CompBlog

WAC Clearinghouse Bibliography @ CompPile

CompPile now includes the bibliographic entries (with the annotations) that were listed in the WAC Bibliography section of the WAC Clearinghouse. Thanks to Mike Palmquist and Justin Jory for making this possible.

All of the entries that moved to CompPile can be located by using “[WAC Clearinghouse]” as the search term in the annotation field (without the quotes).

Ideally, CompPile will become the “clearinghouse for all WAC bibliography, as we continue our comprehensive inventory of books and journals beyond 2000. Volunteers are always welcome to join this effort.

Posted in uploads | No Comments »

Blog feed @ CompPile

Users will notice the addition of a CompBlog feed in the bottom left of the front page.  I’m trying this feature to generate a bit of interest in the blog and to prompt me (and Rich) to use the blog more regularly.

The blog has an RSS feed available, but I’m not sure if RSS is used by many CompPile users.

Posted in News | No Comments »

Updating: Publishers, Edited Collections, Edited Series, and Archives

As I continue to migrate to the new site, Rich and I are reconsidering a number of spaces / pages. The long-term vision for CompPile includes in part more reliance on database-driven pages, to avoid static pages that require ongoing attention and maintenance to keep them current. Also, with the new search interface and the new export functionality, I wonder if CompPile users really need lists of publishers, series, etc.? Here’s how this “reconsidering” has worked so far:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in site updates | No Comments »

New volunteers’ guide

The volunteers’ guide has been updated.  It’s now available online and as a PDF download.

Posted in site updates | No Comments »

Updates: Journals Covered, Adopt a Journal, Volunteer

Finally updated the journals  pages, moving to the new CompPile “look” and changing the primary organization of the journals to the new “scholarly areas” categories.  In addition, the process for volunteering / adopting journals is updated, too, as a way to integrate the ‘Associates’ in that process.

I will be adding links to the original method of organizing journals, according to their level of coverage, but that is not at the top of the list right now.  The next task will be revising and relocating the Volunteer’s Guide to the new site.

With this update of the site, I think users will see continuity between the volunteering process and the associates section.

Posted in News, site updates | No Comments »

Announcing CompPile Associates

We are excited to announce the first >CompPile Associates<: Dr. Ed Nagelhout, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and Dr. Susan Wolff Murphy, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

What are >CompPile Associates<?

Last month, we celebrated CompPile’s seventh birthday. Since its appearance in May 2001, with 17,000+ entries, it has grown to more than 94,000 entries, with comprehensive coverage of scholarship from 1939-1999, and since last year, with a commitment to extend and sustain that comprehensive coverage beyond 1999.

One year ago, when we committed to extending CompPile coverage beyond 1999, we sent a call for volunteer bibliographers (”comppilers”) to help us manage the volume of work we envision. At that time, over 40 colleagues “adopted” journals, and in the past year, many of those volunteers have helped us add more than 9,000 items published since 1999. For your contributions, we are grateful.

However, attracting volunteers one-at-a-time has been challenging. And the volume of relevant published scholarship increases steadily. To be more intentional about increasing the number of “comppilers” who will help us expand and sustain CompPile, we are recruiting >CompPile Associates<. Associates will take responsibility for a number of journals in her or his scholarly area (we’ve identified 19 “areas” for now, but the boundaries are very fluid). Associates will identify, recruit, and coordinate the work of a group of volunteers, who will update and maintain the indexing for journals in that groups’ area.

The Associates’ task does not end with the logistical work of recruiting, coordinating the indexing, vetting them to be sure formating is consistent, and sending them on for uploading into the main CompPile database. See our fuller explanation of the intellectual work Associates will be engaging (http://comppile.org/site/associates.htm).

We are excited that Ed and Susan have agreed to serve as Associates. They have identified the areas and journals they will be coordinating, and they are starting now to identify and contact volunteers. We expect to add more Associates soon.

If you are interested in serving as a CompPile Associate, read a bit more about our vision (http://comppile.org/site/associates.htm) and consider contacting us.

Posted in News | No Comments »

Sue Hum’s annotations

In a week or so, I’ll finish uploading Sue Hum’s annotations for a large chunk of articles indexed in CompPile. The annotations cover all pieces relevant to comp/rhet published from 1970 through 1979 in College English, College Composition and Communication, Freshman English News, and Journal of Basic Writing. So far 583 are available to CompPile users, with the year 1977 not yet completed. All told, I estimate there will be over 700.

Hum’s annotations are not the one-sentence nuggets of the CCCC Bibliography. They are paragraph sized, averaging about 50 words. They provide an objective summary of the piece, including topics covered, positions taken, and authors and works discussed at length. Providing an informative gist of a scholarly article is not easy, but Hum makes it seem so. I think hers are model annotations. They are certainly ideal for CompPile (they are searchable, just like the Keywords field).

If you want to take a look, just type in “Sue Hum” into the Annotation field (without the quotes), and you’ll get all the ones I’ve entered so far. I’ve been uploading them chronologically, and the exercise has revamped my sense of the field in the 1970s. Among other things, the annotations have reminded me that the social turn and the critique of cultural discourse got under way in our profession before the 1980s. Plus lots of minor revelations. Did you know that John Brereton’s first published piece (in Freshman English News, 1977) was on teaching basic writing?

Rich

Posted in News | No Comments »

Community Literacy Journal (2006-2008); College English, 70.3-4 (2008)

Community Literacy Journal is a new journal on our list. Thanks to Matthew Lutze @ MTU for sending the indexing information. With CLJ and Reflections, CompPile now indexes a significant number of the service-learning / community-service journals.

Tabetha Adkins @ Louisville continues to maintain the College English index. The two most recent issues are now indexed.

Posted in uploads | No Comments »

New upload: Reflections and recent CCC

By tomorrow, I’ll have finished indexing all of Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy, 2000-2008. Steve Parks has provided the files and access to the archive to make this possible. The entries for Reflections include abstracts (in the annotation field), a feature we expect to expand, which should also enhance search capabilities, if that field is included in searches.

I’ve also uploaded entries for CCC, December 2007 and February 2008, thanks to the continuing work of Paul Lynch.

Posted in uploads | No Comments »

News about uploads?

I’m thinking that one way we might use this blog is to report uploads, at least those that are more than one or two items. Today, I added an entry about Assessing Writing.

Posted in uploads | No Comments »