Wow! I'm so tired and happy about how our two day in-person session went. There was a good mix of lecture and hands on. All the materials I wanted to cover were at least touched upon and you had a chance to see rare books, special books, reference tools, and lots of bibliographies.
More than anything else, this was a weekend to meet one another, learn from each other, and begin to build stronger working and collegial relationships. Now that you've all met, the discussion boards should be even livelier. I cannot wait to see the changes in your discussions and interactions with one another.
I hope you all feel this was a useful and productive weekend. Now you can relax, reflect, and think about what you learned and how you will use some of the new knowledge in your professional activities. I hope you recognize that some of the reference tools aren't in public libraries, but in academic libraries; that you may never learn about them again but should explore and examine every reference tool for its usefulness, contents, organization, and audience. Do that, and you are half way to mastering any subject.
The one subject we didn't really cover were the bibliographic databases of EBBO, ESTC, ISTC, and ECCO (Eighteenth century collection that incorporates or uses the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalog). There are two sets of bibliographic tools for Nineteenth century literature and written materials. They are NCCO, the Nineteenth Century Collection Online http://info.library.okstate.edu/content.php?pid=210676&sid=2783437 and N I N E S, Nineteenth Century Scholarship Online http://www.nines.org/ They are slightly different in scope and use. While Kent State faculty and students don't have access to the resources on NCCO, we do have access to Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, a Gale publication, through our library website. These databases, along with the resources we discussed and specific website you discover will enhance your exhibitions and projects.
What did I take away from our two days in person? I better sense of who you all are, the importance of time for hands-on exercises, and an appreciation of how hard you are working.
What else can I do for you to make the course better, stronger, clearer, or more useful? What can I do to enhance your learning experience and appreciation for the book? Send me e-mails, write me, let me know.
Until next time
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