Library Blog

Meet Roosevelt's First Librarian

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Roosevelt University was founded by extraordinary individuals: some well-known, like President Edward Sparling, and some less-well known but no less extraordinary, such as the first university librarian, Marjorie J. Keenleyside (at left).

Reference Librarian Michael Gabriel has written a post about Dr. Keenleyside for the RU Archives blog, where he discusses how she may have been "overqualified" for the job, and explains how archives are helpful in preventing extraordinary characters such as her from being forgotten.

Click Here to read about Roosevelt University's First Librarian

New MLA Style Guide

There is a new edition of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, which was just published last month (May 2008).  Most students are aware of the format they should use for their papers, which is usually MLA, APA, or Chicago Style.  (For more information on the styles, click here). But you may not know that these style guides actually help dictate the format of your entire paper from how to create a title page, numbering your pages, the voice you should use in writing, to how to paraphrase or introduce quotations. 

The MLA (Modern Language Association) actually has two different style manuals. There is the more familiar MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers which is a guide for undergraduate students.  This new edition is the guide for graduate students, faculty, and other writers for scholarly publications. The new edition of the Style Manual has many new features, including (from the MLA website):

• a significant revision of MLA documentation style
• simplified citation formats for electronic sources
• detailed advice on the review process used by scholarly journals and presses
• a fully updated chapter on copyright, fair use, contracts, and other legal issues
• guidelines on preparing electronic files
• discussion of the electronic submission of a dissertation
• a foreword by Domna C. Stanton on the current state of scholarly publishing
• a preface by David G. Nicholls on what is new in the third edition

If you have any questions about using this guide, ask for help.  The library has a copy in the reference section in the Schaumburg and Auditorium Building libraries. Click here for the library listing for this book.

Spotlight on RU Faculty Publications: Stephen Ziliak

David Pribyl, Head of Technical Services at the Roosevelt University Library, recently interviewed Stephen Zillak about his latest publication:

Stephen Ziliak, RU Professor of Economics, has published a new book, copies of which are available in the library: The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives (University of Michigan Press, 2008).  By Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey.  David Pribyl, liaison with the economics faculty and Head of Technical Services in the library, interviewed Ziliak, known as "Prof Z."

RU: How, if at all, can a book on statistics deal with issues of social justice?

Prof Z: Good question! For years, I, like most people, did not see any connection at all between statistics and social justice, or, to say it more generally, between statistics and ethics.  It wasn't until 1989 - while working at the Indiana Department of Workforce Development - that I saw for the first time how deeply human the seemingly arcane & "objective" world of statistics is. 

I worked in the Labor Market Information Division, where the official state & regional labor force statistics are generated and disseminated in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor.  One day a citizen telephoned. He asked me to provide unemployment rate statistics for black youth in each of Indiana's major cities.  Young men and women between the ages of 16 and 21. I couldn't find the statistics he asked for.  Now Indianapolis, Gary, Fort Wayne, Evansville had then as now tragically high amounts of minority unemployment - and very high for young African American men in particular.  No one would be surprised if the average city rate exceeded 35 or 40% while the national rate - for the whole economy - was only around 5%.  So where were the statistics proving it? 

Finally I went to the chief of my division.  He made a phone call to the Chicago branch of the U.S. Department of Labor, to a chief who was next in line in the chain of command.  The chief in Chicago replied "given the lack of statistical significance in the black youth unemployment rates, the Department of Labor does not disseminate those rates.  We don't publish statistically insignificant results, only 'significant' results," he said.   I was embarrassed to return to the telephone to tell the citizen what I learned.   

What the Labor Department was saying is that if a rate is not estimated with an arbitrary amount of precision then they won't publish or disseminate it.  In technical terms, the p-value had to be equal or less than .10.  This standard they glue  to even if other evidence suggests that the rate is so high as to constitute what Martin Luther King Jr. called a "Great Depression in the economy of the ghetto."  It was a life-changing experience for me.  I realized that important social issues get pushed under the rug for pseudo-scientific reasons.  But as I show in The Cult very few scientists have had this kind of realization.  That precision is not the end all be all of human decision making.  Like most members of the cult of statistical significance, the DOL economists and statisticians - my friends & former bosses - do not possess or implement a scientifically legitimate or socially just decision rule.  Zero, nil, null, nothing.  It has to change.