Beyond the one-shot: Intensive workshops as a platform for engaging the library in digital humanities

ABSTRACT

This article explores how librarian participation as instructors in week-long intensive classes—a common workshop format in digital humanities (DH)—can advance a variety of library objectives, while also uniquely supporting the DH community. Intensive workshops fall between the one-shot session and credit course formats more commonly found in library instruction. Drawing on case studies from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) instruction at DH institutes at the University of California Berkeley and Purdue University, the authors explore the origins of librarian involvement, course topics, pedagogy, and library services. Based on their instruction experiences in the DH summer institutes and student surveys, the authors argue that intensive instruction workshops provide a good potential platform for library involvement in DH.     

Collective memory,political nostalgia,and the rhetorical presidency: Bill Clinton's commemoration of the March on Washington,August 28, 1998

This essay offers a reading of President Bill Clinton's address on August 28, 1998 in which he commemorates the 35th anniversary of the March on Washington. Specifically, Clinton's August 28th address reveals how the presidency has become a hermeneutic site for the formation of collective memory and political nostalgia. This analysis discusses the uses of political nostalgia for the purposes of political image (re)construction as evidenced by Clinton's exploitation of the civil rights movement to explain and excuse his personal failings and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. We also present a divergent version of Clinton's rhetoric, giving specific attention to how his particular use of nostalgia in this address works to articulate and confront many of the powerful dichotomies (masculine/feminine; war/peace; black/white; private/public) that define his presidency, his public persona, and the larger political culture in postmodern America.     

An economical school paper

Utilizing data from the 20-year record of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY), this analysis uses a set of variables to predict employment in engineering for a national sample of adults aged 34 to 37. The LSAY is one of the longest longitudinal studies of the impact of secondary education and postsecondary education conducted in the United States. A structural equation model found that mathematics is a primary gateway to an engineering career, beginning with algebra track placement in Grades 7 and 8 and continuing through high school and college calculus courses. Home and family factors such as parent education and parent encouragement of science and mathematics during secondary school also enhanced the likelihood of a young adult becoming a professional engineer. In addition, young men were substantially more likely to become professional engineers than young women. Considering each of these factors, this article seeks to understand the varied pathways available to students interested in engineering careers.     

New books

LANGUAGE ‐ MAN ‐ SOCIETY: READINGS IN COMMUNICATION. Ed. Harold E. Briggs. New York: Rinehart and Co., 1949; pp. xv + 707. $3.50.

THE ART OF FORCEFUL SPEAKING. By Richard C. Reager. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1949; pp. xvi + 302. $1.49.

HOW TO PUT YOUR IDEAS ACROSS. By Richard W. Wetherill. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1949; pp. x + 435. $2.75.

PUBLIC SPEAKING WITHOUT FEAR AND TREMBLING. By Mark Hanna. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949; pp. 166. $2.75.

BASIC PUBLIC SPEAKING. By Paul L. Soper. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949; pp. xxi + 394. $2.50.

HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC SPEAKING. Revised Edition. By A. R. Thompr son. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949; pp. xix + 177. $1.50.

BASIC TRAINING IN SPEECH. Brief Edition. By Lester Thonssen and Howard Gilkinson. Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1949; pp. 249. $2.25

HOW TO TALK MORE EFFECTIVELY. By Jean Bordeaux and T. W. Tanaka. Chicago: American Technical Society, 1949; pp. x + 218. $2.75.

DEMOCRACY THROUGH DISCUSSION. By Bruno Lasker. New York: The W. H. Wilson Co., 1949; pp. xvii + 376. $3.50.

THE HUMAN NATURE OF PLAYWRITING. By Samson Raphaelson. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949; pp. viii + 267. $4.00.

PLAY PRODUCTION AND DIRECTION. By C. Lowell Lees. New York: Prentice‐Hall, 1948; pp. xiii + 311. $5.00.

HOW TO SPEAK THE WRITTEN WORD. By Nedra Newkirk Lamar. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1949; pp. 175. $2.50.

THE ART OF GOOD SPEECH. By Dwight Bolinger and Ralph Weiman. 4 v. Philadelphia: Russell Press, 1948; pp. 159. $9.50.

GENERAL SPEECH: AN INTRODUCTION. By A. Craig Baird and Franklin H. Knower. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Co., 1949; pp. ix + 500. $3.50.

PUBLIC SPEAKING FOR BUSINESS. By William G. Hoffman. Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Co., 1949; pp. xiii + 412. $3.50.

THE LANGUAGE OF WISDOM AND FOLLY: BACKGROUND HEADINGS IN SEMANTICS. Ed. Irving J. Lee. New York; Harper and Brothers, 1949; pp. xxii + 361. $3.00.     

The relationship between student pre‐performance concerns and evaluation apprehension

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student pre‐performance concerns, student evaluation apprehension, and receiving a grade for a speech. It was hypothesized that in the public speaking course, (a) a positive relationship would exist between student pre‐performance concerns and student evaluation and (b) students who believed their speech was being evaluated for a grade would report a greater amount of pre‐performance concerns than students who believed their speech was not being evaluated for a grade. Both hypotheses were supported. Results are discussed in light of what instructors might do in the classroom to reduce students' pre‐performance concerns.     

To Google or Not to Google,That Is the Question: Supplementing Google Book Search to Make It More Useful for Scholarship

ABSTRACT

This article looks at two different projects, the Google Book Search project and the Text Creation Partnership, both linked to the University of Michigan Library. Though on the surface they are very different, the Text Creation Partnership, a model of cooperation between scholars, librarians, and publishers, may have some useful lessons for how to make Google Book Search more useful for academic research, particularly in full-text searching.     

On the generality of conditioned bradycardia in rabbits: Assessment of CS and US modality

To determine whether the magnitude of heart rate (HR) slowing induced by classical conditioning contingencies is comparable under a broad range of stimulus conditions, experiments were conducted in which rabbits were exposed to tones, increases in illumination, or vibratory stimuli as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and in which paraorbital electric shocks, corneal airpuffs, or intraoral pulses of water served as unconditioned stimuli (USs). The results indicated that conditioned bradycardia was elicited by all three CSs. Moreover, when a corneal airpuff served as the US, small but reliable CS-evoked HR decelerations also occurred. Finally, CS-evoked HR slowing also occurred in response to a tone CS employed in an appetitive task, in which water was the US. These findings suggest that HR slowing is a general phenomenon that occurs when rabbits are exposed to signals that systematically predict aversive or appetitive consequences according to a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm.