The Authority File: Recent Episodes
Choice
This podcast provides insight on the academic library market through conversations with representatives of some of the biggest and most innovative companies influencing it, as well as, with authors of insightful books, librarians who are transforming their field, and academics whose research is laying the groundwork for the future.
In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss shared services library consortia provide their members. Teri Gallaway of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Genya O’Gara of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), Amy Pawlowski of OhioLINK, and Jill Morris of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), define shared services, then provide an overview of their offerings. For example, Teri chats about SCELC’s new Impact as Service program born from community feedback, and Amy digs into providing the economic value of OhioLINK to member libraries (pages 6-7)—particularly useful when library leaders defend budgets to financial offices. Further, Genya previews a forthcoming data dashboard shared between institutions and Jill spotlights the Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project, a recommended set of practices for collection development. To close, our guests share upcoming goals and projects, including developments in open access and pragmatic approaches to AI.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests examine how library consortia support student success and affordability. First, Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), explains how SCELC invests in the projects of member institutions and partner organizations to achieve their goals and extend services in affordability. Next, Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), outlines the findings of VIVA’s 2025 Virginia Course Materials Survey, discussing what’s changed since the last time VIVA ran the survey in 2021. Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, chats about OhioLINK’s affordable learning strategies, which include training librarians on finding OER resources, funding the course flip to OER, and building community across consortia around affordable materials. Last, Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), explores PALCI’s support for OER materials and the surveys, funding structures, and communication with members involved in this work.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests prove library consortia to be more than just content buyers. Featuring Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, and Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), this episode explores the infrastructure consortia build for members, highlighting VIVA’s Open and Affordable Program, SCELC’s FOLIO project, PALCI’s EZBorrow Service, and OhioLINK’s shared catalog in the process. In addition, our guests position consortia as strategic intermediaries and leaders in the higher education community. They discuss recent initiatives their consortia have introduced, such as partnerships with the Authors Alliance to bolster information policy and strategies to support accessibility roadmaps and implementation.
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In this series, four guests join The Authority File to discuss the current state of US consortia, diving into challenges, critical partnerships, and member support. Featuring library consortia leaders Jill Morris, Executive Director of PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation), Teri Gallaway, Executive Director of SCELC (Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium), Amy Pawlowski, Executive Director of OhioLINK, and Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA (Virtual Library of Virginia), this four-episode series distinguishes library consortia as more than just content buyers, but strategic and financial assets to bolster an institution’s services, community support, and overall mission. We look at how the guests’ consortia center affordability and student success, the variety of shared services each provides, and future goals in response to the rapidly changing environment of academic librarianship.
In this first episode, we’re introduced to our guests and their respective organizations. Each speaker provides a brief background on their consortium’s roots, scope, and mission before moving into how each has remained agile and responsive to member needs in the past decade. In addition, Jill, Teri, Amy, and Genya underscore that each consortium is unique, sharing a well-known saying from the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC): if you’ve met one consortium, you’ve met one consortium.
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In the final episode of this two-part series, Fatima Mohie-Eldin, editor of Choice Reviews and Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE), dives into DEIA trends in higher education and what’s next for TIE. She shares her observations as the editor of TIE—the Choice blog dedicated to issues of DEIA in higher education and beyond—by touching on the general anxiety from academic librarians over the future of DEI and reversals by universities on their DEI pledges in the wake of Supreme Court decisions and current administration policies. Exploring urgent topics with TIE’s audience, Fatima highlights content in support of international and immigrant communities, tips for avoiding burnout, and Choice’s longform reviews of racial justice titles, Featured Reviews. To close the episode, Fatima reflects on DEIA collection development trends and upcoming topics to be covered on TIE.
Resources Mentioned in the Episode:* U.S. Newcomers in Academic Libraries: What Should We Know, What Can We Do * Affirmative Action and the Future of DEI: A Panel Discussion * “Data” and Indigenous Studies: Entry Points for Academic Libraries * Let’s Take a Moment to Reflect on Overcommitment and Burnout in Academic Libraries * Standing Firm Together: Championing the Rights of International Students * An Update on International Students and Academic Libraries * Resources for Learning about Trans and Gender Diverse People * Check out TIE‘s podcast, webinars, interviews, and resource lists * Sign up for TIE’s weekly newsletter * Learn more about Choice Reviews and request a free trial
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This month’s two-part series features Fatima Mohie-Eldin, editor of Choice Reviews and Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE). Joining TAF host Bill Mickey, Fatima marks the fifth anniversary of Choice’s TIE blog by discussing its evolution, popular topics within its readership, and general trends in DEIA in higher education.
In this first episode, Fatima shares the history of TIE, explaining how it was created in 2021 in response to 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests with aims to provide a pool of knowledge and actionable resources related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics for academic librarians and higher education stakeholders. She highlights the contributions of former TIE editor-in-chief and the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) current President-Elect Alexia Hudson-Ward, including her leadership in developing TIE’s scope, podcast, webinar program, and resource lists.
Fatima also charts the shifts in TIE’s editorial approach over the past five years, such as expanding its contributor pool, releasing a new interview feature, and producing forthcoming titles lists focused specifically on DEIA and social justice issues. Last, Fatima highlights TIE content from the past year and underscores several topics she’d like the blog to dive into further in the future.
TIE Resources Mentioned in the Episode:* Standing Firm Together: Championing the Rights of International Students * TIE Webinar Wrap-Up: Affirmative Action and the Future of DEI * TIE Preview of Upcoming Reads in Disability Studies, 2025 * Check out TIE‘s podcast, webinars, interviews, and resource lists!
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests examine the future of mathematics in artificial intelligence. First, Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, Mathematics at Springer Nature, explores the impact of AI on how mathematical research is written and reviewed. Most notably, he’s noticed mathematicians increasingly relying on AI tools to review manuscripts—a worrisome trend, given the issue of uploading unpublished material into a large language model (LLM) that could use that (uncredited) research in future responses. Next, we discuss comparisons of generative AI to the release of the calculator, ultimately arguing that no tool, not even AI, can replace “thinking mathematically.” To close, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, Mathematics at Springer Nature, predicts that the relationship between mathematics and AI will evolve to become more collaborative. She also provides recommendations to librarians and faculty on how best to prepare students and researchers for this fast-approaching reality.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests explore artificial intelligence’s impact on mathematics curricula. First, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, explain how undergraduate math students have adapted their skills and learning strategies in response to the rise of AI tools. As Chris notes, despite automated advancements, students still need to “think mathematically” and understand the logic behind their answers. Referencing specific subjects and schools of study, Elizabeth and Chris discuss changes math departments have made to better prepare students for research and careers that intersect with AI. Last, our guests underscore that instructors and librarians must communicate to mathematics students that exploration with AI tools requires verification and academic rigor.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, dive into how mathematicians are using AI in their research. First, Elizabeth provides an overview of a survey conducted at the American Mathematical Society’s Joint Mathematics Meetings in January. She reveals the ways in which undergraduates, graduates, and researchers implement AI into their scholarship, whether by learning about new topics or polishing up research articles. In addition, Elizabeth discusses AI’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in the field—while AI can accelerate discovery, it also relies on probability to solve problems, leading to false or inaccurate results. To close out the episode, Chris chats about changes in scholarly publishing in mathematics due to AI research and the challenge of book publishing in such a fast-moving subject area.
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This month we’re joined by Elizabeth Loew, Executive Editor, and Christopher Tominich, Senior Editor, both in the Mathematics book group at Springer Nature, to learn how mathematics and artificial intelligence intertwine. While computer science plays a key role in building AI technology, mathematics operates as the “engine under the hood” of AI, powering analyzation, probability, statistical tasks, optimization, and much more. As Elizabeth and Chris explain, mathematics provides essential frameworks for large language models and machine learning algorithms, particularly when applied to massive datasets. In this series, we’ll explore mathematicians’ research in other subject areas to improve AI functions, preparing today’s math students for an AI landscape, and if artificial intelligence really is the new calculator.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Elizabeth and Chris discuss how mathematics makes modern AI tools possible. Chris dives into the AI applications of mathematical theories and frameworks and picks out a few fundamental math skills that contribute to AI. In addition, Elizabeth highlights emerging areas of study in math that she’s seen in AI-related manuscripts and scholarship.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, discusses metadata challenges and solutions for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Noting the difficulty of digitizing objects with uneven records, Eleanor highlights the thoughtful choices Gale and its partners made for ECCO Part III when it came to standardizing the data. In addition, she chats about metadata updates to Part III requested from longtime users, such as adding an author gender filter and a material’s place of publication. Finally, Eleanor shares one of her most surprising discoveries in the archive while using its digital humanities tools—the 1782 caterpillar plague, anyone?
Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, we chat with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, about the logistics of digitizing tiny books for Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. First, Eleanor outlines the challenges the physical conditions of miniature books bring to the digitization process. Praising the work of the British Library on ECCO Part III, Eleanor explains how the team tested out new digitization techniques and even built a tiny book cradle to accommodate their small size. In addition, Eleanor shares how Gale worked with library partners to determine what to digitize—keep or discard a hundreds-year-old bug stuck between the pages? Our guest closes with thoughts on remediation, exploring the transformation of books from texts to objects when digitized.
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In the second episode of this four-part series with Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor for Gale Primary Sources, we turn our attention to a big topic: tiny books. A key archival format in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III, miniature books emerged in the 17th century as collectible items often in the form of almanacs, historical works, or religious pieces. In the episode, Eleanor recounts their history, exploring how their size—for example, holding the entire history of Britain in your palm—revealed their impracticality and allure as a symbol of knowledge and art piece. In addition, we chat with Eleanor about what makes tiny books “invisible” in the archives and the benefits of digitizing these small but mighty works.
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What does it take to bring some of the smallest—and most fragile—volumes of the eighteenth century into the digital research environment? In this series, Gale acquisitions editor Eleanor Leese discusses the preservation and digitization of rare and understudied materials now available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Part III. Historically inaccessible due to their physical condition and scarcity, these items include miniature devotional works, ephemeral pamphlets, and personal instructional texts. Over the next four episodes, we’ll examine how careful handling, specialized imaging techniques, and collaboration with libraries help ensure these delicate works survive to be searched, cited, and studied by scholars around the world.
In the first episode of this series, Eleanor introduces us to Eighteenth Century Collections Online. She details the inspiration for the original collection, charting its development over the past two decades to its latest iteration, Part III. As Eleanor notes, ECCO was last updated in 2009, so Part III contains unique objects that previously couldn’t be microfilmed due to their unique size, in addition to updated color imaging and the books’ exterior features like the spine and cover. To close, she shares how scholars use ECCO across disciplines and its impact on 18th-century research.
Learn more about ECCO Part III and request trial access for your library.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, explore supporting information professionals in the push for stronger public trust in science. Highlighting consistent patron trust in libraries, our guests see librarians as key players in the fight for academic freedom. In fact, Louis discusses the library’s connections to the local community, research ecosystem, and publishing cycle as crucial benefits. Surfacing the recent information curation guide from Sage and Sense about Science, he also notes the value of the guide’s connections across the information ecosystem and points to the tech industry as an essential partner. To close, Louis reflects on librarians’ changing curatorial roles in the AI environment, and Camille previews next steps from Sage following the guide’s publication.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), joins Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, to discuss the current environment for public trust in science. First, Louis shares CILIP’s background and previews its upcoming five-year strategy and updated mission. Next, Louis and Camille highlight major obstacles toward restoring public trust in research, reflecting on censorship attacks, political interference, and, of course, artificial intelligence. Our guests also share why information curators within and outside academia are stepping up in this moment to champion academic freedom, access to information, and research impact. Camille also touches briefly on The People’s Case for Curators, the recent guide from Sage and Sense about Science.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science, and Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, reflect on key takeaways from Sage and Sense about Science’s guide on increasing public trust in research, The People’s Case for Curators. They discuss the similarities and differences between editors, librarians, and journalists in their contributions to the information landscape; despite distinct processes and criteria, each group works to get vetted information to readers. In addition, our guests explain why they want to make the invisible work of public-good curators visible and provide action steps informed by the guide on how everyone can spotlight curators’ efforts. Last, Tracey shares an optimistic outlook on the general public recognizing the contributions of information curators.
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In this month’s four-part series, we dive into public trust in science. Inspired by the recent guide The People’s Case for Curators from Sage and Sense about Science, the series investigates the need for the guide and what issues within and outside scholarly communication have compounded on each other, creating unique challenges to strengthening public trust in research.
We first chat with Camille Gamboa, AVP of Corporate Communications at Sage, and Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science, in episodes one and two, digging into their collaboration on the guide, key takeaways, and the value of research communicators. In episodes three and four, Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), joins Camille to discuss the obstacles impacting public trust in science and the key role of information professionals in combatting these issues.
In this first episode, Tracey shares the mission behind Sense about Science and why the organization wanted to team up with Sage on the guide. Further, Camille and Tracey define public-good curators, explaining how librarians, research officers, and journalists each play a unique and crucial role in building public trust.
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In the second episode of our two-part series with ACRL, Whitney Kramer and Iliana Burgos, editors of Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians, move into the applications of Text and Data Mining (TDM). They start by highlighting key partnerships essential to TDM’s success on campus and encourage librarians to stay engaged in researcher trends and the local community. Next, they chat about licensing and legal issues, identifying how vendors are responding to the uptick in TDM practices in scholarship. Looking ahead to the future of Text and Data Mining, our guests share how TDM and AI literacies go hand-in-hand and why broader data literacy efforts prepare librarians to adapt and respond to fast-moving technology trends.
Apply promo code “ACRL20C” through December 1, 2025 for 20 percent off Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians.Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
This fall our friends at ACRL published Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians, a wide-reaching text that details how librarians are using Text and Data Mining (TDM) across disciplines and levels of expertise. This month, we’re joined by two of the book’s editors, Whitney Kramer and Iliana Burgos, for a two-part series to discuss why this book is needed right now. In the series, our guests highlight the growing demand for TDM literacy among researchers and outline what makes TDM partnerships work across campus. Further, they chat about licensing agreements and copyright in relation to TDM, practical case studies in the book, and how TDM literacy might evolve from here.
In this first episode, Whitney and Iliana reveal that they started this project with their coeditor Evan Muzzall in response to a gap in the literature—there was a clear lack of guidance for librarians on how to support researchers using TDM. Next, they share their working definition for Text and Data Mining and why their call for chapter proposals specifically sought out early-career writers. Last, Whitney and Iliana underscore that librarians don’t need to become TDM experts overnight, instead recommending to approach any new technology from a “learning perspective.”
Apply promo code “ACRL20C” through December 1, 2025 for 20 percent off Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians.Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
This week we conclude our four-part series with Paul db Watkins, author of Soundin’ Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship, by reflecting on the power of remixing. Digging into the book’s unique design elements, Paul explains that he wanted readers to “feel a little bit like a kind of DJ themselves” through an active, auditory reading experience. We also talk about Paul’s website for the book, which offers resources like relevant poems, lectures, discussion questions, and audio files. In addition, Paul shares how he aimed to disrupt traditional scholarly communication practices by holding poetry readings, open mics, and interviews at the book’s launch events to underscore the title’s multimedia elements. Last, Paul reflects on the willingness (or lack thereof) of major musical acts to speak about political or social issues. Though perhaps not a solution to today’s ongoing crises, Paul underscores that poetry and music can act as an “antidote to apathy…[and] a catalyst for change.”
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Paul db Watkins, author of Soundin’ Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship, discusses themes of citizenship and multiculturalism examined in his book. He first digs into how he uses the word “sounded,” touching on music and poetry as acts of belonging and resistance. Next, he explores his adaptation of Vincent Andrisani’s concept of “sonic citizenship.” He argues that reading and listening to the artists featured in Soundin’ Canaan is a form of sonic citizenship as the reader explores the poets’ and musicians’ lived experiences as Canadian citizens, showcasing the malleability of cultural identity and multiculturalism. In closing, Paul relates ideas of citizenship to the practice of remixing or sampling music, highlighting Somali-Canadian artist K’naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag,” which grew to global significance when used by FIFA and remixed by international artists.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Paul db Watkins, author of Soundin’ Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship, expands on the writing process of his book. To start, he shares how he applied a “DJ Methodology” to the title. Highlighting the incorporation of different types of materials—close readings, author interviews, insights on cultural history—Paul discusses how this approach foregrounds Soundin’ Canaan’s through line of the intersections between poetry, musicality, and justice. In addition, Paul reflects on the process of decentering himself to write the book, and how that relates to white scholars writing about Black literature, art, and culture. As academia remains a primarily white institution, Paul explains that his role as an instructor is to amplify Black literature, build curiosity, and resist “absolute truth” in his research. In closing, Paul spotlights several poems from his book that combine aesthetic and rhetorical qualities, including Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip.
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This month we welcome Paul db Watkins, Professor of English at Vancouver Island University and author of Soundin’ Canaan: Black Canadian Poetry, Music, and Citizenship. His book looks at how Black Canadian poets are influenced by Black musical artists and song, and what this creative intersection reveals about multiculturalism and citizenship. In the next four episodes we discuss Paul’s research and writing process and the influence his work as a DJ had on his approach to the book. Further, we delve into the meaning of “sonic citizenship,” incorporating playlists and liner notes in an academic text, and the importance of decentering himself to write about Black literature, art, and culture.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Paul introduces us to the themes of Soundin’ Canaan. He first outlines the distinctive features of the aesthetic and rhetorical functions of poetry and music and how they intertwine and enhance one another. Next, he shares the background behind the book’s title, explaining the meaning of the term “Canaan” and how it connects to Black liberation and migration to Canada. Last, he reflects on the complexities of establishing a Black Canadian literary canon. While Paul acknowledges the value and significance of recognizing Black Canadian literary figures, he also resists the rigidity of canon formation, instead aiming “to draw attention to the power of Black voice and song in Canada.”
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, discusses future impacts of AI on academic publishing. To start, he chats about whether AI adoption has influenced submission and publication volumes at the publisher. Next, he forecasts how AI tools will shape the competitive landscape in scholarly publishing, noting that publishers’ ability and willingness to build robust AI policies will most influence the environment. Last, Harmen considers the balance between publishers implementing standardized AI policies and staying agile in the market and how AI might shape content agreements between publishers and libraries.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, addresses research integrity in the implementation of AI in STM book publishing. First, he outlines concerns he’s hearing from libraries on collecting and dispersing quality research in this environment. Underscoring the importance of human-in-the-loop AI strategies and tools, he emphasizes that clear communication on AI use benefits libraries, authors, and publishers. Next, Harmen explains AI research integrity and ethical issues specific to STM subjects, such as protecting patient privacy when handling medical data. To close, Harmen chats about Springer’s AI detection tools currently in use.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, discusses communicating with authors on current AI innovations. He details both anecdotal author experiences collected by editors, in addition to researcher workshops hosted by Springer to hear academics to share new ways of working. Next, Harmen explains the current AI trends he’s observed in authors and how Springer responds to and even encourages these changes. For example, the publisher offers AI-generated English language translation for manuscripts to aid authors whose native language isn’t English. Harmen also chats about tools developed by Springer that support the editing process, including a reference checker and an AI detection tool, Geppetto, which Springer donated to the STM Association this year for wider use.
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This past June we looked at innovation in Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) publishing. This month, we turn our attention to advancements in book publishing in the Sciences. Joining us for the next four episodes is Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President STM Books Publishing & Books Business Optimization at Springer Nature, who shares Springer’s publishing strategies in the evolving landscape. Examining AI’s impact on scholarly communication workflows, Harmen reflects on authors’ adoption of AI tools, potential standardization of AI policies, and concerns from libraries on research integrity and AI.
In this first episode, Harmen provides a broad look at Springer’s approach to innovative publishing in the Sciences, including examples of the publisher updating its manuscript submission process and procedure for alt text creation to better meet author needs. In addition, Harmen talks open access, advocating for frequent communication with authors on available OA pathways and funding opportunities. Last, Harmen chats about digital book publishing in STEM; although Springer makes all books available as an ebook and in print no matter the discipline, he acknowledges that STEM authors tend to be more comfortable working in digital formats.
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In the final episode of this series, our guests reflect on why today’s political, economic, and social context necessitates the need for libraries to effectively communicate their value on campus. First, Hilary Craiglow, Library Consulting Practice Lead at Attain Partners, Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, and Jeffrey Gold, President of the University of Nebraska System, highlight what libraries are currently up against and what they can do to demonstrate their contributions to an institution’s mission, instructional aims, and research enterprise. Next, Emily shares her experience leading library workers, underscoring why all staff need to be able to explain the library’s strengths and solutions. Last, Hilary and Jeff expand on this point, exploring the benefits of strong narratives attached to metrics and a campus culture aligned by shared values and goals.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests dig into the task of communicating the library’s value across campus. First, Hilary Craiglow, Library Consulting Practice Lead at Attain Partners, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, chat about the need to “lift the curtain” on library work; rather than making invisible the time, effort, and coordination required to secure resources and provide services, librarians should demonstrate how detailed and essential their work truly is. Further, Emily, Hilary, and Jeffrey Gold, President of the University of Nebraska System, continue on that thread by sharing why librarians must know how to tell their library’s story, signaling their position as a strategic partner and leader at the institution. Finally, Emily and Jeff explore the importance of library donors. Discussing how to maintain these crucial relationships, Emily and Jeff highlight tips for engagement and campus initiatives made possible through philanthropy.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss aligning the library’s mission with the university. First, Hilary Craiglow, Library Consulting Practice Lead at Attain Partners, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, emphasize the importance of strong partnerships between the library and other departments on campus. By building shared metrics and communicating each other’s needs, these collaborations showcase the library as a key player in university life and contribute to creating a community of support. Next, Jeffrey Gold, President of the University of Nebraska System, explains the quantifiable metrics he looks for from the system’s libraries and how they connect to the University’s foundational pillars and strategic plan. Last, Emily and Hilary underscore that the relationship between academic libraries and university leadership varies widely from institution to institution—though a close partnership tends to work in the library’s favor.
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Librarians know the library plays an essential role on campus. Intersecting with research, technology, student success, and more, the library bolsters key areas of student and faculty life—but is the library as adept at explaining its services as it is at providing them?
In this four-part series, we dig into why libraries must demonstrate their value to university administrators to secure funding needs and establish their place as an instrumental sector of campus life and university success. We’ll investigate how the library can align its mission with the university’s, why libraries need to “lift the curtain” on the behind-the-scenes work they do to provide resources, and the importance of adding context to library metrics to better tell your library’s story. Discussion also includes connecting to library donors and the challenges of demonstrating value in today’s political environment.
In this first episode, we meet our guests: Jeffrey Gold, President of the University of Nebraska System, Hilary Craiglow, Library Consulting Practice Lead at Attain Partners, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis. First, they jump into the urgency of this work, highlighting the importance of libraries connecting their own metrics to the university’s data-driven decision-making. In addition, Jeff, Hilary, and Emily elucidate why libraries may struggle to illustrate their fundamental services, underlining issues like campus culture and a lack of training in strategic planning. Further, our guests share how communication tactics between the library and campus leadership have shifted—while libraries need a seat at the table with leadership, they also need to be able to communicate within the terms of a business model and justifying sustainable investments.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Candida Rifkind and Dominic Davies, authors of Graphic Refuge, look at current and future trends of refugee comics. First, our guests underscore the interdisciplinary nature of refugee comics by highlighting both humanities and social sciences subjects they applied when writing the title, in addition to their aim to move away from a focus on trauma studies. Next, Candida and Dom chat about Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s On Comics and Grief by Dale Jacobs, and how Dale’s intention to foster a more fluid comics studies discipline aligns with the goals of their book.
Last, Candida and Dom discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza in relation to Joe Sacco’s Palestine, published more than 20 years ago. Spotlighting several artists documenting Palestinian life and the aftermath of Israeli bombings, they reflect on the influx of comics published on social media platforms since 2023 and their role in raising political consciousness and action around the world. Further, they explore refugee comics’ ability to build solidarity and the need to apply a critical eye to comics that perpetuate tropes of suffering and ignore holistic refugee experiences.
Listen to our series with On Comics and Grief author Dale Jacobs.Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In the third episode of this four-part series with Candida Rifkind and Dominic Davies, authors of Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics, we discuss refugee comics as political tools. First, our guests outline the characteristics of comics journalism, highlighting its conventions, convergence with new journalism, and influential authors like Joe Sacco. Next, Candida and Dom examine how refugee comics can effect political change. Though it may be difficult to draw direct lines from comics to legislation, they share how refugee comics have been used by lawmakers and have raised awareness of refugee issues and experiences. Reflecting on the importance of critical refugee studies when writing their book, Candida and Dom define the term “refugeeness” and explain the limitations of refugee as a label. Finally, Candida provides several examples of comics’ ability to visualize the spatial characteristics of refugee camps and how they “show us that the line between refugee camps and the rest of the world is really porous.”
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Candida Rifkind and Dominic Davies dive into their writing process and the ethics of artist-refugee relationships examined in their coauthored book, Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics. Rather than collaborating throughout, Candida and Dom chose to write individual chapters and coauthor the introduction and epilogue. As they explain, this technique led to a natural dialogue between their sections in the book and a productive partnership amidst Covid lockdowns and life events.
Next, our guests summarize the artists featured in the title, which includes those with lived experiences as refugees, second generation refugees, and artists/writers commissioned by humanitarian organizations to communicate refugees’ stories. Candida and Dom then expand on the ethics between the artist and the refugee, exploring the empowerment of “refugee refusal” and spotlighting several examples of these ethical dynamics at play in Sarah Glidden’s Rolling Blackouts and Olivier Kugler’s Escaping Wars and Waves.
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This month’s series welcomes the authors of Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics, Candida Rifkind, Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, and Dominic Davies, Reader in English at City St George’s, University of London. In the next four episodes, we chat with Candida and Dom about the origins and unique writing process of their book, refugee comics within the comics studies discipline, and how the genre can function as a tool for political change. Further, we dig into the rise of comics journalism and the ethical relationship between a refugee and the artist depicting their experiences.
In the first episode of this series, Candida and Dom introduce us to refugee comics, defining the genre, its history, and readership. As our guests explain, comics have long chronicled the stories of outsiders—Superman as a refugee from Krypton, for example—and depicting or drawing the experiences of displacement has existed as long as displacement itself. Next, Candida and Dom contemplate the nebulous term “refugee” and how they interpreted it for their book, in addition to the importance of the reader to refugee comics’ tone and impact. As our guests point out, the main audience of refugee comics are those who have citizenship, thereby revealing a complex relationship between reader and author; as Candida underscores, “the very idea of a refugee can only exist if there is an idea of a citizen, and vice versa.”
