by Rebekah Kati, Senior Assistant, INALJ North Carolina
previously published 11/19/13
4 Higher Education Blogs That You Should Be Reading
I love to read blogs written by professionals and thinkers outside the library world in order to gain a different perspective of issues important to librarians and higher education in general. Below are four higher education blogs that you should read too!
Scholarly publishing is a hot topic in the library world lately, especially after Open Access Week and the recent court ruling in the Google Books case. If you’ve ever wondered what academic publishers think about these issues and others, check out the Scholarly Kitchen blog. Various “chefs” from university presses, journals, libraries and vendors share their often controversial opinions about the academic publishing landscape and engage in reasoned debate in the comments section. A recent thought-provoking piece is Not the Answer – An Academic Carefully Assesses the Arguments for Open-Access.
A must-read for anyone in higher education, Inside Higher Ed reports on news and current events in all aspects of higher education. While the news section is certainly informative, I find their extensive blog network, BlogU, to be invaluable. Blog U bloggers address topics such as libraries, technology, careers and more. Barbara Fister’s blog, Library Babel fish, will be especially interesting to librarians. Job seekers and would-be administrators will enjoy Confessions of a Community College Dean, which I address below.
Confessions of a Community College Dean
Whenever I wonder about administrative decisions that have been made at my university, I turn to Matt Reed, AKA “Dear Dad”, the author of Confessions of a Community College Dean. Reed is an administrator at Holyoke Community College and his highly readable blog addresses important and current issues in higher education from the perspective of an administrator. Reed is refreshingly honest about the benefits and shortcomings of these issues. New readers will find the occasional “Ask the Administrator” feature to be especially interesting. Academic librarians may want to read the Why Searches Take So Long post for insight into hiring from the interviewer’s perspective.
Tech journalist Audrey Watters blogs about educational technology and trends in her blog, Hack Education. Lately, many of her posts have centered on the effect of MOOCs on education and the various MOOC platforms. Also, she runs a weekly “Hack Education Weekly News” post, which summarizes the latest educational technology news in an easy to digest format.
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