Reimagining the Academic Library

Reimagining the Academic Library
Author: David W. Lewis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2016-05-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1442263385
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Academic libraries are in the midst of significant disruption. Academic librarians and university administrators know they need to change, but are not sure how. Bits and pieces of what needs to happen are clear, but the whole picture is hard to grasp. Reimagining the Academic Library paints a simple straightforward picture of the changes affecting academic libraries and what academic librarians need to do to respond to the changes would help to guide future library practice. The aim is to explain where academic libraries need to go and how to get there in a book that can be read in a weekend. David Lewis provides a readable survey of the current state of academic library practice and proposes where academic libraries need to go in the future to provide value to their campuses. His primary focus is on collections as this is the area with the greatest opportunity for change and is the driver of most library cost. Lewis provides an accessible framework for thinking about how library practice needs to adjust in the digital environment. The book will be useful not only to academic librarians, but also for librarians to share with presidents and provosts who a concise source for understanding where and how to focus their expenditures on libraries.

A Broadening Conversation

A Broadening Conversation
Author: Melody Layton McMahon
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2006-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1461655749
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As the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) celebrates the important milestone of its 60th anniversary this year, the editors have brought together in a single-volume anthology some of the best contributions to this field. Essays and papers from the past sixty years are grouped into six topical chapters (theological librarianship's characteristics, dimensions, educational role, settings, development within ATLA's sixty years, and most noteworthy changes), each of which is introduced by a present-day theological librarian. This collection is likely to be valuable in many ways: as a compendium of wisdom and "best practices" over several generations, as a means of securing a grasp of how ATLA's importance and influence as an association has grown over time, and even for the way it brings back to light the life and work of so many fine librarians, Raymond Morris (Yale Divinity Library) and Julia Pettee (Union Theological Seminary) among them. Even more important, A Broadening Conversation affirms vividly that (instead of the ethos of tradition and continuity that one might suppose) a mix of trusted routines with perpetual change is what has always been on the menu for theological librarians in their daily work. This is at the heart of what continues to make theological librarianship such a challenging and rewarding vocation.

Call It Grace

Call It Grace
Author: Serene Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0735223653
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"Theology is a place and a story. Theology is the place and story you think of when you ask yourself about the meaning of your life, of the world, and the possibility of God." So begins Serene Jones's epic work of raw truth, fierce love, and spiritual teaching as muscular as the fractured soul of this century demands. From her abiding Oklahoma roots to her historic leadership of a legendary New York seminary, her story illuminates the deep fault lines of this age--and points beyond them. With a voice that is at once frank and poetic, humble and prophetic, intimate and practical, Jones makes complex teachings around hatred, forgiveness, mercy, justice, death, sin, and grace understandable and immediately applicable for modern people. Excavating the wisdom of great theological voices--Soren Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Calvin, James Baldwin, James Cone, Luce Irigaray, Saint Teresa of Avila--she brings them to life with an intimacy and vividness that illumines our lives and our culture now. At the same time, and with great beauty, Call It Grace reveals Serene Jones as a towering voice of a new, and urgently necessary, public theology for this century.

XQuery for Humanists

XQuery for Humanists
Author: Clifford B. Anderson
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2020-04-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1623498309
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XQuery is the best language for querying, manipulating, and transforming XML and JSON documents. Because XML is in many ways the lingua franca of the digital humanities, learning XQuery empowers humanists to discover and analyze their data in new ways. Until now, though, XQuery has been difficult to learn because there was no textbook designed for non- or beginner programmers. XQuery for Humanists fills this void with an approachable guidebook aimed directly at digital humanists. Clifford B. Anderson and Joseph C. Wicentowski introduce XQuery in terms accessible to humanities scholars and do not presuppose any prior background in programming. It provides an informed, opinionated overview and recommends the best implementations, libraries, and paradigms to empower those who need it most. Emphasizing practical applicability, the authors go beyond the XQuery language to include the basics of underlying standards like XPath, related standards like XQuery Full Text and XQuery Update, and explain the difference between XQuery and languages like Python and R. This book will afford readers the skills they need to build and analyze large-scale documentary corpora in XML. XQuery for Humanists is immeasurably valuable to instructors of digital humanities and library science courses alike and likewise is a ready reference for faculty, graduate students, and librarians who seek to master XQuery for their projects.