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In the final episode of our four-part series with Springer Nature’s VP of Humanities, Social Sciences Books & Focus Projects Anil Chandy, we zoom out for a big-picture look at the intersection of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), libraries, and AI. First, Anil shares how AI tools have created opportunities to “stress test” the scholarly communication lifecycle, revealing pain points and opportunities for transformation. Next, Anil connects ethical AI use with academic libraries’ mission of equitable information access. As libraries themselves begin to incorporate AI tools into collection development strategies and information services, they can lead universities in responsible AI academic practices. Finally, Anil reflects on how HSS disciplines like political science, international relations, and law can interweave and forecast long-term AI regulation policies and solutions.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Anil Chandy, VP of Humanities, Social Sciences Books & Focus Projects at Springer Nature, shares the advantages of implementing AI into publishing processes. Highlighting opportunities like language translation and plain language summaries, he outlines Springer Nature’s three models of AI use—text generation, text conversion, and text interrogation—and the human oversight required to ensure they meet publication standards. Next, Anil walks through Springer Nature’s first machine-generated title published in 2019. Developed to experiment with the available AI technology, the book underscored the limitations of AI content generation and signaled the publisher’s shift to “human-in-the-loop” solutions for generative AI. Last, our guest digs into the potential of AI translated texts and the applications of AI in peer review.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, we look at regulation strategies for AI technology with our guest Anil Chandy, VP of Humanities, Social Sciences Books & Focus Projects at Springer Nature. First, Anil provides an overview of how publishers are building AI guidelines and what nonprofit organizations or government agencies they’re looking to for guidance. As he points out, balancing directives from national leadership, local universities, and fellow publishers requires connecting with multiple stakeholders and staying abreast of recent developments from organizations like STM and COPE. Next, Anil underscores the need for those creating regulation to listen to all sectors of the scholarly communication lifecycle. Looking particularly at the vantage point of librarians, Anil highlights their unique outlook on user behavior, student privacy, and AI literacy. To close, Anil reflects on how HSS disciplines offer valuable perspectives on the societal implications of AI, including on bias and ethical use.
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This month, Anil Chandy, VP of Humanities, Social Sciences Books & Focus Projects at Springer Nature, joins The Authority File to apply a Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) lens to artificial intelligence. Sharing his publisher perspective, Anil reflects on how HSS disciplines regarded AI before and after the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Further, he chats about current AI guidelines produced by publishers and how they’re influenced by initiatives put forth by governing bodies or technological organizations. Highlighting both areas for concern and the potential benefits of AI in the publishing lifecycle, Anil underscores the need for HSS approaches to this technology—both in studying the creative uses of large language models and scrutinizing its ethical and social implications.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Anil explains how his role at Springer Nature intersects with AI technology and provides a broad overview of HSS coverage of AI. In addition, he charts HSS discussions of AI pre- and post the launch of large language models for public use as theoretical ideas steadily became a reality. Finally, Anil explores the tension between supporting the democratization of knowledge—a key tenet of HSS studies—and ensuring copyright protections from AI scraping.
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In the final episode of this four-part series on documentary collections, we bring our guests together to discuss the sustainability of documentary films in today’s political environment. First, UC Berkeley’s Film and Media Services Librarian Gisèle Tanasse underscores the responsibility of the library to supply instructors with documentaries—both new films and older selections essential to the canon—through licensing and purchasing options. Next, Sarah Feinbloom, filmmaker and founder of GOOD DOCS, and filmmaker Set Hernandez outline the current challenges facing documentary filmmakers. As Sarah and Set point out, despite repressive regimes and attacks on funding, documentary storytellers have a long, global history of finding innovative ways to create and share their work. Last, Sage’s Senior Director of Library Editorial Michael Carmichael explores how vendors like Sage can support the dissemination of documentaries, while Virginia Espino, Continuing Lecturer, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, shares some key advice for documentary makers—organize!
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In the third episode of this four-part series, we turn to faculty and librarian perspectives on documentary film collection development and use in curricula. First, Virginia Espino, Continuing Lecturer in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, outlines how she measures learning outcomes when using documentaries as learning tools, including peer discussion and handwritten reflections to test student understanding. Next, Gisèle Tanasse, UC Berkeley’s Film and Media Services Librarian, shares how the library can partner with faculty to develop multimodal learning experiences that build media literacy skills. Last, both guests reflect on what makes access to and representation in documentary films key components of student education. They touch on librarians acting as “custodians of cultural history” and the incredible historical moments and lived experiences captured in documentaries that create a comprehensive and visceral archive for viewers and researchers to explore.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests provide tips for developing a comprehensive documentary film collection. First, filmmaker and GOOD DOCS founder Sarah Feinbloom shares background on the origin and goals of GOOD DOCS. Sarah also explains how documentaries can uplift young filmmakers and perspectives, in addition to underscoring the importance of spotlighting human diversity on screen. Next, Sarah and UC Berkeley’s Film and Media Services Librarian Gisèle Tanasse discuss collection development strategies. Gisele covers the value of flexible distribution models and explores how librarians can help filmmakers navigate the academic marketplace. Finally, Michael Carmichael, Senior Director of Library Editorial at Sage, details how GOOD DOCS’ and Sage’s shared values inspired their recent partnership. Michael also addresses Sage’s approach to librarians’ affordability and access needs.
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In this four-part series with Sage, five guests join the podcast to chat about the value and applications of documentary films in the classroom. Virginia Espino, Continuing Lecturer, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, offers the faculty perspective, sharing how she measures learning outcomes and utilizes films for instruction. Filmmaker Set Hernandez shares their filmmaking experience and examines the cultural and emotional impact of documentaries at the college level. UC Berkeley’s Film and Media Services Librarian Gisèle Tanasse explores how the library works with faculty to build film-led curricula and ensures access to visual media. Finally, Sarah Feinbloom, a filmmaker and the founder of GOOD DOCS, and Sage’s Senior Director of Library Editorial Michael Carmichael, discuss building a documentary collection and the benefits of the Sage-GOOD DOCS partnership for customers and the wider market.
In this first episode, Set, Virginia, and Sarah provide an overview of how documentary films aid teaching and learning. First, Virginia reveals the humanizing effects for students of using No Más Bebés—a documentary she co-produced on the forced sterilization of Mexican women at the Los Angeles-USC Medical Center in the late 1960s to early 1970s—in conjunction with traditional research sources. Next, Set explains the background behind their film unseen. Centered on a blind and undocumented aspiring social worker earning his college degree, the documentary fosters empathy, critical thinking, and cultural awareness in its audiences through its cinematographic techniques and audio-centered filmmaking.
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In the final episode of our four-part series with Dr. Cheryl Thompson, author of Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897, we turn to the archives. To start, Cheryl walks through the development of her project Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA), a digital inventory of public archives on Black history and culture. Cheryl explains that while researching for her book she often encountered white-centered archives and discrepancies between an archive’s listed availability online versus when she arrived in person. This frustration inspired MOBA, which aims to simplify workflows for researchers and spotlight open resources. In collaboration with Cheryl’s Black Creative Lab, MOBA has earned several grants and aims to evolve into storing assets and acting as a model for other provinces to follow, with the goal of scholars using the archives to fuel creative thinking and artistic output.
To close, Cheryl explores Canada’s place within the “Atlantic world,” underscoring how blackface minstrelsy traveled from America to Europe to Canada and back again. Influenced by the social and political climates of each region, the minstrel show may have started in the US, but became a global form of entertainment within the triangular Atlantic context.
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This week Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, continues the discussion of her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897. First, she walks through the gaps she encountered in the literature on 19th-century minstrelsy and vaudeville. Finding that much of the canon neglected the 1860s-90s as women began to enter the stage, Cheryl also discovered that texts on this period often portrayed Black women actors and dancers in terms of resistance and exclusion. She explains how she wanted to move beyond these two views, instead focusing on how these women expressed their own agency and found success on the stage. In addition, Cheryl describes the types of archives she used when researching the book—newspapers, playbills, lithographic prints—and digs into the surprising and sometimes frustrating responses she received from librarians and archivists when looking through these materials.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, digs into the timeline and conflict of her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897. First, she discusses the difficulty in choosing a starting point for the title. Aiming to include the theater’s rich history, she elected to begin at the War of 1812—one of the defining moments of Canada and its burgeoning identity—and intersperse the theater’s techniques and history throughout the book. Additionally, as Cheryl explains, the War of 1812 revealed Canada’s varying viewpoints, with factions of Loyalists versus pro-America/Republic groups, and, later during the US Civil War, Unionists versus Confederates.
In fact, Cheryl points out that diverging audiences continued past 1865 as all-Black minstrel groups and Jubilee singers, often formerly enslaved, began to tour Canada, leading to a split of working-class crowds at minstrel shows and upper class viewers for Jubilee performances. Cheryl explores the competing narratives of these two shows, their popularity in Canada, and the intersection of conflict and entertainment in this fascinating episode.
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Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, joins the program to discuss her latest book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897. The first in a trilogy, the title investigates the origins of blackface in Canada, tracing the rise of minstrel shows in the 19th century and how they converged with growing infrastructure in railways, theater, and the entertainment industry. In the next four episodes, Cheryl dives into her research and writing process, in addition to her essential work in the archives. She also examines how American enslavement shaped the portrayal of Black people in minstrel shows and the contention between Black choral groups rising in tandem with minstrelsy performances.
In this first episode, Cheryl introduces us to her scholarship and a major through line of her work—how systems of production intersect with gender, race, and power structures. Describing blackface as a “socializing agent” during the 19th century, Cheryl explains how the theater acted not only as a form of entertainment, but a powerful educational tool on US enslavement, westward expansion, and the Jim Crow era. Without a school system or nationwide curriculum in place, minstrel shows taught audiences about these topics—but from an extremely biased point of view that introduced or reinforced existing narratives of Black people in the US North and South. Last, Cheryl connects back to the topic of infrastructure, illustrating how the railroads in Canada were integral to the growth of traveling theater groups.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Janaki Srinivasan of the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Oxford Internet Institute and Amy Harris of MIT Press explore the unanticipated benefits of open monographs and the future of MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) program. First, Amy chats about how open access influences translation and licensing decisions. She cites MIT Press’s Deep Learning, a 2016 computer science title that drove interest in large part due to its preprinted chapters and open peer review, spurring more than a dozen translation licenses with publishers. Next, Amy and Janaki highlight the ways students and teaching faculty interact with open materials; the ease of clicking a link creates fewer barriers for tech-savvy researchers. Last, Amy previews D2O’s 2025 impact report and shares the unique ways D2O authors’ research flourishes outside of academia.
Read the latest impact report from MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O).Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In the third episode of this four-part series, Janaki Srinivasan, Associate Professor in Digital South Asian Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Oxford Internet Institute, and Amy Harris, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales at MIT Press, discuss the citation and global impacts of the open access book model. First, Janaki, author of The Political Lives of Information, discusses the central idea of her book—the right to information—and how that aligns with open publishing. Next, Amy highlights the benefits of Direct to Open (D2O) that authors continue to find in relation to their field, while Janaki shares how open publishing has helped her book reach non-Western audiences, particularly those in India who are affected by her research topic. To close, Amy chats about the citation advantages of open books over paywalled content. Looking at more than six years of D2O data, Amy details increased citation diversity with significant benefits for Humanities and Social Sciences titles.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, David Gunkel, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, and Amy Harris, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales at MIT Press, continue their discussion on the benefits of open monographs. First, David proposes open books as an antidote to the awkwardness around an author assigning their own book to a class or asking fellow researchers to buy their book to learn about their work. Further, David shares how open books help English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers by allowing them to copy and paste text from an open PDF into online translators; this helps the scholarship reach a wider audience and increases the potential for global partnerships. In addition, Amy chats about the advantages of open objects and digs into the challenges of copyright mandates and contract management when making backlist titles open—or, as MIT Press affectionately calls it, a “backflip.”
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This month we welcome back MIT Press to discuss its open book publishing program Direct to Open (D2O) and the author benefits of open access. In addition to MIT Press’s Amy Harris, MIT Press authors David Gunkel and Janaki Srinivasan join the program to share their unique experiences with and advantages of open monographs.
In the first episode of this four-part series, we chat with David, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, and Amy, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales, about open book publishing. Amy first provides a refresher on D2O, detailing its development, accomplishments, and surprising trends from participating libraries. Next, David, author of MIT Press’s Person, Thing, Robot, explains his longstanding support for open access and why publishing his book via D2O was a natural fit. Reviewing rapid developments in AI research, David reveals the connections between open publishing and the global AI legal environment, sharing the utility of open books for AI ethics and robotics scholars.
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This month’s episode features Rosalyn Metz, Chief Technology Officer for Libraries and Museum at Emory University. At a 2024 Charleston Conference panel with TAF host Bill Mickey, Rosalyn shared a quick anecdote on how spikes in AI bot traffic on Emory library’s website have lead to service shutdowns. Now, Rosalyn joins the podcast to dig into this frustrating issue, exploring how her library has dealt with this traffic and the ethical implications of making a library’s catalog and metadata openly available on the Internet in the age of AI.
To start, Rosalyn explains the level of traffic the library has experienced in the past year and how staff have worked to distinguish between regular bot traffic and large language models crawling for content. Further, she chats about the protections her library and other institutions have instigated, whether that be turning to campus IT, seeking out vendor partnerships, or locking down library webpages completely. Sharing her concerns beyond interrupting site traffic and the user experience, Rosalyn discusses the implications of AI bots scraping unvetted institutional files and sensitive repository materials.
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Last December Choice’s library technology content vertical LibTech Insights (LTI) featured Digital Initiatives Librarian Eric Lease Morgan in its Job Profiles feature. Eric, currently at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries, now joins The Authority File to provide a historical context for today’s artificial intelligence landscape. In this episode, he charts the progression of library technology applications, explaining how we’ve arrived at the current moment of machine learning and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) language processing.
In addition, Eric shares how library leaders and managers can advocate for innovative library work, suggesting designated times for librarians to “play,” experiment, and learn new technology skills. Walking through the impressive list of library technology projects he’s lead or been a part of over his career—Code4Lib and Distant Reader among them—Eric highlights how the library profession must adjust its services to better reflect today’s technologically advanced patrons and environment.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests focus on the library’s role as an advisor and guide for data sharing adoption in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, point out that the research process begins long before an author contacts a publisher; libraries, however, can introduce researchers to data sharing practices, formatting, and repositories at the very start. Aware of both institutional and funder policies that academics may need to follow, librarians have a unique, cross-functional understanding of the broader research ecosystem. As Emily and Rebecca note, many libraries have already embraced data sharing, and further collaboration between libraries and publishers will only provide improvements in the open data landscape.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, discuss the development of data sharing policies, repositories, and resources. First, Rebecca walks through the creation of T&F’s data sharing policy specific to Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Underscoring the need for language applicable to HSS (and not just STEM), Rebecca explains the process of researching existing data guidelines and gathering examples of HSS data. In addition, Rebecca chats about a 2022 exploratory survey on researchers’ current understandings and use of HSS data sharing and her paper on open data in the Humanities, also published in 2022. Next, Rebecca and Emily explore the advantages of data repositories over sharing data via email and outline key open data resources and training available from T&F to aid authors.
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In this episode, Francesca Buckland, Vice President of Product Management for the Web of Science at Clarivate, joins The Authority File to discuss artificial intelligence applications in academic libraries. To start, Fran details Clarivate’s history with developing AI products, including seeking guidance from the library community. Further, she chats about generative AI enhancing research efficiencies and underpinning critical thinking, particularly through Clarivate’s recently launched Web of Science Research Assistant. As Fran explains, the tool offers scholarly overviews, visualizations, and guided research workflows, all based in the Web of Science Core Collection. Digging into the needed balance between automation and human oversight, our guest also covers key topics like AI transparency, ethical design, and data security.
Next, Fran highlights Clarivate’s recent Pulse of the Library report. Revealing librarians’ progress toward establishing institutional AI plans, the report dovetails with Clarivate’s interest in utilizing AI for core librarian tasks and to support the library mission. Finally, as industry standards and guidelines on AI continue to enter the scholarly landscape, Fran anticipates better guardrails around ethical AI use and transparency, in addition to more advanced AI analytics tools to assess large data sets.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, dig into the benefits and challenges of data sharing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Rebecca starts by outlining the community aspect of data sharing and how that aligns with T&F’s own initiatives toward open research and responding to cultural changes in the scholarly communication landscape. Next, Emily walks through her 2024 coauthored book, Life in a New Language from Oxford University Press. The title evaluates six different ethnographic data sets on adult language learning, providing a helpful use case for sharing data between researchers. Last, our guests surface the unique concerns from humanists and social scientists over data-sharing policies and how these could potentially be addressed.
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In this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, join the program to discuss data sharing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). While STEM fields have largely established official channels for sharing and accessing research data, HSS disciplines still lag behind. Particular issues arise in identifying what qualifies as data in these fields and the purpose of making this information accessible to fellow scholars. Covering current data sharing policies and data categorization variations between the Humanities and Social Sciences, our guests investigate why HSS data sharing is important and how librarians can support this work through guidance and institutional services.
In this first episode, Emily and Rebecca examine the current landscape for HSS data sharing. They explain what can be categorized as data in HSS, how the social sciences have a slight leg up in this area, and how T&F has developed explicit guidance to help researchers recognize potential data sets. Our guests also share thoughts on how the 2022 OSTP Nelson Memo has impacted data sharing and speculate on how the incoming Trump administration may affect these policies in the US.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Lori Beckstead and Dario Llinares, coeditors of the forthcoming Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory, look ahead to the future of scholarly podcasting. First, Lori underscores podcasting’s ability to center marginalized voices by spotlighting lived experiences and demonstrating oral communication as a legitimate form of scholarship. Further, Dario parses through the benefits of creating podcasts to study the medium itself, much like the way media studies scholars create video essays about their research.
Next, Lori explains how librarians can help establish podcasts in traditional scholarly communication channels by preserving academic podcasts in institutional repositories. Our guests also recommend a list of scholarly podcasts including The Amplify Network, Her Media Diary, and Dario’s own The Cinematologists. Last, Lori and Dario postulate about the potential impacts of Google’s NotebookLM, a generative AI tool that creates extremely realistic-sounding podcast episodes from user-submitted prompts.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests, the coeditors of Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory, discuss academic podcasting in action, talking through pedagogical practices and podcasting’s appeal to general audiences. First, Lori Beckstead, Associate Professor of sound media in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, highlights Oliver McGarr’s three key ways podcasts can be used in the classroom: substitutional, supplementary, and creative. Next, podcaster and academic Dario Llinares explains why podcasting is so effective at communicating with the public, spotlighting characteristics such as emotionality and open-source distribution. Last, Lori and Dario chat about podcasting’s barriers to entry and how the medium can provide a more inclusive form of scholarship.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, podcaster and academic Dario Llinares and Lori Beckstead, Associate Professor of sound media in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, explore how scholarly podcasting can challenge the traditional principles of academic research. To start, our guests share the ways podcast studies fits within media studies and outline why academics choose podcasting to discuss their scholarship. Underscoring the conversational and “human” characteristics of the medium, they explain how a podcast works in conversation with the guests, research, and audience, encouraging a concise and accessible approach to scholarly communication. Further, Lori and Dario share that while institutions have begun to understand and appreciate the scholarly potential and rigor of podcasting, the medium’s emphasis on fostering ongoing dialogues opposes traditional research’s focus on citations and output.
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The Authority File is no stranger to discussing podcasts. Despite the Spider-Man meme of it all, podcasting works as an effective tool to talk through the medium’s pedagogical, cultural, and academic applications. Our guests for November’s series—podcast hosts and producers themselves—are familiar with this hall of mirrors, dropping by to discuss their forthcoming edited collection, Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory.
This month, we chat with Dario Llinares, Associate Professor of Film and Media at Ravensbourne University, London, and Lori Beckstead, Associate Professor of sound media in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, on their goal to define—or, at least, lay some parameters around—Podcast Studies. Explaining the rise of podcasting in the research community, Dario and Lori explore how podcasts can both reject and fall within academia’s traditional guardrails for scholarship. Further, they dig into the personal touch of using one’s voice to discuss research, how faculty use podcasts in the classroom, and the accessibility of the medium.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Dario and Lori trace their paths to editing Podcast Studies and becoming podcasters. In addition, they outline the book’s objectives to characterize the Podcast Studies discipline, highlight podcasts’ academic and non-academic uses, and include diverse, global perspectives and methodologies. Last, our guests reflect on the process of gathering the book chapters and their intent to invert the “Theory into Practice” phrase commonly seen on monographs in the book title.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests look at contemporary issues facing our information environment, media, and news cycles. First, Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian & Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University, and Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, reflect on the threat of AI-generated misinformation in the form of written text and, more recently, images and video. Next, Nick and Dan dig into contemporary trends of real-time analysis and fact-checking. Noting that fact-checking doesn’t always reach the audience receiving the false information, they also point out that these efforts can inadvertently share misinformation more widely, adding attention to outlandish or harmful views. Last, our guests discuss guidance for librarians on how to support students’ navigation through mis/disinformation—namely, slow down, be cautious of social media, and focus on issues with a local impact.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian & Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University, and Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, talk instruction and regulation in the current information landscape. Touching on the importance of media literacy, they stress that contemporary issues of misinformation and untrustworthy news sources require large-scale solutions that go beyond building individual literacy skills. In fact, Nick highlights the need for political campaign guardrails and regulations against technology companies, while Dan posits that a healthy democratic environment requires abandoning bygone legislation and pushing forward policies that better reflect the challenges of today. In addition, Dan compares his instruction tactics since the last time he was on The Authority File in 2020, sharing new strategies such as building reaction habits, finding and becoming a “nerd node,” and calling out epistemic trespassing.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests explore the transformation of the information landscape. First, Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian & Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University, reviews how fake news has impacted the presentation of news and information—anyone else notice the live fact-checking at the recent presidential debate? Then, Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, examines the expanded range of today’s news sources, which leads to increased competition and pressures on traditional news media. Compounded by our data-driven environment, these pressures contribute to the prioritization of stories that garner the most public interest (and clicks) and subscriber-based content that restricts access to trusted sources.
Next, Nick highlights the history and recent developments in public opinion polling, underscoring that the interpretation of polling data is a skill that journalists may lack. Last, Dan dives into the role of scientists to educate the public on current research. Stressing the value of building trust in science, Dan explains the need for science communicators, or “SciCommers,” who can translate ingroup language into digestible, actionable information for the public, most effective at the local level.
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Ah, “fake news”—for Americans, doesn’t that take you right back to 2016? However, fake news and mis/disinformation have existed long before then, even if the social, political, and technological environments have drastically shifted in the last 50 (or 20, or 10) years.
In this four-part series, our guests dig into applying critical thinking skills in today’s political and scientific climate. Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, and returning guest Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian & Associate Professor of Librarianship at Drake University, walk through the dilution of the information landscape, underscoring the impact of social media and the Internet on mainstream media’s authority in the news cycle. Touching on the role of scholarly communication in educating the public, key areas of information literacy and critical thinking instruction, and the threat of AI-generated misinformation, Nick and Dan provide a fascinating look at the current information landscape as the 2024 US presidential election fast approaches.
In the first episode of this series, our guests chat about fake news. They offer definitions and popular uses of the term, highlighting the importance of positioning fake news within current contexts. Speaking with a political and scientific lens, Nick and Dan chat about the spectrum of fake news—everything from satire to propaganda—and how opposing applications of fake news can inform one another.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss navigating the adoption of open research policies at the library and how publishers can assist with this implementation. Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas at Taylor & Francis, Natya Hans, Informatics and Reproducibility Librarian in the Academic Research and Consulting Services Department at University of Florida, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, surface strategies like campus outreach, data training programs, and collaboration across departments. Further, Jamie, Natya, and Emily explain how open research initiatives can improve research integrity by building transparency and trust in research, potentially shifting the current competitive research culture to a more collaborative one. Closing with thoughts on “post-collections” librarianship, Jamie and Emily highlight the philosophical goals of library work and the importance of demonstrating its value to the institution.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests dig into action steps libraries and publishers can take to implement open research practices. First, Natya Hans, Informatics and Reproducibility Librarian in the Academic Research and Consulting Services Department at University of Florida, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, highlight open research library measures, such as developing best practices for author rights and offering data management support. Underscoring the challenges smaller libraries face when adopting open research policies, Emily chats about potential solutions and admirable work at R2 and R3 level institutions. In addition, Natya describes how her unique, nontraditional background as a researcher has buttressed the work in her current role, while Emily underscores the advantages of blending research and library cultures. To close, Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas at Taylor & Francis, shares how T&F has adjusted its editorial approach to accommodate and champion open research.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests examine the impacts of open research on scholarly communication. First, Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas at Taylor & Francis, shares the potential of open research to advance scholarship’s societal impact and build back trust in academia. Next, Jamie surfaces the idea of redefining what constitutes as “data,” especially in a humanities context. Natya Hans, Informatics and Reproducibility Librarian in the Academic Research and Consulting Services Department at University of Florida, and Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, discuss further how humanities data can support interdisciplinary research and the challenges presented by the lack of standardized data formatting guidelines. Last, our guests reflect on how the OSTP Nelson Memo has influenced the awareness of open research and the importance of and current roadblocks to research reproducibility.
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From the rise of transformative agreements to the aftermath of the 2022 OSTP Nelson Memo on openly sharing government-funded research, open access has dominated the academic publishing landscape. But what about open research? In this four-part series, our guests join the program to discuss the impact of open research objectives on the research lifecycle. They dig into how libraries guide authors through open research practices and the ways publishers have adapted their editorial operations to reflect changing scholarly needs. Throughout the discussion, our guests contemplate the shift in librarianship away from traditional MLIS backgrounds and collection development to expertise in scholarly communication and data management.
In this first episode, Natya Hans, Informatics and Reproducibility Librarian in the Academic Research and Consulting Services Department at University of Florida, Emily McElroy, Vice President of Academic Relations at Taylor & Francis, and Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas at Taylor & Francis, introduce their roles and involvement in the open research environment. They distinguish between open research and open access, seeing open research as a broader umbrella that emphasizes key goals of transparency, inclusivity, and reproducibility. In addition, Emily and Natya share how librarians can help authors adopt the principles of open research through research office partnerships, support for open data, and general outreach.
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In the second episode of this two-part series, Daniel Pfeiffer, the social sciences editor and LibTech Insights (LTI) editor at Choice, chats with TAF host Bill Mickey about general trends in AI librarianship, the forthcoming white paper from LTI, and Choice’s decision to begin reviewing AI products.
First, Daniel predicts that “AI” will be exploited as a buzzword to market new products, making it more difficult to identify legitimately useful AI tools. In the midst of this marketing frenzy, Daniel sees librarians searching for practical applications in their day-to-day functions and underscores the growing import of AI literacy. Next, our guest provides an overview of the upcoming LTI white paper that proposes a new framework for AI literacy based on interviews with librarians who instruct students and faculty on AI use. Last, Bill and Daniel preview the new Choice Reviews Rubric used to evaluate AI tools and reveal when Choice subscribers can begin to expect these reviews.
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This month’s two-part series features Daniel Pfeiffer, the social sciences editor and LibTech Insights (LTI) editor at Choice. Joining TAF host Bill Mickey, Daniel chats about the evolution of Choice’s library technology blog LTI and general trends in the artificial intelligence space.
