Getting Started on Deaf Research: Part 4

This is highly non-academic weather. Students skip classes, professors cancel them, and librarians wish they were outside. It's such a significant change from the last three or four months of ice, clouds, and generic freezing misery that I keep looking around and wondering where I landed.

These last few weeks of clouds have been good for my reading list, though. I managed to eke out one last book: Silent Dances by A.C. Crispin and Kathleen O'Malley. Pure sci-fi, total mental vacation. It's nice!

This book is notable because one of the authors is deaf, and so is the protagonist. It's part of the StarBridge series of novels, set in a future where humanity has, for the first time, discovered that there is life out there -- and most of it belongs to an interstellar group of species (called the CLS, interestingly enough). As part of the process of applying for membership, Earth helps establish a multispecies school for young people who want to work for the CLS, called StarBridge Academy.

Silent Dances is the second book in the series. Tesa is a student at StarBridge Academy; she's a deaf American Indian who relies on ASL and a highly-advanced portable computer/translator that's capable of distinguishing between multiple speakers at once and accurately transcribing all the dialogue that's going on. She graduated from Gallaudet (!) before starting at StarBridge, and is about to get started on her last major project, sort of a practicum, before officially graduating. However, she gets sidetracked by the news that a new world has been found, populated chiefly by hundreds of species of giant avians. One species in particular, resembling cranes, appears to be intelligent -- but have such powerful voices that they can kill a human being from hundreds of yards away. They rely on their voices only for what they call "primitive" uses -- for mating or for warnings -- and use a form of sign language in all other cases.

Of course, hearing people are at a marked disadvantage here, what with tending to explode and die, so they send Tesa in so she can learn to communicate with them and evaluate their intelligence. This is complicated by the sudden news that a black-market ring of privateers has been capturing the intelligent cranes and selling their skins in an especially sketchy part of the galaxy, as well as the discovery that the cranes are actually at war with another species on their own planet -- which turns out to also be intelligent.

It's your typical sci-fi action-adventure in space, colored by the fact that everyone signs in one way or another. There's also a sort of minor -- but significant to deaf readers -- plotline about the development of a new surgical technique that can restore Tesa's hearing. She's ambivalent about it at first, in spite of her parents' encouragement, but in the end decides against it. There are also instances that ring very true with me, as a deaf person -- like when Tesa's hearing love interest suddenly turns away from her when someone interrupts as she's signing to him. He does it totally unconsciously, and then realizes a few minutes later that he completely cut her off mid-sentence without thinking anything of it, and turns back to see that she's livid. Another example of something that I can relate to, of course, are the few instances when she completely forgets herself and yells a profanity at the top of her lungs for one reason or another.

There's also the fact that she's an American Indian, which lends itself to a unique relationship with the intelligent avians, especially when it's discovered that many aspects of their cultures and relationships with their environments are similar in many ways.

It's really an interesting book -- thought-provoking and a nice read in general. I especially liked the way O'Malley inserted her own prediction about Gallaudet and the form it takes after another two centuries of growth and development. It's especially interesting when taking the Sixth Street Project into consideration ... but I'll just leave it at that.

Today, we'll finish up the rest of the Deaf Research Help series with a quick run-through of whatever's left. We've done the pathfinders, FAQs, and the Guide to Deaf Biographies. Really, those are the three big things that usually manage to answer most questions.

After those three, you'll see a link to our Index to Deaf Periodicals. Another product of Tom Harrington, it's a good, basic way to find out about anything that was published on a given topic or by a specific person in the following deaf-related periodicals during specific years:

1. American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb (v.1-38, 1847-1893)
2. Deaf American (v.26-39, 1973-1989)
3. Deaf American Monographs (v.40-48, 1990-1998)
4. Deaf Life (v.1-11, 1987-1998, 2002)
5. DeafNation (v.1-3, 1995-1998)
6. Silent Worker (v.1-14, 1948-1962)
   

One extremely important thing to bear in mind is that this is an index. There's no full-text here. It's just intended to help you figure out out the following:

• What articles has this person written?
• What articles have been written about this topic, individual, organization, or family?
• What was published during this year?

Keeping in mind, of course, that the index includes only what was published in the periodicals listed above, and only during the years listed. It can come in handy, though, if you're trying to remember the name of that article you read in DeafNation about how the ADA might have caused interpreter shortages sometime in the 1990s, for example, or if you're curious about myths about sign language.

Once you've got the basic information on where, when, and who published the article you're looking for, you can then find the full text of the article here at the Library. The earliest years of American Annals have been digitized, as well as the Silent Worker, and are available online for Consortium members, while the rest may also be available electronically, on print, or on microfilm here at the Library. It's pretty nice!

Following the Index to Deaf Periodicals on the Deaf Research Help page, you'll find links to other Gallaudet-created resources, including the Gallaudet Video Catalog and the Clerc Center's Info to Go for parents and educators of deaf children, and then a link to a list of outside resources such as the Described and Captioned Media Program.

Down at the bottom of the Deaf Research Help page is mostly information for our librarian brethren and sistern. Tips on communicating with deaf library patrons, which is intended for hearing librarians who have little experience in working with deaf patrons, and Deaf Subject Headings, which is pretty technical and not for the layman. It's a collection of deaf-related terms, designed to help librarians in other institutions catalog deaf-related materials.

And that's it for Deaf Research Help. I hope this ... well, helped!

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Question of the Week
Why do you stay open during Spring Break?
I have asked myself that very question! Just kidding ... or am I?

Truthfully, I get the feeling that students think the campus completely shuts down during the break while they're gone, which doesn't actually happen. It's business as usual, except there are no classes and we have reduced hours to go with the reduced number of students. We really do continue working -- there's always plenty to do, with or without a line at the Service Desk!

We're also open during the breaks between each semester. The only exception is part of the break between the Fall and Spring semesters, when the campus shuts down entirely between Christmas and New Year's Day, but the rest of the time, we're wide open!

Postponement

This week's post has been postponed to next week due to a case of the creeping crud.

*snif*

on reading

Another half-week, another half-post ...

