Bib Blogs: Steve Russell

Watt - Scholars Perspective: Impact of Digitized  Collections on Learning and Teaching It's difficult for me to assess the financial aspect of digital archives, mostly because I do not directly know the cost for subscriptions. As we discussed in class before, we are automatically given access to multiple online databases for being IC students. Once we leave the college, we would have to purchase subscriptions to some digital collections individually. If I want to know the cost for subscribing to a particular database, I would have to go and look up prices for each one (due to limited time, I will not do that now). For now, I will just lump the cost of access in with tuition (for many students, it is a significant amount of money). The numbers from the 2007-2008 Almanac of Higher Education  can also be used for comparison. That being said, Watt asks the reader, "Do we really need these expensive virtual libraries?" (p. 4). He answers his hypothetical question with "...

Slonimsky - "Urtext" The sass is strong with this one; right from the onset, Slonimsky gives his opinion on the idea of "Urtext" while subsequently defining it. He finds it very difficult to consider a literary or musical work to be completely authentic. Revisions are made to some pieces in order to best fit the intent of the composer. It is easily debatable whether or not those editorial marks are appropriate. He references the case of Charles Ives (p. 494), in which Ives claimed "the wrong notes are right." Regardless of acclaim, everyone is susceptible to human error. Mistakes happen, and by nature we aim to fix and learn from them. In regards to editing works, we would only know if the mistakes were intentional by hearing from the composer himself/herself. If the composer is now dead, then we will never truly know whether or not editing their works is appropriate. Grove - Early Music Many people naturally have a yearning for the past. An example ...

Reading through the definitions again has helped me to clear up any previous confusion between the terms. When I first read these in the fall, I was confused about the difference between autograph and holograph, urtext and facsimile, etc. I now understand that the difference lies within the origin of the source. For example, if a manuscript was written directly by its composer, it is an autograph. If the same manuscript was (re-)written by a copyist, it is a holograph. I also enjoy reading the historical context of the terms. It seems fascinating that original prints can be examined and recreated as facsimile. I find it interesting that in the definition of urtext, the author questions the value in searching for the urtext. My question is: what if there is material written on the urtext that was not re-written by a copyist? Is it even common for copies of the original manuscript to omit certain markings made by the original author/composer? I guess I still have some questions regarding...

Hello, everyone! For this week, I have decided to conjoin all of the articles under one discussion, rather than reflect upon them separately. This is due to all four of the articles being centered around the same ideas of plagiarism. The topic of plagiarism can be frightening to some (as indicated by Sampsel mentioning one of his students coming into class with over one-hundred footnotes). Sometimes, it can be hard to discern whether the act of plagiarism was intentional or not. Regardless, as Sampsel highlights, students will be punished regardless of intention. I wonder what happens to people who did not plagiarize but were still accused of it (the girl who had her paper stolen). If the case is reported, does the girl still have the accusation attached to her name, or does it get rescinded? I would like to believe the former of the two options, but I am honestly not aware of the consequences. That prompts further research into the topic. Perhaps I should undergo said research. Wh...

Wagstaff Having already been taught about this previously, there is not much for me to say about this definition of "periodical." There was one section, however, that I believe I missed the first time reading through this. I did not recall that prose journals originated in eighteenth-century Germany, so that served as a nice reminder. Regardless of its brief length, the definition serves as a useful reference for those who may be new or unfamiliar with research and/or periodicals. Being able to distinguish between scholarly and popular works will also help the researcher select credible resources for research projects. Weir & Western Libraries Thinking back to my undergraduate studies, I was not taught how  to read a periodical in any of the English or research classes. Between my colleagues and I, there were few, if any faculty members that explained the process of research to us. We were unfortunately left to figure it out ourselves. While this is not detrimental ...

Hello again, everyone! Happy second blog! Let's jump right into it. Angell/White When reading about Angell's stepfather, E. B. White, I begin to imagine the amount of stress that occurs in his profession. I am not sure how much room for error is allowed in writing for The New Yorker , but I imagine that there is little to none. Seeing that The New Yorker  is a very popular magazine read by a substantial amount of people, I can understand why White would spend hours in his study mulling over and typing the notes. The same can be said for any published work; typically, the author does not want a single visible mistake/misprint on their work since their name is attributed to whatever is published in said work. The same applies to our class; when writing the bibliography (and any other significant research assignment), I want to make sure that everything is proofread and articulates exactly what I want to get across to the reader. Angell's phrase, "Writing is hard, e...

Hello, everybody! I am looking forward to blogging and reading everyone else's blogs throughout these next five weeks! To preface, I read all of these articles in the fall, and I may occasionally make comparisons or references to my original blogs. I just wanted to let you know to avoid confusion when reading some of my posts. Without further ado, here we go! Barzun   Well, I did not miss this. While this article (and many ones to follow) are drier than the Sahara Desert, they are valuable, relevant tools that will serve as reminders and guidelines for us as we tackle the 5-week gauntlet of academia. When reading through the article, it seems that the ideas of constantly checking the validity and reliability of sources are common knowledge. Yet, when I am overwhelmed with assignments and other duties, I tend to forget many of these ideas. Here is an example: Barzun mentions the act of suddenly stopping when writing a novel; I find this action problematic. From what I have see...