In this first episode, our guest shares how LTI has grown to encompass webinars, reading lists, tutorials, job profiles, and more since its launch in January 2023. In addition, Bill and Daniel reflect on how the release of ChatGPT impacted LTI’s content as librarians and higher education stakeholders searched for guidance on predictive technology and AI. Underscoring the need for day-to-day use cases and practical tips readers can apply at their own institutions, they discuss relevant library tech topics beyond AI, popular posts with LTI readers, and a possible plateau in AI technology developments.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Amanda White and Elysia French, coeditors of Ecologies in Practice: Environmentally Engaged Arts in Canada, discuss the influence of art on environmental action and the future of the environmental humanities. First, they walk through the emphasis on the environment in the arts, underscoring the need for collaboration and more artistic representation in academia. Exploring how art can inspire change, Amanda and Elysia chat about the impact of building community, evolving curriculum, and changing the culture around environmental issues. To close, our guests share how they envision future partnerships and support for various modes of inquiry between disciplines and how their book highlights existing examples of cross-departmental environmental humanities projects.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Amanda White of Western University and Elysia French of Brock University highlight individual chapters and overarching themes in their coedited collection, Ecologies in Practice: Environmentally Engaged Arts in Canada. They first chat about Camille Georgeson-Usher’s chapter—the exploration of the power of gathering in a city garden—and how its reflections on gathering as action carry over as an invitation for engagement and main theme to open the book. Next, they dig into the implications of Genevieve Robertson’s chapter, “Carbon Study: Walking in the Dark,” which details using art to draw attention to ecological loss; one of Genevieve’s pieces also acts as the cover image of Ecologies in Practice. To close, Amanda and Elysia contemplate art’s role in communicating important messages by creating opportunities for interpretation and critical thought.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Elysia French, Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University, and Amanda White, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Curating in the Department of Visual Art at Western University, discuss the guiding principle of “environmentally engaged arts” in their coedited title Ecologies in Practice: Environmentally Engaged Arts in Canada. Drawing on contemporary scholarship that analyzes the intersection of environmental art and social justice, they utilize this terminology to encourage nonrestrictive definitions of art that extend beyond visual artmaking. Next, they explain the intention behind the action-oriented chapter sections—Interrupt, Witness, (Re)Place, Reflect—and its narrative thread that highlights the contributors’ activism and methodology. Last, our guests consider the title’s geographical focus on Canada, parsing through the enormity of the environmental studies discipline, environmental justice issues specific to Canada, and the global scale of local case studies.
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The coeditors of Ecologies in Practice: Environmentally Engaged Arts in Canada, Elysia French, Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University, and Amanda White, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Curating in the Department of Visual Art at Western University, join the program discuss the organization, development, and geographical focus of their book and the possibilities of action-oriented art. Covering specific contributions, the term “environmentally engaged art,” and the impact of art on policy and progress, this series dives into the current landscape of Environmental Humanities and the potential of cross-disciplinary partnerships.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Elysia and Amanda share their research interests and how their friendship in the academy lead to Ecologies in Practice. They also describe the Environmental Humanities, explaining how the field creates collaborative spaces for interdisciplinary approaches to the arts and environmental studies. Next, Amanda and Elysia analyze how their backgrounds influence their work. As a practicing artist, Amanda has knowledge of the process of artmaking, while Elysia, an art historian, critically engages with art, measuring social, political, and environmental impacts. Both, however, share an interest in artist-scholars, with that intersection made explicit in the title.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas for Taylor & Francis Group, walks through lessons learned since Pledge to Open’s official launch last summer. Surfacing strategies like pricing adjustments and expanded benefits for participating institutions, Jamie explains how T&F is working to develop the pilot into a sustainable and affordable program. Next, he walks through the tension between frequently changing open access mandates by funders and governing bodies and a publisher’s need to maintain a consistent business strategy—all within the context of ongoing threats to research integrity and the introduction of artificial intelligence tools. Last, Jamie touches on T&F’s plans to incorporate AI into its publishing workflows and how institutions and publishers can expedite the adoption of OA agreements.
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In the third episode of this series, Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas for Taylor & Francis Group, discusses the library’s role in open access publishing. First, Jamie describes the publisher’s initial contact with libraries when recruiting for Pledge to Open, a collective model for institutions to fund open access titles on global challenges. As he explains, the library’s perspective often evolves from content acquisition to strategies for supporting open publishing and the institution’s research mission. Next, Jamie outlines Taylor & Francis’s various approaches for introducing libraries to the Pledge and the collective learning between institutions and T&F that helps strengthen the pilot. Jamie closes with thoughts on how the US falls behind in contributing government funding to open HSS publishing, and why the library acts as an access point to aid in bankrolling this work.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas for Taylor & Francis Group, digs into T&F’s Pledge to Open, a collective funding pilot that aims to publish open access books focused on global issues. Detailing the brainstorming and launch of the program, Jamie discusses the publisher’s decision to support open book publishing and the pilot’s ties to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our guest walks through the various business models T&F looked at for inspiration and how the SDGs work as a unifying force editorially and to recruit institutions. To close, Jamie explores the challenges of a commercial publisher pursuing a collective model and a sustainable level of investment for the pilot.
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In July 2023, Taylor & Francis launched the Pledge to Open pilot, a collective model in which institutions can pledge funding for open access titles centered on global challenges. Jamie Hutchins, Director of Open Research, Americas for Taylor & Francis Group, joins TAF as the deadline for the pilot’s funding window approaches to discuss the program’s progress and detail how publishers can help academic libraries with the transition to OA. Jamie outlines the open access landscape in the Americas and Europe and highlights how models including Pledge to Open can enhance accessibility. He also underscores difficulties article processing charges (APCs) and book publishing charges (BPCs) pose to researchers and explains how Taylor & Francis works with library stakeholders to tailor models according to their goals.
In this first episode, Jamie describes how his team supports open access and open research in the Americas. Jamie details Taylor & Francis’s approach to OA partnerships with academic libraries, stressing the importance of starting with a global framework and then customizing agreements based on an institution’s needs and desired impact. As he explains, some partnerships require an education on available opportunities and engaging in library outreach. Jamie also covers the challenges of charges like APCs shifting focus onto authors rather than the library. He further considers ways the Americas differ from Europe when it comes to OA, namely how different states, disciplines, and institutions in the US often have varied funding availability.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer at Springer Nature, chats about increasing staff buy-in for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She details several efforts from Springer Nature including mandatory employee training, an SDG Impact Challenge, volunteer SDG working groups, and providing recognition via awards for SDG Heroes. As the 2030 deadline for meeting the SDGs fast approaches, Ritu further considers whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, offering reflections on industry and research progress thus far. She underscores the importance of building on increased awareness of the SDGs by spurring more action and engaging with those across the globe. Making a case for open source taxonomies for SDG research, Ritu closes by stressing that the current lack of standardized classifications disadvantages publishers since they often have to filter their content retroactively.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests dive into preventative measures against predatory publishing and emerging threats. To start, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor at Cabells, explains how open access has shifted predatory publishing practices, with problematic journals taking advantage of author processing charges that have become normalized in the OA market. Next, Ashley Carroll, Project Manager at Cabells, and Mike Bisaccio, Director of Marketing & Communications at Cabells, outline what researchers need to watch out for when looking to publish or read published research. Last, Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager at Cabells, encourages researchers to report suspicious journals to Cabells, and Ashley explores how librarians can support scholars throughout the research process by recognizing misinformation and helping patrons identify it.
Editor’s Note: As Ashley informed us after the interview, the correct number of paper retractions last year was more than 10,000, not 20,000.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer of Springer Nature, underscores the need to engage with and support the Global South in scholarly communication. She walks through the rising research output and impact from nonwestern nations in recent years and the unconscious bias in peer reviewers and editorial boards that prevent this scholarship from reaching a larger audience. Further, Ritu explains the core tenets of inclusive science—publishing all quality research rather than the traditional (and outdated) idea that a journal’s high impact factor correlates with selectivity and low output. Finally, she chats about equitable open access and defines regional novelty and its connection to inclusive science and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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In the third episode of our four-part series on predatory publishing, our guests share key steps of the evaluative process for Cabells Predatory Reports. As Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager at Cabells, explains, the 74 criteria help identify a journal’s intent to deceive and are updated according to input from scholars, social media chatter, and emerging trends. In addition, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor at Cabells, walks through problematic publishing red flags, such as a lack of plagiarism policies on a journal’s website, quick turnaround times without the appropriate number of staff, and inconsistent publishing schedules. Last, Yasmeen and Ruth share how Cabells’s holistic, evidence-based approach avoids automation and the exploitative—though not necessarily predatory—publishing practices they keep an eye on to stay up to date on the industry.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Ritu Dhand, Chief Scientific Officer at Springer Nature, digs into Springer Nature’s editorial and publication strategies that support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Aiming to create community and collaboration around the Goals, Springer has introduced initiatives to make SDG content more discoverable and fit the modern scholar’s needs. Mobile-friendly online platforms, lay summaries appropriate for interdisciplinary scholarship, and frequently updated live references buttress this work. Ritu also explains the business factors that went into Springer’s adoption of the SDGs and the sustainable publishing practices implemented internally. Last, she shares the range of conferences, webinars, white papers, and content hubs available from a customer point of view that underpin SDG publishing and awareness.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests from scholarly analytics service Cabells dig into predatory journal tactics and the characteristics of the journal market that make it vulnerable to predatory practices. First, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor, and Ashley Carroll, Project Manager, explain how the online journal environment, prevalence of open access publication charges, and lack of central authority against problematic publishing allow predatory journals to proliferate. Next, Ashley and Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager, walk through the subject areas at risk (hint—it’s all of them!) and the strategies predatory journals use to appear as legitimate and enticing as possible to researchers. Finally, our guests reflect on the pain points of the scholarly communication workflow that predatory journals exploit, such as removing barriers to publication and offering quick turnaround and publication times.
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Formally adopted in 2015, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are fast approaching their 2030 end date. To recruit the publishing industry, the UN introduced the SDG Publishers Compact in 2020, an open agreement that encourages stakeholders to adopt sustainable business strategies and publish content in support of the goals. In this four-part series, we discuss the publishing industry’s contributions to the SDGs, and how Springer Nature became a key advocate, choosing to align its editorial strategy, business outlook, and internal organization with the goals.
In the first episode of this series, Ritu Dhand chats about her role at Springer Nature as Chief Scientific Officer, sharing her work in supporting the editors of Springer Nature’s portfolio of more than 3,000 journals. She then provides a refresher on how the SDGs originated and the objectives of the SDG Publishers Compact. In addition, Ritu discusses the key collaborators who are advancing Springer Nature’s SDG work internally and the scale at which its publishing operation supports the effort.
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More than an inconvenience or nuisance, predatory publishing practices can inflict lasting harm onto scholarship, researchers, and the academic publishing landscape. To discuss this incessant and, as one guest frames it, “whack-a-mole” issue, the speakers for this four-part series provide their expertise as part of scholarly analytics service Cabells. Evaluating potentially predatory journals through its rigorous standards and criteria, Cabells publishes Predatory Reports to track the ever-growing list of problematic journals. This series explores the tactics of such journals and preventative measures academics can take to help identify and avoid predatory publishers.
In the first episode of this series, Ashley Carroll, Project Manager, Yasmeen Zubair, Journals Manager, Ruth Bailey, Journal Auditor, and Mike Bisaccio, Director of Marketing & Communications, define predatory publishing, underscoring a journal’s display of fraudulent or deceptive behaviors to appear legitimate with the clear intent of collecting fees from researchers. Further, Mike shares the overwhelming number of predatory journals identified by Cabells, while Ruth walks through the various stakeholders vulnerable to these journals and what’s at stake for the scholarly community.
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In the final episode of this four-part series on the recent white paper from Technology from Sage and Skilltype on the librarian skills landscape, our guests look at how artificial intelligence technologies will (or won’t) impact the library workforce and successful support mechanisms to help staff develop their skills. First, David Erlandson, Head of Cataloguing and Metadata Services at Rice University Fondren Library, and Matthew Weldon, Library Patron Consultant at Technology from Sage, underscore that AI services have not replaced any of their own tasks, adding that the human element still serves as an essential function of library work.
Further, Marcy Simons, Director of Hesburgh Libraries Organizational and Personnel Development at the University of Notre Dame, explains that she encourages colleagues at her institution to see artificial intelligence as an opportunity to reassess workloads and let go of monotonous tasks. Tony Zanders, Founder & CEO of Skilltype, highlights two key issues he’s observed in relation to automated tools: an ongoing global shortage of library professionals and remote roles that lack interpersonal connections becoming automated or reduced. To close, our guests emphasize recognition, opportunities for career advancement, communication, and community-building as necessary building blocks for aiding library skill-building and professional development.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Dale Jacobs, author of On Comics and Grief, discusses the title’s epilogue and the future of comics studies. First, Dale walks through the feedback he received from peer reviewers that encouraged him to conclude on a more hopeful note. Highlighting the benefits of peer review, he chats about his decision to include reviewer comments in the epilogue. Next, Dale tells the tale (or tail?) of a key figure that showed up in the text, Dale and his wife Heidi’s cat, Klaus. A stray that eventually found a permanent home with Dale and Heidi, Klaus helped Dale through a time of loss and overall burnout, earning a shoutout in the epilogue. Finally, Dale looks ahead to topics in comics scholarship still left untapped, including “typical comics” outside the superhero genre and the overarching aim to keep the personal within academic work.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests tackle the on the ground realities of librarian skill development following the recent white paper from Technology from Sage and Skilltype, Librarian Futures Part III: The Librarian Skills Landscape. Marcy Simons, Director of Hesburgh Libraries Organizational and Personnel Development at the University of Notre Dame, and Tony Zanders, Founder & CEO of Skilltype, dig into how library schools have failed to address the evolving demands of academic librarianship, even before the introduction of artificial intelligence tools. Marcy notes the lack of consistency across library and information science programs, while Tony highlights how Skilltype aims to help library schools understand today’s environment and adjust curriculum quickly and accordingly.
Further, Marcy and David Erlandson, Head of Cataloguing and Metadata Services at Rice University Fondren Library, chat about findings in the report on student success and how their libraries support this initiative. Finally, Tony and Matthew Weldon, Library Patron Consultant at Technology from Sage, reflect on the report’s finding that librarians value building transferable skills rather than those specific to certain products—in the rapidly changing landscape, flexibility allows for resiliency and autonomy in the profession.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Dale Jacobs, author of On Comics and Grief, discusses the book’s creative nonfiction framework that blends comics studies scholarship with the grief over the loss of his mother. Dale takes us back to the beginning of the title, starting with an article that saw his nostalgia and grief as an access point into the text, rather than a roadblock. Walking through the evolution of the book structure, Dale describes the largely intuitive writing process, guided by a general outline of comics to analyze and connections to family memories. Further, he explains how a scholar’s personal relationship to a discipline allows new ideas to form in a way that traditional, impersonal academia can prevent. As Dale notes, “I wanted to write this partially as a way to say, not in every instance…but there is a place for bringing the personal in, for bringing in the reasons we study what we study, for bringing emotion in.”
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests parse through key takeaways and findings from the recent white paper Librarian Futures Part III: The Librarian Skills Landscape, a partnership between Technology from Sage and Skilltype. To start, Tony Zanders, Founder & CEO of Skilltype, and Matthew Weldon, Library Patron Consultant at Technology from Sage and author of the report, each discuss what stood out in the paper, highlighting lower confidence from librarians in how to advance in their careers and a newfound emphasis on strengthening soft skills—a facet of librarianship not traditionally taught in library schools.
In addition, Marcy Simons, Director of Hesburgh Libraries Organizational and Personnel Development at the University of Notre Dame, and David Erlandson, Head of Cataloguing and Metadata Services at Rice University Fondren Library, share their thoughts on the report and how it reflects their own experiences at their institutions. Addressing the burnout and challenges today’s library leaders face, Marcy explains the need for stronger leadership development to help fill the gaps in supervisor roles. Dave ponders how AI tools will impact cataloguing and day-to-day tasks and underscores the importance of strong data science skills.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Dale Jacobs, author of On Comics and Grief, dives deeper into the structure and making of his title, a creative nonfiction work that blends memories of his late mother with analysis of comics published in 1976. First, he explains his thought process behind selecting a wide variety of publishers and comics to research, extending beyond the superhero genre to include war, romance, fantasy, kids, and teen comics. Further, he highlights the business and marketing strategies comic book publishers employed in 1976 that reflect the changing demand and publishing landscape. Finally, he chats about the March and September chapters in the book, the latter’s unique format allowing him to contemplate the common practice in academia of turning conference papers into research papers.
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In this four part-series, Tony Zanders, Founder & CEO of Skilltype, Matthew Weldon, Library Patron Consultant at Technology from Sage, David Erlandson, Head of Cataloguing and Metadata Services at Rice University Fondren Library, and Marcy Simons, Director of Hesburgh Libraries Organizational and Personnel Development at the University of Notre Dame, discuss the current landscape of librarian skills and career advancement. A partnership between Technology from Sage and Skilltype, Librarian Futures Part III: The Librarian Skills Landscape white paper came together after Matthew and Tony saw an opportunity to combine their perspectives to investigate how librarians navigate career changes, upskilling demands, and comfort levels adapting to new technology. In this series, our guests chat about key report takeaways, the importance of cultivating soft skills, and how generative AI tools will impact future careers in librarianship.
In this first episode, Tony and Matthew provide background on the report’s origins and goals. Beginning in April 2023, the white paper captured real-time institutional responses to GenAI entering campus and affecting librarian workflows. Further, Tony and Matthew share why they chose to focus on job categories rather than job titles to make the report more flexible for the future and account for the lack of uniformity across title descriptions. Last, Marcy and Dave characterize the state of professional development at their respective institutions, sharing procedures, budgetary constraints, and novel uses.
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In this four-part series, comics studies scholar and author Dale Jacobs digs into his latest book, On Comics and Grief, an exploration of comics published in 1976 interwoven with his grief in the wake of his mother’s death. The book’s creative nonfiction structure blends Dale’s memories of his family with comics spanning romance, war, children, teen, fantasy, and, of course, superhero genres. As Dale explains, his intimate approach to scholarship allowed him to find new connections and perspectives he may not have found otherwise. In this series, Dale walks through his creative and research processes for the book, the comic book landscape in the 1970s, and the potential of applying a personal lens to academic work.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Dale dives into the development of his book and background in comics studies. He explains his path to the discipline, starting in composition and rhetoric, then transitioning into thinking about how comics fit into multimodal literacy. Defining comic book scholarship, he lays out its multidisciplinary nature, highlighting myriad approaches like political science, English studies, disability studies, art history, and media studies. Finally, he describes how the interdisciplinarity of comics studies influenced his book and why he chose the publication year of 1976 for the comics he examined in the text.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Nathan Rupp, Acquisitions & E-Resources Librarian at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, discusses digital preservation practices and whole ebook lending trends at Purdue. He first emphasizes the institution’s digital-first approach and how that impacts the availability of materials down the line. As Nathan explains, storing e-resources on vendor servers can throw the preservation of an institution’s cultural record into question. In addition, Nathan describes the differences in workflows between collection development and preservation for the humanities and social sciences versus STEM fields. Finally, Nathan wraps up with observations on how publishers are responding to whole ebook lending requests, highlighting how involvement in a consortium affects institutional collection priorities.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Nathan Rupp, Acquisitions & E-Resources Librarian at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, digs into the details of evaluating and negotiating resource licenses. He first walks through his March 2024 Against the Grain article where he outlined key items he looks for in resource licenses. Sharing Purdue’s needs regarding interlibrary loans, off-campus access, and accessibility, Nathan reveals the balancing act and language of contract negotiations. Further, he highlights how the negotiation process has changed in recent years, such as vendors using online—and therefore more changeable—terms and conditions or factoring in consortium needs for whole ebook lending. Last, Nathan chats about what he’s seen in terms of artificial intelligence offerings showing up in vendor clauses and contracts.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Nathan Rupp, Acquisitions & E-Resources Librarian at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, talks navigating vendor platforms and adapting to the evolving e-resources ecosystem. Comparing vendor offerings, he explains the differences in accessibility between public library platforms and academic ones—and theorizes why the academic options lag behind. Further, he explores what the “e-resources ecosystem” entails, detailing the lifecycle from a patron request to negotiating a contract and deciding on renewal. Last, Nathan touches on the coordination between library departments when acquiring content and how his institution factors in open access materials for library cost management.
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In the first episode of this four-part series, Nathan Rupp, Acquisitions & E-Resources Librarian at Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, provides an overview of the current landscape for digital collections. He chats about his role and the electronic-preferred environment at Purdue, then transitions into macrotrends in the marketplace. Surfacing key concerns like industry consolidation and rising vendor costs, Nathan highlights changes in content acquisition types that extend beyond journals, print or e-books, and databases. As Nathan explains, in addition to licensing data sets, Purdue has started to introduce artificial intelligence tools to campus.
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In the final episode of this series, Kait Pinder and Joel Deshaye, coeditors of The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery, discuss Cohen’s legacy and future Cohen studies. First, Joel explains how the popularization of Cohen as a “secular saint” coincided with the degradation of religion in the 1960s by counterculture movements. Next, Kait chats about Cohen’s impact on modern music through the 2023 song “Leonard Cohen” by indie rock group boygenius. She also references Lana Del Rey’s 2018 track “Mariners Apartment Complex,” exploring how today’s artists reinterpret and allude to Cohen in their songwriting. Finally, Kait and Joel dig into the Cohen estate’s goal to collect Cohen’s archives into a centralized location. They highlight the importance of accessibility and flexible reproducibility of Cohen’s records to further scholarship and generate new listeners and readers of Cohen for generations to come.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests explore the reappraisal of Cohen in their coedited volume The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery. Kait Pinder (Acadia University) and Joel Deshaye (Memorial University) discuss the artist’s legacy in Canada, and how negative views of his homeland in works like Beautiful Losers complicate that relationship. They chat about Cohen as a postmodern literary figure, his place in the Canadian cultural canon, and his impact on Jewish communities in Montreal. Further, Kait and Joel zoom out to look at Cohen’s influence outside of Canada and why they wanted to include international perspectives in the book. To close, our guests explain the critical lens the volume applies to Cohen and the self-criticism Cohen imposed on himself and career.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, coeditors of The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery Kait Pinder and Joel Deshaye dig into their respective chapters. First, Kait provides an overview of Cohen’s controversial book of poetry Flowers for Hitler, published in 1964. She explains why the book is less well-known than his novel Beautiful Losers (1966), and how, in her chapter, she connects philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas on critical history to Cohen’s criticism of Canada’s appropriation of the world wars for nationalistic purposes.
Next, Joel explains the use of gossip and rumor in Cohen’s songwriting, highlighting the famous opening lines from “Hallelujah”: “Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord / That David played and it pleased the Lord / But you don’t really care for music, do ya?” Further, Joel links the discourse of gossip to the relationship between Cohen and renowned singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, exploring each artist’s use of gossip in their writing, and how rumor challenges the prevailing perception of Cohen as a singular genius—gossip, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration all play a role in the creative process.
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Following the 2016 US presidential election, Kate McKinnon, impersonating Hillary Clinton, performed a rendition of “Hallelujah” on Saturday Night Live (SNL). A week prior, the original singer and songwriter of “Hallelujah” Leonard Cohen had passed, leading to a cultural and political moment that acknowledged the election win for Donald Trump, loss for Clinton, and death of a beloved and politically relevant artist and public figure.
In this four-part series, coeditors of The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery Kait Pinder (Acadia University) and Joel Deshaye (Memorial University) discuss this cultural juggernaut as an important building block for the title. Following a conference panel for the Association for Canadian and Québec Literatures after Cohen’s death, the book explores Cohen not only as a musical artist and lyricist, but as a literary figure and visual artist, tracing his political and social impact in his homeland of Canada and abroad. Kait and Joel use the concept of “contemporaneity” to frame the text, while contributors employ philosophical, literary, and fan studies theory to Cohen’s works. Further, the text applies a holistic approach to Cohen, acknowledging the pricklier aspects of his personal and political lives and how his rebellious image faded into the 21st century.
In this first episode, Kait and Joel discuss the title’s development, highlighting the SNL skit, Cohen’s death, and how both connected to the cultural landscape of North America in 2016. They also dig into their skillsets and how those aided in researching Cohen as he applies to contemporary thinking. Last, they contemplate their lens of contemporaneity, surfacing Cohen’s visual art, his relation to postmodernism, and the exhibit on Cohen at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal.
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In the last episode of this four-part series, Dr. Leo Lo of the University of New Mexico, Katie Metzler of Sage Publishing, and author and tech philosopher Dr. Tom Chatfield look at current strategies for implementing AI policies. Leo shares the benefits of forming a working group of experts to experiment, share knowledge, and raise awareness of AI’s applications in higher education. In addition, Katie digs into the responsibility of publishers to investigate the possibilities of artificial intelligence tools. Highlighting the importance of transparency when using generative AI, she also discusses how customers and authors are responding to the uptick in GenAI usage in scholarly communication. Last, Tom and Leo chat about the international differences in developing governance around AI and underscore the fast-changing environment of AI policymaking.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Dr. Leo Lo of the University of New Mexico, Katie Metzler of Sage Publishing, and author and tech philosopher Dr. Tom Chatfield dig into the ethics and institutional policies for generative AI tools. Surfacing the lack of widespread AI governance, the guests highlight the need for institutions to provide guidance to educators and students. In fact, they underscore the benefits of viewing AI training as a collaborative experience between undergraduates and faculty, aided by support from administration, the library, and publishers. Further, our guests speak to key ethical questions surrounding the use of GenAI in the classroom. Leo spotlights issues around the digital divide, while Tom warns of the dangers in using AI tools as a one-size-fits-all solution to the holistic needs of today’s students. Finally, Leo, Tom, and Katie discuss the bias and discrimination present in AI training data, the importance of reducing “noise” in datasets, and examples of what biases can generate in large language models.
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Have we moved past the point of educators flat-out banning AI use in the classroom? Not quite. In the second episode of this four-part series, Dr. Leo Lo of the University of New Mexico, Katie Metzler of Sage Publishing, and author and tech philosopher Dr. Tom Chatfield look at current perspectives on AI in academia and effective tactics for implementing AI tools. First, our guests underscore the importance of offering students, faculty, and librarians opportunities for hands-on experiences with generative AI to understand its possible applications. Further, they emphasize that critical thinking can develop in tandem with AI skills; the technology places the onus on users to evaluate their own approaches to research, creativity, and learning to best optimize the software. Last, the guests chat about how institutions can support librarians and instructors in finding and implementing AI tools through strategies like AI training, trial access to new platforms, and consulting technology experts.
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Since ChatGPT’s launch last November, artificial intelligence has transformed from the stuff of science fiction to an everyday occurrence in higher education and scholarly communication. In this four-part series, Dr. Leo Lo, Dean and Professor of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico, Katie Metzler, Vice President for Books & Social Science Innovation at Sage Publishing, and author and tech philosopher Dr. Tom Chatfield, explore the intersection of critical thinking skills and AI. Parsing through both helpful use-cases and cautionary tales, they review current governance and policy on AI, institutional practices moving forward, and the development of working groups to better understand and unlock AI’s potential applications. Tom, Leo, and Katie bring their unique perspectives to generative AI’s impact on the scholarly environment in the past year and how teaching and learning institutions are responding to these changes.
