Finally, a question with substance, not for the location of the bathroom or for a paper clip or a telephone number.
A student needing to write a comparison between CS Lewis's The lion, the witch and the wardrobe and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. I directed him to the volumes Twentieth Century Literary Criticism and of Contemporary Literary Criticism. I also showed him how to search for the topics in the OPAC:
Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank), 1856-1919 -- Criticism and interpretation. : Moore, Raylyn.
Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963 -- Criticism and interpretation. (4 entries; 1 by Harold Bloom, whom I praised and recommended.)
The land of Narnia : Brian Sibley explores the world of C.S. Lewis A children's book, a type that can often be helpful even for adults.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Cheney to Publish His Memoir
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is working on a book.
The deal was negotiated by Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer who also represents Mr. Bush, former President Bill Clinton and President Obama.
Is there any better proof of what C. Wright Mills called the Power Elite?
The deal was negotiated by Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer who also represents Mr. Bush, former President Bill Clinton and President Obama.
Is there any better proof of what C. Wright Mills called the Power Elite?
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Literary Legend Fights for a Library
Ray Bradbury, the author, loves libraries and is helping to save them.
When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, and have fulfilled the goal of taking a simulated ride to Mars, what’s left?
“Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine and I’d like to spend more time with her,” said Ray Bradbury, peering up from behind an old television tray in his living room.
An unlikely answer, but Mr. Bradbury, the science fiction writer, is very specific in his eccentric list of interests, and his pursuit of them in his advancing age and state of relative immobility.
This is a lucky thing for the Ventura County Public Libraries. Because among Mr. Bradbury’s passions, none burn quite as hot as his life-long passion for halls of books. His most famous novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” contains a seminal library scene.
Mr. Bradbury frequently speaks at libraries across the state, and on Saturday he will make his way here for a benefit for the H. P. Wright Library, which like many in the state’s public system is in danger of shutting its doors because of budget cuts.
One of the great ironies is that during the economic downturn more people than usually have turned to libraries for resources, for a haven, and for direction, and because of the same economic downturn, libraries are suffering budget cuts. and more.
“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
When he is not raising money for libraries, Mr. Bradbury still writes for a few hours every morning (“I can’t tell you,” is the answer to any questions on his latest book), reads Bernard Shaw, receives visitors including reporters, filmmakers, friends and children of friends, and watches films on his giant flat-screen television.
He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager. “The children ask me, How can I live forever too?” he said. “I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.”
When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, and have fulfilled the goal of taking a simulated ride to Mars, what’s left?
“Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine and I’d like to spend more time with her,” said Ray Bradbury, peering up from behind an old television tray in his living room.
An unlikely answer, but Mr. Bradbury, the science fiction writer, is very specific in his eccentric list of interests, and his pursuit of them in his advancing age and state of relative immobility.
This is a lucky thing for the Ventura County Public Libraries. Because among Mr. Bradbury’s passions, none burn quite as hot as his life-long passion for halls of books. His most famous novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” contains a seminal library scene.
Mr. Bradbury frequently speaks at libraries across the state, and on Saturday he will make his way here for a benefit for the H. P. Wright Library, which like many in the state’s public system is in danger of shutting its doors because of budget cuts.
One of the great ironies is that during the economic downturn more people than usually have turned to libraries for resources, for a haven, and for direction, and because of the same economic downturn, libraries are suffering budget cuts. and more.
“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
When he is not raising money for libraries, Mr. Bradbury still writes for a few hours every morning (“I can’t tell you,” is the answer to any questions on his latest book), reads Bernard Shaw, receives visitors including reporters, filmmakers, friends and children of friends, and watches films on his giant flat-screen television.
He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager. “The children ask me, How can I live forever too?” he said. “I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.”
Thursday, June 18, 2009
But Always Meeting Ourselves
Sometimes one story can be enough for anyone: it suffices for a family, or a generation, or even a whole culture — but on occasion there are enormous holes in our histories, and we don’t know how to fill them.
I had brought an old copy of “Ulysses,” James Joyce’s masterpiece that takes place in the back streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904. I wanted to read it cover to cover. I have been dipping into the novel for many years, reading the accessible parts, plundering the icing on the cake, but in truth I had never read it all in one flow.
I've never gotten even that far.
The messy layers of human experience get pulled together, and sometimes ordered, by words.
The book carried me through to the far side of my body, made me alive in another time. I was 10 years old again, but this time I knew my grandfather, and it was a moment of gain: he was so much more than a forgotten drunk.
This is the function of books — we learn how to live even if we weren’t there. Fiction gives us access to a very real history. Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.
Colum McCannis the author of the forthcoming novel “Let the Great World Spin.”
I had brought an old copy of “Ulysses,” James Joyce’s masterpiece that takes place in the back streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904. I wanted to read it cover to cover. I have been dipping into the novel for many years, reading the accessible parts, plundering the icing on the cake, but in truth I had never read it all in one flow.
I've never gotten even that far.
The messy layers of human experience get pulled together, and sometimes ordered, by words.
The book carried me through to the far side of my body, made me alive in another time. I was 10 years old again, but this time I knew my grandfather, and it was a moment of gain: he was so much more than a forgotten drunk.
This is the function of books — we learn how to live even if we weren’t there. Fiction gives us access to a very real history. Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.
Colum McCannis the author of the forthcoming novel “Let the Great World Spin.”
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tears in the darkness
American and Filipino troops in April 1942 on the Bataan Death March, a 66-mile ordeal that remains a hallmark of brutality.
No aspect of this battle or the infamous march that followed seems to have been overlooked. It is possible to buy volumes devoted to Bataan’s nurses, its military chaplains and, in Hampton Sides’s best-selling 2001 book, “Ghost Soldiers,” the men who rescued its survivors.
“Tears in the Darkness” is authoritative history. Ten years in the making, it is based on hundreds of interviews with American, Filipino and Japanese combatants. But it is also a narrative achievement. The book seamlessly blends a wide-angle view with the stories of many individual participants. And at this book’s beating emotional heart is the tale of just one American soldier, a young cowboy and aspiring artist out of Montana named Ben Steele.
Tears in the darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath. Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman. Illustrated. 464 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Two weeks after Pearl Harbor Japan invaded the Philippines. The poorly trained and untested American and Filipino forces were overmatched; they eventually retreated into the mountainous jungles of Bataan for a brutal last stand, one that the Normans, who are husband and wife, describe as “a modern Thermopylae.”
The authors are sympathetic toward Ned King, the surrendering American major general, who was beloved by his men. (General King made it clear to his soldiers that he had surrendered, not they.) Mr. and Ms. Norman reserve their scorn for the initial Allied general overseeing Bataan, Douglas MacArthur, whom they accuse of not leading from the field and later abandoning his men there.
MacArthur was always busy becoming a great man.
There are many Japanese voices in “Tears in the Darkness.” Mr. and Ms. Norman don’t excuse Japan’s actions, but place them in careful context. Japanese soldiers, they write, were the products of “a closed world of violence where men were subjected to the most brutal system of army discipline in the world.” These soldiers “had been savaged to produce an army of savage intent.”
What are the physics of suffocation? How does a bomb blast actually kill a person? What exactly does lack of water do to a human body? “Tears in the Darkness” is a grim and comprehensive catalog of man’s inhumanity to man.
In the end, though, “Tears in the Darkness” is a book about heroism and survival. All along you are glued, out of the corner of your eye, to one story, Ben Steele’s. If you aren’t weeping openly by the book’s final scenes, when he is at last able to call home and let his family know that he is still alive after more than three years “missing in action,” during which time this thin young man lost 50 pounds, then you have a hard crust of salt around your soul.
An authoritative history of the Bataan Death March that seamlessly blends a wide-angle view with the stories of individual American, Filipino and Japanese participants.
The Bataan Death March has been written about before, and well, by a number of historians. Memoirs alone about Bataan fill a long, harrowing shelf. Their titles cry out in silent pain, bitterness and defiance: “My Hitch in Hell,” “No Uncle Sam,” “We Refused to Die.”No aspect of this battle or the infamous march that followed seems to have been overlooked. It is possible to buy volumes devoted to Bataan’s nurses, its military chaplains and, in Hampton Sides’s best-selling 2001 book, “Ghost Soldiers,” the men who rescued its survivors.
“Tears in the Darkness” is authoritative history. Ten years in the making, it is based on hundreds of interviews with American, Filipino and Japanese combatants. But it is also a narrative achievement. The book seamlessly blends a wide-angle view with the stories of many individual participants. And at this book’s beating emotional heart is the tale of just one American soldier, a young cowboy and aspiring artist out of Montana named Ben Steele.
Tears in the darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath. Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman. Illustrated. 464 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.Two weeks after Pearl Harbor Japan invaded the Philippines. The poorly trained and untested American and Filipino forces were overmatched; they eventually retreated into the mountainous jungles of Bataan for a brutal last stand, one that the Normans, who are husband and wife, describe as “a modern Thermopylae.”
The authors are sympathetic toward Ned King, the surrendering American major general, who was beloved by his men. (General King made it clear to his soldiers that he had surrendered, not they.) Mr. and Ms. Norman reserve their scorn for the initial Allied general overseeing Bataan, Douglas MacArthur, whom they accuse of not leading from the field and later abandoning his men there.
MacArthur was always busy becoming a great man.
There are many Japanese voices in “Tears in the Darkness.” Mr. and Ms. Norman don’t excuse Japan’s actions, but place them in careful context. Japanese soldiers, they write, were the products of “a closed world of violence where men were subjected to the most brutal system of army discipline in the world.” These soldiers “had been savaged to produce an army of savage intent.”
What are the physics of suffocation? How does a bomb blast actually kill a person? What exactly does lack of water do to a human body? “Tears in the Darkness” is a grim and comprehensive catalog of man’s inhumanity to man.
In the end, though, “Tears in the Darkness” is a book about heroism and survival. All along you are glued, out of the corner of your eye, to one story, Ben Steele’s. If you aren’t weeping openly by the book’s final scenes, when he is at last able to call home and let his family know that he is still alive after more than three years “missing in action,” during which time this thin young man lost 50 pounds, then you have a hard crust of salt around your soul.
Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76
June 17, 2009
Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76, Heads to Court Again
By A. G. SULZBERGER
The author J. D. Salinger, known as much for his cloistered ways as for his skillful pen, has sued repeatedly over the years to protect his privacy and the sanctity of his work.
So when a book that describes itself on its copyright page as “An Unauthorized Fictional Examination of the Relationship Between J. D. Salinger and his Most Famous Character” was published in Britain and scheduled for release in the Untied States, a detour to court was a safe bet.
“60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye,” by J. D. California, a 33-year-old humor writer from Sweden who uses that gimmicky nom de plume, might be read as an update of sorts to Mr. Salinger’s 1951 classic, “The Catcher in the Rye,” which has sold more than 35 million copies. The new work centers on a 76-year-old “Mr. C,” the creation of a writer named Mr. Salinger. Although the name Holden Caulfield does not appear in the book, Mr. C is clearly Holden, one of the most enduring adolescent figures in American literature, as an old man.
Both novels are set in New York, feature the same characters and use similar language. Mr. Salinger’s work opens with the 16-year-old Holden’s departure from a boarding school; the new book begins with “Mr. C” leaving a retirement home. Both end on a carousel in Central Park.
In a complaint of copyright infringement filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, lawyers for Mr. Salinger call the new novel “a rip-off pure and simple.” Lawyers for Fredrik Colting, the new author, filed a brief this week saying that the work is more complex than just a sequel, noting that Mr. Salinger himself is a character.
The new book, the brief said, “explores the famously reclusive Salinger’s efforts to control both his own persona and the persona of the character he created.”
It adds: “In order to regain control over his own life, which is drawing to a close, ‘Mr. Salinger’ tries repeatedly to kill off Mr. C by various means: a runaway truck; falling construction debris; a lunatic woman with a knife; suicide by drowning and suicide by pills.”
The case is one of several in recent years exploring how much license the public has to draw on a classic work. In 2001 the estate of Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind,” sued unsuccessfully to prevent the release of “The Wind Done Gone,” which told the same story from the perspective of a slave. Last year J. K. Rowling, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, won a lawsuit over a guidebook to the series called The Harry Potter Lexicon.
“This case is really interesting because it really is where copyright runs into First Amendment rights, and it shows the jagged line between them,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School, who also was part of the legal team that defended the publisher in “The Wind Done Gone” lawsuit.
In examining questions of fair use of copyrighted work, courts have looked at whether a new work transforms the original in a significant way, Ms. Jenkins said, citing a Supreme Court ruling that a legitimate work must add “something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message.”
Mr. Colting, who is also the writer and publisher of lowbrow humor books for Nicotext, a Swedish company he started with a friend six years ago, said in a telephone interview that he never imagined that his book, which he described as his first attempt at serious fiction, might end up in court.
“In Sweden we don’t sue people,” he said.
Marcia Paul, a lawyer for Mr. Salinger, declined to comment on the case, citing her client’s desire for privacy. Court documents filed in the case describe Mr. Salinger, now 90, who lives in Cornish, N.H., as totally deaf, with “several age-related health problems,” including a recently broken hip that has put him in a rehabilitation facility. Mr. Salinger has not been photographed or granted an interview for decades.
Mr. Salinger will not attend the hearing, Ms. Paul said. Though he has not published any new work since 1965, he has sued several times to protect certain works, including successful efforts to stop publication of some of his personal letters in a biography and to halt a staging of “The Catcher in the Rye” by a college theater company in San Francisco. He has also turned down requests, from Steven Spielberg, among others, for movie adaptations of “The Catcher in the Rye.”
“He feels strongly that he wants his fiction and his characters to remain intact as he wrote them,” according to an affidavit by his literary agent.
Holden Caulfield, a Ripe 76, Heads to Court Again
By A. G. SULZBERGER
The author J. D. Salinger, known as much for his cloistered ways as for his skillful pen, has sued repeatedly over the years to protect his privacy and the sanctity of his work.
So when a book that describes itself on its copyright page as “An Unauthorized Fictional Examination of the Relationship Between J. D. Salinger and his Most Famous Character” was published in Britain and scheduled for release in the Untied States, a detour to court was a safe bet.
“60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye,” by J. D. California, a 33-year-old humor writer from Sweden who uses that gimmicky nom de plume, might be read as an update of sorts to Mr. Salinger’s 1951 classic, “The Catcher in the Rye,” which has sold more than 35 million copies. The new work centers on a 76-year-old “Mr. C,” the creation of a writer named Mr. Salinger. Although the name Holden Caulfield does not appear in the book, Mr. C is clearly Holden, one of the most enduring adolescent figures in American literature, as an old man.
Both novels are set in New York, feature the same characters and use similar language. Mr. Salinger’s work opens with the 16-year-old Holden’s departure from a boarding school; the new book begins with “Mr. C” leaving a retirement home. Both end on a carousel in Central Park.
In a complaint of copyright infringement filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, lawyers for Mr. Salinger call the new novel “a rip-off pure and simple.” Lawyers for Fredrik Colting, the new author, filed a brief this week saying that the work is more complex than just a sequel, noting that Mr. Salinger himself is a character.
The new book, the brief said, “explores the famously reclusive Salinger’s efforts to control both his own persona and the persona of the character he created.”
It adds: “In order to regain control over his own life, which is drawing to a close, ‘Mr. Salinger’ tries repeatedly to kill off Mr. C by various means: a runaway truck; falling construction debris; a lunatic woman with a knife; suicide by drowning and suicide by pills.”
The case is one of several in recent years exploring how much license the public has to draw on a classic work. In 2001 the estate of Margaret Mitchell, author of “Gone With the Wind,” sued unsuccessfully to prevent the release of “The Wind Done Gone,” which told the same story from the perspective of a slave. Last year J. K. Rowling, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, won a lawsuit over a guidebook to the series called The Harry Potter Lexicon.
“This case is really interesting because it really is where copyright runs into First Amendment rights, and it shows the jagged line between them,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School, who also was part of the legal team that defended the publisher in “The Wind Done Gone” lawsuit.
In examining questions of fair use of copyrighted work, courts have looked at whether a new work transforms the original in a significant way, Ms. Jenkins said, citing a Supreme Court ruling that a legitimate work must add “something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message.”
Mr. Colting, who is also the writer and publisher of lowbrow humor books for Nicotext, a Swedish company he started with a friend six years ago, said in a telephone interview that he never imagined that his book, which he described as his first attempt at serious fiction, might end up in court.
“In Sweden we don’t sue people,” he said.
Marcia Paul, a lawyer for Mr. Salinger, declined to comment on the case, citing her client’s desire for privacy. Court documents filed in the case describe Mr. Salinger, now 90, who lives in Cornish, N.H., as totally deaf, with “several age-related health problems,” including a recently broken hip that has put him in a rehabilitation facility. Mr. Salinger has not been photographed or granted an interview for decades.
Mr. Salinger will not attend the hearing, Ms. Paul said. Though he has not published any new work since 1965, he has sued several times to protect certain works, including successful efforts to stop publication of some of his personal letters in a biography and to halt a staging of “The Catcher in the Rye” by a college theater company in San Francisco. He has also turned down requests, from Steven Spielberg, among others, for movie adaptations of “The Catcher in the Rye.”
“He feels strongly that he wants his fiction and his characters to remain intact as he wrote them,” according to an affidavit by his literary agent.
Popular fiction
First Family, David Baldacci: 541 holds on 348 copies
8th Confession, James Patterson: 594 holds on 405 copies
Matters of the Heart, Danielle Steel: 238 holds on 226 copies
And a call: "What happened to Farrah Fawcett?"
8th Confession, James Patterson: 594 holds on 405 copies
Matters of the Heart, Danielle Steel: 238 holds on 226 copies
And a call: "What happened to Farrah Fawcett?"
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Kuprin
One frustration of library work is not knowing what happened to the request placed for an interloan; to the student who came to the library often, studying for the MCAT, LSAT or any other exam. Some very few times, I see a patron again, and we talk: there is a high school student whom I helped with the Lincoln letters project two years ago, who returned this past school year to study, and is friendly; we talk, and I ask about his school progress.
Last Friday a woman came in, and asked about getting a story by Alexander Kuprin. That caught my attention immediately: only one person has ever asked for his writing, and it took me a few moments to realize it was her. Last year she'd asked for the story A clump of Lilacs; this year she asked for The holy lie.