I'm heading to Florida tomorrow to work at the Academic Bowl's Southeast regional competition. It should be a fun outing -- it's my home state, after all, and it's hosted at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, a school I've visited many times. Of course, the town we're going to, St. Augustine, is, by some estimations, anywhere from four to six hours from my actual hometown, so no triumphal return for this good ol' boy. It's okay -- I'll be busy.

In any case, I'm on a little Italo Calvino kick after finishing If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (final verdict: great read but likely to require several attempts first), so I'm deep into Why Read the Classics?, which is a collection of his literary essays. He discusses works ranging from Pliny the Elder's Natural History (we have two volumes; the rest are held by other Consortium schools) to Cyrano de Bergerac's hilarious The Other World, or the States and Empires of the Moon (the linked record goes to our own copy of a combined edition of this book and its sequel, Voyages to the States of the Sun) to Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Calvino turns out to be a pretty entertaining, thoughtful, and extraordinarily well-read critic; he reviews some works I haven't read or even heard of -- and makes me want to read them, too. He's got a little slant towards Italian literature, which is understandable, given that he's Italian himself. It's also a terrifically well-written book, generated by an author who knows what he's doing and fully understands what he's looking at.

In general, though, I have so far gotten the impression that the essays contained in this book are more useful for figuring out why Calvino reads the classics than why you should read the classics. He makes use of a fairly high-level literary vocabulary that would probably leave most people a little lost, so it's not much of a book to read if you aren't already a strong reader -- in which case, you probably don't actually need the book. This seems to be a fault on the part of the publisher or editor, though, not Calvino; those essays were collected posthumously from various introductions, prefaces, and articles he wrote over the course of thirty years. None of them were written with the express purpose of convincing Joe Six-Pack that he should read some Voltaire between NASCAR races.

Still, it's got me asking myself why I read. It's been a topic of some debate over the past few years, especially when the subject of my age comes up (hint: I was young enough to really appreciate Power Rangers when the very first episode aired); the prevailing opinion seems to be that not very many people under the age of 30 read at all (see The Age of American Unreason and The Dumbest Generation), and that I'm somehow an aberration because I actually like to read. Our Library director suggested months ago that I do at least one post about why I like to read so much, so I guess I'll grab the opportunity to do so right now.

So.

The reason why I read -- and read so much, at that -- is fairly simple: I developed the habit early and reinforced it often. I read at the dinner table, in the car, on the school bus, waiting for the dentist, and before I went to bed at night. I exhausted my preferred genre at the local public library -- science fiction -- sometime in high school and moved on to other subjects and have ended up reading anything that grabs my eye.

I mean anything. One of my favorite professors in graduate school -- she taught cataloging and classification, the stuff that determines what call number ends up on a book's spine and what you see in ALADIN Discovery -- said the same motto at least once in every class session for all three semesters that I had her: Never apologize for your choice of reading material. This rather neatly encapsulates my approach to books.

As a reader, I read whatever I can get my hands on. As a librarian, I don't judge people for the choices they make in what they check out. The same is true for the other librarians working here at the Gallaudet University Library and pretty much any other librarian you'll ever meet. If you want to read Mein Kampf, go ahead and check it out. It's a little meandering -- Adolf wasn't the most coherent thinker at the best of times -- but an interesting read.

As far as the classics are concerned, I do think everyone should read at least a few. Not because you should so everyone thinks you're smart, but so you can see how little human nature has changed over thousands of years. It also expands your horizons a little bit on a couple of levels: first, you'll encounter words and ways of saying things that haven't been around for a long time, so you'll gain the benefit of finding out how different the world can be, depending on how it's said or written -- and maybe even learn how to apply this practically in your approach to the world, your job, and your relationships with others. Second, it really does let you look at the world through different eyes in different places and different times. It's the benefit of experience; 19th-Century Britain looks very different from the way it is today, and you can find out how by reading Dickens. The same goes for Greece through Aristotle, China through Sun Tzu, and, yes, the United States through Washington Irving or Mark Twain.

Ovid's Metamorphoses lets you see the Greek myths in their plainest forms, whether through the eyes of the goddess Athena competing with Arachne on the loom or Pyramus as he whispers to Thisbe through a hole in the wall. Cyrano's States and Empires of the Moon -- or Voltaire's Candide, for that matter -- shows you that the French of the 18th Century were funny. Pliny's Natural History lets you see a magical Greece where unlikely creatures coexist with the animals we know well today.

Above all, reading the classics will let you see that a lot of the problems we struggle with today have been around for a very long time. That we're still around today speaks volumes about us as a species, most of which is good.

That seems to cover things pretty well. Next week's post will appear on Thursday, as I'm again out of town next Friday -- busy guy, I am -- and we'll talk a little more about our Deaf Research Help page.

Getting Started on Deaf Research: Part 3

Argh ...

It's a unique sort of book that can simultaneously frustrate you beyond all belief and draw you in even deeper. Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is one of those books, and it's driving me nuts at the moment.

On the surface, it's a deeply complicated book -- at least four major plots (one of which includes you. Yes, you, the poor soul reading it), the beginnings of ten engrossing novels, and at least one secret society out to steal the source of all stories. Throughout it all, Calvino meditates on the nature of literature, the act of reading, and the way both interact within the reader's mind.

Below the surface, it's irritating. Each of the ten novels in the book starts off a little slowly, then builds up terrifically well all the way to a particularly suspenseful point -- and then is chopped off. Of course, all of this is in service to the overall plot, which centers around two readers who are having the same problem you are: Getting suckered into a particularly good book only to have it cut off at a particularly critical moment for one reason or another. Gah.

I'm sure by the book's end, I'll rave about it, but at the moment, I just want to know what happens next.

Okay, moving on. First, I'd like to announce that it's once again time for our Undergraduate Research Paper Award. If you're an undergrad who's written what you feel is an especially good research paper at any point since the beginning of Spring 2009, send it to us. If you win, you get a $200 Barnes & Noble gift card, which is a prize I'd envy under any circumstance. You can find more details, including our submission criteria and instructions, here. If you're a faculty member reading this, by all means, please feel free to encourage the authors of the best papers you've seen to submit their work!