In the first episode of this four-part series, our guests dive into the crux of the issue: the benefits and pitfalls of critical thinking and generative AI. They discuss the collaborative element of critical thinking, and how that characteristic can guide users’ approach to AI by building thoughtful prompts and checking (seemingly) authoritative sources. Further, Leo chats about the significant flaws in current generative AI, such as data privacy, bias, copyright issues, and overall obfuscation of how these tools are created. Last, the guests reflect on the lack of consensus over whether AI helps or hinders critical thinking. Surfacing the emotional aspect of using AI, they highlight the excitement, wonder, and fear that these tools inspire in both students and faculty.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Antje Kristin Watermann, Associate Marketing Officer at UN Publications, discusses the publisher’s global partnerships and reach. She provides an overview of the implementation and impact of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how the SDG Publishers Compact encourages publishers, booksellers, and librarians to disseminate research and books related to the SDGs and to make publishing practices more sustainable. She also describes how the SDGs affect instruction and research in higher education, detailing UN Publications’s work at academic conferences, the tagging of UN research related to the SDGs, and the applications of UN platforms like iLibrary at universities. Highlighting projects like the SDG Book Club, Antje chats about how the publisher aims to encourage thinking about sustainability for all ages around the globe. Last, she shares how libraries can support this work by hosting events, curating SDG-related content, and joining the SDG Publishers Compact.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Beth Driscoll, Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne, and Claire Squires, Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling, and the editors of The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition, discuss the future of disrupting scholarly communication. They underscore the need to encourage creative, innovative, and collaborative methods of scholarship that can sit beside and be in conversation with traditional research. Specifically, they chat about potential interdisciplinary approaches to their work, and how they plan to advance their concept of Ullapoolism in forthcoming projects. They close with thoughts on how the practice of perfecting craft can act as a hurdle or barrier to the intellectual process. As Beth explains, “Sometimes the first draft or the rough version contains an insight or some kind of truth that if you work it over endlessly and polish it, disappears from the final product.”
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Stephen McGroarty, Editorial Manager at UN Publications, chats about the workflows and collaboration that make UN Publications’ iLibrary platform possible. First, Stephen discusses his current role managing several teams that contribute to publications on the global trade data site Comtrade, the recently relaunched e-commerce site, and UN iLibrary, an online subscription platform of United Nations content. He digs into the editorial and organizational processes for research from the UN’s many agencies, highlighting the extensive review procedure each publication goes through to ensure the information is vetted and accurately categorized. He also shares the rigorous publication schedule of UN Publications and provides a walkthrough of how to navigate iLibrary. Despite all iLibrary content being freely available to everyone, Stephen underscores the benefits of subscribing to the platform, such as the ability to save titles or searches and download, print, or share files of the publications.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests chat about their manifesto on arts-based research, “…designed to fuel discontent and discomfort, to amuse and entertain, but also to unite a critical and creative movement.” Beth Driscoll, Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne, and Claire Squires, Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling, and the editors of The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition, walk through a few of the principles, starting with “Scholarly Direct Action.” This idea highlights how scholarship functions as a form of activism, underscoring the impact of research outside of academia. They also review principle number five, “The Predicament,” which states, “…when circumstances demand it, we reject ethical hypochondria, we resist the requirements for prior ethics approval, we refuse to limit harm for those in positions of power, and we insist on improper research.” They dive into the potentially controversial nature of this statement, and its goal to not outright reject ethical processes but instead nurture a “rebellious spirit.”
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Shallu Thomas-Cherian, IT Project Manager of UN Publications, joins the program to discuss the organization and optimization of UN Publications content. She digs into the structure of the iLibrary platform, where UN research is assembled and given the appropriate metadata. Shallu explains the communication needed between departments to share and catalog the information made available to the public. She also reviews the various UN Publications content types, advanced search functions, and how the iLibrary platform appeals to scholars, policymakers, librarians, and more. Finally, Shallu closes with how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) act as an organizing feature of UN content, allowing users to filter their search according to tagged SDG content and to recognize how publications pertain to multiple goals.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Beth Driscoll, Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne, and Claire Squires, Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling, and the editors of The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition, discuss their process of combining creative expression and academic prose. They first chat about their concept of Ullapoolism, a guide for applying playful, experimental modes of expression to research. Connecting that framework to their comic erotic thriller The Frankfurt Kabuff, Beth and Claire explain why creative mediums can introduce subjectivity and new writing styles to the otherwise largely objective and traditional practice of scholarship. Further, they share social and political aspects of Ullapoolism, and how their disruptive approach to academia brings new ideas to the fore—including an exploration of the “big book” in publishing through the song composition, “Big Books (small snacks).”
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In this series, four guests join The Authority File to discuss UN Publications, the publishing division of the United Nations. Mary Glenn, Chief, Shallu Thomas-Cherian, IT Project Manager, Stephen McGroarty, Editorial Manager, and Antje Kristin Watermann, Associate Marketing Officer, all of UN Publications, dive into their respective roles within the publisher. They explain the process of assembling and sharing UN research and data, exploring the ins and outs of the iLibrary platform, organizing metadata, and marketing these materials to privately-owned businesses, government agencies, research institutions, and the general public. This series looks at the rigorous and frequently updated research available through UN Publications, and how that coincides with the UN’s work on global challenges like climate change, education, and more.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Mary speaks to the mission and scope of UN Publications. She outlines the UN’s various agencies and their contributions to the UN’s publishing output, highlighting UN Publications’ goal to disseminate UN research and reach a wide range of readers. In addition, Mary shares what’s next for UN research, including the impending target date for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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The Authority File often looks at the intersection between conventional modes of research and creative mediums like art, poetry, or song. This month’s series continues that tradition with Beth Driscoll, Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne, and Claire Squires, Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling, and the editors of The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition. The title came about during the second year of Beth and Claire’s field work at the Frankfurt Book Fair. When one claimed the other’s writing was too “exciting” for a conference paper abstract, they decided to embrace it. This resulted in The Frankfurt Kabuff, a comic erotic thriller analyzing the publishing industry. This September, the critical edition arrived, including annotated text, academic essays, and more.
This four-part series digs into the making of the novella and the benefits of disrupting the standards and formats of scholarly communication. The episodes also explore Beth and Claire’s manifesto, Ullapoolism, and how it criticizes and reflects on the scholarly workflow in their fields. Further, while they acknowledge the value of conventional scholarship, Beth and Claire advocate for trying out new ideas and sharing them with your peers, arguing that worrying too much about craft can slow the process or even inhibit the original insight from coming to fruition.
In this first episode, Beth and Claire discuss The Frankfurt Kabuff’s genesis at the fair and its publishing process from Wattpad to print and ebook self-publication to its critical edition with Wilfrid Laurier University Press. They also examine how the medium of fiction allowed them a unique method to express their scholarship and the ways in which the critical edition of the novella enhances key concepts of the story.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests chat about the engagement and reach of the Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Documentaries project on campus. First, Gary Marcuse, filmmaker and Project Director for GEJ, discusses the project’s metrics, such as top users of the platform and the average viewing time of a film. Further, he explains how user data impacts the evolution of GEJ, helping determine new documentary selections and contributing to the initiative to offer short film clips for case studies or examples during instruction. Next, Jason Carbine, Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College, and Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, Professor of Sociology at Whittier College, walk through the real-world and interdisciplinary applications of documentary films, which extend beyond the humanities and social sciences to STEM and public health fields. They also highlight a popular film on the GEJ platform, The True Cost, and why it connects to today’s students.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Jason Carbine, Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College, Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, Professor of Sociology at Whittier College, and Gary Marcuse, filmmaker and Project Director for GEJ, dig into how the Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Documentaries project can be used in the classroom. First, Rebecca and Jake highlight how documentaries allow students to witness real-world perspectives and context around classroom topics, therefore decentering their experiences and adopting a more global lens to scholarship and their lives. Further, Rebecca and Jake provide examples of how they’ve used GEJ’s film collection and study guides to bolster curricula; for instance, Jake explains how he built a course specifically around GEJ’s offerings. Last, Gary chats about how GEJ works to stay abreast of evolving environmental justice topics and the collection’s expansion since inception.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss the curation of the documentary films and development of the teacher’s guides for the Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Documentaries project. First, the developers of the project—Jason Carbine, Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College, Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, Professor of Sociology at Whittier College, and Gary Marcuse, filmmaker and Project Director for GEJ—map out how they curated the list of potential documentaries from hundreds to a few dozen by seeking faculty and librarian input on the educational applications of each film. Next, they dig into the making of GEJ’s teacher’s guides, which include the film’s possible subject areas, classroom activities, supplemental reading, and a note on why the film was selected for instruction. Last, our guests chat about how GEJ’s films and guides encourage cross-disciplinary instruction by avoiding discipline-specific jargon and offering a list of documentaries applicable to both the humanities and sciences.
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Engaging students in global issues demands teaching tools that situate young scholars within often unfamiliar environments. Documentary filmmaking—a medium that traditionally places the viewer right beside the subject and inside their domain—has the potential to meet that need. The Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Documentaries project aims to demonstrate the educational possibilities of film by offering a curated selection of documentaries and teacher’s guides on interdisciplinary topics of environmental justice.
This four-part series explores the curation and development of GEJ and how documentaries can be used to shape and expand curricula. Featuring Jason Carbine, Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College, Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, Professor of Sociology at Whittier College, and Gary Marcuse, filmmaker and Project Director for GEJ, these four episodes offer guidance on how GEJ documentaries are used in the classroom and why documentary films make particularly robust instructional sources.
In this first episode, our guests chat about the background of GEJ and their involvement in the project. Jake and Rebecca outline the process of applying for grants, selecting the films, and writing and editing the teaching guides. Further, Gary explains how his previous roles contributed to his current one, acting as a bridge between filmmakers and educators to create collections and guides that aid student learning. Finally, our guests highlight the important step in GEJ’s development of recruiting faculty and fielding feedback from librarians on accessible pricing.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, chat about the impact and future of First Folios Compared, an open access project that brings together more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Claudine describes plans to add more Folios before the end of the year from the US, Canada, and farther abroad. Next, she discusses the addition of new lesson plans to supplement the ancillary materials on the platform, and how First Folios Compared advances Shakespearean studies by having multiple copies in one place for deeper analyzation and comparison. Last, Ana spotlights projects hosted on the Quartex platform, including Shakespeare’s Globe’s Read Not Dead and Baylor University’s Black Gospel Music Preservation Program (BGMPP). Coincidentally, in 2022 we interviewed Baylor’s Darryl Stuhr, who explained the development of BGMPP.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, discuss new topics APA Style has addressed in recent years. Our guests highlight inclusive and bias free language, journal article reporting standards, and citing new social media platforms like TikTok. They also provide an overview of how APA Style collects questions and feedback from the academic community, and how that translates into changes in upcoming style guides or new blog posts. Last, Chelsea and Tim underscore APA Style’s goal to listen to its users—students, faculty, librarians, and more—to provide writing and citation guidance that works for and supports everyone.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests take us behind the technology that supports First Folios Compared, an open access collection of more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist of AM, explains the features of the Quartex platform, such as the full-text search, digital exhibit option, and comparison tool. In addition, Ana and Claudine Nightingale, Publisher of AM, discuss the development of the metadata for the Folios, which helps spotlight the unique differences between the copies. Last, our guests explore how the collection includes metadata-only records and implements the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) to compare AM’s First Folios with other institution sites.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, discuss how APA Style goes beyond referencing. First, Chelsea reviews the bias-free language chapter in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual, and how it has expanded to include guidance on socioeconomic status and intersectionality. Next, she provides an overview of recommendations for visuals like graphs, charts, and figures, and underscores the need to properly label all graphics. She also explores the key elements of accessible design and highlights APA Style’s goal to make its products “born accessible.” Last, Tim debunks one longstanding myth—yes, you can use first person in academic writing!
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, offer a closer look at AM’s First Folios Compared, an open access collection of more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Our guests explain the logistics behind the project’s digitization requirement and highlight the time and effort the digitization process demands. They also describe the variation between the institutions’ copies, from practically pristine to missing several comedies, and how that disparity offers exciting insights for research. Last, our guests chat about how the Folios are accessed on the platform, strategies for searching the site—by metadata, static content, and full text recognition—and the platform’s unique way of denoting the pages by signature marks.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, talk references. They provide an overview of the principles of references, underlining the key goal to identify your source and show others where to find it. They also dispel some popular myths of referencing, such as avoiding sources older than five years old or encyclopedic references like Wikipedia. Our guests also chat about standard specifications for unique sources and the process of creating a citation for ChatGPT. Last, Chelsea and Tim explain the role of APA Style’s advisory task forces, and how the groups of journal editors, professors, students, and librarians offer consulting and feedback on updated citation guidelines.
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Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, or the First Folio, collects 36 of the playwright’s works, including his most celebrated plays like Macbeth, The Tempest, and Hamlet. Published seven years after his death, the First Folio is considered an authoritative and highly significant collection in scholarship on Shakespeare’s life, plays, and literature writ large.
This past spring, AM released First Folios Compared, an open access project that brings together more than 40 copies of the First Folio—of which only 233 still survive today. In this series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, discuss the editorial scope and technological features of the project. They dig into how researchers can use the platform to compare the First Folio copies side-by-side, studying unique differences in the annotative marks, ink color, and overall quality. Further, Ana walks through how the Quartex platform supports the detailed metadata and comparison tools, while Claudine chats about the range of institutions included in the project, supplementary materials like a beginner’s guide, and additional Folios that will be added later this year.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Claudine and Ana share their roles at AM and in the First Folios project. They explain the import of the First Folio to Shakespearean studies, and provide some background on First Folios Compared’s intended audience, technical groundwork, and the process of recruiting institutions to participate.
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APA Style originated in the early 20th century as a way to instruct American Psychological Association authors on proper paper formatting. Since then, APA Style has expanded to inform students and researchers on how to write clearly and concisely. Through tutorials, blog posts, and open feedback, APA Style works with the academic community to keep guidance up-to-date, inclusive, and coherent.
In this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, address major referencing questions—the principles of references, popular myths, and guidance on citing unique sources like ChatGPT. They also discuss expanded guidelines on bias-free language and accessibility standards, such as headings, font type and sizing, and figures. Last, they cover popular questions in the last couple years—how do you cite TikTok anyway?—and how the APA Style team collects and sorts through the hundreds of questions submitted per month.
In this first episode, Tim and Chelsea introduce themselves and their roles at APA Style. They provide an overview of the style guide’s origins and major updates to the seventh edition of the Publication Manual. Last, they explain frequently asked questions from readers, and how the nature of the questions has evolved since the seventh edition’s release in 2019.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Ronald Williamson, founder and Senior Associate of Archaeological Services Inc. and co-editor of The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord, chats about the artifacts and Indigenous art from the sites of the Iroquois du Nord, a 17th-century series of Haudenosaunee settlements on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Ron explains how these materials—decorated antler combs, ceramic pottery and pipes, metal articles—provide key insight into Haudenosaunee cultures, movements, and interactions with other Indigenous groups and Europeans during this time period. Ron also discusses the idea of borderlands and border theory in relation to these settlements, and looks ahead to future research both in the library and on the field.
Editor’s Note: “Iroquois du Nord” refers to a series of Haudenosaunee settlements in the 1660s-70s on the north shore of Lake Ontario. As Ron explains in episode 332, “Iroquois” was a European term assigned to Haudenosaunee peoples, which are comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. To learn more, Richard Hill, a Tuscarora and a contributor to the book, discusses Haudenosaunee territory and archives in an interview with The Canadian Encyclopedia.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, discusses the concept of translucency that appears in her book, Performing Female Blackness. She explains how the concept connects to a phrase she pens in the text, “This is who I perform.” Grappling with the autonomy of the “performer,” Naila describes the power and control enacted by the artist, and how it conflicts with opposing cultural and environmental elements. She also chats about her Black & Free research project, which centers Black culture and art through various publications, creative works, programming, and public and private sector partnerships.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Ronald Williamson, author of The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord, provides historical context for the Iroquois du Nord, a series of Haudenosaunee settlements on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the 1600s. He describes the conflicts between the French, English, and Dutch during this time period, in addition to background on the Beaver Wars. Ron also explains why Haudenosaunee satellite settlements were typically occupied for 20 years before moving to new areas. Last, he digs into the characteristics of the Haudenosaunee nations in the 17th century, paying particular attention to their relations with neighboring Indigenous groups and Europeans. Ron covers various diplomatic strategies, language use, and geographic scope.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, author of Performing Female Blackness Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae describes the modes of engagement she employs in her book, research, and creative works. A multidisciplinary artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, Naila combines academic prose with artistic mediums—poetry, play excerpts, song compositions—to demonstrate their unique uses and strengths. As she explains, academic text allows for extensive citations, connections to fellow researchers, and the opportunity to flesh out theory; song, on the other hand, grants an efficiency in language and power in refrain or melody. In addition, Naila shares her hopes for how readers will interpret and relate to Performing Female Blackness. This episode also features a clip of Naila’s song “Free,” which is off her album Fire Woman and included in the book.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Ronald Williamson, Founder and Senior Associate of Archaeological Services Inc., dives deeper into his coedited volume, The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord. First, he outlines the lack of published material available on the archeology of the Iroquois du Nord, a 17th-century series of Haudenosaunee settlements on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Further, Ron walks through the questions surrounding the location of a site in Burlington, discussing how understandings of glass bead assemblages helped to disprove previous theories. Last, he highlights the complexities of land acknowledgements, and explains the inclusion of the Haudenosaunee in Toronto’s acknowledgement.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae, a multidisciplinary artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, discusses blending her artistic and academic sides in her book, Performing Female Blackness. As the subject, artist, and researcher of her title, Naila explores how these identities worked in tangent—not opposition—to produce a more robust and honest work. She explains the various risks involved when employing artistic expression and personal history in scholarship, and interrogates the issue of who in academia “…gets to just be a person and do the research, whatever that may be, and who has to always position themselves and assert their humanity, often through the demonstration of some kind of pain and evocation of empathy.” Last, she chats about the vulnerability of incorporating art in her scholarship, the influence of region and country in her book, and how the personal is the political.
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The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord delves into the mystery surrounding the Iroquois du Nord, a series of Haudenosaunee settlements on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the 17th century. Ronald Williamson, co-editor of the title and Founder and Senior Associate of Archaeological Services Inc., joins The Authority File to discuss the lack of published material on the archeology of these sites and how he hopes this title will act as a starting point for future study and discovery. In this four-part series, he also provides general historical context for this time period, characteristics of the Haudenosaunee during these settlements, and Indigenous art and other site materials—pottery, glass beads, decorated antler combs—explored in the book.
In this first episode, Ron provides an overview of his work as an archaeological and cultural heritage consultant and his ties to the academic world as adjunct faculty. In addition, he chats about the history of the Iroquois du Nord, how the book came together, and its publication as part of the Mercury Series, a publishing partnership between the University of Ottawa Press and the Canadian Museum of History.
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Performing Female Blackness, the latest title from Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae, considers Black life through the intersectional lens of race, gender, and nation. Utilizing mediums of poetry, prose, journal entries, and drawings, Naila works to demonstrate how Black women are expected to perform in private and public spaces. In this four-part series, Naila, a multidisciplinary artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo, discusses her decision to incorporate personal stories in the text and why allowing her artistic and academic selves to coexist allows for a more vulnerable and authentic body of work. She also dives into the influence of region, the concept of translucency, and her Black & Free research project.
In the first episode of this series, Naila explains her area of research in Black theater, performance, and gender, including her University of Waterloo class that went viral for its focus on Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album. She also introduces us to her book and walks through her wide-ranging definition of “performance” that goes beyond entertainment and artistic performing. Last, Naila explores how social media fits into the idea of performance, interrogating the effects of creating an image, voice, or brand for an online audience and how gender and race factor into these constructions.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research at Taylor & Francis, and Jennifer Townes, Open Access Librarian at Emory University, discuss current OA milestones and future wish list items. Our guests explore how open access is driving open research, particularly in areas of open data and open peer review. They also examine how 2022’s OSTP Nelson Memo—which provides updated guidelines on making federally funded research freely available—has impacted their positions. Both guests chat about the need to support researchers in the humanities and social sciences with open access adoption, while Jenny highlights changes in library messaging and Emily provides an overview of how Taylor & Francis is uniquely positioned to respond to the memo. To close, Jenny and Emily provide their big asks when it comes to OA, including more collective models addressing open books, equal attention paid to HSS, and a more equitable and sure-footed relationship between publishers and librarians in open publishing.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Barbie Keiser, information resources management (IRM) consultant and Reference and Instruction Librarian at Northern Virginia Community College, reflects on future developments in artificial intelligence and open access. First, she focuses on positive progress in AI by spotlighting tools that can assist with job interviews, video transcriptions, and enhancing libguides. Overall, Barbie supplies exciting, helpful, and small-scale AI projects in academia that go beyond chatbots like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. Walking through the current OA landscape, she then highlights the complexity of green, gold, and diamond OA and advocates for simplifying the open publishing ecosystem. Further, she acknowledges that paywalled content will most likely be here to stay, though as government mandates and cross-organizational efforts take hold, the “future is open.”
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests dig into current challenges to open access funding and sustainability. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research at Taylor & Francis, stresses the need to collaborate among stakeholders and shares hopes that efforts are now moving toward a more communicative and collective strategy. Jenny Townes, Open Access Librarian at Emory University, explains some of the OA uncertainty from librarians, including the fear of shifting the burden of cost. Finally, Jenny and Emily offer ideas on why research integrity has become such a hot topic. They flesh out issues like paper mills and ChatGPT, along with developing new approaches to research assessment in order to address these concerns.
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In the third episode of our four-part series with information resources management (IRM) consultant Barbie Keiser, she highlights new opportunities for libraries in scholarly communication. First, Barbie walks through the benefits of establishing both short-term and long-term library projects, targeting specific disciplines in messaging, and updating language to appeal to patrons and administration. In addition, she reveals common issues librarians run into when trying to integrate into the ScholComm workflow, such as failing to recognize when a time-consuming activity misaligns with the library’s goals. Addressing the rapidly shifting research environment, Barbie closes with her thoughts on how the library can assist scholars through publication by staying up-to-date on research assessment methods and approaching these changes with a willingness to learn and share this knowledge.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Jenny Townes, Open Access Librarian at Emory University, walks through the librarian’s role in supporting open access resources. She shares how librarians must act as facilitators for OA research—not gatekeepers—and can buttress this work through intentional budget management and keeping up with external OA projects. Jenny also predicts that librarians will need to act as advocates for open access through consistent communication with higher education stakeholders and a strong commitment to an equitable scholarly communication ecosystem. Next, Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research at Taylor & Francis, discusses how the environment has shifted so that librarians now take on responsibilities that used to fall under a research office. Emily explains why this transformation affects publisher relationships with libraries and researchers, and how publishers are working to counter misinformation surrounding open access materials.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Barbie Keiser, information resources management (IRM) consultant and Reference and Instruction Librarian at Northern Virginia Community College, considers broader market forces impacting scholarly communication. To start, she discusses the evolution in dissemination and promotional strategies by vendors, publishers, and technology companies. Spotlighting current examples in publishing and educational tech, Barbie chats about initiatives like advancing web design, incorporating multi-media formats, and enhancing data analytics services. In addition, Barbie reflects on how authorship has transformed and the ways in which librarians have worked to meet those changes. She highlights the library’s role in ScholComm by helping researchers choose a publisher, find open access options, and make content accessible for the general public through infographics and press releases.
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In this four-part series, we speak with Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research at Taylor & Francis, and Jennifer Townes, Open Access Librarian at Emory University, about current and future open access resource trends. Our guests bring the librarian and publisher perspectives to the OA discussion, parsing through questions of how librarians and publishers can support open resources and the main challenges to OA funding and sustainability. Emily and Jenny also chat about the growing concern of research integrity—in particular, ChatGPT and paper mills—and important OA milestones in the future, such as new partnerships between libraries and publishers and developments in open monograph publishing models.
In this first episode, Jenny and Emily provide background on how their roles and responsibilities support open access. Next, they discuss the core benefits of OA, highlighting factors like the rapid dissemination of scholarly research and broader, more accessible access for scholars and the general public. Finally, they close with current roadblocks impacting OA adoption for all members of the scholarly ecosystem—researchers, publishers, librarians, readers—and where they see the opportunity for change.
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In this four-episode series, we’re joined by Barbie Keiser, information resources management (IRM) consultant and Reference and Instruction Librarian at Northern Virginia Community College. Barbie highlights broader market forces at play in scholarly communication, including the transformations made by platform vendors, academic publishers, and educational technology companies to support researchers and stay relevant in a rapidly shifting environment. In addition, she discusses library impacts, underscoring “new territory” opportunities libraries can take advantage of, such as aligning verbiage with the administration’s values and investing in both long-term projects and short-term wins. Finally, Barbie looks ahead to new horizons like open access and artificial intelligence. She spotlights several innovative (and useful!) AI tools that can benefit librarians and faculty in everyday tasks.
In this first episode, Barbie explains how ScholComm has evolved over the course of her career, offering insights into the effects of social media, increased teamwork, and the COVID-19 pandemic on library services. Further, she speaks to a key strength of librarianship—being quick to recognize and adapt to change—and why the academic community can fail to acknowledge this strategic asset.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Nicole Gallo, Executive Vice President of Rittenhouse Book Distributors, chats about current business trends, leveraging data, and digital purchasing. First, she spotlights how indispensable data is to Rittenhouse’s operation, by informing sales reports for publishers and purchasing decisions by libraries. She also digs into Rittenhouse’s strategies for understanding library and publisher trends through curating special collections and bringing forth more flexible, granular options for content acquisition. Last, Nicole explains the decision to make purchased ebooks from Rittenhouse remain with the collection for the life of the edition—namely, to better support the unique budget challenges of libraries and to reflect the educational needs of the health sciences discipline.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests discuss the pandemic’s impact on library, faculty, and publisher approaches to student success and evolving strategies for the future. First, Ceceilia Parnther, assistant professor in the Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership at St. John’s University, María Evelia Emerson, Student Success Librarian at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Amber Eakin, Instructional Librarian at Strayer University, underscore the import of accessible online learning by highlighting the flexibility of digital tools and the significance of building an online community. Next, Andrew Boney, executive editor in Sage’s Learning Resources Division, shares how the publisher has worked to meet students where they are by easing the authentication process and increasing resource discoverability. Finally, the guests examine “traditional” approaches to student success, and surface updated strategies like sustained collaboration between the library and faculty, functional and student-friendly texts from publishers, and recognition of the myriad learning styles and skills of today’s scholars.
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In this third episode of our four-part series with Nicole Gallo, Executive Vice President of Rittenhouse Book Distributors, she walks through the execution of Rittenhouse’s strategies to support library and publisher markets. First, she dives into how the distributor has updated its operational practices to better communicate with publishers and market their resources. In addition, Nicole chats about easing the buying experience for libraries through digital options, open educational resources, and free services to help keep content current. Last, Nicole shares how the distributor works to communicate library budget issues back to publishers, and the demand for Rittenhouse’s DEI collection since its recent launch.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests chat about strategies for creating and maintaining partnerships with campus stakeholders to bolster student success. First, Ceceilia Parnther, assistant professor in the Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership at St. John’s University, María Evelia Emerson, Student Success Librarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Amber Eakin, Instructional Librarian at Strayer University, explain the benefits of forming relationships with academic advisors, student services, and teaching faculty to better support student goals. In addition, Andrew Boney, executive editor in Sage’s Learning Resources Division, shares the publisher’s role in strengthening ties between the library and faculty, primarily through surfacing available resources and underscoring the library’s work on campus. To close, our guests walk through various tactics they’ve employed to strengthen these relationships, and highlight the significant benefits and techniques of following up.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Nicole Gallo, Executive Vice President of Rittenhouse Book Distributors, shares market perspectives on how publishers and librarians are supporting DEI initiatives. First, Nicole surfaces current pain points and the distributor’s response, highlighting budget issues for libraries and publication speed for publishers. Next, she explains how the publishing industry has shifted in the last decade to support a more digital and data-driven world—instead of print being the standard, Rittenhouse may receive digital copies first, allowing a faster time to market. In addition, Nicole speaks to publisher production decisions in support of DEI, such as diverse illustrations, accessible formatting, and following state and institutional guidance. She closes with how librarians have embraced DEI resources and policies, and how they’re working to interweave DEI into collection development practices and budget decisions.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, our guests—Ceceilia Parnther, assistant professor in the Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership at St. John’s University; María Evelia Emerson, Student Success Librarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Amber Eakin, Instructional Librarian at Strayer University; and Andrew Boney, executive editor in Sage’s Learning Resources Division—turn their attention to the library’s role in supporting student success. First, the speakers highlight the library’s part in advancing information literacy and critical thinking skills, in addition connecting scholars with resources that best suit their research needs. Next, they share opportunities to better integrate the library into the classroom, as well as guidance on alleviating library anxiety and establishing the library as a partner and resource to support campus stakeholders. Finally, the guests close with how libraries can better delegate tasks on student success among staff through data analytics and inclusive collaboration.