Last Friday a woman came in, and asked about getting a story by Alexander Kuprin. That caught my attention immediately: only one person has ever asked for his writing, and it took me a few moments to realize it was her. Last year she'd asked for the story A clump of Lilacs; this year she asked for The holy lie.
Friday, June 12, 2009
A pattern
Not the usual Patterson, Baldacci or Steel books, but a predictable set of requests from a patron familiar to all who is not a nice person: petulant when she thinks it necessary, often she calls from home and in the background the sound of running water and a television make it difficult to hear her requests (spoken with a cranky sigh):
Naturally thin : unleash your skinnygirl and free yourself from a lifetime of dieting.
Cook yourself thin : skinny meals you can make in minutes
Hungry girl : 200 under 200 : 200 recipes under 200 calories
The end of overeating : controlling the insatiable American appetite
The sweet life in Paris : delicious adventures in the world's most glorious -- and perplexing -- city
Naturally thin : unleash your skinnygirl and free yourself from a lifetime of dieting.
Cook yourself thin : skinny meals you can make in minutes
Hungry girl : 200 under 200 : 200 recipes under 200 calories
The end of overeating : controlling the insatiable American appetite
The sweet life in Paris : delicious adventures in the world's most glorious -- and perplexing -- city
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Benefits of E-portfolios for Students and Faculty
The Benefits of E-portfolios for Students and Faculty in Their Own Words
"A well-executed e-portfolio program is an incredible tool for higher education. They provide institutions with authentic assessments of student learning and promote the deeper learning that we want for our students. I don't understand why more institutions aren't using them." Candyce Reynolds, associate professor, Post-Secondary, Adult, and Continuing Education, School of Education, Portland State University
>From matriculation through graduation, the goals for expected student learning are wide-ranging and ambitious. After reviewing mission statements from multiple institutions, examining various accreditation guidelines, and interviewing business and community leaders, AAC&U has found consensus among these resources that college learning should include broad knowledge, powerful intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and the ability to integrate years of learning into a connected, functional whole. The search for ways to foster and document such complex learning for all students has led some campuses to develop e-portfolios as teaching, learning, and assessment tools. Those institutions are now discovering how to use e-portfolios to inform the process of improvement from the individual student level up to the institutional level.
Students generally use e-portfolios to collect their work, reflect upon strengths and weaknesses, and strive to improve. Equally beneficial are the data that faculty, departments, and institutions derive when they assess the work in portfolios, reflect upon it in curricular contexts, and use the data and reflections to plan for improvement. E-portfolios provide a rich resource for both students and faculty to learn about achievement of important outcomes over time, make connections among disparate parts of the curriculum, gain insights leading to improvement, and develop identities as learners or as facilitators of learning.
The increasing use of e-portfolios on campuses naturally raises questions about their impact and effectiveness. Through the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project, we have collected reflections on e-portfolio use from both faculty and students that detail their reactions. These reflections come from campuses experienced with e-portfolios and selected for participation in the VALUE project. We believe that they represent some of the common benefits of well-run e-portfolio programs.
Good e-portfolio practice always includes the processes included within the broad concept of metacognition-having students reflect on their work and think about their progress in learning. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000; 18, 21) call metacognition "an internal conversation" in which students monitor their own understanding and state that teachers should explicitly emphasize metacognition because it "can enhance student achievement and develop in students the ability to learn independently." E-portfolios provide rich opportunities for metacognition through periodic (and often required) reflections which may help students develop an array of outcomes and skills. Reflection on work saved in e-portfolios can
* build learners' personal and academic identities as they complete complex projects and reflect on their
capabilities and progress,
* facilitate the integration of learning as students connect learning across courses and time,
* be focused on developing self-assessment abilities in which students judge the quality of work using the
same criteria experts use,
* help students plan their own academic pathways as they come to understand what they know and are able to
E-portfolios are gaining support as a way for students, faculty, programs, and institutions to learn, assess, and improve through a mutual focus on the work that students complete over time-work that can both facilitate and document a range of ambitious learning outcomes.
References
Bransford, J. D., A. L. Brown, and R. R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Kirkpatrick, J., T. Renner, L. Kanae, and K. Goya. 2007. Values-driven ePortfolio journey. Final report, Kapi'olani Community College, University of Hawai'i.
Kuh, G. D. 2008. High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
"A well-executed e-portfolio program is an incredible tool for higher education. They provide institutions with authentic assessments of student learning and promote the deeper learning that we want for our students. I don't understand why more institutions aren't using them." Candyce Reynolds, associate professor, Post-Secondary, Adult, and Continuing Education, School of Education, Portland State University
>From matriculation through graduation, the goals for expected student learning are wide-ranging and ambitious. After reviewing mission statements from multiple institutions, examining various accreditation guidelines, and interviewing business and community leaders, AAC&U has found consensus among these resources that college learning should include broad knowledge, powerful intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and the ability to integrate years of learning into a connected, functional whole. The search for ways to foster and document such complex learning for all students has led some campuses to develop e-portfolios as teaching, learning, and assessment tools. Those institutions are now discovering how to use e-portfolios to inform the process of improvement from the individual student level up to the institutional level.
Students generally use e-portfolios to collect their work, reflect upon strengths and weaknesses, and strive to improve. Equally beneficial are the data that faculty, departments, and institutions derive when they assess the work in portfolios, reflect upon it in curricular contexts, and use the data and reflections to plan for improvement. E-portfolios provide a rich resource for both students and faculty to learn about achievement of important outcomes over time, make connections among disparate parts of the curriculum, gain insights leading to improvement, and develop identities as learners or as facilitators of learning.
The increasing use of e-portfolios on campuses naturally raises questions about their impact and effectiveness. Through the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project, we have collected reflections on e-portfolio use from both faculty and students that detail their reactions. These reflections come from campuses experienced with e-portfolios and selected for participation in the VALUE project. We believe that they represent some of the common benefits of well-run e-portfolio programs.