Now, let's get back on track with deaf research. I believe we left off with our pathfinders, a list of which you can find here.

The pathfinders are intended to be quick stops for people who are researching fairly common topics, such as cochlear implants, deaf authors, and interpreting. One thing to bear in mind about those pathfinders -- and this one thing is mentioned in most of them -- is that they don't often list the titles we have in those topics. They're intended to give you suggestions and methods for performing the research yourself. It sounds funny, but that's one of the most important things we try to do here at the Library: teach our students how to perform effective research on their own. It's an important skill to have, and these pathfinders are designed to encourage its development.

They're all laid out in a fairly standard format for most of the pathfinders (exceptions are discussed a little further down):

• Scope
• This discusses exactly what the pathfinder covers. This generally includes a more specific definition of the topic covered (What exactly is covered in the term "Deaf culture?" How exactly does a cochlear implant work?) and gives you a better idea of what sort of information the pathfinder can help you dig up.
  
• Introduction
  
• Lists resources that offer introductions to the topic. For example, in the pathfinder about cochlear implants, this section details various texts that may offer useful introductions to cochlear implants and their importance in the deaf community, and points to the websites of some manufacturers.
  
• Books
• Again, we don't often list specific items. If we were to try to offer a listing of specific books, we'd spend quite a bit of time adding new books as they come in. It would also not be a very good fit for the purpose of the pathfinder, which is, again, intended to guide you along your own course of research. Instead, we offer suggested search terms and instructions on how to access the catalog.
  
• Periodicals
• Similar to the "Books" section. We also include a discussion of how to approach searching for deaf-related topics in non-deaf-related periodicals; many deaf-related issues are covered in journals that don't have the word "deaf" or "sign" in the title.
  
• Online Databases/Newspapers/Other Resources
• A particular pathfinder may have anywhere from one to all three of these sections. We generally include suggestions for the best places to look and search terms that will work best in finding what you need.

That's more or less standard, with some variation to accommodate films and microforms. Very few pathfinders don't follow this format; those non-standard pathfinders are concerned mostly with Gallaudet's more unique holdings, like our deaf school yearbooks, which aren't available online. Our yearbooks pathfinder, for example, describes how to search for a specific school's yearbook in our catalog.

In general, the pathfinders are terrific sources for step-by-step help in looking up some of the more common deaf-related topics. If you're looking for something that isn't covered by the pathfinders, you always have at least one more thing you can do: ask a librarian!

That takes care of this week. I'm out of town for the Academic Bowl again next week, so you can expect a shorter post a lá last week's. Enjoy the emerging grass and blue skies! After this week's 30-mile-per-hour winds, of course.

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Question of the Week
When are we getting more new books?
We're getting them right now. Carts have been arriving at least once a week for the past few weeks. I'll write up a post about our new books sometime soon!

Three feet of snow: now what?

Phew.

All this snow. It makes me wonder why I left Rochester at all. Of course, I spent a couple of years in Florida after I graduated from RIT, so that makes sense -- except now, of course, I find myself up here, buried under three feet of snow.

As I'm sure you may have noticed, the recent snowstorms have thrown off the blog schedule a little bit. Add on to that my work with the Academic Bowl, and you've got a strange schedule simmering away. This week gets a Wednesday post, since I'm in Utah starting Thursday, but next week will get a post on Friday.

Since things have gone a little askew, I'm going to put the remainder of the Deaf Research Help series on hold until next week; we're all still playing catch-up after a week off, and it's beyond me to try and focus on such involved stuff at the moment while I've got a few other things going.

Instead, we'll do a quick post, starting with a book review and then an update on the Library in the wake of last week's snowstorms. Sort of a half-post for a half-week.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I actually checked this book out for a re-read after hearing about Salinger's death a few weeks ago; it's one of my favorite books. It's basically the story of the Glass family, which consists of a pair of parents and a whole passel of overachieving kids who sequentially rose to fame on a radio show by being on a panel of smart-aleck children who answer questions posed to them by callers. Of course, by the time in which the novel is set, the kids have all grown up, complete with a war death (the Second World War) and a suicide; the surviving Glasses are left to cope with the attendant psychological problems that arise when child geniuses grow up.

Specifically, the two youngest Glass kids, now in their twenties, are the main characters in the book. Franny's the baby -- and beauty -- of the family, who's just experienced a nervous breakdown for reasons not fully explained in the novel (although they are very strongly implied), while Zooey is her older brother, a good-looking aspiring actor with a major chip on his shoulder. The majority of the novel concerns a long conversation between the two as Franny convalesces on their mother's couch about the frustration they experience while approaching a world that is often more senseless than they expect it to be. Really, both Franny and Zooey are more thoughtful versions of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye; they're more likely to attempt to come to terms with the world as it is, rather than hold a grudge against it for its refusal to conform to their standards.

It's a fantastic book and, if I may be so bold, superior to Catcher in the Rye in many ways.

Now: What happened to the Library in the middle of all that snow?

Believe it or not, while Gallaudet as a whole was closed, we stayed open! This is because our student assistants, most of whom live on campus, went way above and beyond; they came in, they opened the building, they checked out books and movies, checked them in, and generally held the fort and offered our most basic services until we librarians could come back to campus. Major kudos to them!

However, for one reason or another, people may have gotten e-mails saying their items were overdue during last week, but were unable to make it onto campus because of unplowed roads, buried cars, or just plain old snow-laden ennui (maybe not that last one). This is kind of annoying, because folks who checked out any movies on the first day of the first storm, Feb. 4, were unable to come in on or before Feb. 7 to return their movies. Then, after a couple days of digging out, the next storm hit!

Don't worry, though: We're waiving any fines for items that you couldn't drop off last week because of the weather! If you've still got any of those, bring them in this week and you'll get off scot-free. This only applies to items that were due on or after Feb. 4 and before Feb. 14.

Aside from that, as I said, we're all playing catch-up, along with the rest of Gallaudet, but we're definitely open for business.

That's all for this week. Next week: Deaf research pathfinders!

