Sheffield_Todd_BlogShare2

 Sheffield_Todd_BlogShare2

Blog Chosen

    For this blog post, I found a blog by Kate McDowell pertaining to the art of storytelling. Based on my preliminary read through, McDowell focuses on the data aspect of storytelling. I found this of interest, given my own lack of expertise on the hard data of storytelling and thus it was a perfect opportunity to learn something new. As always, I wanted to determine the quality of my source when checking out a blog, so I checked out her profile page. McDowell serves Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the School of Information Sciences, and also specializes in research and data in regards to storytelling. I can safely say that this blog is therefore worthwhile to read, and would be valuable for this class. In addition to the content I found, my preliminary reading found that the blog layout worked well, as finding the information I needed was relatively easy. Combined with the professional language and tone, it is apparent that McDowell's blog is one of high quality and value to the storytelling profession.

    Unlike last week's blog that I chose for this assignment, the content was better divided. I chose to blog share last week while on the road, and sadly it shows in the difference of quality. Not only is McDowell's blog more professional in tone, but it is also clearer to navigate between posts. It is also more obvious in its utility to storytelling, something that colleague feedback questioned about my last choice of blog. Despite the growing pains that occurred, I am glad to have learned from my mistakes in time for this second official blog share. I now know better which sort of blogs to find and what kinds to avoid. In the first blog share assignment, I looked at a blog from an approved list by the professor. Here, I found a blog independently as instructed, so I can practice and improve my blog sharing skills.

Three Blog Posts

    The featured post by McDowell comes from March of this year, and pertains to preparing her team for the annual ALA Conference and Exhibition in Chicago. While this was a few months back, the time between posts is not too alarming, and this is still relatively recent. Apart from some updates and reminders about her data project, McDowell focused this post on two main issues. She first mentions the issue of censorship and book banning. In addition, McDowell also tackles the issue of staffing and the further existence of certain libraries, and highlights how up to two-thirds of staff or more have been lost in certain libraries. This shows that McDowell is well read in the information science field, and keeps fresh eyes on what occurs within the field. McDowell's data project exists with the goal of library preservation in mind, as she admits in this post. She ends the main content of this particular post by discussing a grunt her team is applying for, as funding is always a present issue in librarianship.

    The latest post chronologically, but listed below the latest most featured post, is much shorter in content. However, this is because McDowell took part in a lecture that can be found through the post via link or the embedded video. While reading this post, I noticed that this lecture was sponsored as part of the Angela Baker Lecture Series by our very own Dr. Nicole Cook of the University of South Carolina. I could not help but smile a little at the positive representation of our institution while reading this post. The video linked to this post shows McDowell at certain segments, and she is discussing her data storytelling project. She helps define what data storytelling is, and I provided her definition from her presentation as an image above this paragraph. I was very intrigued by McDowell's lecture, and it reinforces the professional, educated nature of her blog that I sensed. My only complaint is that I did not realize this post was chronologically later than the first post I read, but that was the layout of the blog's doing. Assumedly, McDowell highlighted the other post despite it being somewhat older because of its importance. That is my guess, though it is no big issue.

    For the third blog post I read from this blog, I noticed that the text of the blog post was largely a block quote. However, this blog post largely served as access to her latest article published on a website called Information Matters. The blog post also provides an excerpt, which is the block quote I mentioned. I will also provide a direct link to the article here for reader convenience. Much of this article deals with misinformation, and how it can creep into storytelling. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article, and once again feel confident that I found a quality blog for this week after reading through it. I am noticing that McDowell uses much of her blog to advertise and link to the scholarly work she conducts as a library and information science professional. I did not know of her existence or her expertise before finding his blog, however, and her blog makes it easy to access her work and discover more of it. This particular blog post is solid proof of that.

Conclusion

    McDowell's blog serves as an excellent example of what a library and information science blog should look like. For our purposes, I found this blog useful because it shows me a good professional that I can find quality research about storytelling from. If I need sources about storytelling, especially when data from storytelling is needed, I have found an author whose work I feel comfortable examining. McDowell seems to largely use her blog to link to her other work in a centralized and organized manner. In my previous post about blog sharing, I highlighted the utility in blogging for advertising your material and work to a larger audience for minimal to no cost. McDowell's blog serves that exact purpose. Despite the difficulties I faced last week, I feel that finding this blog has shown an increased understanding in finding appropriate blogs to share with my colleagues. My previous shared blog was questioned on the appropriateness to library science and storytelling, so I took that feedback to heart and searched more thoroughly this time.

References

McDowell, K. (2023). Kate McDowell on Storytelling. Blogger. https://storytellingscholar.blogspot.com/

McDowell, K. (2023, April 5). Storytelling Dynamics and misinformation: The bad S-DIKW framework - information matters. Information Matters. https://informationmatters.org/2023/04/storytelling-dynamics-and-misinformation-the-bad-s-dikw-framework/ 

NicoleTheLibrarian (2023, April 21). Augusta Baker Diversity Lecture: Data Storytelling as Library Advocacy with Dr. Kate McDowell [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdRN-Weh8Bg

Seven Comedy Stories Read

1. This Book Just Ate My Dog by KidTimeStoryTime (YouTube video)

2. The fly that forgot its name by KidsOne (YouTube video)

3. Wake Up Mum by Christina Wither

4. The Mighty Meeting by Christina Wither

5. Five Hats and a Funny Top Hat by Christina Wither

6. The Spotty Gray Kitten by Christina Wither

7. They're Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson