One for you sociologists, mathematician, philosophers and marketers

As I was working on collection development the other day, I came across this entry for a very unique and unusual book titled, "Indexed". Being a librarian and concerned with access, I must say that this piqued my interest. How could there be a book on indexing in the past tense? What kind of information would it hold? And, why would anyone buy it? Well, it turns out that
this isn't a book on indexing from a librarian's perspective, but one from a unique, creative and sometimes even thought provoking perspective.

The author, Jessica Hagy, thinks in a very visual manner. On her blog, indexed.blogspot.com (which BTW was named a 2007 Webby Awards nominee) she posts charts, graphs, and Venn diagrams drawn on index cards that provide observations on unusual connections in our culture.

Curious? Here's an example:

Those simple steps are never so simple:

Here's another....

Out with the old, in with the new












So, how does this tie in with student learning and information literacy?

During the first year English 101 program one of our information literacy sessions has a segment on the grammar and syntax of searching. This is more commonly known as Boolean logic which uses Venn diagrams and the connectors of and, or and not to represent search statements. This encourages the students to represent their searching in a graphic manner. So, when I explored this book and blogspot, my intention was to provide some interesting (and yes, entertaining) examples of Boolean logic that would help eliminate that glassy eyed look we get from students when we present this material.

I think it's especially interesting that this has applications to all sorts of discipline areas--philosophy, marketing, sociology, and math to name a few. Yes, I know, it's not a scholarly resource, but hey, it's summer!