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The Authority File has discussed diversity, equity, and inclusion topics in series past, often focusing on publisher and librarian perspectives. For this next series, we sit down with Nicole Gallo, Executive Vice President of Rittenhouse Book Distributors. As Nicole explains, Rittenhouse’s unique position as a distributor in health sciences allows access to viewpoints from the publishing and librarianship worlds. From this vantage point, Rittenhouse can build distinctive editorial and collection management strategies to support both parties and better disseminate DEI resources.
In this four-part series, Nicole shares her thoughts on how DEI collection policies and procedures have shifted over the years in response to patron demand, institutional guidelines, and racial justice activism. In addition, she chats about the importance of data to Rittenhouse’s operation, the benefits of sorting digital content by topic, and the urgency of communicating academic library budget constraints back to publishers. For this first episode, Nicole introduces us to her role and Rittenhouse’s mission of collecting content from publishers small and large to best serve customer needs. She also delves into the urgency of DEI resources in the health sciences publishing market, and the distributor’s goal of making trusted, peer reviewed, and vetted content equally available.
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In this series, four guests join The Authority File to discuss how libraries, faculty, and publishers can support student success. Our speakers include: Ceceilia Parnther, assistant professor in the Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership at St. John’s University; María Evelia Emerson, Student Success Librarian at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Amber Eakin, Instructional Librarian at Strayer University; and Andrew Boney, executive editor in Sage’s Learning Resources Division. Diving into the evolution of content delivery and partnership strategies across campus, our guests explain their own unique strategies to connect with and aid students. Further, they highlight how “traditional” approaches to student success have become outdated or inefficient, thereby reflecting on the characteristics and challenges of today’s learning environment and championing the versatility of the library to underpin this work.
The first episode of this four-part series provides key context on our guests’ roles and institutions—each demands distinct approaches to online learning, digital tools, and fulfilling administrative goals. In addition, they offer their own definitions for student success, such as completing a degree, achieving economic mobility, becoming media literate, or receiving the equitable support needed to attain their goals. They also summarize how technology has impacted content, as shorter, more flexible, and more interactive resources become the new norm.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Nicola Jones, Director of the Springer Nature SDG Programme, discusses the product development of Nature Journals and Books in support of the Sustainable Development Goals. Deviating from the traditional model, Nature Journals assembled multidisciplinary experts to work together in producing high-impact research on the same topic—such as, Nature Human Behaviour launched in 2017, and, more recently, Nature Mental Health (for an interview with Rebecca Cooney, PhD, Chief Editor of Nature Mental Health, click here). In addition, Nicola explains how, despite their individual identities and audiences, Springer and Palgrave Macmillan joined forces for a cross imprint related to the goals, which forged connections between the publishers and avoided saturating the market with SDG content. Last, she highlights the significant role open access plays in the SDG Programme, and the book publishing partnership with the Lyrasis consortium that supports this commitment to open research.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Tanis MacDonald, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series, reveals how she keeps up with the latest contemporary poets by relying on her well-read friends, publishers of her own poetry, literary events, and her students. Further, she discusses how the mission of the Laurier Poetry Series has evolved from preserving the work of previous generations of writers to expanding the Canadian canon to include BIPOC and LGBTQ poets who haven’t received the accolades or recognition they deserve. Next, she dives into her Watershed Writers podcast, which takes a hyperlocal lens to literature by interviewing authors in the Grand River Watershed area. Finally, she chats about her latest book, Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female, explaining the inspiration behind the title, the political implications of walking in public or wild spaces, and the “if you know, you know” audience recognition of its themes.
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In the third episode of our four-part series with Nicola Jones, director of Springer Nature’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Programme, we discuss several examples of the publisher’s SDG Hubs, which collect and spotlight Springer research related to individual SDGs. Nicola first outlines the broad scope and audience of Good Health & Well-Being, which includes scholarship in disciplines like applied sciences, public health, and social sciences. Next, she walks through the focus areas of Quality Education, distinguishing between research on how to deliver quality education and current debates or issues in education, including contemporary discourse about critical race theory and culture wars. Last, Nicola highlights the Sustainable Future webinar series, part of the Affordable and Clean Energy hub, and offers insight into how the many disparate groups at Springer work together to keep the information for each hub relevant and updated.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Tanis MacDonald, professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, discusses how poetry appeals to younger generations due to its (often) short length, accessibility, and experimental, wide-ranging possibilities. She explains why she positions herself as an advocate for poetry, and how the frequently maligned “Insta poetry” can act as a legitimate jumping off point for finding prominent contemporary and classic poets and expanding one’s perception of the medium. Last, Tanis contemplates the art infrastructure available outside of large metropolitan areas, and how that connects to her book, Out of Line: Daring to be an Artist Outside the Big City. She closes by underscoring the need to “step out of line” in your own art, and offers a cautionary message to young artists of the potential for harm and abuse even within art communities.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, Nicola Jones, director of Springer Nature’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Programme, speaks of the operational elements that support the Programme. Nicola highlights Springer’s working groups based on individual SDGs, which create a dedicated space and time for colleagues to communicate—and collaborate!—on projects related to the goal. She also underscores how the publisher supports sustainability goals through mandatory sustainable business training, climate pledge commitments, and the (seemingly) simple task of proper signage on office recycling bins. Last, Nicola discusses the challenges of organizing Springer’s extensive, multidisciplinary publishing portfolio, in addition to solutions like SDG hub webpages that collate relevant books, journals, articles, blog posts, and podcast episodes for site-goers.
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In the second episode of this four-part series, we continue our discussion with Tanis MacDonald, professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series. She digs into the intricacies of teaching poetry in today’s classroom, first highlighting how Canadian literature has historically been taught through the lens of regionality; while these parameters have their merits, they also limit writing style and subjects. In addition, Tanis explains the monopoly that “the novel” has over English literature curricula, and points to the value of advocating for courses in poetry and drama—especially for young scholars. Last, Tanis chats about how the Laurier Poetry Series supports teaching courses in poetry, and how she encourages her students to get out of the classroom and experience poetry through live readings and online events.
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After the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015, Springer Nature responded with the SDG Programme, an initiative to connect researchers with relevant, often multidisciplinary scholarship related to goals in learning and education, gender equality, sustainability, and more under the SDG umbrella. Coincidentally, the UN’s adoption of the SDGs occurred soon after the 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Macmillan Science and Education. As the publisher looked to push forward research in support of the SDGs, it also found an opportunity to connect disparate disciplines across the newly consolidated publishing group—a very two birds, one stone situation.
In this four-part series, Nicola Jones joins The Authority File to discuss Springer Nature’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Programme and her unique role as director of the Programme. She underscores the unique qualities of her position, particularly its demands of both project management skills and a highly editorial eye. As recognition of the SDGs grew, Nicola’s role shifted from awareness raising and coordination across publishing hubs to keeping track of the many initiatives currently in the works. Throughout the conversation, Nicola outlines these changes, in addition to her efforts to encourage cross-disciplinary alliances, examples of new projects, and how Nature Journals has evolved along with and in support of the program.
In this first episode, Nicola chats about the complexity of her role and how she has approached its broad scope. She also provides background on why the SDG Programme was created and how it united the differing publishing groups under one roof. Last, Nicola spotlights the virtual conference series Springer launched during the pandemic, and how the virtual-only environment allowed for a more global, inclusive lens.
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With the rise of “insta poetry” and young poets taking up a (small, but present!) section of everyone’s local Barnes & Noble, you might assume that awareness and appreciation for poetry in today’s youth is alive and well. And while those factors are significant for boosting sales and public engagement in contemporary and traditional poetry, garnering interest in the classroom is a different matter.
As Tanis MacDonald, General Editor of the Laurier Poetry Series, explains, poetry collections often do not stay in print. This presents a problem, as teaching from a volume of poetry creates a much richer educational experience for the reader than single poems. To fill this gap in academia, the Laurier Poetry Series emerged in the early 2000s. The Series publishes selected poetry series spanning years of a poet’s work with a scholarly and historical overview of each poet to help introduce young academics or a general audience to the text. In this four-part series, we speak with Tanis about the impact of the Laurier Poetry Series, teaching poetry in today’s age, and her own work as a writer and poet.
In this first episode, Tanis discusses her past research as an elegy specialist and her time as a support worker in at-risk communities, in addition to her current teaching role in English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Tanis also provides background on the Laurier Poetry Series, exploring its aim to make poetry accessible to undergraduates and available in print—her first task as editor was to create a collection for Canadian feminist poet Lillian Allen. Last, she underscores the importance of having physical books of poetry available to students in order to support the authors and strengthen interest in poetry as an art form.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Adrian Guan and Tim Weisenberger, both product managers at SAE International, discuss the challenges of establishing industry standards across the wide-ranging disciplines of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity for mobility. Adrian and Tim highlight SAE’s role as an intermediary between stakeholders, able to push forward new research by bringing together academics and industry leaders through publications, forums, and collaborative research projects. Further, the guests spotlight how AI and cybersecurity intersect, underscoring why information access and information security go hand-in-hand—new technology often precipitates the need for robust cyber policies.
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Safety is one of our top concerns when buying a car. As the vehicular industry grows more advanced, safety features like automatic braking, blind spot warning systems, and lane-keeping assist have entered the market. However, as helpful as these new technologies may be, they also highlight the complexity of modern vehicles and concerns over cybersecurity. Believe it or not, cars can be the targets of cyberattacks, too. So how has the mobility industry adopted cybersecurity protocols to keep our cars safe—beyond airbags and seatbelts?
In the third episode of this four-part series, Tim Weisenberger, Program Manager of Emerging Technologies at SAE International, explores the essential role of cybersecurity in the mobility industry. He explains how the industry has evolved to adopt robust cybersecurity protocols and SAE’s role in forging connections across the discipline. Further, Tim demonstrates that the unique nature of the mobility sector has encouraged the industry to prioritize cybersecurity, implementing a baked-in cyber approach to avoid potential fatalities and economic loss. Despite the growth in the maturity model standard in the past decade, Tim underscores the difficulty of standardizing cybersecurity policies, and points to solutions like problem definition, evaluation, and risk assessment.
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In higher education, artificial intelligence is often associated with research aids or chatbot tools like the recently released ChatGPT. However, AI-based systems have applications far beyond scanning primary source documents or organizing data. In the case of the mobility sector, AI now plays a major role in planes, cars, and delivery systems, leading to questions of regulation, safety, and research support for this highly emergent field.
In the second episode of this four-part series, Adrian Guan, Product Manager at SAE International, discusses the distinct characteristics of artificial intelligence, its effects on mobility, and how SAE develops AI standards and research. First, Adrian provides a fascinating introduction to the mechanics of AI, explaining its data-based, machine learning process. He then walks through AI’s potential impacts on the mobility sector, highlighting use cases in aerospace and on the ground—adaptive cruise control, delivery robots, and driving education simulators, in addition to the many projects currently in the production or prototype stages. Last, Adrian underscores the importance of safety and equity in AI design for mobility, and touches on the challenges of bridging the gaps between different sectors of the mobility field utilizing AI.
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Artificial Intelligence and cybersecurity touch a variety of fields. In fact, their malleability and wide-reaching applications allow them to influence disciplines in medicine, engineering, and mobility. SAE International, an organization for engineering professionals, recognizes this link, developing resources for members—in academia and commerce—to aid their advancements in the vehicular and aerospace arenas.
In this four-part series, Adrian Guan and Tim Weisenberger, both product managers at SAE International, chat about the evolution and future of AI and cybersecurity for mobility. Adrian, an expert in AI, digs into the distinct, highly emergent characteristics of artificial intelligence and how that factors into creating robust safety standards. Tim, an expert in cybersecurity, explains how cyber practices in mobility have matured in the last decade and why a risk-based, process-driven approach is so crucial in this area.
In this first episode, Adrian and Tim discuss their backgrounds and SAE International’s role in the market and mobility community. They also dive into the offerings SAE provides—books, standards, conference papers, and events—and how the organization acts as a partner and forum to bring industry experts together.
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In the second episode of this two-part series, Dr. Sarah Derbew, assistant professor of Classics at Stanford University and author of Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity, discusses the future of Classical Studies. She digs into the complications of “decolonizing” a subject like the Classics—one that centers Greek and Roman civilizations while sidelining those in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As Sarah explains, applying the term to an entire discipline can lead to superficial results, with the assumption that implementing inclusive and equitable practices is a one-step solution or short-term process. She also unpacks her current research on the intersections between Greek and African antiquity, and shares her hopes for the evolution of the Classics, including an interdisciplinary lens and thoughtful, ethical considerations from young scholars that she has already begun to witness.
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As librarians, faculty, and researchers look to diversify their collections and curricula, the Classics provide unique challenges. Centered on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the discipline has diminished other ancient studies, often highlighting Greek and Roman entanglements with Egypt, but sidelining additional groups or contributions in Africa. Fortunately, Classicists today are looking beyond traditional modes of study to broaden and modernize the subject. Strategies include focusing on marginalized or ignored perspectives, and incorporating an ethics of care and anti-racist lens to shed new light on the past and today.
In this two-part series, Dr. Sarah Derbew, assistant professor of Classics at Stanford University, joins the program to discuss the future of Classical Studies and her book, Untangling Blacknessin Greek Antiquity. The title works to separate ancient and modern depictions of Blackness, taking care to demonstrate how a modern understanding of race can lead to reductive and harmful categorizations of ancient people; modern, socially-constructed terms can’t—and shouldn’t—apply to those in the past. Despite this distinction, Sarah’s fascinating work also manages to tie together the ancient and the present, acknowledging the interdisciplinary scholarship that has informed her research, and revealing nuanced connections between the Classics and Black Studies.
In this first episode, Sarah introduces us to her research area and provides an overview of her book. She explains why she differentiated between “black” (with a lowercase) and “Black” (with an uppercase) to dissuade readers from perceiving skin color in ancient times the same way we do today—removing the modern ramifications of race allows for new social markers to break through, such as clothing, language, accessories, and more. She also explains how framing her book as an anti-racist study informed her research, how Classicists have historically approached ancient depictions of Blackness, and why addressing a researcher’s own experience and subjectivity creates a more rigorous and ethical work than falsely claiming objectivity.
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In this final episode on postcolonial literature and animal studies, Sundhya Walther, author of Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature, chats about the evolution of the animal studies discipline. She discusses her interdisciplinary approach to research, engaging with fields like conservation biology, anthropology, and urban studies to better interpret animal-human interactions. Sundhya also digs into the future of animal studies, the field’s Euro-American limitations, and how its intersection with environmental studies may progress into a broader ecological field of environmental humanities. Last, she reflects on how the climate crisis factors into the discipline, and the inherent politics of this research, noting that, “our work is a political commitment, is an ethical commitment—to me, that’s absolutely central and I don’t see how you could practice in these fields without having a politics, without having an ethical approach.”
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In this third episode, Sundhya Walther, author of Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature, discusses the focus, intentions, and scope of her title. First, she explains the emphasis on Hindu-influenced literature, and her explorations of the (false) idea of India as a Hindu nation, in addition to various animal-human ideologies projected onto Hinduism. Sundhya also dives into why she limited the book’s scope to mammals of a “charismatic” nature, and the intention behind the brief moments of reflection or “provocations” included between each chapter, achieved through visual art. Last, she highlights Multispecies Modernity’s goal of finding a “postcolonial freedom” for nonhumans through “instances where animals…disturb the kinds of discourses that set out to define them, or put them in place, or categorize them as certain kinds of animal, where they might create kinds of disorder that even fleetingly or even only fictionally can allow a kind of freedom from that power, that colonization.”
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In this second episode, Sundhya Walther, author of Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature, walks through her approach to research on disorderly, multispecies living. She explains that her background as a literary scholar naturally points her to animal-human interactions in literature, but she also examines mediums like film, visual art, and distinct events or phenomena. In addition, she discusses the balance between investigating stories of multispecies intersections and avoiding the pitfalls of ascribing meaning to “the other.” Naming her approach a “non-devouring practice,” Sundhya underscores how her research must respect otherness and avoid appropriative interpretation. Last, she digs into the connections between postcolonial theory and animal studies, and why an attachment to order in modern life—primarily through the separation of humans and nature—leads to the denial of our disorderly, multispecies world.
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Modern life can create a stark contrast between the human and animal worlds. Animals—especially larger, predatory mammals—in cityscapes or suburban neighborhoods are often treated as an anomaly, danger, or cause for social media posts. However, as Sundhya Walther, Presidential Fellow in English at the University of Manchester, points out, humans and animals have and continue to share spaces, even if these relationships fall outside the western scope of the animal studies discipline.
In her latest title, Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature, Sundhya focuses on contemporary India to unpack animal-human interactions in real life, literature, art, and media. Joining The Authority File, she digs into key concepts like disorderly multispecies living, creating a “postcolonial freedom” for nonhumans, and evolving animal studies into a more general ecological field. She also explores the multidisciplinary approach of her research and how the climate crisis factors into and colors her work in nonhuman studies.
In this first episode, Sundhya introduces us to her current research in animal-human interactions in postcolonial literature. She contextualizes her focus on modern-day India, uncovering how animals factor into India’s iconography, power structures, and shared spaces. Sundhya also discusses the limits of postcolonial theory when applied to animal studies, revealing that “…even ideas of humanizing the colonized subject subscribe to certain hierarchies that we may be better to try to dismantle as much as we can, that it continues to privilege an idea of the human that in turn continues to exclude.”
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In the final episode of this series, Stephanie Espinoza Villamor and Kimberly Shotick, coauthors of Practical Marketing for the Academic Library, dig into the assessment and implementation of DEI policies in library marketing. Our guests share why recognition and understanding are not enough to enact meaningful change at an institution, and advocate for taking steps to ensure that marketing materials are accessible, diverse, and culturally appropriate. In addition, Stephanie and Kimberly map out how marketing teams can include DEI efforts in the assessment process, highlighting assessment’s role as a tool to help marketing teams better reach their library and institution’s goals.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Rachel Friars, a PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University, digs into her approach and the evolution of her work with primary sources. In addition, Rachel explains how the diaries of Anne Lister—a 19th-century lesbian diarist, traveler, and landowner—became archived and widely digitized, narrowly escaping becoming lost in history. Our guest also discusses her current work in pulp fiction and the difficulty of locating materials in this area due to their ephemeral nature, various publication methods, and prevalence of pen names. Last, Rachel closes with thoughts on why archives are so important in researching queer history. As she notes, “When you search for queer lives in the past, you’re demanding a political presence, you’re demanding a social and archival and historical presence that is extremely necessary for, as I said, the survival and connection of the past and the survival and connection of the present.”
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Stephanie Espinoza Villamor and Kimberly Shotick, coauthors of Practical Marketing for the Academic Library, reflect on the importance of building a team for library marketing efforts. As the guests describe, teams enable different parts of the library to come together under a strategic plan, and can help avoid burnout or inefficient spending on resources. Next, Stephanie and Kimberly discuss the time and place for both formal and informal teams; formality allows for structure, subcommittees, and built-in assessment, while informal teams work well for flexible, short-term projects. Last, our guests share recommendations for those who are a “library of one,” advocating for joining existing teams on campus—library-centric or not—to drive collaboration and push the institution’s mission forward.
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In the third episode of this four-part series, Rachel Friars, a PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University, parses out the unique demands of both the archives and primary source databases. She explains the primary source literacy needed to overcome the barriers of archival research—notably, the urge to take any source at face value, instead of considering the rich cultural and historical context needed to situate each resource. In addition, Rachel unpacks the ethical needs of the archives, such as the importance of proper citation and the pitfalls of overgeneralization. Last, Rachel discusses how she plans to incorporate primary sources into the classroom, and the enthusiasm she’s already received from undergraduates first encountering queer archives.
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In this second episode of the four-part series, Stephanie Espinoza Villamor and Kimberly Shotick, coauthors of Practical Marketing for the Academic Library, discuss the primary audiences of library marketing initiatives, and how messaging differs based on the distinct needs of students, faculty, and administration. In addition, our guests highlight the benefits of strong relationships with administrative staff, such as budgetary support or connections to departments across campus. Last, Stephanie and Kimberly differentiate between the traditional “marketing for the mind” and the more modern “marketing for the heart.” Through the empathetic approach of the heart, librarians can better reach the “whole student” by considering patron anxieties, Generation Z’s online habits, and the basic human needs of today’s students.
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Although primary source databases now feature technology like handwritten text recognition, keyword search, and—most crucially—digitized versions of physical items, interpreting primary sources still require traditional skills in patience, organization, and general research. For example, Anne Lister, a 19th-century lesbian diarist, traveler, and landowner, wrote hundreds of journal entries throughout her life that add significant insight into queer history. However, she employed her own code for many of the writings, making the texts difficult to understand and decipher. Not to mention, the archives written in English feature hard-to-read cursive, crowded pages, and context particular to that time period and Anne’s life. As Rachel Friars, PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University, notes, “The archive…requires a slowing down, getting to know it” that secondary sources often do not.
In this second episode of the four-part series, Rachel describes the collection of Anne Lister, highlighting Anne’s extraordinary life and unique coding used in her journal entries. In addition, Rachel explains how AM’s Sex and Sexuality modules improve her research workflow through increased digital access and an intuitive layout. Last, she reflects on the slower pace that archives require and the comprehensive research needed before digging into primary sources.
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Marketing—whether volunteer-based or through designated staff—is an essential component of the modern library. Informing students of resources, aiding faculty with curriculum goals, and demonstrating impact to administration all fall within the scope of library marketing. Beyond reaching these groups, marketing allows library staff to reassess offerings, improve services, and better understand patron needs.
After presenting on “marketing from the heart” on an ACRL panel, Stephanie Espinoza Villamor, eLearning librarian at the College of Southern Nevada, teamed up with Kimberly Shotick, student success librarian and assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, to write Practical Marketing for the Academic Library. Combining community college and four-year institution perspectives, Stephanie and Kimberly crafted a guide that underscores the need to accurately and successfully market your library in an age of increasing competition—student union spaces, online depositories, and, of course, the Internet writ large.
In this four-part series, Stephanie and Kimberly walk through practical steps to understanding your audience, crafting messaging, and forming effective teams to accomplish this work. They also discuss how to apply a DEI lens to marketing elements and integrating DEI into assessment and overall outcomes. In this first episode, our guests introduce themselves and differentiate between “marketing” and “outreach.” They also highlight how library messaging has evolved over the years, and answer the basic question: why does a library need to market itself in the first place?
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Primary sources provide unique insights into the past. But for Rachel Friars, a PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University, they also offer a context and history that informs the present. More specifically, Rachel’s research in lesbian literature and neo-Victorianism calls for historical queer perspectives that go beyond medical or legal representation, and instead center the presence of a queer record. As Rachel notes, firsthand queer archives can “…[reassure] these queer communities that we’ve always been here, we’ve never been anywhere else, and, in some ways, there’s nothing modern about queer communities.”
In this four-part series, Rachel joins The Authority File to chat about the use and importance of primary sources in her research. She highlights the magnitude of the diaries of Anne Lister, an English woman whose lifelong journal entries on her life, travels, and sapphic relationships act as a significant contribution to the queer historical canon. She also discusses the benefits of primary source digitization, how to walk students through the archives, and the dynamic infrastructure of AM’s Sex and Sexuality modules.
In this first episode, Rachel gives an overview of her area of research in 19th-century lesbian literature and history. In addition, she underscores how archival materials remain relevant in the contemporary context, especially within queer studies. Last, Rachel differentiates her approaches to primary and secondary sources, exploring the obscurity archives hold and the detective work needed to uncover their meaning.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Jason Camlot and Jeffrey Weingarten, coeditors of Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books, share key takeaways on collection practices and the value of personal libraries. First, Jeffrey parses out the library’s complexity as a research tool, and the need to suspend all assumptions on which parts of a personal collection carry the most meaning. Jason also shares thoughts on what personal libraries can offer in terms of acting as a window into the holder’s intellectual development and interests. Last, our guests examine how collection development strategies evolve and differ between public and private collections—what a library chooses to preserve can depend on bandwidth, budgetary constraints, and the collection holder’s level of fame or prestige.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca “Bek” Cooney, Chief Editor of Nature Mental Health, discusses the current publishing landscape and future of mental health research. She explores the balance between open access and subscription models through an equity lens, highlighting the importance of author-first and choice-driven perspectives. She also explains how the librarian’s role may shift in an increasingly open environment through heightened curation and direction for researchers. Last, Bek underscores mental health’s position as a “last frontier” by unpacking the obstacles that stigma creates, and how a more nuanced and widespread understanding of mental health can help overcome these barriers.
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In the third episode of this four-part series on personal libraries, Jason Camlot and Jeffrey Weingarten, coeditors of Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books, examine what’s lost when libraries discard volume duplicates or rely solely on digital copies. Highlighting the traces left from marginalia, publisher blurbs, and differing publication years, our guests discuss what these intricacies can reveal about the cultural moment. In addition, Jason and Jeffrey define the many forms academic libraries can take and the malleability of collections by adapting to a space—an academic library, museum, archival storage—and its intrinsic values and demands.
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The forthcoming Nature Mental Health aims to build DEI principles into its editorial approach, thereby underpinning mental health as a human right. However, bringing these goals to fruition requires intentionality through inclusive initiatives and equitable publication practices—such as, global partnerships, lived experience advisory boards, and community-based recognition.
In the third episode of this four-part series, Chief Editor Dr. Rebecca “Bek” Cooney lays out how to put anti-racist and inclusive publishing ideals into practice. She highlights pledges as a solid jumping-off point, inviting transparency and accountability from readership. She also explains how publishers can ease the burden on contributors or reviewers through flexible deadlines and uncovering key pain points. Last, Bek discusses the shifting role of librarians as publishers face changes in data aggregation, content bundling, and open access policies.
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A library collection is more than its contents. The setting, purpose, or owner all influence a library’s definition and relationship with a reader. The various contexts surrounding a collection—whether political, social, or personal—transform how it is used, categorized, and preserved. As Jeffrey Weingarten, coeditor of Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books, puts it, “the meaning of the library is fluid; it’s ever-changing.”
