Academic Satire - Japanese By Spring

The book I have read for my academic satire is Japanese By Spring by Ishmael Reed. The story focuses on Benjamin "Chappie" Puttbutt, a junior professor at Jack London College during the early 1990s. He wants tenure so bad that he is willing to conform to the school's ideological climate (which is for sexism and against affirmative action) and take racial slurs and actions from a student whose father supports the school financially. Understandably, he is upset when he finds out he is denied tenure, even thought he doesn't realized that he's not well liked among some of his co-workers.

While studying to learn Japanese (hence the title), his tutor Dr. Yamato becomes president of Jack London and appoints Chappie as academic dean. Chappie takes the opportunity of his appointment to settle old scores and gets revenge on those who have wronged him.

For the last two years, I have worked in academia at the MUSC Library. When I was a library technical assistant, I worked nights so I didn't have much interaction with the teachers. I did interact with the students a lot and enjoyed helping them with their needs. Now that I work on outreach for the library, I mostly work with the public, which some faculty mixed in.

The part of academia that Reed mostly focused on was with tenure and interaction mostly among the faculty. I personally thought that most of the people in the book, especially Chappie, were jerks and were willing to do anything to keep their jobs. Some of the students were jerks and racist. I don't know if there is a lot of gossip and back-talking around academia, but there was a lot in this book. But this really didn't surprise me because that happens or may happen at any job. Some of the professors cared more about tenure and satisfying the alumni than teaching the students. Some of them might not have loved teaching and may need to reconnect with themselves, as emphasized in The Courage to Teach.

I could actually relate to the book because of the time period and what was going on. The book focused on the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas (and Anita Hill), the earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1989 and the 1992 L.A. Riots. There was a lot of social change at the time in regards to racism, affirmative action and sexism. Who would have thought almost 2o years later we would have an African-American president and a female Speaker of the House? I think that going through that period made America stronger and gave more opportunities for minorities and women.

This is my first academic satire and I hope I get another opportunity to read another one. I would recommend Japanese by Spring to my classmates and hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Turning an Academic Library into an Information Commons

Academic libraries are going through a massive change. When I attended USC more than 10 years ago, no food was allowed at Thomas Cooper Library, you could not check out laptops and there was no such thing as wireless access. Now you can do all of those things (and go get coffee without going to the Russell House).

Something that is growing in the academic library community is information commons. This is a library that offers vast spaces for students to study (by themselves or in a group); where people can get help with computer problems; and where students can check out not only books but cameras, laptops, Kindles and other tech gadgets. The information commons is to provide both active work among groups and quiet space for those who are working alone. It will also support interactive learning and training and skill-building activities.

Right now, the MUSC Library is in the process of transforming into an information commons (ours will be called Learning Commons). We are currently getting rid of a lot of our books and journals (many of our items are online), moving furniture and organizing to make sure our place makes our students feel comfortable when they arrive. Also, we have our Digital-e project, where students are allowed to check out the latest technologies.

This is an exciting time for academic libraries as many of them are also going to have information commons. This will allow libraries to serve students in ways they have never had before. When a lot of books and journals went online, many people stopped going to academic libraries because they could access them from home. The information commons atmosphere helps bring in students and makes it easier for them to study, complete their work and gather with their classmates.

Even thought we are one of the few medical libraries that will have an information commons, we hope at MUSC to be able to assist our students, faculty and staff as much as possible. Our changes will help make our library more accessible to our current students and entice new students to come to our university.

For examples of information commons (and to stay in the Southeastern Conference spirit), check out the information commons at the University of Kentucky and the University of Georgia.

Web 2.0 and Academic Libraries

I work at an academic/special library. The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Library serves the students that enroll in the university (as well as their teachers) and the medical staff that works at our three hospitals. As a part of the library's Web 2.0 group, I (and my group members) have been researching how the Internet and social media (ex. Facebook) is changing the way college students learn. Here is an example of how a professor is using Twitter to interact with her class:

After receiving a request from one of the learning groups on campus, we decided to do a Web 2.0 class focusing mostly on Twitter. The discussion, called "To Tweet or Not to Tweet" had a student panel and more than 60 people attended the event (which filled up the room). While almost everyone in the room had a Facebook page, some of the professors that were in attendance seemed apprehensive about using social media in teaching. Some said they didn't have enough time. Others were worried about privacy. Even before we had the class, many faculty and staff members expressed their disapproval of the class and using social media, to the point where people tried to stop publicity for the event.

Web 2.0 and social media is not going away anytime soon. If there is something that could make learning easier for students, it should be used. As academic librarians, we should encourage faculty, staff and students to use all technologies available to us. We should also teach faculty how to use them so they can learn ways how to teach their students.

Our Web. 2.0 group does plan to teach more social media classes, including Wikis and Facebook. We hope that we will help people at our university embrace social media and the benefits it will have for students and themselves.