Getting Started on Deaf Research: Part 2

So far, this week, I'm in the middle of Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond, the guy who wrote Guns, germs, and steel, which got everyone's attention a few years ago. Collapse is a pretty interesting book -- it takes examples of different societies throughout history, including modern-day Montana, and examines the various factors that lead to social collapse. He looks at problems like environmental degradation, hostile incursions from unfriendly neighbors, and the collapse of friendly neighbors, among other things, and examines how they affect the society under study.

Bear in mind, it's not gloom-and-doom stuff; the author isn't saying we're headed for the end of the U.S. or anything bestselling like that. His larger point seems to be that although we do have several very serious challenges ahead of us, we also have several very large advantages over past societies that failed. Chief among those advantages is sheer hindsight; no other culture in history has accumulated such a large amount of historical information in a form that can be so easily examined. Diamond seeks to exploit this advantage to our benefit by scrutinizing past societies -- such as those of East Polynesia (including Easter and the Pitcairn Islands) -- and essentially determining which factors caused their collapse and how this happened.

It's fascinating reading, and although the general subject matter is depressing (deforestation, extinction, cannibalism, etc.), his writing is so engaging that you forget about all of that and focus on the conclusions being drawn here. It won't be available for you to check out for a while, though -- I'm jealously keeping it until I'm done with it, although, like a good Library patron, I'll get it back before the due date!

So last week, we covered the Guide to Deaf Biographies (the title really should be italicized -- the Guide -- but, heck, we're all friends here, aren't we?). This week, we'll take a look at the FAQs available through the Deaf Research Help section of our Web site.

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page seeks to provide quick answers to common questions about deaf-related subjects. We've split the questions up into eight rough categories:

• Cultural, Social, Medical
• For questions about Crab Theory, audism, causes of physiological deafness, history of visual applause
• Films
• Gallaudet University facts
• Various deaf-related facts
• For questions about deaf animals, places named after deaf people, sports-related queries, Kendall Motor Oil Company, the Lincoln Memorial
• Deaf people
• Individuals like Laurent Clerc and Helen Keller are covered here (including quotes), as well as deaf Nobel Prize winners, among other things
• Deaf publications
• Little Paper Family and vendors/publishers of deaf-related materials
• General questions about sign language
• Popular songs, poems, and prayers in ASL, as well as some questions about ASL itself
• Statistics on deafness
• Retired librarian Tom Harrington created a very thoughtful treatise on statistical treatment of the deaf population. It's a good read!

Actually, in general, the entire list of FAQs is a good place to spend a little time. They're intended mostly to answer common questions that arise from all over the world, and occasionally here at Gallaudet University as well. They are fairly comprehensive and well-researched; still, the best methods for obtaining a full and complete answer continue to be 1) checking to see if there is any more current information, and 2) asking a librarian for help. The second one isn't quite as necessary as far as the FAQs are concerned, though -- they really are a good place to look for information or just for fun. For instance, did you know that cats with all-white coats and blue eyes are the most likely to be deaf? Not only that, but some cats have one blue eye and one eye that's a different color -- and it'll be deaf in the ear on the same side of the head as the blue eye!

That's it for this week. Next week, I'll be in Oklahoma for the Midwest regional competition for the Academic Bowl. Since this will occupy half my week, there won't be a blog post next week. When we do return the following week, though, we'll discuss the research guides that are available.

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Question of the Day
I noticed that the couches on the first floor, facing Kendall Green by the Deaf Stacks, seem to be in an area that's pretty dark. It's hard to read anything there. Can you install some lights or something?
You picked a good week to ask this question! We just installed four fluorescent lights above that area to brighten it up a little bit. It should be much easier to read and do schoolwork over there now. Please don't be shy to let us know your unalloyed opinion -- we're always glad to hear what you think!

Getting Started on Deaf Research: Part 1

So we survived the first week of Spring 2010! The first week of a semester is always pretty interesting, mostly because of the sheer number of things that can go wrong and the sheer number of things that can come up that have never come up before.

Adding to the interest of this week was The Futurist by James Othmer. It's a sort of funny novel about a guy who makes a living as a "futurist" -- basically someone who makes predictions on the next hot trend. If you've ever seen a video from TED or CES about "what's next" in terms of technological trends, you've seen a futurist talking. They make a lot of money giving talks to various conferences and corporate retreats, and so does the protagonist, who finds himself in Johannesburg, South Africa, about to give a presentation to a massive gathering of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, his girlfriend breaks up with him while he's on the plane to Johannesburg, so when he lands, he's begun to question what it's all about.

This leads to a keynote speech that is nothing like what anyone expected from him, which in turn leads to his involvement with a shady cabal of American corporate/military/governmental interests. They hire him to travel the world and eavesdrop on conversations about the United States, to sort of place his finger on the pulse of what the world thinks of America, and figure out ways to exploit it. There are a lot of complicated misadventures along the way, including encounters with an obsessive fan of Nostradamus, a version of Bill Gates who's holed up in Greenland so he can watch the ice break up, and a gay male model spy in the mold of Zoolander. However, when our main character decides to go off the reservation for a little while, things take a surprisingly nasty turn. It's somewhat thought-provoking, but is mostly a fun, escapist read. Quick, too -- finished it in two days.

Today, we'll keep it brief and just talk a little bit about the Deaf Research Help page on our Web site. Consider it a quick summary of what's available. I figured this would be helpful, because there really is a large amount of information in that part of the site alone.

For this week, I'm going to focus on one of the first links you will probably notice on the Deaf Research Help: Information about famous deaf people. This link will take you to a page that describes the Gallaudet University Library Guide to Deaf Biographies.

This is a fairly comprehensive database; it lists nearly every deaf person who's been mentioned in several different types of sources, from single-person biographies to newspaper clippings. It includes whatever biographical information can be gleaned from the source material, and cites the source. Once you see a source you'd like to see more of, you can scroll up to the top of the record, look for the "Sources" link, and click on it. In the list that comes up, look for the one you want, listed alphabetically by title. Once you find it, you'll also see the location (like "Deaf Stacks") and call number. For additional information not listed in the Guide, you can always look up the person's name in ALADIN Discovery and see if we hold anything else on him or her. It's a fantastic way to get a start on researching a particularly obscure deaf individual.

