The Road Trip to the Blog

Reflections

I would like to share my experience in the past few months in exploring the new tools of establishing this blog. Although I have used other blogs before for family photos, this is the first time that I used Blogger.com to create an information-sharing type of web blog.

It has been fun as I have learnt to use and import gadgets, videos, photos from other websites. I discovered that there is unlimited choices of selections of images and videos from anywhere on the sites. The choices are almost too many that I could hardly had enough time to go through them. In some way, I am glad as my time was so limited between my full-time work and looking after a toddler, that I have to be quite strategic and strict about where to get information from. I had a lot of free time in my hands, I could easily imaging myself 'drowning' into the world of virtue technologies and discovering all sorts of fun sites and games to use.

I have to admit that when I first figured out how to get a video from Youtube onto my site, I was very excited. So I must say that this was the most enjoyable moment of this project. The challenges that I faced, was obviously the time-poor factors, but also my own set-up for the internet access was not really good. I had to often use other friends' internet access in order to complete this blog. It was at times very frustrating when I was struggling with my own access to internet at home.

I am also very conscious that everyone else has a wonderful blog, and my is probably quite basic in terms of its features and adventures in using more new tools. However, I felt that I have surprised myself so far in exploring more than I could imaging. I have definitely come out of this project having learnt many other skills. And I am sure that in the future, I will be a lot more confident about using blogging and exploring new tools.

My choice from the Web 2.0 Awards

The Web 2.o Awards

Going through the Web 2.0 awards List was an interesting experience. Many of the websites I never visited before in the past, and it was fascinating to go through some of them. However, I still would like to share my favourite site with you: Flickr.

Flickr has been selected as the first place winner under the Photos and Digital Images category. And I can relate to the reasons. It was the earliest web blog that I used when I was just learning about the world of blogging. I personally have used this website to create a little collections of photos of my son to share with some of close friends and families. It was very user friendly for people who perhaps are more like a beginner of learning how to use blogs. It was enjoyed by many people for their social interactions and the designs are simple and wonderful. It may not necessary have all the gadgets like many other sites, but sometimes "simple is beautiful" and user friendly.

Please view: Video: Library of Alexandria (5of5)

Please view:Video:Library of Alexandria (4of5)

Please view:Video:Library of Alexandria (3of5)

Please view: video: Library of Alexandria (2of5)

Please view: Video: Library of Alexandria (1of5)

Read and Evaluate

Evaluation of materials

BOOKS:

* Relevance

Due to the time constraints, although many other books were consulted and read for this project, there were mainly two books that are more directly relevant and useful. They are both relevant to the subject, however, only certain chapters are directly related to the scope of the research. In general, both books provide comprehensive background information and related topics.

* Authoritative Source and Current

Both books are from authoritative sources with reputable organisations.

Canfora (1987) is older and have more focus on the historical backgrounds of the ancient city of Alexandria and the histories of wars and legends behind the library history. The book has a wider cover for other great libraries at the time, not only just the Royal Library of Alexandria. This book is a translated book. It provides an excellent chronological events of Alexandria's history.

Macleod's(2002) collections are more recent and all contributors were internationally-renowned experts in the areas of this topic. The contents and authors are all academic within the internationally universities communities. One of the chapter provides great summary of the history of Alexandrian Library.


JOURNAL ARTICLES:

While evaluating journal articles obtained from the databases mentioned previously, it was found that many articles were not directly relevant to the scope of this research project. Even though many do cover the subject of 'Alexandrian library', they were mainly focusing on the re-building of the library in the modern Egypt city of Alexandria and the politics surrounded by the re-building projects.

WEBSITES:

* Relevance

Majority of the materials collected for this research were obtained from the websites. Many items were presented upon the research through Googling, however, they all need process of sorting and checking for the relevance and authorities. At the end, only certain numbers of items were selected for its relevance. In general, these items are easier to access and more relevant to the scope of the research.

The information and contents in these items are clear and comprehensive after a considerable time and efforts in sorting and evaluating during the process of searching.

* Authoritative sources and current

The disadvantages of the web materials are the questioning around their authoritative sources. Most of the information available from the websites can be published by anyone without any official endorsement or checking. Therefore, the filtering and sorting process was very important to ensure that the selected materials do have authorised sources or copyright publishers. Most of the website materials selected were checked for their current status and accuracy.

Locating and Obtaining resources

Using Library

The resources so far have been mainly located from the library catalogues (Monash Library and Swinburne University Library) and websites (Google and wikipedia).

A few books were obtained from the catalogues but most of other information were from the websites.

When using library catalogues, I used the Quick Search function and focused on using 'keyword' and 'subject' indexes. As I did not know any specific books or authors who are experts in the areas of writing on Alexandrian library, it was easier to start the search by locating the items through keyword and subject search.