In this second episode, Jason Camlot and Jeffrey, coeditors of Unpacking the Personal Library, outline the types of library collections covered in the title, highlighting unconventional offerings like embassy collections and protest libraries. They also dig into the knowledge and intricacies that physical objects carry, and how that value conflicts with the increasing push toward digitization. Last, Jason draws connections to his work on Spoken Web, a global partnership that aims to digitize and preserve literary sound recordings in Canada.
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While outlining the forthcoming journal Nature Mental Health, the editorial team wanted to build equity, awareness, and transparency into its framework. As Chief Editor Dr. Rebecca “Bek” Cooney notes, the journal’s scope underpins mental health as a human right in order to spotlight the lack of understanding and structural support for mental health issues. How can a journal intentionally establish itself as an advocate for mental health and social change?
In this second episode of the four-part series, Bek digs into equity in mental health. She highlights the difference between equity and equality in mental health programs—an “equal” approach doesn’t account for the racial, economic, and social discrepancies that impact care. In addition, Bek discusses the journal’s goal of including those with lived experiences and its positive effects on research quality. Further, she closes with strategies on how to go beyond goodwill gestures by encouraging dialogue among readership and ensuring transparency in editorial decisions around language and self-corrections.
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Whether it’s a dog-eared stack of The Boxcar Children, an annotated collection of Sylvia Plath poetry, or an encyclopedic array of Guinness World Records, a personal library can reflect a holder’s academic interests, personal values, or position in a community. But more often than not, after a scholar’s death or retirement, their personal libraries face a crossroads. Does it fit in an archive, academic library, or a museum? Do duplicates of books get thrown out or preserved? What about items like grocery lists, office supplies, or personal memorabilia? How are objects designated as worth cataloguing and keeping? How does an object’s value shift through time or the transition from a private collection to public?
Jason Camlot, professor of English and Research Chair in Literature and Sound Studies at Concordia University, and Jeffrey Weingarten, professor in the School of Language and Liberal Studies at Fanshawe College, asked themselves those same questions when given the chance to study the private libraries of Canadian authors F.R. Scott and Mordecai Richler. For Jason, Richler’s collection prompted inquiry into where and how private libraries should be housed; for Jeffrey, Scott’s collection demonstrated how curation and marginalia provide insight into an author’s political views. Due to similar areas of research and intersecting academic paths, Jason and Jeffrey came together as co-editors for Unpacking the Personal Library: The Public and Private Life of Books, a collection of essays that explore how private collections fit into the public sphere.
In this four-part series, our guests provide an overview of the title and discuss the difficulty of defining a library as the objects, holders, and contexts shift. They also unpack the value of physical objects and “wandering the stacks” in an era of increasing digitization and e-collections. In this first episode, Jason and Jeffrey map out the catalyst for their title, including serendipitous moments of discovery and inquisition while researching Scott’s and Richler’s collections. They also provide background on their areas of study and how their parallel interests led to Unpacking the Personal Library.
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The language surrounding “mental health” is often clouded with vague lifestyle tips (get plenty of sleep! Light a candle!) or out-of-touch direction pointing toward a healthcare system that cannot support the barrage of people seeking care. Even further, our mental health systems often don’t account for the disparities in support across social, racial, and economic lines, leading to inequitable care and heightened stigma for marginalized groups—and this was before a global pandemic.
Nature Mental Health, a forthcoming January 2023 journal, hopes to take a different approach. As Chief Editor Dr. Rebecca “Bek” Cooney describes, the journal will combine research in general science and public health, creating a holistic perspective toward mental illness and well-being that will appeal to both academics and a general audience. In this four-part series, Bek explains how she plans to put these ideas into practice. By utilizing Nature’s expansive global network and creating partnerships across disciplines, Bek aims for the journal to shape public health policy, benefit lay readers, and reframe mental health as a human right. She also chats about the publishing environment at large, advocating for author choice and highlighting how the role of librarians continues to shift along with new open publishing mandates.
In this first episode, Bek walks through her own editorial background and research interests in psychology. She explains what attracted her to the Chief Editor position and her hopes for the journal to expand upon traditional research in the field. Further, she provides an overview of Nature Mental Health’s inclusive editorial approach and the current prep work to prepare for the January launch.
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In the final episode of this series, our guests dig into how faculty and student perspectives allow librarians to remain flexible and adjust services to better suit undergraduate needs. Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, and Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, chat about lowering barriers to entry for student engagement—reducing the number of content platforms, fixing broken resource links—and teaching faculty’s general awareness of these issues. In addition, Ian discusses how the librarian’s involvement in student and faculty workflows differs from traditional services, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE, considers how technology fits in, highlighting the obstacles today’s students face in finding materials and how digital tools can aid in narrowing their search.
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In the final episode of this series, our guests dig into how faculty and student perspectives allow librarians to remain flexible and adjust services to better suit undergraduate needs. Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, and Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, chat about lowering barriers to entry for student engagement—reducing the number of content platforms, fixing broken resource links—and teaching faculty’s general awareness of these issues. In addition, Ian discusses how the librarian’s involvement in student and faculty workflows differs from traditional services, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE, considers how technology fits in, highlighting the obstacles today’s students face in finding materials and how digital tools can aid in narrowing their search.
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In this third episode on the undergraduate workflow, Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE, discuss how faculty and librarians can partner for heightened student engagement. In particular, Ian underscores the significance of librarians embedding themselves into the curriculum to support every step of a student’s academic journey. In addition, Jamie shares why faculty should aid traditionally librarian-centered areas of study like information or digital literacy. Last, our guests chat about the evolution of the library’s services, the development of new teaching strategies, and how administration can bolster support for these partnerships instead of relying on bottom-up implementation.
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In this third episode on the undergraduate workflow, Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE, discuss how faculty and librarians can partner for heightened student engagement. In particular, Ian underscores the significance of librarians embedding themselves into the curriculum to support every step of a student’s academic journey. In addition, Jamie shares why faculty should aid traditionally librarian-centered areas of study like information or digital literacy. Last, our guests chat about the evolution of the library’s services, the development of new teaching strategies, and how administration can bolster support for these partnerships instead of relying on bottom-up implementation.
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The student perspective is a key factor when building a workflow that functions for faculty, librarians, and, yes, students. Thanks to a recent research project on the undergraduate workflow, our four guests gleaned valuable guidance from students on building reading lists. Takeaways included pointing to a particular chapter instead of an entire book, and providing narrower materials to start, then opening up to broader and more complex sources to match the student’s pace. In fact, as our librarian speaker noted, these insights go beyond students to aid the library by helping dictate spending habits and strategize collection spending.
In this second episode, our guests—Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE—dig into why the student perspective on the undergraduate workflow is so valuable. In addition, our guests delve into a reading list’s purpose, and the particular pain points that arise from differing generational views and attitudes toward student research. The guests also highlight how student needs have shifted in the last few years and the lack of preparation prior education provides incoming undergraduates.
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The student perspective is a key factor when building a workflow that functions for faculty, librarians, and, yes, students. Thanks to a recent research project on the undergraduate workflow, our four guests gleaned valuable guidance from students on building reading lists. Takeaways included pointing to a particular chapter instead of an entire book, and providing narrower materials to start, then opening up to broader and more complex sources to match the student’s pace. In fact, as our librarian speaker noted, these insights go beyond students to aid the library by helping dictate spending habits and strategize collection spending.
In this second episode, our guests—Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln, Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln, Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln, and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE—dig into why the student perspective on the undergraduate workflow is so valuable. In addition, our guests delve into a reading list’s purpose, and the particular pain points that arise from differing generational views and attitudes toward student research. The guests also highlight how student needs have shifted in the last few years and the lack of preparation prior education provides incoming undergraduates.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Students, faculty, and librarians belong to the same higher education ecosystem. And yet, the three stakeholders often lack strong communication and collaboration, leading to accessibility issues, outdated resources, and a general misunderstanding of each party’s unique responsibilities and obstacles. In fact, when faced with something as (seemingly) simple as a course reading list, the student, professor, and librarian can struggle to settle on one process that suits each other’s needs and best serves the root purpose—a functional guide of sources that supports the student learning experience.
In this four-part series, four guests—a professor, student, librarian, and publisher—join the program to discuss the definition, hurdles, and solutions to the undergraduate workflow. They offer their perspectives and guidance through the lens of a recent research project, which gathered data and offered solutions to the undergraduate workflow, starting at the assignment of a reading list to the search for resources and evaluation of the texts. The guests share what they need from the other in order to succeed, whether that be better signage or reading instructions, a uniform online system, access to open resources, or basic understanding of each party’s process.
In this first episode, we introduce our guests: Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln; Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln; Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln and lead researcher on the project; and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE. Ian, Jamie, and Samantha offer background on their roles in the research project, while Matt explains SAGE’s interest and support for this topic, and how the research can bolster SAGE’s digital platforms to better serve everyone. Finally, the guests close with thoughts on the why this juncture between student, librarian, and teaching faculty continues to be such a moving target.
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Students, faculty, and librarians belong to the same higher education ecosystem. And yet, the three stakeholders often lack strong communication and collaboration, leading to accessibility issues, outdated resources, and a general misunderstanding of each party’s unique responsibilities and obstacles. In fact, when faced with something as (seemingly) simple as a course reading list, the student, professor, and librarian can struggle to settle on one process that suits each other’s needs and best serves the root purpose—a functional guide of sources that supports the student learning experience.
In this four-part series, four guests—a professor, student, librarian, and publisher—join the program to discuss the definition, hurdles, and solutions to the undergraduate workflow. They offer their perspectives and guidance through the lens of a recent research project, which gathered data and offered solutions to the undergraduate workflow, starting at the assignment of a reading list to the search for resources and evaluation of the texts. The guests share what they need from the other in order to succeed, whether that be better signage or reading instructions, a uniform online system, access to open resources, or basic understanding of each party’s process.
In this first episode, we introduce our guests: Ian Snowley, Dean of Student Learning Development & University Librarian at the University of Lincoln; Jamie Wood, professor of History and Education at the University of Lincoln; Samantha Sharman, a student at the University of Lincoln and lead researcher on the project; and Matt Hayes, Managing Director at Technology from SAGE. Ian, Jamie, and Samantha offer background on their roles in the research project, while Matt explains SAGE’s interest and support for this topic, and how the research can bolster SAGE’s digital platforms to better serve everyone. Finally, the guests close with thoughts on the why this juncture between student, librarian, and teaching faculty continues to be such a moving target.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Felicity Plester, Editorial Director for Humanities, and Tamsine O’Riordan, Editorial Director for Social Science, both at Palgrave Macmillan, discuss the publisher’s future formats and emerging topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). They reflect on the power of e-resources in publishing and scholarly dissemination, in addition to flexible access strategies like single title models and artificial intelligence innovations. Felicity also touches on how popular culture factors into acquisition decisions and the balance between staying current and ensuring longevity in a subject. Next, Tamsine shares her thoughts on emerging topics in social justice and sustainability and how today’s readers want to access knowledge—whether through e-content, hybrid formats, or print. Last, Felicity plugs the upcoming Palgrave Macmillan Annual Lecture Series on September 21st, which will focus on how HSS contributes to the peace agenda.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Felicity Plester, Editorial Director for Humanities, and Tamsine O’Riordan, Editorial Director for Social Science, both at Palgrave Macmillan, discuss the publisher’s future formats and emerging topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). They reflect on the power of e-resources in publishing and scholarly dissemination, in addition to flexible access strategies like single title models and artificial intelligence innovations. Felicity also touches on how popular culture factors into acquisition decisions and the balance between staying current and ensuring longevity in a subject. Next, Tamsine shares her thoughts on emerging topics in social justice and sustainability and how today’s readers want to access knowledge—whether through e-content, hybrid formats, or print. Last, Felicity plugs the upcoming Palgrave Macmillan Annual Lecture Series on September 21st, which will focus on how HSS contributes to the peace agenda.
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In the final episode of this series, Dr. Niklas Lidströmer, co-editor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, looks at future trends of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM). Niklas covers major innovations ahead and their potential impacts on treatment and the patient and doctor relationship. In addition, he discusses the current global applications of AIM and his forthcoming title on Artificial Intelligence and the COVID-19 pandemic. Last, Niklas considers how librarianship will fit into the increased availability of medical data, including more advanced patron requests and co-authorship between librarians and researchers.
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In the final episode of this series, Dr. Niklas Lidströmer, co-editor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, looks at future trends of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM). Niklas covers major innovations ahead and their potential impacts on treatment and the patient and doctor relationship. In addition, he discusses the current global applications of AIM and his forthcoming title on Artificial Intelligence and the COVID-19 pandemic. Last, Niklas considers how librarianship will fit into the increased availability of medical data, including more advanced patron requests and co-authorship between librarians and researchers.
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The publication of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) motivated publishers to assess their own mission statements and level of engagement within the scholarly community. Centering goals in gender equality, clean energy, and quality education can strengthen research, heighten impact, and encourage a global perspective. How else can community engagement goals facilitate a publisher’s imprint evolution?
In the third episode of this series, Felicity Plester and Tamsine O’Riordan, both at Palgrave Macmillan, discuss the publisher’s recent developments and adoption of sustainability targets. First, they walk through the balance between pursuing emerging areas of research and maintaining traditional coverage of HSS disciplines. They also discuss peer review, touching on reviewer recruitment and Palgrave Macmillan’s evolving approach to OA. Last, the guests underscore the publisher’s role in community engagement, highlighting the influence of the SDGs and programs like Social Science Matters and Campaign for the Humanities.
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The ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) include questions of privacy, safety, and authority. In fact, the ownership of medical data and safeguarding patients’ identities is only one part of the puzzle. Additional challenges like preventing biases from entering diagnosis or alerting patients to the use of AI—and receiving consent—are crucial hurdles to overcome with the adoption of AIM.
In this third episode, Dr. Niklas Lidströmer, co-editor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, tackles the complexities of ethics in AIM. He first discusses issues of safety and privacy when handling sensitive medical data, highlighting solutions like encryption, decentralized storage, and sharing algorithms rather than raw data. Next, Niklas addresses how bias and prejudice affect AIM, and the importance of recognizing how this can impact treatment. Last, he digs into transparency practices in AI decision-making, and the through line in data protection between AIM and librarianship.
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Publishers today are working to implement robust internal practices that center diversity, equity, and inclusion. Palgrave Macmillan—a publisher whose titles focus on issues of race, gender, disability, class, and more—is no different. What kind of DEI initiatives, projects, and training has the publisher introduced? How do they ensure that this work is outlined with intention and paid roles instead of left to volunteers? Why are editorial and company policies so essential to transforming a catalogue and authorship?
In this second episode, our guests dig into DEI policies and practices at Palgrave Macmillan. Felicity Plester, Editorial Director for Humanities, and Tamsine O’Riordan, Editorial Director for Social Science, both at Palgrave Macmillan, emphasize how internal policies translate into external changes through implicit bias training, acquisition workshops, and recruitment to expand representation in their author base and staff. The guests also discuss burnout due to COVID-19, and its effects on both researchers and editorial teams.
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Introducing Artificial Intelligence to the medical world has reaped advancements in symptom detection, diagnosis procedures, and patient autonomy. However, it has also sparked questions of security, privacy, and ownership. Who owns medical data? What governing body dictates that ownership? How do practitioners and stakeholders create standards for implementing AI into medicine?
In this second episode, Dr. Niklas Lidströmer, co-editor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, discusses the benefits and challenges of AI in medicine. First, Niklas digs into how AIM allows for a progressiveness that could leave non-AI inclusive doctors behind. He also touches on the process of creating standardized, global practices for medical data processing, the significance of empowering the patient with their own medical information, and how AIM could transform the doctor-patient relationship for the better.
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Scholarly publishing extends beyond disseminating research. Editorial and internal practices, community engagement, and spreading awareness for social issues all comprise a publisher’s mission and cultural influence. So how do publishers strike a balance between activism and critical research? Are those two goals really in opposition to each other? How can recognizing and responding to the current social climate and inequalities strengthen a publisher’s ultimate goal of advancing knowledge?
In this series, Felicity Plester, Editorial Director for Humanities, and Tamsine O’Riordan, Editorial Director for Social Science, both at Palgrave Macmillan, dig into how the publisher prioritizes social justice through publications and company initiatives. In particular, they share how the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) play a unique part in fostering interdisciplinary work and understanding the world around us. Further, Felicity and Tamsine discuss DEI policies at Palgrave Macmillan, the challenges of the peer review process, and the evolution of digital trends.
In this first episode, Felicity and Tamsine provide some background on their positions at Palgrave Macmillan and help situate HSS within the broader scholarly publishing ecosystem. In addition, they explore the role that publishers play in affecting change though research, innovation, and following or dictating trends. They also discuss Palgrave Macmillan’s merger with Springer Nature and how it has impacted workflows, output, and name recognition.
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Over a decade ago, specialist physician and researcher Dr. Niklas Lidströmer found electronic health records to be unorganized, error-prone, and underutilized. Convinced of the value in sifting through and connecting this medical data, Niklas tried to persuade stakeholders of the data’s efficacy, eventually leading to his work in artificial intelligence—a practical tool that could handle sorting through mass amounts of data. Since then, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) has grown worldwide as researchers and medical practitioners alike see the benefits of implementing AI not just into data organization, but tasks in patient diagnosis, medical imaging, and telemedicine.
In this four-part series, Niklas dives into the power of AI in medicine, giving us a closer look at how AIM has already shaped clinical practices and doctor-patient relationships. Further, Niklas unpacks the ethics of artificial intelligence in the medical fields, paying particular attention to data privacy and systematic biases.
In this first episode, Niklas introduces his research and the inspiration behind his co-edited title Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, one of the first reference works available on AIM. In addition, he provides an overview on how artificial intelligence is currently being used in medicine, and how AI can impact librarianship, such as in administrative support and citation use.
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Throughout this series, Deanna Reder, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University, has discussed her many contributions to the growing field of Indigenous Studies: her latest book, Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition, her time as Series Editor for the Indigenous Series at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, and her work for organizations like the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA), the Indigenous Editors Association, and the Indigenous Voices Awards.
In this final episode, Deanna looks forward, digging into the evolution of the discipline and next steps for the future. She describes the vitality and impact of the current generation of Indigenous authors, and plans to expand the archive of Indigenous writing, The People and the Text. Last, she closes with how far Indigenous Studies has come in the past decade, and, crucially, how far it still needs to go to better serve the scholarship, students, and Indigenous communities.
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Supporting an emerging field requires innovation, investment, and infrastructure. Leaders must focus on community-building and engagement to foster sustained interest and growth. Even further, transformation in the academy—only one part of the scholarly ecosystem—must reach beyond campus to the publishing and librarianship sectors.
In this third episode, Deanna Reder, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University and author of Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition, discusses initiatives that she has introduced and supported in the Indigenous Studies field. In the past decade, she has worked to build a community of scholars, widen the discipline’s scope, and cultivate a new generation of Indigenous editors in publishing. Deanna walks through the conception and evolution of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA), the professional development purpose of the Indigenous Editors Association, and publisher support for the Indigenous Voices Awards.
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For Deanna Reder, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University, the tradition of life writing extends beyond cataloging accomplishments or documenting memories. Sharing âcimisowina, or personal stories, demonstrates “the necessity of including your own experience, and through extension, your family’s experience” in the canon of Indigenous records. While traditions differ between nations, Deanna grew up with a wealth of autobiographical stories specific to her Cree-Métis family. How has this custom influenced her research? Where does Indigenous autobiography fit in the greater landscape of Indigenous Literary Studies?
In this second episode, Deanna discusses her background and dissertation that culminated in her recent book, Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina. Further, Deanna refutes the incorrect assumption that autobiography is an inherently Western tradition, when, in fact, life and family stories are an important intellectual inheritance in Indigenous communities. Last, Deanna digs into the inseparability of Indigenous language and literature, and the activism of younger Indigenous generations learning their languages to not only connect with their heritage, but to “have a stronger access to ancestral knowledge.”
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During her undergraduate years, Deanna Reder, Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University, struggled to find a wide range of scholarship on Indigenous literary works. However, by the time she returned for her PhD in the early 2000s, an explosion of Indigenous scholars had entered the academic scene. This expansion not only made way for Deanna’s dissertation on Indigenous autobiographical tradition, but also for the Department of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University and the broader development and shaping of Indigenous Literary Studies as a discipline.
In this four-part series, Deanna chats about her work in cultivating the Indigenous Studies field, both at Simon Fraser, and within Canadian scholarship. She also digs into the research for her recent book, Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina, and her time as Series Editor for the Indigenous Series at Wilfrid Laurier University Press (WLUP). We explore the importance of supporting Indigenous editors in publishing, the success of the Indigenous Voices Awards, and the impact of this latest generation of Indigenous authors.
In this first episode, Deanna offers background on her work in Indigenous literature, and her definition of Indigenous Literary Studies. In addition, she provides details on how she helped develop the Indigenous Studies curriculum at Simon Fraser, and her work in creating anthologies of foundational textbooks as Series Editor at WLUP.
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In this four-part series, we turned the spotlight on three innovative library solutions. First, Jamia Williams, Health Sciences Librarian at SUNY Brockport, dug into the development of LibVoices, an independent podcast that highlights the experiences and achievements of librarians of color. Next, we spoke to Lauren Puzier, User Experience Librarian at the University at Albany, who walked through the partnerships and brainstorming that made System Status Discovery—a dashboard of system updates to inform patrons of service interruptions—possible. Then, in our third episode, Darryl Stuhr, Director for Digitization and Digital Preservation Services at Baylor University, chatted about the serendipity and hard work that went into Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Preservation Project, which works to digitize and archive Black gospel music groups. Throughout the episodes, Martha Sedgwick, Vice President of Product Innovation at SAGE Publishing, added her unique perspective on how publishers can support library projects.
In this final episode, our guests come together to reflect on the evolution and outcomes of their library ventures. In particular, Lauren, Jamia, and Darryl offer key takeaways and guidance how to create new library innovations, in addition to thoughts on time management, burnout, and new opportunities that emerged because of their work. To close, Martha discusses the community approach of SAGE’s new division, Technology from SAGE, and how the publisher and its subsidiaries can build upon library partnerships to strengthen impact.
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This series has examined the recent transformation of academic librarianship, and how various stakeholders—vendors, librarians, and publishers—have adapted in response. Susanna Smith, Acquisitions Librarian at Georgia Highlands College, and Tracy Holtman, Associate Director of Access & Collection Services at Tarleton State University, handled the librarian perspective—collection strategies, pandemic ramifications, engagement metrics. Paige Clunie, Digital Partnerships Manager at Princeton University Press, walked through Princeton’s latest initiatives and support for libraries. Steven Rosato, General Manager at OverDrive Academic, discussed the trends he’s observed while serving a number of institutions in the past few years.
Now, in the final episode of this four-part series, our guests look ahead to future values, goals, and tactics. First, Susanna and Tracy share incoming workflows that will accommodate the changes they’ve experienced due to COVID-19, online learning, and the surge in digital. They also dig into plans for cost-saving solutions, viable investments, and alignment with institutional goals. Next, Paige discusses Princeton’s approach to open access, and how the Press is taking a closer look at backlist pricing and textbook categorization to aid libraries. Finally, Steven closes with how OverDrive hopes to empower librarians with tools that better serve patrons needs.
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Technology and librarianship go hand in hand. In fact, a strong relationship between an institution’s IT department and library can usher in innovative projects and patron-friendly solutions. At Baylor University, this interconnection allowed the library to bolster its digitization efforts, leading to new partnerships and opportunities. One such opportunity included the Black Gospel Music Preservation Project (BGMPP), which works to digitize—and therefore preserve—audio recordings of Black gospel music groups.
In this four-part series, three academic librarians join The Authority File to chat about innovations that help improve services, connect with the community, or put their library on the map. In this third episode, Darryl Stuhr, Director of Digitization and Digital Preservation Services at Baylor University, discusses the inception and development of Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Preservation Project. First, Darryl explains how an NPR Fresh Air interview, a generous donation, and the strong connection between Baylor’s libraries and IT helped get the project off the ground. He also digs into the library’s longstanding push toward digitization, and the recognition and archival opportunities that arose from BGMPP. Last, Martha Sedgwick, who heads up SAGE Publishing’s new division Technology from SAGE, chats about how SAGE’s Quartex platform and handwritten text recognition software—both developed by Adam Matthew—contribute to archival work.
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In today’s age, collection development must satisfy a number of demands. Whether keeping up with student use trends, serving institutional goals, or meeting budgetary restraints, librarians need more than one-size-fits-all options. Indeed, a flexibility and diversity of resources, content types, and access models allows librarians to pick and choose what works best for their institution. What are modern librarians’ collection development strategies or preferences? How can publishers and vendors support and accommodate challenging collection needs?
In this third episode, our guests chat about acquisition policies, access model preferences, and budget decisions. First, Susanna Smith, Acquisitions Librarian at Georgia Highlands College, and Tracy Holtman, Associate Director of Access & Collection Services at Tarleton State University, describe how COVID-19 has impacted their acquisition strategies and workflows—such as, buying textbooks, investing in Open Educational Resources (OER), and, of course, directing funds and energy toward digital content. In addition, Paige Clunie, Digital Partnerships Manager at Princeton University Press, discusses ongoing digitization efforts at Princeton and the balancing act of supporting scholarship and sustaining its publishing model. Finally, Steven Rosato, General Manager at OverDrive Academic, offers input on which lending models experience the highest demand and best serve library needs.
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In 2020, the pandemic precipitated widespread subscription cancelations and service interruptions at university libraries. For the University at Albany, it underscored the need to update its clunky and disjointed alert system. User Experience Librarian Lauren Puzier wanted to find an efficient, easy-to-use, and patron-friendly dashboard by factoring in user thought processes and search habits. Teaming up with discovery services, Lauren researched patron customs and other institution alert systems to find a straightforward and cost-saving solution—what did she and the team come up with?
In this four-part series, we’re highlighting academic library innovations that improve services, expand resources, or benefit the community. In this second episode, Lauren discusses System Status Discovery, a dashboard of system updates integrated into the library website. She digs into the development process, implementation, and measures of success—including the productive connections and technical benefits discovered along the way. In addition, Martha Sedgwick, who heads up SAGE Publishing’s new division Technology from SAGE, explains why this project won a SAGE Technology Award, proving that low-cost, seemingly small-scale solutions can have major operational benefits.
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The rise of digital is nothing new. Even pre-pandemic, online learning and e-content were rapidly growing in popularity and use in higher education. Students wanted more flexibility, accessibility, and content options—and digital delivered. But how has this call for digital impacted the greater academic librarianship ecosystem? What strategies have publishers, librarians, and vendors adopted to meet this demand? Further, how did COVID-19 accelerate the push toward digital products and services?
In this second episode, our guests examine the rise of digital and its effects on librarianship, vendor relationships, and publishing practices. In particular, Tracy Holtman, Associate Director of Access & Collection Services at Tarleton State University, and Susanna Smith, Acquisitions Librarian at Georgia Highlands College, highlight how library skills have changed to accommodate shifting needs. Further, they discuss engagement metrics that go beyond foot traffic—webpage usage, database searches, digital circulation, and more. In addition, Paige Clunie, Digital Partnerships Manager at Princeton University Press, chats about how Princeton has worked to modernize its partner strategies for digital content. Last, Steven Rosato, General Manager at OverDrive Academic, shares the trends he’s witnessed at OverDrive, including his thoughts on audio’s growth and the longevity of remote learning.