The Guide offers a few different ways to find information about famous deaf people.

First, you are able to browse by name, which will bring up a list of all the names in the database, alphabetized by last name. It's useful if you want to see if there's information about a particular family (such as the Gallaudet family) and on how many members. It's also helpful if you aren't sure you spelled your subject's name correctly, which happens to me often.

It's also possible to find people based on their nationalities or ethnicities; if you want to find out about famous deaf Canadians, for example, or famous deaf Native Americans (who are categorized by tribe), this is a great way to go about it. One curious thing: "nonhuman" is included in the list of nationalities. I bet you want to find out what that's about now.

Last, but certainly not least, the database is browsable by occupation, which includes everything from deaf astronomers to deaf zoologists. This is a pretty interesting capability by itself, but as you look through the list, you'll see jobs like "wallpaper designer" and "accomplice to a murderer." With occupations like these, how can you resist finding out what the stories are behind them? Luckily, the Guide to Deaf Biographies is here for you.

This database was created and maintained by librarian Tom Harrington, who has since retired, so the caveat here is that it hasn't been updated recently. However, as long as the person you're looking for didn't pop up in the last couple of years, it's still very accurate and useful.

Next week, we'll focus on another resource available through Deaf Research Help: The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

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Question of the Week
I'm a student, and I've seen other students working at the Library. How do I get a job at the Library?
Check this page out. It'll tell you everything you need to know.

Once you've completed and turned in your application, as well as any associated papers, wait. If there's a job opening available and you're qualified for it, we'll contact you for an interview. If not, your application will go on file until the next opening comes up. Just be patient!

A brief refresher on Library use for the new semester

Have you ever seen a drunk man walk?

He staggers left and right, his path meandering along a course that almost seems random but nevertheless purposeful. He has an end goal, and his steps, no matter how stumblingly placed, get him there in the end. Eventually.

This idea underlies much of The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, which I finished recently. In spite of the rather picturesque phrase, though, the title actually refers to Brownian motion; this term describes the apparently random motion of particles in suspension in a solution, which are almost never at rest. They drift to and fro, and for a long time, it was one of the great mysteries of science, thought to be an instance of true randomness that defied statistical analysis and which existed in the real world outside any mathematical models. However, as Mlodinow demonstrates, Brownian motion can be defined by a study of probability, an equation which renders the motion of these little particles utterly predictable. The same applies to the rest of your life, says Mlodinow, and he repeatedly demonstrates how randomness actually works in your life. He covers everything from all the circumstances that led to the OJ Simpson verdict to pairs of separate events (such as lucky socks and a victory for your baseball team) that have no actual relationship, but which you think do, purely because of the human brain's inability to properly perceive and evaluate probability.

And he does it all in such engaging language that you forget you're reading a math book. It's a terrific read, and it'll make you think about life in a different way. It approaches statistics a lot like Freakonomics approaches, well, economics, drawing surprising connections and rebutting long-held conventional wisdom. It's highly recommended!

With that out of way, let's talk a little bit about the Library in the coming semester. We librarians often find that folks, students and faculty alike, need refreshers every now and again about some important things regarding the Library.

First: Deaf Stacks on the first floor, General Stacks downstairs. If what you're looking for has nothing to do with deaf-related subjects or people, it's probably downstairs. Check the catalog first, though -- it will tell you. If you're still not sure, ask a librarian.

The copy machines and microfilm printers are still 10 cents per page; scanning is free. You're welcome to bring your flash drive and scan away, bearing in mind the copyright restrictions that are in effect. We have signs posted up near the copiers and scanner about those; take a look at them and be sure you know what's what. If you're not sure, ask a librarian.

Loan periods are the same: Deaf Stacks books are 4 weeks for everyone; General Stacks books 4 weeks for undergrads and staff, 6 weeks for grads, current semester for faculty. More details can be found on our Web page about the general borrowing policy (fee/fine information is included on that page as well; it's good reading on general principle). If you have any questions, just send an email to library.help@gallaudet.edu.

If your instructor tells you that he or she has readings available on reserve, those are behind the Service Desk. Those can be borrowed for up to 2 hours and cannot leave the building. In order to get to them for your class, ask whoever's working at the Service Desk. By the way, faculty members, we offer e reserves, which are PDFs of required readings that you can link to your Blackboard pages. To get started, just email your syllabus to library.reserves@gallaudet.edu. See our web page for details.

Yes, we do offer DVDs to watch for entertainment; they're all on the first floor and are marked by a decently-sized sign. If you're not sure how to find them, ask at the Service Desk. You can check out up to 3 at a time for 3 days.

Incidentally, we do offer books to read for entertainment; developing the fiction collection is one of my responsibilities, and I love keeping up with new books and talking about them, so come find me if you want to know what we have. If you're interested in leisure reading material, ask a librarian. Or come find me, which amounts to the same thing (I am a librarian, you know). Or, as always, get in touch through the information on our contact information Web page.

The Archives are downstairs. Go down the main stairs in the center of the Library and look for the dark-brown squares on the floor. Following those past the large glass cases and seating area will take you straight to the Archives. First, though, sometimes the staff at the Service Desk can help you find what you need without having to go downstairs, so be sure to check!

Also downstairs is the eLearning Lab. There are signs posted that point the way; still, because the Library is such an architecturally interesting building, they can be tough to find. If you've looked and looked for the lab and still have had no success, come upstairs and ask a librarian. We have maps and a few surviving Sherpas.

The vending machines for food and drinks are downstairs; you are permitted to eat and drink in the Library, although the usual prohibitions against bathing with Coca-Cola in the middle of the psychology section still apply.

Study space, DVD players, VCRs, and televisions are on the first floor. The basement has only study space; semi-private classrooms and study carrels near our lovely large windows facing Kendall Green and Chapel Hall. TVs, DVD players, and VCRs can be found along the windows on the first floor and in our two labs, where computers are also available: the Deaf Library Study Center (room 1220 -- turn left at the ladies' room, walk down the hall, and it'll be on the right behind the double doors) and in room 1404, in the Reference section, as well as the open computers in the middle of the first floor.