Good e-portfolio practice always includes the processes included within the broad concept of metacognition-having students reflect on their work and think about their progress in learning. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000; 18, 21) call metacognition "an internal conversation" in which students monitor their own understanding and state that teachers should explicitly emphasize metacognition because it "can enhance student achievement and develop in students the ability to learn independently." E-portfolios provide rich opportunities for metacognition through periodic (and often required) reflections which may help students develop an array of outcomes and skills. Reflection on work saved in e-portfolios can
* build learners' personal and academic identities as they complete complex projects and reflect on their
capabilities and progress,
* facilitate the integration of learning as students connect learning across courses and time,
* be focused on developing self-assessment abilities in which students judge the quality of work using the
same criteria experts use,
* help students plan their own academic pathways as they come to understand what they know and are able to
- do and what they still need to learn.
The reflections of students and faculty below mention these and other outcomes. Reading about the experiences that students and faculty have with e-portfolios, one begins to understand why so many campuses are exploring e-portfolio programs.
- Student Voices
The e-portfolio experience gave me a chance to find out about the skills I should be learning in
college and there are ways that I can keep track of how I am doing. I was not taught how to think
in terms of outcomes of skills so it was kind of challenging at first. When I was trying to figure out
what types of knowledge, skills, or abilities I had learned from volunteer or internship
experiences, it was very helpful to go to the Pathways Outcomes in my e-portfolio and think about
how they applied to the experiences I was writing about for my public portfolio. - Third-year
student, University of Michigan
Structured reflections helped this student analyze her learning experiences to reveal and understand outcomes that might otherwise have been missed. While course syllabi and college catalogs may declare what learning is supposed to take place, the structured reflection required for an e-portfolio can push students to "own" learning outcomes when they describe their progress and cite specific evidence of learning within their collections of work.
I have had many amazing experiences at Michigan, but I didn't really know what they meant or how
they all fit together.Š Now, I see patterns and themes in the work I have been doing, how things
fit together. The work I've been doing actually makes senseŠ there has been some direction to it
all along. I also realize that my work is a reflection of me and that my identity and background [an
African-American woman growing up in Detroit] have always played a part in my learningŠI see how
I have already made a difference in my communities. - Third-year student, University of Michigan
This student writes about integration of learning-"how things fit together"-resulting from e-portfolio and reflection. She also refers to her growing self-knowledge and confidence in her ability to work effectively in different settings.
I didn't know what an e-portfolio was when I first heard about it in classŠ.My professor suggested
to me that I develop the "about me" section of my e-portfolio because there, I would have the
opportunity to write more about myself and so I did. In that first e-portfolio I wrote about
Palmira (Valle), the city where I was born in Colombia, and I wrote about Medellin, where I used to
spend my vacations of schoolŠ.and I wrote about the cultural assimilation process I was going
through.
The second time I was asked to develop my e-portfolio, I had a lot more to share. I was in third
semester at LaGuardia and I had already taken most of the classes connected to my major, so I
decided include my academic work and goals that would make my family proud of meŠ.my priority
was to focus on my personal growth in my schoolwork and what I was learning at LaGuardia. After
putting up my projects in my e-portfolio, I then started to think more about my future and my
career.
Now, with more knowledge of computer programs for developing Web pages, I decided to use my
e-portfolio as an opportunity to show and demonstrate all the skills that I have learned throughout
my journey at LaGuardia Community CollegeŠ.All together, my third e-portfolio demonstrates me
as a professional who is looking toward her future and who has many goals to reach.
Not only have I gained technical skills, but I've learned how to express myself as a serious student
and a hard worker. The different sections of my e-portfolio made me realize the important things
about how I see myself starting at LaGuardia, how I see myself now and in my future. My
experience with e-portfolio at LaGuardia has made me see more of whom I want to be and how I
can accomplish my goals. - Student, LaGuardia College
E-portfolios can be used for different purposes that may shift as students move through their programs. This community college student consciously (with professor guidance) began with self-exploration and expression (the "about me" section of her e-portfolio), moving on to communicating her learning and academic goals to her family. Finally, she emphasized professional aspects of learning by posting her most valued work from her major to represent her significant achievements and learning over time. This essay shows impressive development and self-awareness as the student takes control of her personal, academic, and professional planning and accomplishments.
I feel that the process has enhanced my understanding of the overall higher education
experienceŠ.I have always felt confused and irritated by the lack of connection between my
general education requirements and my core department requirements. I think that the e-portfolio
is a great way to link the two types of classes that you take during your time at Portland State. I
am a very visual person and the template of the e-portfolio was easy to follow and it truly helped
to achieve the goal of linking my personal work to my personal goal. I also believe that this process
was very empowering for me. It is easy to get discouraged with work that you complete during
classes because you complete a paper, receive a grade, and then that paper is simply stored in a
folder on your computer. This process helped me to look back on the work that I had completed in
prior classes and place more value on the work that I had created. I was able to value the work
because each assignment that I complete I have taken one step closer to completing a personal or
professional goal of my own. It was encouraging to see that I was not attending classes just to
receive a piece of paper that declares I graduated from college, I was attending college for my
own personal and professional growth. - Student, Portland State University
The student who wrote this statement has realized a number of benefits from the e-portfolio experience. The integrative function is highlighted in the comments about connecting general education requirements with learning in the major. The structure and even the appearance of the portfolio template helped to organize the student's thinking and enhance his academic planning-"linking personal work to my personal goal." There is the realization that by creating a collection of completed assignments and looking back through the collection for coherence and meaning, one better understands progress toward goals and learns to appreciate the work. Finally, there is the very powerful realization that going to college is about more than the degree-the learning is important and, upon reflection, makes sense.
I didn't realize the importance of the work I was doingŠ all the communication skills I was learning
while doing research.Š When I had a chance to reflect on it and was asked to describe the
experience to others in my e-portfolio, I realized that I had learned a lot more than I thought. I was
so focused on getting into business school, that if I had not had the space to stop and reflect on my
experiences, I would have never known how I much I actually gained from everything I did my first
year. - Second-year student, University of Michigan
Reflection can be an awakening for students and serves to distill the meaning from experiences. Referring to a music performance of variable quality, a teacher of one of the authors once said "there's gold in that gravel." Reflection is like panning for gold, finding the valuable nuggets from among the gravel of day-to-day campus experience. Even for students with a focus on goals, as seemed to be the case for this student, pausing to reflect proved to be critical to making valuable learning conscious and more likely to be used in the future.
- Faculty Voices
Student perceptions of learning could, of course, be questioned as self-serving or inaccurate-they are, after all, not direct evidence of learning. However, faculty working with students who are building e-portfolios and reflecting upon the work in them confirm the same kinds of learning that students claim.
At the University of Michigan, first-year organic chemistry students receive honors credit for
participating in weekly, two-hour, peer-led "studio" sessions. Third- and fourth-year students who
excelled in the courses previously lead these sessions, and are under my direct supervision. These
peer teachers are all extremely positive about the integrative e-portfolio process. At our weekly
leaders meeting last night, they launched into a discussion (without being solicited) about the value
they are getting from the structured reflection exercises... both in terms of their teaching and (I
suspect what I am hearing) on their overall college experience. They seem to benefit from being
asked to explicitly think about how their teaching/leadership experiences can be transferred into
other aspects of their lives. I have been mentoring a comparable group of student leaders since
1994, and I am noticing that this group seems to possess a degree of maturity as teachers/leaders
that is higher than any of the groups from years past. I usually have to prod them a bit throughout
the term to (a) think through the various challenges they are encountering, and (b) step up to the
leadership position each week as the facilitator for our weekly dinner meetings. This group seems to
need very little guidance from me. I think this is all rather impressive, given that we are yet only
four to five weeks into the semester! I look forward to learning more about how they change as a
result of the process. - Brian P. Coppola, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry, associate chair,
Department of Chemistry, codirector of the IDEA Institute, University of Michigan
The independence and speed of learning of these students are noteworthy and it would be especially interesting to investigate whether subsequent groups of leaders benefit in similar ways from their portfolio experiences. This professor also notes that these students have enhanced their ability to transfer learning to new situations.
A different group of student leaders at University of Michigan were transformed in several ways through building e-portfolios and reflecting upon their work and experiences. This professor notes integrative, goal setting, and personal understanding outcomes for students.
Student leaders at the University of Michigan say in focus groups and individual interviews that what
is most lacking in their education is making sense of the myriad activities, community work,
research, and coursework with which they engage. This generation of college students describes
themselves as "doers." These leaders know, however, that "doing" as a substitute for "thinking and
integrating" has not served them well. A group of these leaders were among the first students at
Michigan to pilot Michigan's integrative leadership e-portfolio in a semester-long course that taught
them how to identify and integrate different types of knowledge (tacit and explicit) through a
process of dialogue, reflection, connection and demonstration. They had no trouble listing activities
on and on-off campus as well as courses that had been important to them. The challenge was in
extracting meaning from their work and how they could best connect, indeed produce, their current
goals, personal philosophy and a coherent understanding of the knowledge and skills they possessed.
These students met the challenge largely through a process called generative interviewing (a method
of knowledge retrieval that is part of the e-portfolio process) in which they were guided and
learned to guide each other to extract meaning and connection. The students who have participated
in these early pilot courses have described them as "transformative." - Patricia Gurin, Nancy Cantor
Distinguished University Professor, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies,
Professor Emerita, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, University of Michigan
Faculty, of course, are responsible for designing and assessing the assignments that may be included in students' e-portfolios. Considered from a learning-centered perspective, assignments define outcomes through what we ask students to do, foster outcomes during the process of being completed, provide opportunities for formative and/or summative assessment, and generate data on student learning that can be analyzed for ways to improve student learning. Given the time and effort spent by teachers and students alike on assignments, it makes sense to get as much out of each piece of student work as possible. From what students write about looking at their own work in e-portfolios, it is clear that they can continue to learn from assignments through guided reflections even after the assignments have been completed and graded. Faculty, programs, and institutions can also learn about student achievement through reflecting and assessing student assignments sampled from e-portfolios.
While not directly telling how her campus uses e-portfolios for program assessment, an associate dean conveys the wealth of information that lies within the e-portfolios built by students on her campus. She also makes clear that e-portfolios facilitate learning and reflection is key to the process.
If what we want is to deepen learning and to facilitate transfer of knowledge, for the first time,
e-portfolios provide a strategy that allows students to archive their work over time. The critical
part is that they also use those artifacts for intentional and promoted reflection that supports
connecting the learning across courses and disciplines and to their own lives and passions. In this way,
e-portfolios become a scaffold of learning experiences from the curriculum and the cocurriculum
that students use to demonstrate and articulate the increasing sophistication and complexity of
their understanding and thinking throughout their educational career and beyond. - Judith Patton,
associate dean, School of Fine and Performing Arts, Portland State University
Left unsaid is that Portland State University (PSU) has a periodic assessment process in which groups of faculty read student work sampled from e-portfolios to see to what extent students are achieving university general education goals. This process is a kind of structured reflection for faculty on student achievement, course goals and assignments and serves to guide subsequent planning and teaching. Rotating through a couple of university goals each year, PSU has a process that takes advantage of the wealth of information waiting to be analyzed and interpreted within collections of student work. They wisely limit the amount of student work assessed at any one time so that the process is manageable. Faculty from other campuses also recognize the mutual benefits to students and faculty.
A campus, with e-portfolios in place as flexible space for faculty and students to archive and
synthesize their work, is well-positioned for assessment. Reflection on e-portfolios of collected
works is where the evidence of learning emerges. Students may not understand the significance of
e-portfolios as they begin their college career, but they will begin to understand their own disparate
learning by the time they are finishing their four-years of collection of academic works. - Judith
Kirkpatrick, professor, Kapi'olani Community College
At Kapi'olani a study of the e-portfolio process focused on whether courses were more student-centered and if the e-portfolios assisted in integrating students' academic, career, and personal work with a stage of growth in understanding Hawaiian values. The research team designated first-year composition and second-year Hawaiian language courses for the research study, and included a control class for first-year composition. The researchers administered two instruments, the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI), and the N? Wa'a E-portfolio Survey, and analyzed the students' reflective learning analyses to explore whether the approach is truly learning-centered. Initially, instructors began the project with the hopes of transforming their students into more independent learners. At about mid-semester, the instructors realized they were transforming the way they teach.
- E-portfolios as a Guide for Teaching and Learning
E-portfolios are gaining support as a way for students, faculty, programs, and institutions to learn, assess, and improve through a mutual focus on the work that students complete over time-work that can both facilitate and document a range of ambitious learning outcomes.
References
Bransford, J. D., A. L. Brown, and R. R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Kirkpatrick, J., T. Renner, L. Kanae, and K. Goya. 2007. Values-driven ePortfolio journey. Final report, Kapi'olani Community College, University of Hawai'i.
