Almost everyone in my family is an academic. Grandpa Blau taught at Columbia. Grandma and Grandpa Katz were both medical doctors but also did some university teaching. Aunt Rachel retired from Temple; Uncle Bob from Swarthmore. Aunt Jan is a…
Author Archive for dcdotnerd
Notable DC figures
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
District law requires that full names be used when naming a public space after a person. And we like to name public space after people. So if one pays attention, there is an opportunity to learn about the historical figures…
Tisha B’Av and Ostriching
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
Today was Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, which is a day of communal mourning. In a fascinating stroke of coincidence, both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem fell on the ninth of Av.…
Information Literacy, then and now
by dcdotnerd • • 1 Comment
A digression deleted from my post on Hack Library School about information literacy. Go read that post, and come back here where it says to. Old standards: Determine the extent of information needed Access the needed information effectively and efficiently…
Red Pepper Pesto
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
If I’m going to post something every day this month, not every post is going to be deeply thoughtful. In that vein, I give you: Red Pepper Pesto Ingredients: About half a jar of roasted red peppers from Trader Joes,…
Networking at the Special Libraries “Symposium”
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
On Thursday night, one of the class sessions of Special Libraries, which is a summer class offered at CUA, held a symposium of practicing librarians. This is an annual event hosted by the professor of the class. I have one…
Urban Alliance, and I can’t believe I’m doing this
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
I read the incredibly cheesy portmanteau “Blogust” on Twitter and since it makes much more sense than NaNoBloPo (let’s leave that month to the novel writers, please) and I have a lot to say, I figured I’d take part. We’ll…
Conferences and Diversity
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
When I go somewhere new (like a conference), I tend to look around to gauge the visible diversity of the attendees. AALL was definitely more white than my place of work. I’m fairly confident it was more white than the…
Questions of Scholarship
by dcdotnerd • • 0 Comments
A law school acquaintance of mine was killed on Friday, and just as I did 12 years ago when two other friends were killed — that time in a bombing, this time what was likely and shockingly an intentional homicide…
Rigor, revisited
by dcdotnerd • • 1 Comment
When the Library Loon first (recently, at least) wrote about rigor, I responded at Hack Library School. She wrote again about rigor last week, and I feel that she again is calling for a response. Now, despite my linking to her own…