of the donors must be a major Bruddah Iz fan because there were extra books about him in the archives, so I got to take one home. Ironic, since Bruddah Iz was on the wrong side of the law a few times before he settled down before his tragic death.
g) karaoke party
Last Friday, the students from ALA, SLA and SAA (archivist group) sponsored a karaoke party at Lil Seoul at Puck's Alley!
I llllloooooovvvvvve (love) karaoke! We get to see the less serious sides of our classmates, and we sang some funny songs!
We sang songs from Justin Bieber, Weezer, Green Day, Queen, Britney Spears and NSYNC!
We did sing a few serious songs from Coolio, Eminem and Selena as well!
h) LIS Banquet
Last night, the LIS Program had it's end-of-the-semester banquet honoring the latest group of graduates.
This year, this banquet took place at Eat Honolulu, an obscure restaurant in Iwilei.
It was the first time I ate quinoa, the South American grain that has lately been called "the hippie rice". It lived up to the hype!
Anyways, we had our awards for the student leaders, and an award for one of the adjunct professors who work at the Hamilton Library's Hawaii-Pacific section -- Eleanor Kleiber. The award was for promoting intellectual freedom as well as promoting information resources about the Pacific region. I took her class in the previous semester and she's teaching again next semester. I encourage everyone to take that class if you haven't done so previously!
And of course, the most important part (beside the awards and grad photos) was the time to talk story! It might be the last time I will be able to talk to the latest group of graduates and I wished them good luck in the next part of their life!
I also talked with the continuing students about the future plans within LIS! Also, I have told about some special activities (which is secret for now) that I can be involved in the next few months :)
At the end of the banquet, I got a ride with one of the graduates. I usually avoid asking people for favors, but this time I was glad I did! Great conversations on the ride
i) The near future
This summer I'm taking 2 summer classes. One will be online, another will be in class. I will talk more when the time comes.
This Fall I will do an internship at .......................................well, I'll write about it after I'm done with it :)
And that should be it for the LIS Program. That's right, I should be graduating in December. I think there will be at least twice as many graduates for Fall semester than for this Spring! A big graduating class!