Kuh, G. D. 2008. High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Not Enough Time in the Library
While college students may be computer-literate, they are not, as a rule, research-literate. And there's a huge difference between the two.
Huge? Maybe a ton would have been better?
The fact that some professors do not recognize the distinction means they effectively assume that their students find themselves as much at home in the complex and daunting world of information as when they upload 25 photos from their iPhone to Facebook and text their friends to announce the latest "pics."
Huge? Maybe a ton would have been better?
The fact that some professors do not recognize the distinction means they effectively assume that their students find themselves as much at home in the complex and daunting world of information as when they upload 25 photos from their iPhone to Facebook and text their friends to announce the latest "pics."
Very true.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
La loca
That patron was back today, the very smart black woman who dresses in disgustingly dirty clothing and is on a different floor than the rest of us.
"Mr. Winston Smith; I would like the book by Mr. George Orwell, " she said, "1984."
I walked over to fiction to get it for her. On handing it to her she asked for "General Eisenhower."
"A biography?"
"Yes."
I chose one of the several we own, and, as I was about to hand it to her, she grabbed three books from a shelf she was near (Miller, Sue). "Read all day," she said.
Not that she would read any of them; it's an act she enjoys.
"Mr. Winston Smith; I would like the book by Mr. George Orwell, " she said, "1984."
I walked over to fiction to get it for her. On handing it to her she asked for "General Eisenhower."
"A biography?"
"Yes."
I chose one of the several we own, and, as I was about to hand it to her, she grabbed three books from a shelf she was near (Miller, Sue). "Read all day," she said.
Not that she would read any of them; it's an act she enjoys.
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Media Equation
From left, Matt Romanoski, Andrew Lagomarsino, Garrett Morrison and Tom Hester started a Web site in a few months.
Public libraries have become substitute offices for the recently disenfranchised, so it wasn’t unusual that 40 bright, talented and unemployed people found themselves in a conference room on a dreary day at the Montclair Public Library last January.
June 1, 2009
The Media Equation
Cast Out, but Still Reporting
By DAVID CARR
Public libraries have become substitute offices for the recently disenfranchised, so it wasn’t unusual that 40 bright, talented and unemployed people found themselves in a conference room on a dreary day at the Montclair Public Library last January.
But they had something else in common: they were all refugees from The Star-Ledger, which had required deep layoffs to stay in business. And while journalism seemed to be done with them, they were not done with journalism.
Less than three months later, NewJerseyNewsroom (newjerseynewsroom.com), a Web site owned and operated by journalists, is up and running. Last Friday, the site was topped with an article by Tom Hester, a longtime State House reporter, deconstructing the decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court. It upheld Gov. Jon Corzine’s decision to upend a 34-year-old formula that pushed the most public school financing to the poorest districts.
Sitting last Friday at the same public library where the enterprise was conceived, Mr. Hester, 65, talked with wonder about the ability just to push a button and find an audience, bypassing the editors, printing and trucks that used to convey his work.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “We just kept updating the story as it went along, and it was there instantly, for everyone to read.”
And he didn’t seem to mind that he was paid exactly nothing for his lifetime of experience and the article. It’s a tough time to be a journalist but, hey, it beats working for a living.
The site went live on April 13 and now counts about 51,000 page views since then. The venture capital for the site all comes in the form of human sweat. The site is incorporated, but the work is voluntary, with the founding members doing journalism for the sheer love of it, and if something of value is created, they will eventually receive a share of the company. (So far, the site hosts a modest number of ads.)
They all have business cards that identify them as working journalists, but they paid for them themselves. It’s a long shot effort at creating an alternative source of news, although few could argue that the state, which is a virtual Superfund site of corruption, doesn’t need it.
“This is a start-up, but we are not doing it without resources,” said Garrett Morrison, 42, a sports editor who is handling much of the business side. “We have Tom Hester’s experience, his Rolodex, and people are happy to return his calls. There are a lot of people like him.”
Sitting between them, Matt Romanoski, 43, a guy who says he has trouble getting rid of the blinking programming light on his VCR, explains how he came to serve as Webmaster.
“I bought a book called ‘HTML for Dummies’ and just started putting it together as best I could,” he said. Andrew Lagomarsino is in charge of recruiting people to work for nothing, or an occasional hourly fee for particularly difficult technical issues.
“For the price of a good seat to a Yankees home game, we’ve gotten this site up and running,” he said. Total cash outlays have been about $300, excluding the price of business cards.
It helps that there’s a lot of talent at loose ends. Across the country, various bands of journalistic hardies — newsroom pros whose services are no longer salient to a crippled and disrupted information economy — have taken matters into their own hands. Several hybrid models have sprung up in San Diego, Minneapolis, Denver and Chicago.
Not only is no one getting rich, but also no one has come close to cracking the code on a sustainable business model. Even absent trucks, newsrooms and administrative costs, making the calls and reporting is an arduous, expensive endeavor.
“People are still interested in good content, real stories put together by experienced people,” Mr. Morrison said. “Look at Carol Ann Campbell, the health reporter who worked at The Star-Ledger who has been doing stuff for us. She is not the kind of person who should reinvent herself. She is better at what she is doing than almost anyone I can think of.”
•
Back in 2007, I used to see Ms. Campbell at our children’s bus stop. Montclair, where we both live, is lousy with journalists because it has the kind of houses and schools that midrange professionals can afford (if they have jobs, of course). Back then, we would chat about navigating the increasingly unpredictable shoals of journalism while our kids ran around at the bus stop.
At the time, Ms. Campbell was doing significant reporting in The Star-Ledger about the infection-ridden environs of hospitals, work that resulted in a law requiring that medical institutions publish their rates of infection. Another piece about the resources being given to patients with little chance of getting better rather than providing hospice or home care also made a big splash.
In April 2008, she was named the state’s journalist of the year by the New Jersey Press Association.
“Seven months later, I was taking the buyout,” she recalled on Friday. “It was a gun-to-your-head buyout and I was really torn. If I had made the decision 24 hours earlier, I might have stayed, but I had to ask myself, ‘Is this position going to sustain me until my kids are out of college?’”
