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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Death in Crete


In Prehistoric Crete: Regional and Diachronic Studies on Mortuary Systems, editor Joanne M.A. Murphy (Classical Studies) brings together a group of essays that present "a diverse sample of contemporary scholarship on Crete." Archaeologists, divided by the time periods they study as well as locale, have built research silos, and Murphy seeks to bridge that gap with this volume.

As the publisher notes, "since the inception of Minoan archaeology, studies pertaining to tombs and tomb deposits have played seminal roles in our understanding of Minoan culture and the reconstruction of Bronze Age society. For several geographical areas and chronological periods of Cretan history, tombs are the most abundant source of data. Each author in this volume take a clear and distinct approach . . . including some that emphasize political geography . . . some that examine the commemoration of the dead . . . and others that underline the overlap between mortuary rituals and religion."

In addition to editing the book, Murphy contributed the introduction and a chapter entitled "Landscape and Social Narrative: A Study of Regional Social Structures in Prepalatial Crete."

Friday, December 2, 2011

What to do with data--new book by Lynda Kellam

UNCG's University Libraries are fortunate to have data services librarian Lynda Kellam on hand to guide students, staff, and faculty through the ever-growing world of numeric data resources. The World Bank and other NGOs and government agencies have opened up tremendous amounts of data on climate change, nutrition, education, and much much more, and at UNCG, our researchers can turn to Kellam to navigate the numbers. But smaller libraries typically are unable to employ data experts. That's where Kellam's Numeric Data Services and Sources for the General Reference Librarian comes to the rescue. Numeric Data Services provides librarians everywhere the tools they need to develop data services. As London School of Economics and Political Science Data Manager Tanvi Desai blogs,

"This guidebook serves as a primer to developing and supporting social science statistical and numeric data sources in the academic library. It provides strategies for the establishment of data services and offers short descriptions of the essential sources of free and commercial social science statistical and numeric data. Finally, it discusses the future of numeric data services, including the integration of statistics and data into library instruction and the use of Web 2.0 tools to visualize data."

To learn more about Kellam's research and how to incorporate statistics into library instruction, listen as Kellam sits down with the creators of Adventures in Library Instruction.