Academic librarianship demands innovation. Indeed, academic librarians must remain flexible and creative to keep up with the latest publishing trends, adjust to new mediums, and better serve the ever-changing needs of the modern patron. What initiatives have librarians introduced to better engage the community, connect with students, or advance institutional goals?
In this four-part series, we’re joined by three librarians: Jamia Williams, Health Sciences Librarian at SUNY Brockport, Lauren Puzier, User Experience Librarian at the University at Albany, and Darryl Stuhr, Director for Digitization and Digital Preservation Services at Baylor University. Each guest has introduced a fantastic initiative that falls within the broad scope of academic librarianship, therefore fulfilling a need and bettering their institution or community because of it. What new relationships, practices, or opportunities emerged in response to these projects? What guidance can they offer to help inspire others? In addition, Martha Sedgwick, Vice President of Product Innovation at SAGE Publishing who heads up their new division Technology from SAGE, shares her perspective on these exciting ventures, highlighting how publishers can aid in the evolution and success of such programs.
In this first episode, we focus on Jamia’s innovation, LibVoices, an independent podcast that spotlights the experiences, achievements, and advice of librarians of color. Jamia dives into the planning process, editorial scope, and lessons learned since its launch in March 2020, as well as its impact and measures of success. In addition, Martha offers her thoughts on the value of podcasts in academic librarianship, and SAGE’s recent investments in audio programming.
COVID-19 forever altered the academic library. Classes moved online. Quick fixes like mailing services or web chat emerged. Librarians poured their budgets into digital resources—ebooks, audio content, streaming video—and even began to invest in textbooks to alleviate student costs. Now, libraries face a strange intermediacy; we aren’t past the pandemic, but students have returned to campus, mask policies have lifted, and in-person services have resumed. In response, librarians must meet the task of choosing which “pandemic policies” to discard and which to keep. How will library spaces, access, and resources be redefined moving forward?
In this four-part series, our guests look ahead to future institutional and acquisition policies. We bring together divergent perspectives—academic librarians, a university press worker, and a vendor—to reflect on the current and forthcoming environment. First, we have Tracy Holtman, Associate Director of Access & Collection Services at Tarleton State University, and Susanna Smith, Acquisitions Librarian at Georgia Highlands College, who each provide the context around their libraries’ innovative and mobile decision-making. For the university press perspective, Paige Clunie, Digital Partnerships Manager at Princeton University Press, offers insight into how the rise in digital impacts publishing practices. Last, Steven Rosato, General Manager at OverDrive Academic, shares his observations on academic market trends in recent years.
In this first episode, each guest describes how their respective institutions adjusted to the pandemic. For Tracy, she reflects on the surprising (but not unwelcome!) rise in enrollment at Tarleton, stressing the library not as a physical space, but as a service. Susanna describes the challenges her library faced in serving multiple campuses, and their AIM initiative—asynchronous, interactive learning modules that faculty can direct students to for questions on citation practices and information literacy skills. Next, Paige walks through current initiatives at the Press to better serve librarians, including updated metadata, multiuser ebook pricing, and textbook availability. Last, Steven surfaces the flexibility publishers offered to libraries in response to the pandemic, spotlighting in particular the benefits of perpetual access.
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Human activity has undoubtedly impacted our planet’s systems. With deforestation, air pollution, and plastic waste, can we still call the natural sciences “natural”? Or have humans changed the planet so much that the “natural” and “human” worlds are now indistinguishable? Could seeing ourselves as part of the earth’s systems help bring more urgency to the climate crisis?
In the final episode of this four-part series, Bob Brinkmann, author of Practical Sustainability: A Guide to a More Sustainable Life, discusses the dynamic field of earth sciences. As humans continue to impact the “natural” world, the earth science disciplines must come together to study major issues like climate change and sustainability—not get bogged down by the silos or traditions of higher education. In addition, Bob digs into how librarians can assist in sustainability research through the available data in special collections and frequent communication with scholars. Last, he emphasizes the importance of measurable outcomes in the sustainability movement, along with becoming an advocate and evangelist for this kind of lifelong work.
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From metal straws to veganism, our choices impact the environment. But when large corporations make environmentally-damning decisions, or members of Congress prioritize lobbyist interests over their own constituents, it can feel like our choices don’t matter. How can we take back control in our own lives by building greener habits? Further, how does environmental racism and classism act as barriers toward making the world a more environmentally sustainable place?
In this third episode, Bob Brinkmann, author of Practical Sustainability: A Guide to a More Sustainable Life, speaks to individual environmental responsibility in the face of corporate lobbying power, greenwashing, and generational apathy. Bob chats about the process and effectiveness of his Thirty-Day Sustainability Challenge, and the importance of representing sustainability as a “no judgement zone.” Last, Bob surfaces the national and global issues of environmental racism, and how communities can enact greater change through municipal appointments and local economic investments.
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Translating highly technical, precise, or conceptual research for the layperson is not an easy endeavor. When tackling the topic of environmental sustainability—and its many political, social, and existential undertones—the task nears impossible. However, Robert Brinkmann, Professor of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois University, worked his way up to his latest title Practical Sustainability: A Guide to a More Sustainable Life through his environmentally-focused blog On the Brink. By writing to the everyday web-goer, Bob learned how to transform environmental studies research into practical, bite-sized knowledge and tools for everyone to learn from and employ.
In this second episode, Bob explains his thought process in scaling down massive environmental issues into global, national, and local efforts, in addition to outlining individual and collective actions. Further, he discusses how to strike a balance between holding environmentally destructive companies accountable while also taking personal responsibility in cultivating a greener life. Last, Bob digs into the metamodernism of sustainability, the harm of greenwashing, and how the sustainability field developed out of the 1960s environmental movement.
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After years writing in the academic space, Robert Brinkmann, Professor of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois University, wanted to share his research with the general public. Specifically, he wanted to provide guidance and personal challenges to those asking: How much impact can one person have on the planet? What changes can the individual make for a cleaner, greener life? So, along came Practical Sustainability, a guide on living sustainably in your own life and within or outside your community.
In this four-part series, Bob discusses breaking down the complexity of sustainable living, the pitfalls of greenwashing, and why sustainability should be treated as a “no judgement zone.” In addition, Bob tackles complicated issues like corporate lobbying power and how income and race are inextricably linked to environmental policies.
In this first episode, Bob traces his path from diamond exploration as a geologist to his current work in urban sustainability. He explains how the environmental studies field and curricula has changed to its current emphasis on interdisciplinary work and human impact on the planet. Further, not only has the field transformed, but the students have too—Bob remarks on how researchers today care deeply about enacting meaningful environmental policy and engaging with local communities. Finally, our guest dives into why urban centers have more advanced energy systems and sustainable environmental policies than rural and suburban areas.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, and Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian at Iowa State University, discuss where the burden lies in advancing open publishing—publishers need to innovate to fit institution needs, but libraries have to be intentional in their budget spending and actions. In addition, Emily shares Direct to Open’s future for the second half of 2022 and predictions on reaching the press’s goal of 100 percent support. Finally, Emily and Curtis reflect on the role consortia play in helping smaller institutions scale up, and why libraries need to look beyond cost-per-use metrics to gauge a collection’s value.
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In the final episode of this four-part series, Michelle Porter, author of Scratching River, explains how she incorporates Métis techniques, themes, and history into her writing. In particular, she talks of pulling from traditions of musical improvisation to develop her own unique writing structure, and finding the through line between her ancestry—the custom of travel, history of bison, folk-like storytelling—and the contemporary subjects of Scratching River. Last, Michelle discusses her complex relationship with bibliographies, and the importance of recognizing meaningful academic contributions that fall outside the scope of typical scholarly citations.
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When developing MIT Press’s library collective action model Direct to Open (D2O), the creators understood that a one-size-fits-all framework doesn’t work for university presses. Because of the breadth and diversity of the current publishing landscape, presses need open publishing options that they can mold to fit their own unique needs and circumstances. How can university presses use D2O as a jumping-off point to enact their own open publishing models? What are the market forces driving publishers to adopt open access policies in the first place?
In this third episode, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, and Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian at Iowa State University, talk logistics. They dive into the key factors concerning publishers when considering open models—the decline of print sales, desire to progress knowledge-sharing, lack of OA options in the humanities and social sciences. In addition, Emily and Curtis surface the challenges publishers face when adopting an OA model—operating costs, front- and backlist sizes—and the importance of introducing new, innovative solutions into the marketplace.
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When writing her memoir Scratching River, Michelle Porter balanced not only her own voice, but the added layer of family interviews and newspaper accounts. As Michelle notes, this story of her and her brother could be told in many different ways—in a journalistic fashion, following a linear storyline—but she chose to weave these narrative elements with her Métis ancestry, oral histories, and research. In other words, she decided to “tell it all crooked,” resulting in a mix of poetics, primary documents, and emotional weight.
In this third episode, Michelle discusses her writing style, a blend of poetry, research, and truth—creative nonfiction. She explains the value in fusing these techniques together, especially when the subject matter concerns emotional or traumatic events. Finally, Michelle digs into the narrative voice of Scratching River and the decision to use her 14-year-old self as a guide—and the difficult editing process once she let that past self go.
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Since MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) launched, 180 institutions (and counting!) have signed onto the library collective action model. Though based on a tiered structure—larger institutions pay a higher price and so on—the model has found more support and buy-in from larger libraries and consortia. What holds smaller institutions back from joining the project? Are there other major open access investment opportunities currently in the market? Overall, what is the institutional perspective when considering open models?
In this second episode, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, and Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian at Iowa State University, reveal the institutional perspective gleaned from the past year of D2O. They discuss the hurdles smaller institutions face when choosing to participate in open publishing, as well as the solutions that consortial relationships offer in return. Last, Emily and Curtis dig into the growing connection between scholarly communication and collections, and the possibilities libraries and publishers create through collaboration and mission alignment.
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Michelle Porter, author of Scratching River, didn’t set out to write about her family. In fact, the idea for the title began when her aunt recommended she read Vanishing Spaces, the memoirs of Métis ancestor Louis Goulet. Initially planning to research the past and present of the land where Goulet lived, his descriptions of travel reminded Michelle of her childhood days driving through Canada to visit her older brother. From there, Michelle wound together Métis themes, family interviews, and the natural world to tell the story of her brother and reconcile past trauma.
In this second episode, Michelle discusses the genesis and thematic elements of Scratching River. She talks about her brother—who is autistic and schizophrenic—and the abuse he experienced, as well as the importance of maintaining his agency throughout the story. In addition, Michelle digs into the themes of the title—family relationships, Métis ancestry, trauma—and the healing nature of writing.
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In March 2021, MIT Press launched the library collective action model Direct to Open (D2O). By granting participating institutions access to backlist titles, D2O encourages libraries to aid in the notoriously difficult practice of opening up monographs. Since last year’s launch, over 150 institutions have signed on; due to this support, MIT Press will publish its entire spring 2022 catalogue of monographs and edited collections open access.
This month, MIT Press returns to The Authority File a year post-launch to discuss the milestones and future of D2O. Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, offers an inside look at library feedback and market forces. Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian at Iowa State University, shares his perspective on the value of open models and the continuing confluence of scholarly communication and collection development in the higher education ecosystem.
In this first episode of the four-part series, Emily discusses the lessons learned through D2O’s partnerships with institutions. She also highlights the initial insights gleaned from the past year, summarized in the press’s recent white paper. In addition, Curtis expands on his role in MIT Press’s advisory board, and why the model proved an exciting and bold move in the current publishing landscape.
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Flexibility isn’t exactly a defining trait of academia. Though scholarship has grown to embrace new areas of research and interdisciplinary subjects, historically, academics have stayed within their disciplines and employed traditional forms of study and evaluation. But is there another way? What can be gained by adopting multifaceted forms of research that fall outside conventional norms?
Michelle Porter studies the role of bison for the Métis people—a First Nations group of mixed indigenous and European ancestry in modern-day Canada. Michelle employs “arts-based research,” which treats artistic pursuits—music, beadwork, oral histories, writing—as viable, robust areas of discovery. Through this method, Michelle looks at the Métis with a holistic lens, resulting in creative nonfiction works like her latest title Scratching River.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Michelle introduces herself, her research, and her family ancestry. She also traces how her scholarship has developed in tandem with her writing—her first book of poetry Inquiries, the biography on her great-grandfather Approaching Fire, Scratching River, and a forthcoming book of fiction. Last, Michelle explains why bison are so vital to the Métis, and the tension of practicing arts-based research in the academy.
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It’s no surprise that ebook usage has surged since the pandemic. While adapting to remote learning, many diehard print fans began to favor the accessibility and flexibility of e-content. However, this shift to digital resources in academia started far earlier than 2020. How have publishers encouraged this digital trend in the past decade? How does the move to e-resources coincide with the open access movement? What about monographs—a piece of the scholarly puzzle infamously slow to digitize and become open?
This month, ITHAKA celebrated the 10th anniversary of offering ebooks on JSTOR, a move that no doubt exposed researchers to the benefits of e-content. Since 2012, ITHAKA has worked to open its materials, developed a tiered model for smaller stakeholders to participate, and collaborated with librarians to enhance user experience. In this special episode, John Lenahan, ITHAKA Associate Vice President of Published Content, reflects on the launch and progress of the Books at JSTOR program. Through collaboration with library and publisher partners, Books at JSTOR worked to accommodate researcher needs by introducing DRM-free access for ebooks, creating chapter-level metadata, and increasing the discoverability of individual chapters. In addition to these topics, John also looks ahead, discussing the future of the program and how to maintain the sustainability of existing access models.
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Have you ever spotted someone reading in a park, coffee shop, or on public transport, and wondered about the story behind it? Who recommended the book? Are they enjoying it? What do the books we read say about our personality, interests, life? How can book trends reveal societal issues or values? In 2013, Uli Beutter Cohen found herself asking these same questions. Armed with a phone and curiosity, she created Subway Book Review, a social media project that documents the book picks of New York City railway-goers. In the eight years since its inception, SBR has expanded into multiple cities, hosted live events, and even opened a pop-up shop in Union Square Station. In 2021, Uli published Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground, a collection of SBR interviews that extend beyond its typical short-form format.
In this special episode, Uli stops by The Authority File to discuss SBR’s genesis and development. She dives into the cultural practice of reading and how it can act as an equalizing force. Remarking on the past decade of major political and social shifts, she shares her observations on how reading trends have reflected and adjusted to the times. Last, Uli speaks on the current rise in book banning, and offers a special shout-out to librarians and their all-important work.
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January 24th marked UNESCO’S International Day of Education, which champions education as a human right and key to sustainable development. Researchers in the field of educational ethics and academic integrity have worked to apply a similarly holistic view toward ethics in academia. In fact, as Dr.Sarah Elaine Eaton,Editor of Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts, notes: “We need to think about students as whole people, complete people, rather than only thinking about, ‘how do we catch the cheaters or punish misconduct?’” But with varying policies around the globe, how do academic integrity experts work to advance the subject beyond its punitive roots? How can countries connect and communicate to form effective governance that protects students and scholarship?
In the final episode of this series, Sarah offers an international perspective on the discipline. She discusses the drawbacks of handling issues locally or regionally, rather than employing uniform policies—for example, the lack of a consistent definition of plagiarism. Last, Sarah explains why libraries can function as a hub for academic integrity, and the lasting consequences of not educating young scholars on ethics during their academic careers.
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COVID-19 is a recent—and ongoing—challenge to educational ethics and academic integrity. Though not even two years into the pandemic, educational ethics researchers have already found signs of increased unethical behavior—not to mention, higher levels of anxiety among students. But obstacles in this field are nothing new. In the past two decades, the proliferation of unethical academic services, contract cheating companies’ growing schemes, and the impact of digital technologies have all tested the discipline. How have challenges in the subject evolved alongside the academic landscape? What’s unique about the issues of today?
In this third episode of the series, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, Series Editor of Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts, reveals current challenges in the world of educational ethics. She dives into the sophistication of global contract cheating enterprises, as well as worrying trends of extortion and targeting younger students. Sarah also discusses the effects COVID-19 has had on integrity issues, and the potential for new, more flexible means of assessment in an online learning environment.
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Higher education has undergone many changes in the past decade—even in the last year. Indeed, new technologies and the surge in online learning has forced the field of educational ethics and academic integrity to adapt its principles to fit the changing needs of students, faculty, and administrators. So, how has the discipline evolved in its aim to remain modern and relevant? How have academic, technological, and social advances influenced the subject? What have been the major disruptions—and responses?
In this second episode, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, Series Editor of Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts, explains how educational ethics and academic integrity has sought to embrace non-student areas of research, as well as incorporate equity, diversity, and inclusion principles into reporting and policy recommendations. She also delves into how new technology has disrupted standard ethical practices; text-matching or exam proctoring software aren’t the silver bullets many hope them to be. Last, Sarah offers an example of how involving educational ethics experts in administrative decisions can help protect students—and demonstrate the complexities of addressing student needs, integrity concerns, and modern technical “solutions.”
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On college campuses, the responsibility of learning and applying academic ethics and integrity standards tends to fall upon the students. Young scholars are expected to understand how toevade contract cheating scams or navigate the line between plagiarism and proper citation. Even if faculty and librarians take the time to teach students the dos and don’ts of educational ethics and academic integrity, curriculum can still fall short. In today’s digital age, how can educators protect students from predatory services? How has COVID-19 and the rise of online learning complicated the ethical academic environment? What do educational ethics and integrity theories look like in practice?
This month, Dr.Sarah Elaine Eaton, Series Editor of Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Educational Integrity, joins the Authority File to discuss the history and current issues of educational ethics and integrity. Sarah spotlights pressing topics like emergency remote teaching, artificial intelligence, and integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into the discipline. Critically, she explains the impact of new technologies on the subject, and how, despite the advantages, they cannot be used to solve the human problem of ethics.
In this first episode, Sarah introduces us to the field by highlighting significant values, scholars, and its development around the globe. She also discusses its interdisciplinary nature—academic dishonesty can form anywhere, from an English Lit essay to a biology test or coding project—and therefore, its widespread and far-reaching audience.
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As the traditional field of music education moved to embrace community music—and therefore, new music styles—certain hurdles emerged. Professors teaching Beethoven fretted over techno beats thumping across the hall. Traditionalists balked at holding rock instruments to the same standard as woodwinds or strings. However, with time, a more fluid, contemporary, and accessible form of music education has entered the academy.
But community music—which prioritizes music’s impact on the musician and community over a dedication to form—centers activist principles and social justice ideals. How does this discipline function within the institution of higher education? Can a subject guided by grassroots values thrive within the establishment? What is gained—and what is lost?
In this final episode of the series, Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the forthcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, wrestle with the complications of bringing an activist-led discipline inside the institution of higher education. They discuss the difficulty of applying metrics used to evaluate classical compositions to different types of music—and the potential to create new assessments that widen the music education lane. To close, they dig into how community music’s principles welcome intersectionality and accessibility, while also reflecting on possible areas for improvement.
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We often think about the consequences of the climate crisis as relentless wildfires, catastrophic floods, or devastating tornadoes. But climate change causes more than natural disasters; water quality, air quality, and overall public health are impacted as well. As humans continue to encroach on wild ecological spaces, viruses once contained within the animal world cross over into ours—e.g., Ebola, Zika, and, of course, COVID-19. Why does public policy need to recognize all of the effects of climate change? How can the global community work together to better protect the environment, and therefore, ourselves?
In this final episode of the series, Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, discusses the intersection between our artificial world and public health. He also digs into necessary future policies of the Anthropocene Era and key takeaways from 2021’s United Nations Climate Change Conference.
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While traditional music education prioritizes the music—namely, centuries-old classical compositions—community music seeks to understand the impact of music-making on both the musician and listener. Because of this shift in approach, activist intentions emerge. Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, explains, “If we start looking at music as being the musician that we’re privileging rather than the artifact of music, then we automatically start to see human conditions.” But how exactly does community music tie into activism in its intent to serve the musician? Which scholars or organizers do community music educators look to for guidance and direction?What current movements demand their attention?
In this third episode, Lee examines community music’s inherent ties to activism and social justice. Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join Lee to discuss the ongoing effort to center and support the work of scholars or activists of color within the largely white institution of higher education. Our guests also highlight programs or resources led by Black organizers that fight for social, economic, and racial equity, particularly in the realm of the prison abolition movement.
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We live in a globalized world. The clothes we buy, the food we eat, and the beliefs we hold have consequences on the other side of the planet. In fact, these activities—and many more—impact our climate on a global scale. And paradoxically, not only does our consumption cause problems, but so do our solutions, whether by halting the use of fossil fuels or designing massive geoengineering projects. As Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, notes, “Increasingly we are living in an artificial world…the decisions we make about which technologies to deploy, how and where, have got all sorts of potential dangers…That’s no longer something we can ignore and it’s part of living in the Anthropocene.”
In this third episode, Simon discusses globalization, geoengineering, and geopolitics. He explains the potential risks of geoengineering solutions like nuclear power and offers context around security and climate change. He touches on the US military’s connection to the climate crisis, and the duality of America as a global climate protector and one of the worst offenders. Last, Simon discusses how the unequal effects of climate change will continue to impact geopolitics as the oceans rise and people are forced to migrate.
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Music-making in prisons is not a new concept. For decades, cases like prison wardens implementing choral singing programs or music education students providing classes to the incarcerated have demonstrated the positive effects of “musicking” in the carceral state. But beyond the individual, familial, and wellness benefits for the incarcerated, Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the forthcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, hope that music can aid in tearing down unjust prison systems. As Mary notes, “Music-making has so many unique elements that provide an opportunity for personal reflection, for communal connections, and then ideally—and this is what we hope will happen more as these programs continue to develop—is abolishing the harmful aspects of prisons.”
In this second episode of our series on community music, Mary and Stuart share the thesis and background ofMusic-Making in U. S. Prisons. They also offer a historical perspective on the subject, highlighting the impact of music-making on the incarcerated. Next, Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, discusses the section of his book that delves into examples of music-making in the carceral state. To close, we hear a clip of “The Person I See” written by Richard Winemiller and performed by the Oakdale Community Choir.
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Since the start of industrialization, the Earth has undergone many changes. Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has spiked. New sediments of carbon-rich deposits (plastic) pollute our shores.Tunnels and mines have made “geological phenomena look like Swiss cheese.” If a geologist 10,000 years in the future looked back on this period of human existence, what would they think? Would the amount of human-made effects on the Earth call for a new geological age?
In this second episode,Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, digs into the debate around the our current geological age: the Anthropocene period. He explains the complications of using geology—a practice that looks to the past—to designate the present circumstances, and the urgency to define this period in the first place. Last, Simon discusses the importance of “planetary boundaries,” and why we need to obey them if we want to continue living on a habitable planet.
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Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?
In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?
In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
When we think of climate change, issues of borders and security usually aren’t the first concerns to come to mind. However, as Simon Dalby explains in his book, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, to achieve a sustainable future we need to understand that climate change knows no political boundaries. In fact, preventing the devastating effects of climate change will require rewriting geopolitical policies to abide the limits of planetary harm.
In this four-part series, Simon joins the program to define terms like the Anthropocene period, planetary boundaries, and environmental insecurity. Within the context of our globalized world, he unpacks how climate change will continue to play a significant role in our understanding of political, economic, social, and public health security. He also looks ahead to the future, tackling what needs to change in order to protect our planet—and ourselves.
In this first episode, Simon discusses the origins of Anthropocene Geopolitics and how it intertwined with the Borders in Globalization project. In addition, he highlights his background in geography and how the surprisingly interdisciplinary field better prepared him for his research.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
The abundance of materials at students’ fingertips. The pitfalls of the keyword search. The lack of serendipity in online databases. Thanks to digitization and text recognition developments, these factors now affect modern-day primary source research practices. What new technologies aid—or hinder—young scholars’ primary source research? How can educators and publishers help build digital literacy skills in addition to primary source access?
In this final episode, Dr. Rebecca Crites of Warwick University and Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew Digital dig into digitization’s impact on primary source research, digital literacy, and accessibility. Our guests discuss how primary source use has changed since their time at university, and delve into the complications of abundance and serendipity on primary source platforms. Finally, Felix closes with the latest and upcoming digital tools available on Adam Matthew Digital.
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When writing DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono, Nduka had to consider more than poetic devices, rhyme scheme, or syntax. Born in Nigeria and currently teaching in Ottawa, Ontario, Nduka had to wrestle with what language to write in—his native Ìgbò, English, or a mixture of both? These questions interrogated in the collection reflect a larger inquiry: What are the social and political implications of language use? As Nduka notes, “Language is politics. The moment we enter the realm of language, we have entered the realm of cultural politics.”
In this final episode, Nduka and Peter Midgley, editor of DisPlace, reflect on the politics of language. They highlight language’s ties to identity, the potential for English to absorb new languages, and how these topics relate to Nduka’s poetry. Nduka also reads two poems from DisPlace, “Today, Time Is the Eyeglass I Wear” and “A Chain of Requiems.” Our guests discuss the poems’ backgrounds and connections to major themes in the collection, like the presence of the spiritual realm, non-linear perceptions of time, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Adam Matthew’s Research Methods Primary Sources aims to provide tools, resources, and best practices that will strengthen students’ primary source literacy skills. By combining case studies, videos, essays, and practical guides by professionals, the online platform offers a space for students to practice independent primary source research. As case study contributor Dr. Rebecca Crites notes, “This platform really gives [students] the confidence that they are engaging in a sound research process from the beginning.”
In this third episode, our guests discuss the goals, tools, and uses of Research Methods Primary Sources. Becky walks through the case studies she’s contributed, as well as the benefits of the platform’s guided tours and demonstrations for her students. Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew Digital explains what the contributors bring to the platform—understanding how an academic or archivist processes a material teaches young researchers invaluable skills for their own research.
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What does “displace” mean to you? For Nduka Otiono, author of DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono, the English meaning of the word elicits feelings of in-betweenness, migration, and a complex relationship with home. The pidgin words “dis” and “place” connect to Nduka’s Nigerian homeland and broader pan-African themes. When spliced, “dis-place” plays with the tension between languages, a concept wrestled with throughout the volume. In short, DisPlace means quite a lot.
In this third episode, Nduka and Peter Midgley, editor of DisPlace, discuss the inspiration and meaning behind the collection’s title. Peter comments on its conversational tone, and explains how it foreshadows the philosophical, metaphysical, and political questions in the text. Nduka also examines how the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced his writing; faced with death and stasis allowed for greater introspection, and eventually, catharsis.
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Primary sources can rarely be taken at face value. For Dr. Rebecca Crites, understanding and unpacking the bias, context, and power structures in newspapers, letters, police blotters, and more is essential to her research on violence and abuse. However, if approached with the right tools and understanding, primary sources can offer insight into both the creator and the subject of a source. As Becky states, “Primary sources can actually have this really radical function to challenge the historical record so far, or collective memories that reify and reproduce those unequal power structures.”