Using Library Staff

A reference librarian was consulted when researching this topic. At the beginning of the consultation, I was not very specific about the types of information I was looking for. However, I soon realised that, during my research so far, I have been having some problems finding resources for journal articles. And I have found it hard to access databases (as I do not know many databases that may assist me in this research). I spoke to the Reference Librarian who said that she remembered seeing information regarding this topic from some databases. She could not recall the name of the databases at the time when I was with her. So she took my contact details and said that she would get back to me.

Later she emailed me and referred me to two databases. She has informed me that she had seen some interesting articles about the Alexandrian library from these two databases, accessed through the Monash library websites. However, you do need the student or stuff access codes. They are: LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts) and ALISA (Australian Library and Information Science Abstracts).

For more general information about these databases:

- LISA

- ALISA

I entered the databases through Monash University's library websites. Entered the library page, then into the Databases section. LISA and ALISA was located by using Browse by Name search. As a staff member, I was able to gain access to the databases with user name and passwords.

When I first tried getting into the databases, I could not retrieve any articles about the topic. I decided to try again later.

On the second day, I tried to gain access to the databases again. This time, many information and items relating to 'Alexandrian library' or ' Library of Alexandria' did come up. However, there were too many and not all are directly relevant to the scope of this research. It took me a long time to filter out the relevant items and sort through the lists. And yet, I was not very satisfied with the quality and contents of most the articles that I obtained through LISA and ALISA.

While I was reading through the materials, it is in my experience that the information from the books and websites are more comprehensive and easy to understand comparing to the contents of the articles obtained from the databases. The databases also have more requirements for users to download or access the full text (the databases only show the abstracts). Many of the item came up from the databases research are related to current news items or general information about the modern Alexandrian library at the time of the publishing.

Research Tools & Resources

Tools:

Research tools chosen for this topic will be from:

- Search engines such a Google and wikipedia
- Library catalogues

Resources chosen:

Materials: Books, journals and websites

There are many books available about the ancient Library of Alexandria. For the purpose of this assignment, it is important to limit the number of books as the research does have time limitation.

Journals are also identified as important resources which might give the reader more control over the contents required. However, the most accessible and perhaps the largest resources this research will be focusing on the information from website.

The website resources are fast, easy, and very accessible regardless where you are starting the research process from. However, the disadvantage is also that there would be too many information presented at one time. The researcher will need to sort out the priorities and be very specific about the authenticity and authorisation of the articles or information presented. It is noted that the resources from the websites will need to be carefully evaluated.

When choosing this topic which was hard to get primary sources as many may be manuscripts in different ancient languages , it is easier to obtain secondary sources as they are already translated into English.

Institutions & Collections

The major academic libraries that have been identified for this research were: Swinburne library and Monash library. The reasons were mainly for connivance and time constraints. However, from these two academic libraries' catalogues, I could also access other inter-library linkages into other academic libraries' catalogues.

Keeping Records

Records were kept during the process for: the research strategies used, research tools used, material's bibliographical details, websites URL and other details of the information obtained for the research.

The Library Research Process

Analyse Research Project


The Topic chosen is: The History of books in Ancient Library of Alexandria.

Therefore the keywords identified here are: History, books, ancient, Library of Alexandria. The general terms would be 'history' and 'books', then the research will narrow down to focus on 'Alexandrian library' and 'ancient' (as oppose to the newly developed modern Alexandrian Library in Egypt).

The focus of the research will be on:

• The Beginning:
  Who started the library and when? In what circumstances that the library started?


• The Development:
  The developmental processes and how the collections were obtained? The significance of the library. Why is the history of Alexandria important in the history of the books and developments of the library?


• The End:
  What happened to the library throughout the centuries?
  What happened to the library at the end of its life, and what happened to the collections?

The scope of the research and subject

The topic covers the ancient time and over a period of the centuries throughout the European and Middle-eastern political histories. However, as the history of the Alexandria Library lasted over various specific periods, it is important to focus on the geographic areas (i.e. the Middle-east, Egypt and near by areas) and the history associated with the area. That is, the history of wars and how these wars affected the development and the end of the Alexandrian library. It is an internationally-focused topic that may interest many readers. The research will have international connections and might have references which include other languages and scripts.

Searching for the Ancient Library of Alexandria: Introduction

Artistic Rendering of "The Great Library of Alexandria." by O. Von Corven from Tolzmann, Don Heinrich, Alfred Hessel and Reuben Reiss. The Memory of Mankind. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2001. (c) ils.unc.edu/dpr/path/alexandria/index.htm

The ancient Library of Alexandria (Greek library in Egypt) is one of the most famous ancient libraires of the world. It is famous for its past glorious beginning and collections which became the beginning of the concept of library as the "centre of knowledge', as well as the mysterious and often legendary stories on how the library's past glory deminished destroyed.

This research assignment blog was done as a part of the assessment for Diploma of Library and Information Services course. It aims to record the research processes over the period of six weeks and share the processes, reflections, and discoveries on researching this topic with other classmates and potential interest bloggers.