Category: News

  • What Should We Make of Obama’s Library Plans?

    Last week former President Barack Obama signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which articulated plans to digitize and provide online access to all of the declassified records from his administration. I’ll get to that MOU in a minute once we recap how we got here. In 2017, Obama […]

  • End of Year Update

    Earlier this week I looked at this website and realized I had not posted anything on here since January! That’s far too long to go without any updates, so here’s a few highlights of what I’ve been up to at the University of Maryland iSchool this year… I have continued my research and work at […]

  • I was on the Radio!

    About two weeks ago I was asked to be a guest on a very cool radio program: Lost in the Stacks, the Research Library Rock n Roll Radio Show created by librarians at Georgia Tech. The episode focused on Carl Malamud’s legal fight with the state of Georgia over his publication, through public.resource.org, of the […]

  • New Position!

    I figure that the first week of classes and the beginning of Labor Day weekend is a good a time as any to make a quick post about my new position. In July, I formally began work as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. The primary project […]

  • Dissertation: Defended

    I am happy to report that yesterday I defended my dissertation! It was an incredible experience and I am relieved/proud/happy/tired/overwhelmed/excited all at the same time. In the interest of posting something to this blog every month (which I try to do), and in order to give everyone a chance to get a bit of a window […]

  • Excellent Coverage on Wikipedia and Cultural Institutions

    Let me start by saying that I love Wikipedia. I’m not just a consumer of information from the online encyclopedia but also an editor, having made my first contribution back in 2006. While I have not been a consistent Wikipedian throughout the years, I make an effort to edit regularly these days and maintain a […]

  • Exploring Britain’s War Diaries

    As an undergraduate history major, I am often stuck when considering that the First World War began in 1914, one hundred years ago this year. It is astounding to think that in the past century we’ve gone from mounted cavalry charges and trenches to drones and nuclear aircraft carriers– but that’s a topic for another […]

  • Getting Started on Dissertation Work

    Around Ann Arbor, the semester is ending and classes are coming to an end. For me, however, a new project is just beginning: I recently completed my dissertation proposal and moved into the final stage of my career as a doctoral student: ABD (all but dissertation). My dissertation, titled “The Changing Landscape of Digital Access: […]

  • I’m a little late on this one, but I wanted to quickly comment on a new project, perma.cc, which came across my internet last week. Essentially, this is a tool (currently in beta but hopefully live soon!) that will allow users to submit web links for sources they would like to cite in academic articles. […]

  • Hello world!

    This is my first post on my first “real” website. That’s right- no more university server HTML/CSS pages for this guy! Anyway, maybe if I have this blog I will actually blog more. I am a believer in writing and know I should always be writing more than I do, so here goes nothing. Since […]