In order to log in, you will need your Gallaudet username and password; ITS policy prohibits non-Gallaudet people from using University resources except under restricted conditions. You should also have your ID with you in order to prove both your identity and your enrollment or employment status.

Actually, this bears repeating: Always have your ID with you. It's required in order to check out or renew books, pay fines, or even to look at your record. We can't accept driver's licenses, military ID, passports, vehicle registrations, voter ID cards, credit card receipts, concealed-carry permits, or pictures of your dog. As a Gallaudet student or employee, you'll have your ID on you at all times anyway, so no big deal ... right? Right.

Our hours for this semester are the same as last semester, except for the different holidays, as well as Spring Break. More information can be found here.

And last, but not least, ask a librarian. E-mail us at library.help@gallaudet.edu for big, complex questions you need help with or to make an appointment, or IM us at GallyLibraryIM -- or just head to library.gallaudet.edu and use the Library Chat widget there -- or just come in for an answer to any quick questions you might have. We're easy to get in touch with!

That covers the basics. Next week, it'll be back to more original stuff; for now, we're all busy getting ready for the new semester!

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Question of the Week
I just brought back a DVD that kept freezing up on me. The librarian took it and put it on a shelf behind the Service Desk; what happens to a movie that's reported damaged?
It gets put on a shelf behind the Service Desk.

And then, of course, I pick it up and watch it. If it doesn't play properly, I clean the disc off (you'd be surprised at how much grape jelly can congeal on these things) and test it a few times. If it tests fine after my quick cleaning, it goes back on the shelf. If it's lightly scratched, it goes to our collection management folks for more intensive cleaning and repair. If it's really banged up, then it needs to be withdrawn from the collection and possibly replaced.

Any discs that go to collection management come back to me when they're done. I usually test the disc again and if it works fine at this point, it goes back on the shelf. If there are still problems, I'll withdraw it from the collection and start considering whether or not to replace the film.

Replacing the film usually depends on the same kind of process I've discussed on this blog before -- is it important to the collection? Is it heavily used? Was it purchased by us or donated? Has it been used for a course? More often than not, it'll get replaced.

What's up with the Library of Congress?

Ahhhh. One of the biggest benefits of being an academic librarian, or otherwise working at a school of some kind, is the long holiday break. I'm relaxed, revitalized, and ready to face the Spring semester.

As much as I can be, at least. This semester will be busier than most; I'm involved with the Academic Bowl, creating questions for competitions and working as a Gallaudet Officer, so a good part of the Spring will see me traveling all over the country to work on regional competitions. If you're working with the Academic Bowl in your region, there's a good chance you'll see me this Spring!

Aside from the extracurricular activities, though, we're all also busy putting things together for the Spring -- electronic reserves, LibGuides, presentations, workshops, classes, new books and movies ... well, the list goes on.

Part of that involves a couple of announcements. First, replacement costs for lost books have gone up all across the WRLC, so the fee we charge has increased from $57 to $67. Not thrilling, but necessary. Publishing costs have gone up, which jacks up a whole bunch of other prices in its wake. It happens.

Second, we've made a slight modification to our home page; you'll see a lovely new pair of boxes at the top of the middle and right-hand columns. The Database Spotlight box is our effort to bring some of our less well-known databases to greater awareness. You'll see a few lines, which will link to a longer summary and standard instructions on how to find the database so you can use it. The From the Blog box is pretty self-explanatory -- we've gotten a few comments from students and faculty that this blog should be featured on the home page more prominently, so we're trying this out. The box will contain the dates and headlines of the last three posts, updated at the same time as this blog.

That's just a couple of new things. There'll be a few more in the coming weeks as we figure out more of what'll be happening both in the Library and on campus over the next semester.

In the meantime, I thought I'd plug something terrifically useful: researcher orientations at the Library of Congress, commonly known in librarian circles as the LOC. They offer classes on how to research in the LOC for the public on some Mondays of almost every month out of the year. You'll learn some really neat facts about the LOC, as well as how their reading rooms are set up and the system they have going. The LOC isn't your ordinary public library, so they do things differently, which means that if you plan to use them for your research, it'd be a good idea to go to one of those orientations. Interpreters are provided upon request, although you will need to place the request at least five business days in advance.

You can register for an orientation and place a request for interpreters and other accommodations here.

The LOC is kind of a funny place; it almost has its own mythology. At least once a semester, I give a presentation to a class that has at least one student who asks me why they should bother using the Gallaudet University Library when the LOC is right up on Capitol Hill. It has every book in the world and is totally open to the public, right? Actually, it doesn't and -- sort of -- isn't.

While it's certainly true that the LOC's mission includes the collection and maintenance of a universal body of knowledge and making it accessible to the public and that it's one of the largest libraries of all time, it has a stronger focus on something else: Congress. It's right there in the name: Library of Congress. More specifically, it's where Congress does its research. The services that the LOC makes available to the public are important, but they come in second to Congress and the rest of the federal government; the stuff they collect is usually acquired with the possible needs of the average Congresscritter in mind, before considering any possible cultural and historical value.

Still, the Library is just so large that you probably won't ever notice this aspect of its operations -- it contains so much information that it's virtually impossible that it won't have what you need.

So: What does Gallaudet have that the Library of Congress doesn't? To simplify matters, personal attention and ease of access.

The LOC is set up in a way that accomplishes a single purpose: maintaining the security of the collection while still providing access. Basically, you have to register for, and get, a reader ID card to get into the reading rooms (some reading rooms may also have more requirements for access, which are all available on the LOC's Web site). Once you've got the card, you need to figure out exactly what it is you want to look at. Every book, every map, every manuscript, including title, author, and call number.

Nearly the entire LOC consists of "closed stacks," which works on a similar principle to the Deaf Copy 1 room here on campus -- members of the public aren't allowed in among the shelves. To look at something from those shelves, you have to go into the reading room, sit down at a desk or table, fill out call slips with the correct information about the books you need, give them to an attendant or librarian, and wait for them to bring those items to you. Many reading rooms also enforce restrictions on what you can bring into the room with you; sometimes those restrictions are so severe that you are essentially limited to a single pencil. And it'd better have an eraser on it.

Okay, so the physical materials aren't so easy to get to. But they have a lot of stuff available online, right?

Weeeelllllll ... yes. They have a lot of stuff related to American history available for free on their Web site, as well as some free databases. However, most of their publicly-accessible stuff is extremely specialized and suitable mostly for very advanced researchers working in very narrow disciplines; the inaccessible stuff can be accessed only by going to the Library of Congress itself in person and searching via one of their computers. Here's the kicker: a lot of what they have online that'll be useful to you is also available through a library much closer to home. Guess which library*. Yeah.

The same principle applies to most other materials -- while it is nice to have an actual Gutenberg Bible to look at, our copy of the Revised Standard Version works just as well, and it's much easier to get to. Anything else might qualify as overkill.

Size is also a consideration. Most of the people I've met who opt for the LOC over us tend to come back with red faces and admit to being overwhelmed by the sheer number of resources available -- it's difficult to sift through tens of thousands of similar books when you just need to find a few case studies to support your conclusion.

That's without discussing the sheer amount of one-on-one help and communication access we offer that the LOC doesn't. We really are a group of knowledgeable librarians who can coordinate with your instructor for the best help possible, any time you need us. Then there's the fact that we know how to sign -- which is something that's hard to find anywhere else. In general, we do offer valuable help that can't be quantified, most of which comes to be through just plain old interacting with you and being a part of the school you attend.

To sum up: The Library of Congress is an incredible resource, but restrictions on access, relatively limited personal help, and the fact that most of what you'll need is available here on campus (after a little expert digging) anyway all combine to make the LOC fairly impractical for most undergraduate and graduate research.

No Question of the Week this week -- with only five days open since the holidays, we haven't had many folks coming in and asking us stuff. Instead, here's a bunch of LOC trivia.

• The Library of Congress encompasses 650 miles of shelf space and contains over 140 million individual items.
• It is the oldest Federal cultural institution in the United States.
• Only half of the Library's collection is in English; the rest is in 470 different languages.
• The Library receives approximately 22,000 items every day.
• However, the number of items actually added to the collection every day is much smaller: 10,000.
• The Library holds the some of the largest collections of items related to certain countries in the world.
• For example, it holds one of the world's largest Tibetan collections.
• It also holds the largest Asian collection outside of Asia; the same is true for Russian materials.
• The largest book in the Library of Congress is 5 feet by 7 feet!
• The Library of Congress contains the world's largest collection of comic books (5,000 titles, 100,000 issues).

*The Gallaudet University Library. Just in case.

Holiday movie recommendations

It's finals week, and things have quietened considerably. Fewer students, fewer faculty, still plenty of staff as we begin to scurry about the work of the interregnum.

That's why I had time to finish Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. In truth, this is probably the sixth or seventh time I've read it, which does help the 846 pages go by much more quickly. The story helps; it's rich in detail and offers endless newness with each reading. It's a pseudo-historical chronicle of England in the early 19th Century and the renaissance in English magic that occurs in that period, thanks to the effort of the two competing magicians mentioned in the title.

Yes, it's a fantasy work at heart, but so superbly executed that you hardly notice that you're reading anything other than a fascinating account of the life and times of Jonathan Strange and his teacher-turned-nemesis Mr. Norrell, as both work to bring dignity back to the practice of English magic by battling Napoleon at Waterloo and socializing with the day's peerage. Along the way, they fall afoul of a mad fairy who takes advantage of their early-on carelessness to entrap the wife of a significant member of the House of Lords and all-out abduct Jonathan Strange's wife, which precipitates the book's crashing end. In the middle of it all, they must navigate a suspicious government, a fickle public, and underhanded toadies with their own agendas. All of it is written in this wonderfully archaic nineteenth-century style that almost makes you feel as though you're actually reading a contemporary account.

The book is filled with innumerable footnotes referring to nonexistent academic documents, conventional-wisdom anecdotes about fairies and magicians, and truly fascinating historical background about an England that almost sounds like it could have existed.

Now, moving on.

This will be the last blog post for a little while -- I'm taking a break for Christmas and New Year's. We'll be returning on January 8 with an eye toward the Spring semester. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a little bit about good movies to watch over Christmas break.

I'm not talking about stuff like A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, The Santa Clause, or Christmas with the Kranks. Those flicks are all playing on pretty much an infinite loop on most family-oriented cable networks until December 25.

The funny thing about holiday breaks is that, during the period just before and after Christmas, one usually finds oneself at loose ends. When you have a couple of weeks of nothing to look forward to, it's easy to take up residence on the family couch and start ordering takeout from your mom's kitchen. When you slip into that period of holiday ennui, you need something to watch that doesn't have snowflakes swirling around a network logo in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

One of the best ways to occupy all that time is through the judicious application of movie marathons. Trilogies, series, TV shows on DVD, anything that's at least six hours long. Those films have to be exceptionally absorbing or exceptionally ridiculous to be worth the time, so the following should not be taken too seriously. Here goes:

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King
C'mon. Who doesn't love the Lord of the Rings movies? Lush scenery, expansive battles, beautiful people, and a bona-fide epic storyline tying it all together. Peter Jackson demonstrated his love of monumental scale and created one of the best book-to-movie adaptations of all time. Never mind that The Return of the King has about 12 endings stitched together; Sam and Frodo's bromance makes it all worth it.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2; Grindhouse: Death Proof, Planet Terror
I lump both Kill Bill and Grindhouse together because they're both part of a similar oeuvre. One could argue that flicks like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs fit into this group, but they were earlier movies by Quentin Tarantino, so don't quite partake of that 21st-Century violence-and-horror sensibility. The Kill Bill movies are gleaming and slick, a fantastically-narrated achronological revenge narrative in which a pregnant blushing bride (who works as one of the world's greatest assassins on the side) has her wedding interrupted by her coworkers' killing spree, taking the lives of her groom, the preacher, the preacher's wife, a few of her friends, and a few of his. The incident puts her in a coma and she wakes up four years later with her womb empty and her head filled with rage, and proceeds to go on a bloody rampage until she fetches up against her former boss and lover: Bill.

True to form, the Kill Bill films are bloody, clever, violent, and beautifully-done. On the other hand, the Grindhouse films are somewhat different. Done in the style of 1950s-era B-movies, they're grainy, scratched, and stuttery ... most of the time. Both films were helmed by different directors, but with significant roles for both in each. Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof tells the story of a homicidal stuntman who enjoys killing young women with his specially-reinforced car, until he comes up against a group of beautiful -- but exceptionally bloodthirsty -- women. This film has some of the most fantastic driving scenes I've ever seen, winding through the hills of Tennessee as the hunter becomes the hunted.

Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, however, is a different beast, and far closer to the B-movie archetype; a shadowy group of scientists tries to sell their biological weapon to the Army in a deal that goes spectactularly bad. The weapon is released, an entire Texas town gets transformed into cannibalistic, pus-oozing zombies, and the only hope lies with a one-legged stripper and her estranged lover, a felon/undercover Federale who should not be permitted near a gun.

El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Three of Robert Rodriguez's early films, this trilogy spans a period in the life of El Mariachi, an innocent Mexican mariachi player who falls in love. A lot. The first woman he falls in love with turns out to be involved with a local drug cartel, and is killed for her troubles. This incident sends El Mariachi on a lifelong trajectory of vengeance against the rapacious cartels that proliferate in Mexico. Yes, more killing, violence, and rage, but the trilogy focuses much more on El Mariachi himself and his attempts to regain his innocence. Set against the backgroup of the most beautiful Mexico you've ever seen, it's a deep examination of what makes us human and what can cause us to lose that humanity.

Star Wars: Episodes I-VI
Yes, all six episodes. It'll take you a couple of days to get through. It's worth it, though; even though the more-recently-made Episodes I-III are distinctly inferior to the older Episodes IV-VI, watching all six in sequence will give you a much better idea of what George Lucas was trying to do with his space opera. It isn't all ray guns and funny-looking aliens -- it's a work that tried to measure up to the likes of The Thorn Birds or Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, a generational saga that tried to be epic in its scope but instead ended up being a biography of Anakin Skywalker: his rise, his fall, his final redemption. The whole saga probably would have been better had it picked one -- generational epic or focused biography -- or the other. Still, it's a good try, and you see plenty of flashes of greatness, especially as you work your way toward the final episodes.

Heathers, Clueless, Mean Girls
Lest you think I'm all about explosions, death, murder, and war, here's a good collection of three movies to watch in sequence. They're unified only by their genre: teen high-school mean-girl comedy. Why do I recommend this? It's a great way to start thinking about how times have changed. Heathers was released in 1988, Clueless in 1995, and Mean Girls in 2004. Heathers is the story of a popular girl with a heart and her unfortunate tryst with a sociopath, and the tragedy that results. It's chock-full of dark humor ("Heather, what is your damage?") and will have you laughing at the teen sociopath's attempts to rationalize his actions using some faint echoes of Randian Objectivism. Unless you believe in it, in which case, it's got a sympathetic character you can root for!

Clueless takes you into the life of an affluent-but-shallow girl and the unreal world she inhabits, which is shaken by the advent of a grunge-chic chick from the East Coast. There's plenty of goofy humor (the movie that launched a thousand "Whatevers") and most of the high school depicted is populated by stereotypical sketches, but a film like this says much more about the culture that produced it than the one it portrays. The same is true about Mean Girls, although it is much closer to the reality of contemporary high school, mixed in with the snappy comebacks one more typically sees in sitcoms. Still, the ending gives you that "we met the enemy and he is us" moment that can often act as a valuable reality-check.

Anything by Mel Brooks: Spaceballs, History of the World Part I, Blazing Saddles, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, The Producers, Young Frankenstein
One of the original Hollywood spoofers, Mel Brooks has a longstanding reputation for lampooning popular culture in his movies. Most of the humor is juvenile, the acting isn't great, and the special effects are pretty hit-or-miss ... but they're funny! Brooks doesn't take moviemaking very seriously, so don't expect to get absorbed into a whole new world or anything -- a film camera smashes a medieval stained-glass window, a spaceship radar dish gets jammed with raspberry, the most insulting of all jams, and a German woman with a lisp discovers the truth about black men -- but all of his movies are immensely entertaining.

Popular wuxia films: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Hero; House of Flying Daggers; Kung Fu Hustle
Wuxia is sort of a genre of Chinese historical martial-arts films. Not "historical" in the literal sense; although many of those movies are loosely based on historical accounts and/or stories, the operative word here is "loosely." They're more like period pieces, which may or may not strive for plot consistency over historical accuracy.

With that said, all four films are generally kung-fu love stories. The first three are serious and set in actual historical periods that cover around 2,000 years of Chinese history, ranging from the Warring States period (around 400 BCE; Hero) to the Qing Dynasty (sometime in the late 18th Century; Crouching Tiger), stopping in at the decline of the Tang dynasty (859 CE, to be exact, for House of Flying Daggers). All three are beautifully filmed, using sweeping landscapes and some of the most amazing colors you've seen in a long time. The fights are especially well-choreographed and make heavy use of slow-motion filming, as well as lots of gravity-defying stunts.

The one odd duck in the bunch, Kung Fu Hustle, is a total spoof of the previous three. Set in Shanghai of the 1940s, Hustle is the story of a rogue who accidentally foments conflict between one of the city's poorest districts and one of its most notorious organized-crime syndicates. However, the poor residents of the district are much, much more than they seem -- as is the fool who got them involved in the first place. Underpinning the story is this sort of gleefully cartoonish sensibility, one that allows the harridan of a landlady run someone down on foot Roadrunner-style, only to be thwarted by an inconveniently-placed billboard, or the Number One Killer in the World and his taste for cheap pink plastic slippers. It's hilarious and one of the most absurd films I've seen in a long time. It serves as a great relaxant after the seriousness of Crouching Tiger, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers.

And ... that wraps it up. Have a good holiday, everyone!