About SNARL

About "SNARL"

A collection of resources useful for Kentucky's communities.

This website (fondly referred to as “SNARL”) was begun by a former department faculty member. I "inherited" the website in 1999 and since then I have maintained it as an online home for Kentucky: By The Numbers and other resources useful for Kentucky’s communities.

The full name has varied over time, but I preserved the original acronym “SNARL” because it had become quite memorable. (After all, what does a UK wildcat do? SNARL!)

As technology and electronic media have continually grown and evolved, what began as a digital divide has now moved to become digital inequality. It’s not just about having internet access anymore, but the nature of that access and the age of one’s computers and programs can also be an issue. Since limited resource communities can face particular challenges in access to internet capabilities and computer technologies, the “SNARL” website is intentionally designed with very few “bells and whistles” so that it is easy to download and easy to print (regardless of technology access).

In the last 14 years, the contents and the design of the “SNARL” website have evolved, but the primary purpose has remained the same: to provide easy access to web-based resources useful for rural communities and county Cooperative Extension agents in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Because we so often wear other hats, it seems that Extension faculty can have another secret life apart from their extension work. For myself, in addition to running the Kentucky: By The Numbers Program and maintaining the “SNARL” website, I am also engaged in research and other activities.

To learn more about my recent book with Dr. Olaf F. Larson, Opening Windows onto Hidden Lives: Women, Country Life, and Early Rural Sociological Research, visit the Penn State Press website at: http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-03728-8.html

Building on my research into the history of rural sociology, since 2009, I have served as the Historian of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS). The RSS is the national professional association for rural sociologists. You can learn more about the organization at: http://www.ruralsociology.org/. (If you are curious and want to see some of the work I have done as the Historian, you can check out the “Historian’s website” by going to: http://www.ruralsociology.org/?page_id=838. Or, you can click here.)

Some of my other publications include:

· “The American Community Survey: Resources for the Occasional Data User” Forthcoming in the Journal of Extension

· “Mediated Knowledge: Re-Examining Six Classic Community Studies From a Woman’s Point of View.” Rural Sociology 76(2):141-166.

· “Does it or Doesn’t it? Geographic Differences and the Costs of Living.” Rural Sociology 73(3):463-486 (with Sunny (Seonok) Ham and Sarah M. Frank)

· “Voices from the Past, Lessons for the Future: Learning from the History of Sociology in Government.” Equal Opportunities International (Now: Equality Diversity and Inclusion – An International Journal) 27(2):132-147

· “Building Knowledge, Building Community: Increasing Internet Access to Secondary Data as Part of the Community Development Process.” Community Development Journal 36(1): 89-97 (with Alissa Meyer)

· “Contextualizing Cash Assistance and the South.” (Introduction to the Special Issue on Welfare Reform). Southern Rural Sociology 18(1):1-20

· “How Much Would it Take? Making Ends Meet in the Era of Welfare Reform.” Social Insight: Knowledge at Work 7:40-46 (with Lori Garkovich)

Thank you for visiting the “SNARL” website!

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.

Dr. Julie N. Zimmerman

Associate Professor, Rural Sociology

Department of Community and Leadership Development

University of Kentucky

jzimm@email.uky.edu

If you are really interested in TMI (too much information), a recent copy of my vita is here