Matt Dilworth | Library Blog - Indiana University East

Matt Dilworth

Finding Your Past

genealogy, one book many voices October 3, 2016 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

In A Chance in the World, this year’s One Book, Steve Pemberton recounts his history as an orphan in the foster care system. Untethered from any roots, he conducted a search for his birth family and located his grandparents and all four of his siblings, who had been fostered with different families. The experience was part of a long effort to reconcile his personal identity. Most of us don’t face nearly the same challenge in identifying our family, but even so, how many of us can go much further back than our great-grandparents? Genealogy is the search for our roots, building a family tree of names, dates, and history that shaped how we came into this world. And it can … Continued

Artistic Pursuits

art, music databases September 5, 2016 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

Music and art are an experience – how can words adequately characterize or explain them? As a researcher, you might have thoughts along these lines. And while you use academic databases for history or science or economics papers, when it comes to art, maybe you think you’re fine on your own. Understanding the musical, performance, and graphic arts does indeed rely on your own critical experience more than most disciplines. But it’s an error to think that scholarly resources won’t be of use. The library has many databases for both – from ProQuest Arts for scholarship and criticism in each of these areas to the Naxos Music Library for streaming music. But one critical resource in the arts is Oxford … Continued

INSPIRE-ational

inspire, reference databases, state library July 25, 2016 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

At IU East, we advocate strongly for using the best, most trustworthy sources for your scholarship. And we have loads of great academic databases designed to do just that, linking you to reliable, vetted content that hasn’t been twisted by the vacuous, editor-free and repetitive fluff that makes up the bulk of the free web. But after you graduate, where will get the same trustworthy and authoritative information? If you live in the state of Indiana (as most of our graduates do), the answer is INSPIRE. Provided by the Indiana State Library, anyone with an Indiana IP address can access dozens of databases freely. This deeply benefits public and school libraries across the state, and the ISL’s negotiations help subsidize … Continued

Digging up Great Things

philanthropy, reference databases July 18, 2016 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, Programs mdilwort

Retired anthropology professor Rob Tolley and his wife Nancy have long been dedicated to IU East, creating many opportunities for students in the decades he spent teaching. His field trips to Utah to give firsthand experience in surface surveying and classes in prehistory and Southwestern literature are still fondly remembered. But they have been active in supporting IU East since his retirement, as well, and are donating $50,000 to help fund an archaeological methodology lab. To be located in the woods east of campus, it will allow students the hands-on opportunity to perform their own digs. The artifacts will be simulated – pig skeletons, burned and buried structures, and ceramics crafted by IU East art students – but the experience … Continued

Support for Information Literacy

acrl, ala, information literacy July 11, 2016 Matt Dilworth mdilwort 1 Comments

The 2016 American Library Association’s annual conference recently concluded, and a troubling issue came out of it. The Association of College and Research Libraries voted to rescind a previous resolution passed in 2000, the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. And while the ACRL plans to continue to support information literacy in some way going forward – such as networking librarians to share their experiences, lesson plans, rubrics, and assessment tools – there is now no longer a universal policy supporting the inclusion of information literacy components in college courses. And that has caused concern among academic librarians. You might wonder where that leaves you – will IU East still offer in-class library instruction in the same way? Do … Continued

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