As the swine flu epidemic unfolded recently, Ms. Campbell did several articles for NewJerseyNewsroom. “It’s a great adventure, an idealistic one, and I’m thrilled to be part of it.” But the big projects that she received so much notice for require significant resources that are currently beyond the reach of NewJerseyNewsroom.
“They are going to need the kind of work that is provocative and interesting, and that takes time and money,” she said. “They are sort of in a chicken-and-egg situation.”
For the time being, she is doing other freelance writing and looking for other work, while kicking in the occasional piece for the site. “They asked, and how could you not be part of it when they are pouring their heart and soul into it?” she said, adding, “NewJerseyNewsroom is a sign of extraordinary optimism from a profession known for its cynicism.”
Working from her basement office has had its challenges and satisfactions, but she finds herself thinking about what she left behind at The Star-Ledger.
“Going in there every day was such a joy — the wit, the cleverness, the feeling of being together and making something happen every day. A newsroom is a completely magical place,” she said.
Public libraries have become substitute offices for the recently disenfranchised, so it wasn’t unusual that 40 bright, talented and unemployed people found themselves in a conference room on a dreary day at the Montclair Public Library last January.
June 1, 2009
The Media Equation
Cast Out, but Still Reporting
By DAVID CARR
Public libraries have become substitute offices for the recently disenfranchised, so it wasn’t unusual that 40 bright, talented and unemployed people found themselves in a conference room on a dreary day at the Montclair Public Library last January.
But they had something else in common: they were all refugees from The Star-Ledger, which had required deep layoffs to stay in business. And while journalism seemed to be done with them, they were not done with journalism.
Less than three months later, NewJerseyNewsroom (newjerseynewsroom.com), a Web site owned and operated by journalists, is up and running. Last Friday, the site was topped with an article by Tom Hester, a longtime State House reporter, deconstructing the decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court. It upheld Gov. Jon Corzine’s decision to upend a 34-year-old formula that pushed the most public school financing to the poorest districts.
Sitting last Friday at the same public library where the enterprise was conceived, Mr. Hester, 65, talked with wonder about the ability just to push a button and find an audience, bypassing the editors, printing and trucks that used to convey his work.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “We just kept updating the story as it went along, and it was there instantly, for everyone to read.”
And he didn’t seem to mind that he was paid exactly nothing for his lifetime of experience and the article. It’s a tough time to be a journalist but, hey, it beats working for a living.
The site went live on April 13 and now counts about 51,000 page views since then. The venture capital for the site all comes in the form of human sweat. The site is incorporated, but the work is voluntary, with the founding members doing journalism for the sheer love of it, and if something of value is created, they will eventually receive a share of the company. (So far, the site hosts a modest number of ads.)
They all have business cards that identify them as working journalists, but they paid for them themselves. It’s a long shot effort at creating an alternative source of news, although few could argue that the state, which is a virtual Superfund site of corruption, doesn’t need it.
“This is a start-up, but we are not doing it without resources,” said Garrett Morrison, 42, a sports editor who is handling much of the business side. “We have Tom Hester’s experience, his Rolodex, and people are happy to return his calls. There are a lot of people like him.”
Sitting between them, Matt Romanoski, 43, a guy who says he has trouble getting rid of the blinking programming light on his VCR, explains how he came to serve as Webmaster.
“I bought a book called ‘HTML for Dummies’ and just started putting it together as best I could,” he said. Andrew Lagomarsino is in charge of recruiting people to work for nothing, or an occasional hourly fee for particularly difficult technical issues.
“For the price of a good seat to a Yankees home game, we’ve gotten this site up and running,” he said. Total cash outlays have been about $300, excluding the price of business cards.
It helps that there’s a lot of talent at loose ends. Across the country, various bands of journalistic hardies — newsroom pros whose services are no longer salient to a crippled and disrupted information economy — have taken matters into their own hands. Several hybrid models have sprung up in San Diego, Minneapolis, Denver and Chicago.
Not only is no one getting rich, but also no one has come close to cracking the code on a sustainable business model. Even absent trucks, newsrooms and administrative costs, making the calls and reporting is an arduous, expensive endeavor.
“People are still interested in good content, real stories put together by experienced people,” Mr. Morrison said. “Look at Carol Ann Campbell, the health reporter who worked at The Star-Ledger who has been doing stuff for us. She is not the kind of person who should reinvent herself. She is better at what she is doing than almost anyone I can think of.”
•
Back in 2007, I used to see Ms. Campbell at our children’s bus stop. Montclair, where we both live, is lousy with journalists because it has the kind of houses and schools that midrange professionals can afford (if they have jobs, of course). Back then, we would chat about navigating the increasingly unpredictable shoals of journalism while our kids ran around at the bus stop.
At the time, Ms. Campbell was doing significant reporting in The Star-Ledger about the infection-ridden environs of hospitals, work that resulted in a law requiring that medical institutions publish their rates of infection. Another piece about the resources being given to patients with little chance of getting better rather than providing hospice or home care also made a big splash.
In April 2008, she was named the state’s journalist of the year by the New Jersey Press Association.
“Seven months later, I was taking the buyout,” she recalled on Friday. “It was a gun-to-your-head buyout and I was really torn. If I had made the decision 24 hours earlier, I might have stayed, but I had to ask myself, ‘Is this position going to sustain me until my kids are out of college?’”
As the swine flu epidemic unfolded recently, Ms. Campbell did several articles for NewJerseyNewsroom. “It’s a great adventure, an idealistic one, and I’m thrilled to be part of it.” But the big projects that she received so much notice for require significant resources that are currently beyond the reach of NewJerseyNewsroom.
“They are going to need the kind of work that is provocative and interesting, and that takes time and money,” she said. “They are sort of in a chicken-and-egg situation.”
For the time being, she is doing other freelance writing and looking for other work, while kicking in the occasional piece for the site. “They asked, and how could you not be part of it when they are pouring their heart and soul into it?” she said, adding, “NewJerseyNewsroom is a sign of extraordinary optimism from a profession known for its cynicism.”
Working from her basement office has had its challenges and satisfactions, but she finds herself thinking about what she left behind at The Star-Ledger.
“Going in there every day was such a joy — the wit, the cleverness, the feeling of being together and making something happen every day. A newsroom is a completely magical place,” she said.
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