Publication analysis
About the publication
Title: Hack Library School
ISSN: N/A
Website: http://hacklibschool.wordpress.com/
Purpose, objective, or mission: “Hack Library School is a collaborative project begun in the Fall of 2010. It quickly grew from a Google Doc to a wiki to the rotating group of contributors that it is today. HLS was founded on the principle of students taking the future of librarianship into their own hands.”1 Hack Library School was inspired by a 2010 post by Micah Vandegrift on In the Library with the Lead Pipe, a train of thought brought about by Hacking the Academy, where “a group of academics, librarians and higher ed techies crowdsourced submissions for a born-digital book.”2
Target audience: LIS students.
Publisher: Hack Library School (a WordPress site)
Peer reviewed? No.
Type: LIS Professional and Trade Publication.
Medium: Online. The primary content is via the blog; information is also shared via Twitter and Facebook.
Content: “Hack Library School is an invitation to participate in the redefinitions of library school using the web as a collaborative space outside of any specific university or organization. Imagine standards and foundations of the profession that we will create, decided upon by us, outside of the institutional framework. Ideas like the democratization of the semantic web, crowdsourcing, and folksonomies allow projects like this to exist and we should be taking advantage of it. What will the information professions be next year if we define it for ourselves today? If we had a voice in the development of curriculum, what would that degree entail? This is our challenge to you; participate or come up with a better idea. How would you hack library school?”3
Frequency of publication: All online media updated as frequently as contributors post. The goal is to post new content regularly.4
About the publication’s submission guidelines
Location of submission guidelines: For guest posts, see the guidelines.5
Types of contributions accepted: Anything related to LIS, from a you-should-know, student perspective. Posts are meant to be conversation starters.6
Submission and review process: Send an email to hacklibschool@gmail.com. If accepted, HLS will get back to you with comments and start working on scheduling your post to the site.7
Editorial tone: Informal.
Style guide used: None. Links to other sites, citations, and references to other points of view are encouraged but not strictly regulated.8
Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors
HLS has gained recognition around the LIS blogosphere and already has great social media presence on Twitter and Facebook. This is the place to post your experiences in the LIS world, thoughts on improvements, issues, and ideas for a group who really gets it, and will use the information you provide in the quest of their own LIS degree and pursuits. If you have yet to write articles or blogs, this would be a great place to get started, writing to like-minded peers.
Audience analysis
About the publication’s readers
Publication circulation: Open source digital website, blog, and social media.
Audience location and language or cultural considerations: Mainly US college & university LIS students, but the site is read available world-wide online.
Reader characteristics: The prevailing concepts are that information should be shared and discussed, and that learning need not only take place within educational institutions. And that we respect each other’s opinions, comments, and posts. From the Guest Post guidelines: “Take responsibility for your own opinion and respect other opinions.”9
Knowledge of LIS subject matter: Strong, but in various stages. HLS is written for, by and about LIS students, but that also means people in their first year in the program, or those just considering getting their degree. Don’t assume readers will understand LIS jargon; explain references so lay readers can easily comprehend.10
Conclusion: Analysis of reader characteristics and their potential impact on authors
Readers of HLS want to know what you think, what your experiences, thoughts, and issues are with LIS education. The idea is for LIS students to imagine, discuss, and develop the profession the way we want to see it in addition to what is being taught in school. If you know something that’s outside of the books please share it. If you have ideas, concerns, professional advice, career tips, or just a cool LIS subject you’d like to broach, the editors and readers of HLS will be happy to hear from you.11
References
Comments are closed.