In this second episode, Becky breaks down the challenges of using primary sources in her area of research. She discusses the lack of preserved materials from the silenced and oppressed, and explains the importance of recognizing the power dynamics embedded into our historical narratives. Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew joins the conversation to reflect on how primary source use has changed over time, and why librarians offer essential custodianship and guidance for primary source research.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Primary sources can rarely be taken at face value. For Dr. Rebecca Crites, understanding and unpacking the bias, context, and power structures in newspapers, letters, police blotters, and more is essential to her research on violence and abuse. However, if approached with the right tools and understanding, primary sources can offer insight into both the creator and the subject of a source. As Becky states, “Primary sources can actually have this really radical function to challenge the historical record so far, or collective memories that reify and reproduce those unequal power structures.”
In this second episode, Becky breaks down the challenges of using primary sources in her area of research. She discusses the lack of preserved materials from the silenced and oppressed, and explains the importance of recognizing the power dynamics embedded into our historical narratives. Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew joins the conversation to reflect on how primary source use has changed over time, and why librarians offer essential custodianship and guidance for primary source research.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
What differentiates literature from world literature? How do western conceptions of literary works categorize or diminish contributions from those outside the West? In today’s age of connectivity, migration, and growing diasporas, is there really a need for this distinction? Was there ever?
While constructing DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono, author Nduka and editor Peter Midgley wrestled with these questions among other conventions of global literature. Confronting concepts like the decolonization of knowledge and conflicting cultural approaches to spirituality, Nduka and Peter hoped DisPlace could complicate theories of language, world citizenship, and modern poetry.
In this second episode, Nduka describes how his Nigerian roots and background in oral poetry shape the narratives and sequence of his writing. He also grapples with the complexity of choosing between a colonial and indigenous language and balancing multiple cultural contexts in his poetry. Peter explains his wariness of terms like “world literature,” “global south,” and “third world country,” and the importance of overturning long-held notions of what defines the literary canon.
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Primary source research no longer requires pulling scrolls from basement-stored archives. Thanks to modern database technology, students can easily access and interact with digital primary sources throughout their academic careers. But access doesn’t necessarily equate to expertise. What literacy skills do primary sources demand? How can librarians and faculty teach these skills with the aid of primary source databases and tools?
In this four-part series, our guests discuss today’s use of primary sources amidst technology like digitization, keyword search, and handwritten text recognition. Dr. Rebecca Crites, a research fellow at the University of Warwick, walks through how to incorporate primary sources into curricula and teach students to effectively use the materials. Felix Barnes, an editor at Adam Matthew Digital, explains how the publisher supports primary source literacy through new technology and its online learning tool Research Methods Primary Sources.
In this first episode, Becky defines primary source literacy and the skills needed to evaluate the diverse forms primary sources can take. Felix digs into Adam Matthew’s process of sourcing materials, and how its platforms guide students through their engagement with a resource. Finally, Becky offers a primer on using primary sources in the classroom. Practice, context, and inquiry are key—not simply asking if a material is useful. “I encourage students not to ask whether a source is useful—and this is quite common among first year undergraduates—because every source is useful to a researcher if they ask the right questions.”
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For Nduka Otiono, associate professor of African Studies and English at Carleton University, and Peter Midgley, an independent scholar and editor, their friendship was inevitable. Meeting at the University of Alberta, they crossed paths within a community of writers and quickly bonded over a shared interest in oral and African literature. Over the years, Peter unofficially lent his red pen to Nduka’s work before, finally, Wilfrid Laurier University Press asked Peter to edit Nduka’s recent book of poetry, DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono.
In this four-part series, Nduka and Peter discuss the making of DisPlace, a text that explores the confines of diaspora, language, and politics. They reflect on imperfect terms like “world literature” and “global south” and wrestle with language’s inherent ties to identity. As Peter notes, “our literature’s not divorced from the societies we live in.”
In this first episode, Nduka and Peter offer background on their research interests and how they came together to collaborate on DisPlace. They also flesh out the writing and editing process of the collection, and dig into the complications of applying a western lens to non-western poetry.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Open repositories. The proliferation of preprints. Real-time engagement between non-academics and researchers. For many, these elements represent the positives of open science, all of which gained prevalence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But can these temporary changes become permanent? What is the future of open research?
In the final episode of this four-part series, Caroline Nevison and Dr. Ritu Dhand, both of Springer Nature, discuss the prospective landscape of open science. First, Caroline reveals how Springer Nature supports libraries post-transformative agreement. She details the provided workflows and analytics that allow institutions to track the benefits of open access publishing for its authors, faculty, and administration.
Ritu underscores how COVID-19 has shaped the open science environment. Looking ahead, she details what the open movement needs—from government agencies, publishers, and researchers—to sustain its momentum, and its advantages to the scholarly community and society at large.
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A publisher is only as good as its partnerships—especially in the age of open access (OA). But beyond library-publisher agreements or OA consortium goals, how can publishers advance the scholarly ecosystem toward more widely accessible OA publishing paths? What are the benefits of treating open science as a collaborative goal instead of an independent, siloed mission statement?
In this third episode, Caroline Nevison and Dr. Ritu Dhand, both of Springer Nature, join the program to discuss the publisher’s recent partnerships in support of open science. Ritu digs into an ongoing open access trial with authors to reduce article processing charges (APCs). Caroline highlights a case study with The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), which looks at how to maximize open research’s societal impact through alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Last, our guests touch on the importance of pricing transparency. By pulling back the curtain behind every APC—peer review, copyediting, design, legal services—publishers can reveal the work that open access advocates may perhaps overlook.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
A publisher is only as good as its partnerships—especially in the age of open access (OA). But beyond library-publisher agreements or OA consortium goals, how can publishers advance the scholarly ecosystem toward more widely accessible OA publishing paths? What are the benefits of treating open science as a collaborative goal instead of an independent, siloed mission statement?
In this third episode, Caroline Nevison and Dr. Ritu Dhand, both of Springer Nature, join the program to discuss the publisher’s recent partnerships in support of open science. Ritu digs into an ongoing open access trial with authors to reduce article processing charges (APCs). Caroline highlights a case study with The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), which looks at how to maximize open research’s societal impact through alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Last, our guests touch on the importance of pricing transparency. By pulling back the curtain behind every APC—peer review, copyediting, design, legal services—publishers can reveal the work that open access advocates may perhaps overlook.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
A transition point on the way to a fully open access model, transformative agreements allow institutions to retain traditional subscriptions with publishers, while also permitting researchers to publish in open or hybrid journals. Middle ground, compromise, the best of both worlds, right? But as transformative deals grow more popular, some in the scholarly publishing world question their legitimacy as true path to OA publishing. Do transformative agreements help or hurt organizations’ transition to open science?
In this second episode, Caroline Nevison and Dr. Ritu Dhand, both of Springer Nature, discuss the drivers, benefits, and challenges of transformative agreements. Caroline speaks to the lack of uniformity in open access policies between countries, and even regions, therefore highlighting the advantages of hybrid journals’ flexibility. She also touches on the particular obstacles smaller publishers face, like a lack of funding or infrastructure needed to scale up to open publishing. Ritu underscores the positives of TAs for authors, and describes how Springer Nature can ease the transition to OA by providing easy-to-use workflows and guidance.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Open access (OA)—initiatives that push for free, publicly-available research—has faced an uphill battle. But despite OA’s initial lack of funding and government support, authors, organizations, and publishers have now begun to adopt open policies around the globe. Looking ahead, where will open access go from here? More specifically, how can publishers ease the transition to open science?
In this four-part series, our two guests from Springer Nature offer the publisher perspective on the path toward open science. Caroline Nevison, Director of Commercial Transition OA, and Dr. Ritu Dhand, Vice President Editorial Nature Journals, dig into the drivers behind transformative agreements, the coexistence of open and subscriber-based content, and open science’s potential impact in and outside the scholarly community. Ritu and Caroline share perspectives from both an editorial and marketing viewpoint, tracing Springer Nature’s adoption of open science practices and its broader implications on the marketplace.
In this first episode, Ritu walks through her five pillars of open science and highlights Springer Nature initiatives that embrace those principles. Caroline discusses how OA models have evolved in recent years and underscores the effects of hybrid policies on library-publisher partnerships.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Open access (OA)—initiatives that push for free, publicly-available research—has faced an uphill battle. But despite OA’s initial lack of funding and government support, authors, organizations, and publishers have now begun to adopt open policies around the globe. Looking ahead, where will open access go from here? More specifically, how can publishers ease the transition to open science?
In this four-part series, our two guests from Springer Nature offer the publisher perspective on the path toward open science. Caroline Nevison, Director of Commercial Transition OA, and Dr. Ritu Dhand, Vice President Editorial Nature Journals, dig into the drivers behind transformative agreements, the coexistence of open and subscriber-based content, and open science’s potential impact in and outside the scholarly community. Ritu and Caroline share perspectives from both an editorial and marketing viewpoint, tracing Springer Nature’s adoption of open science practices and its broader implications on the marketplace.
In this first episode, Ritu walks through her five pillars of open science and highlights Springer Nature initiatives that embrace those principles. Caroline discusses how OA models have evolved in recent years and underscores the effects of hybrid policies on library-publisher partnerships.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Throughout the pandemic, what once was considered optional in higher education—asynchronous learning, accessible features, electronic resources—has now become the norm. At work and in the classroom, many have embraced new methods of communication with welcome results. But does everyone experience these changes equally? Are online classes an asset or a roadblock in connecting with students? Why did it take a global pandemic to provide these options in the first place?
In this final episode, our guests look at the impact disparity of new policies and mandates since the pandemic’s beginning. Cynthia Clark of Bentley University bemoans the digital divide and varying levels of digital readiness, each contributing to the other’s negative effects. Gwendolyn Combs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln discusses how underlying inequities existed long before COVID exacerbated them; she unpacks her disappointment with technology access being the flashpoint that spurred action to address these societal problems. Finally, Rhonda Sharpe of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race and Hari Rajagopalan of Francis Marion University highlight the benefits of the virtual environment, such as the use of chat, ease of online meetings, and faculty’s increased approachability off campus.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
As the pandemic exacerbated inequities in housing, technology access, health care, and more, higher education faced a reckoning of its own. In today’s virtual learning and work environments, many called for a reevaluation of the academy’s purpose. What do students receive from their postsecondary education? More specifically, should universities teach students how to learn, or how to get a job?
In this third episode, our guests take a hard look at modern higher education. Hari Rajagopalan of Francis Marion University tackles the debate between a skills-based, career-ready pedagogy or an interdisciplinary, critical thinking curriculum. Cynthia Clark of Bentley University touches on the need for professors to establish a learning environment that encourages independent thought, research, and questioning. Next, Gwendolyn Combs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln discusses higher ed’s response to—and the effects of—employers’ demand for workforce-ready graduates. Finally, Rhonda Sharpe of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race highlights parents’ perspectives and expectations of college degrees, which often include deliverables that can influence curricula in the classroom.
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In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s widespread Black Lives Matter protests, a slew of organizations released statements that promised new initiatives to address inequities within the workplace. Many announced new chief diversity officers, established DEI departments, or pledged to examine and report on hiring practices. But what’s the difference between effective transformation and window dressing? How do organizations make sure positive changes aren’t temporary?
In this second episode, our guests discuss how to sustain positive initiatives in the workplace introduced in response to the ongoing pandemic and global social movements. Hari Rajagopalan of Francis Marion University and Gwendolyn Combs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln touch on the importance of top-level support and widespread adoption throughout an institution. Cynthia Clark of Bentley University highlights the need for DEI initiatives to receive substantive financial investment from employers. Last, Rhonda Sharpe of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race speaks to the importance of defining DEI—what one organization means by diversity, equity, and inclusion can mean something entirely different at another.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
Starting in March 2020, widespread changes to work life prompted declarations of a “new normal.” The implementation of remote work, reliance on video conferencing, and shift in balance between home and work life appeared to signal a “transformed workplace.” But will these adaptions remain permanent? A year and a half later, have our work lives really transformed, or are we headed toward a pre-pandemic “normal” instead?
In this series, Cynthia Clark of Bentley University, Gwendolyn Combs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Hari Rajagopalan of Francis Marion University, and Rhonda Sharpe of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race join the program to discuss the trap of the “transformed workplace” narrative. Bringing together expertise in business, higher education, and diversity, equity, and inclusion, our guests drill down into positive changes that may remain post-pandemic, unequal effects of work environment adjustments, and how to support students entering today’s workforce.
In this first episode, our speakers highlight the differences between the temporary shifts we’ve seen and substantial, long-lasting transformation within organizations. First, Rhonda explains the disparate impacts of COVID-19 on high- and low-wage workers. Hari reasons that the longevity of proposed work changes will depend on location, context, and access to technology. Last, Cynthia and Gwendolyn speak to how the pandemic hastened developments that were long in the works—automation, artificial intelligence, and carbon footprint reduction, to name a few.
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We’ve launched satellites into orbit. Sent a rover to Mars. Landed on the moon. What’s next for the space industry? Which near-term goals are possible in this decade? Well, organizations will first need to address the accumulating mass of debris congesting the near-Earth space environment. Also known as space junk, these thousands of pieces of abandoned satellites and rockets pose serious risks. As Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, notes, “If you cannot clean the orbit, you will not be able to have human space flight.”
In the final episode of this series, Stella discusses what’s next in space technology. She digs into the ever-growing problem of orbital debris, its potential threats to the market, and the business opportunities it creates for cleanup and removal companies. Last, Stella offers some advice for universities on how to prepare students for diverse career and research opportunities in the space industry.
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How has space exploration’s shift from a government-dominated industry to an increasingly privatized environment influenced the market? Are the major players still in the US and Russia? Which investments attract the most competition and innovation?
In this third episode, Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, walks through today’s space market. She explains how China’s rising power in space technology has disrupted the business, and why companies have turned their sights (and dollars) to lunar exploration. Plus, Stella highlights her recent webinar on the lunar economy and predicts how countries will address governmental borders while inhabiting the moon.
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!
In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets, has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making enterprise. So how did billionaires become today’s astronauts? How has space travel evolved into a competitive, profit-seeking business? How did we get here—and where are we headed?
In this second episode, Stella describes how we arrived at the current space economy. She breaks down the growth of public-private partnerships, the decline of subcontractors, and promising subsections of the market like space debris clean-up and lunar mining. Plus, Stella explains why viable and self-sustaining space tourism may be farther off into the future than we think—“the problem is that only one accident might completely destroy this market.”
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On July 20th, 2021, Blue Origin—the aerospace company founded by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos—launched a space flight with four passengers, including the founder himself. This 10-minute flight to the borders of outer space sparked new discussions surrounding commercial investments in the space economy. How has space exploration evolved from a government-sanctioned space race to an industry rife with privately-funded business ventures?
Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry, joins us for this four-part series to characterize today’s space market. Who are the major players? Which sectors of the space economy prove to be the most sustainable—and lucrative? Is space tourism a viable, profitable opportunity for billionaires, or just a publicity stunt?
In this first episode, Stella introduces us to the commercialization of the space industry. She digs into the rapid progression of private investments in the field, as well as her predictions for advancements in space debris cleanup, solar-powered satellites, and lunar exploration. Stella also chats about her two books on the subject, 2018’s Emerging Space Markets, and a forthcoming title, which will dig into the impact of disruptions in the market due to new space technologies.
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Emailing a former professor about research breakthroughs. Downloading copyrighted papers off the internet. Sharing login credentials. Aren’t these all harmless characteristics of academia? Everyday tricks of the scholarly trade? Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at Kroll, warns that seemingly harmless actions or good intentions may lead to serious consequences—can the push toward academic freedom end up endangering our information in the process?
In this final episode, Alan discusses hackers’ exploitation of free-flowing information. He tackles the issue of Sci-Hub—the controversial website that shares pirated research—and the importance of respecting patents, copyright protection, and trade secrets. Alan also reveals his perspective on emerging threats in cybersecurity, and why cyber risk preparation at a university is so essential in today’s information age. “There is no such thing as 100 percent protection … What we need is a pre-planned incident response program … so that when it happens—and I think the only rational position today is don’t think in terms of if, think in terms of when it happens—you’re going to know what to do.”
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Simon Rolston, in his new book Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System, separated the history of American prisons into two categories: the “rehabilitative” Treatment Era of the mid-1940s to mid-1970s, and the contemporary state of mass incarceration. Though the conversion narrative has remained constant throughout these two periods, prison life writers’ critiques of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy have shifted. What subtle and not-so-subtle changes have taken place? How have past and current calls for prison reform and abolition affected prison life writing?
In this final episode, Simon touches on the differences between traditions of prison life writers from the 1960s and 70s compared to those of today. He highlights the stories of Jimmy Santiago Baca, Shaka Senghor, and the intriguing paradox of Susan Burton’s conversion narrative, which mirrors the transformative journey of an Alcoholics Anonymous member.
Simon also underscores the need for the support of those outside the prison system—from protesting the prison industrial complex to helping the incarcerated rebuild their lives and connections. Finally, he shares his hopes for the future of prison life writing; namely, that it will no longer exist. “I’d love to be able to say in 20 or 30 years we’re no longer going to have a tradition of prison life writing. We’ll have a tradition of people who are treated fairly within a criminal justice system.”
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“They try to put guilt on you. They try to make you think it’s your professional responsibility to help them. But the key is: security procedures only work if we use them consistently, and if we’re trained to know that bad actors are going to play on those emotions.” Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at Kroll, understands the ploys hackers use during a cyberattack—and the training needed to combat them. What kind of preparation yields the best security against the growing risk of organized, sophisticated cyberthreats? What’s the librarian’s role in contributing to this cyber-safe campaign?
In this third episode, Alan listens to a clip from a recent Choice webinar on cyberattacks, reviewing what went right and lessons learned. Alan also walks through the various tricks hackers can pull—dropping in personnel names, making requests appear incredibly urgent—to persuade staff to abandon protocol and grant access. Last, he shares guidance on what both librarians and administrators can do to enforce unified, collective cybersecurity across campus.
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“As an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated person, you don’t have a lot of room to move. You don’t have a lot of choice in terms of narratives that are available to you.” Simon Rolston, author of Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System, found a pattern in prison life writing. Of the many books he read by incarcerated authors, the vast majority followed a conversion narrative—you enter prison a certain type of person, and emerge as another. But what about the stories that don’t follow that pattern? What can they tell us about the narratives we choose to publish—and those we leave behind?
In this third episode, Simon discusses the limits of the conversion narrative, and how its complexities reflect on the genre and system of incarceration. He digs into James Carr’s autobiography Bad, which utilizes both African American folk storytelling traditions and prison storytelling customs to tell his violent, hyper-sexualized, and controversial story. Simon also explains how the history of the US prison system’s treatment of incarcerated women—a focus on the return to the “domestic sphere” and curbing supposed promiscuity—continues to influence female prison life writing.
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In recent years, universities have become target-rich environments for cyberattacks. But why? What do hackers want from academic institutions? According to Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at Kroll, information. Because of universities’ breadth of non-public data and extensive interconnectivity across campus and state networks, institutions have become a hot bed of cybercrime. “Once you understand the scope of the risk, you have to start asking the question: Are we matching our preventive and detective tools to that risk? And if we’re not, why not, and what are we going to do about it?”
In this second episode, Alan digs into why proactive measures—rather than reactionary—can help mitigate cyber risk. He explains the threats in and outside of an institution, what a “zero-day attack” is, and why zero-day risks require such immediate alarm and action. Plus, Alan shares his advice on how librarians can prepare for and fend off these attacks—don’t delay updating your software!
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In recent years, universities have become target-rich environments for cyberattacks. But why? What do hackers want from academic institutions? According to Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at Kroll, information. Because of universities’ breadth of non-public data and extensive interconnectivity across campus and state networks, institutions have become a hot bed of cybercrime. “Once you understand the scope of the risk, you have to start asking the question: Are we matching our preventive and detective tools to that risk? And if we’re not, why not, and what are we going to do about it?”
In this second episode, Alan digs into why proactive measures—rather than reactionary—can help mitigate cyber risk. He explains the threats in and outside of an institution, what a “zero-day attack” is, and why zero-day risks require such immediate alarm and action. Plus, Alan shares his advice on how librarians can prepare for and fend off these attacks—don’t delay updating your software!
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When researching for his new book, Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System, Simon Rolston found an intriguing pattern: conversion. If entering the prison system as apolitical, uneducated, or violent, incarcerated writers would craft their stories to emerge as a revolutionary, poet, or believer. So why the need for conversion? How does this pattern work in conversation with the American prison system’s own narrative of rehabilitation? As Simon asks, “If they’re following the same process, what’s the ideological work that’s happening there?”
In this second episode, Simon teases out how the prison system’s transformative narrative relates to incarcerated writers’ own tales of conversion. Simon also details Malcolm X’s well-known transformation, explaining how he flipped the prison’s educative tools to understand himself not as a criminal, but a victim of oppression. Last, Simon digs into how incarcerated writers use the conversion narrative to shape their image in society, highlighting the story of Shaka Senghor in the process.
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What steps do you take to safeguard your digital information? Maybe you change your passwords every other month. Turn on two-factor authentication. Keep your Netflix log-in under lock and key. But what about at your workplace? How does your campus protect its information, and what role do you play in successful cybersecurity implementation?
Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice of Kroll, believes that cyberattack prevention requires collective action across an institution. The administration, registrar’s office, faculty, library staff, and more must all do their part to achieve strong, preemptive cybersecurity. In other words, no siloing off cyber responsibilities to the IT or risk management departments.
Throughout this four-part series, Alan digs into what campus-wide cybersecurity look like, why universities have become such a rich target for hackers, and how the library fits into the effort of information protection and cybercrime prevention.
In this first episode, Alan explains why effective cybersecurity has become more challenging in our interconnected world, and the importance of the university library’s close partnership with the IT department. Plus, Alan offers up his best tips to protect your workplace—number one: trust, but verify.
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The autobiographical genre of life writing takes many forms: personal essays, memoirs, diary entries, letters—all forms that the currently and formerly incarcerated write in. But what are the characteristics and complexities of prison life writing? How does it mirror the history of incarceration? What’s its relationship with resistance literature?
While studying for his master’s degree, Simon Rolston, author of Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System, mapped reading groups in and around Alberta. Other students chose to map groups who read romantic fiction, others westerns, but Simon wanted to study the reading habits of those incarcerated; more specifically, those at the maximum-security prison, Edmonton Institution, and a provincial jail, Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre. Through his research, he received numerous recommendations for books by incarcerated authors, thereby inspiring Prison Life Writing.
In this four-part series, Simon introduces us to the prison life writing genre, highlights stories by George Jackson, Malcolm X, Susan Burton, and more, and explains the prevalence and significance of conversion in stories by the incarcerated. In this first episode, Simon digs into the personal and scholarly genesis of his book and explains why prison life writing often falls under resistance literature—and why he resists that presumption.
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Throughout this four-part series, our guests have drilled down into how to support diverse students on their academic journeys. In this final episode, they zoom out to examine longstanding incentive structures built into the scholarly ecosystem. How can faculty, librarians, and publishers dismantle patterns in academia that disadvantage students from diverse backgrounds?
Dr. Pamela Queen of Morgan State University explains why non-tenure and adjunct faculty play an important role in recruiting and encouraging students of color, women, and international scholars. She also details the non-traditional resources—blogs, newspapers, opinion pieces, and other popular media—that she brings into the classroom to spur discussion and supplement traditional scholarly content.
In addition, Dr. Rihana Mason of Georgia State University highlights why inclusive policies introduced during the pandemic—widespread closed captioning, interactive virtual options, global communication—should remain long after the return to campus.
On the publishers side, Miranda Nunhofer and Todd Baldwin of SAGE Publishing reveal workflow changes in academic publishing that support DEI initiatives. In particular, they highlight proposals like examining existing biases in editorial boards, updating terminology, and establishing new guidelines for book editors, authors, and reviewers.
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For many libraries, tracking user data isn’t simply an effective way to keep tabs on patron habits. Instead, it’s a tool used to justify purchases and champion resources for students and faculty. How can librarians make the most out of their library’s metrics?
In this final episode, Steven Rosato of OverDrive Professional explains the significance of detailed user data in the face of the pandemic and potential budget cuts. He chats about how understanding lending patterns empowers librarians to make smarter, more cost-effective choices that work best for their institution’s needs. Steven also discusses the publisher response to COVID-19, and how OverDrive advocates on behalf of libraries with its publisher partners by pushing for flexible lending options like Cost Per Circ.
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For many libraries, tracking user data isn’t simply an effective way to keep tabs on patron habits. Instead, it’s a tool used to justify purchases and champion resources for students and faculty. How can librarians make the most out of their library’s metrics?
In this final episode, Steven Rosato of OverDrive Professional explains the significance of detailed user data in the face of the pandemic and potential budget cuts. He chats about how understanding lending patterns empowers librarians to make smarter, more cost-effective choices that work best for their institution’s needs. Steven also discusses the publisher response to COVID-19, and how OverDrive advocates on behalf of libraries with its publisher partners by pushing for flexible lending options like Cost Per Circ.
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It’s no secret that the publishing industry is an homogenous field. Issues range from barriers of entry to recruitment strategies to workplace culture. What can scholarly publishers and university presses do to retool outdated, exclusionary practices?
In this third episode, Todd Baldwin and Miranda Nunhofer of SAGE Publishing discuss how to break down the barriers that publishers face in implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. They highlight possible strategies, like partnering with universities for outreach programs, expanding the applicant pool via remote work, and investing in academic pipeline programs.
Adding to the discussion, Dr. Pamela Queen, a finance professor at Morgan State University, explains how she implements social issues into her case studies to prepare students for the critical thinking and problem solving skills needed in the boardroom, classroom, and elsewhere. To close out the episode, Dr. Rihana Mason, a research scientist at Georgia State University, reveals the importance of transparency and vulnerability with students—breaking down the challenges of academia can help encourage and empower scholars on their academic journeys.
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In March of 2021, the United States Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill included an expansion of health care access, unemployment benefits, and rental assistance—not to mention direct stimulus payments to many Americans. But how has the bill impacted higher education? Can university libraries reap any benefits?
In this third episode, Steven Rosato from OverDrive Professional digs into how COVID aid can help academic institutions subdue the effects of budget cuts from the past year. Whether used to recoup lost revenue or subsidize digital learning investments, Steven explains how the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) III section of ARPA can support universities and their libraries. Steven also shares his long-term purchasing trend predictions and reflects on the staying power of social justice and political titles.
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The “leaky pipeline” in academia—researchers forgoing a traditional, tenure-track future for corporate, government, or other non-academic jobs—is often regarded as a fundamental problem in higher education, especially when those leaving are academics of color or women. But is this move to outside the academy all that bad?
In this second episode, our guests explore the “problem” of the leaky pipeline and examine why students leave academia. They also share their unique perspectives on how to retain students through innovative programs, initiatives, and encouragement.
First, Dr. Pamela Queen, a professor at Morgan State University, explains how pursuing non-academic ventures can inform research, uncovering the potential fluidity of scholarship. She walks through the challenging culture of postdoctoral work, and how programs like The PhD Project can support diverse students through it.
Next, Dr. Rihana Mason, a research scientist at Georgia State University, digs into academia’s many exit and re-entry points, surfacing an update to the leaky pipeline, the “braided river.” She also discusses her new co-authored book, Academic Pipeline Programs: Diversifying Pathways from the Bachelor’s to the Professoriate, which outlines key elements of effective pipeline programs—mentorships, professional development, and sharing success stories with students.
To wrap up, Todd Baldwin and Miranda Nunhofer of SAGE Publishing highlight new initiatives at SAGE that support diverse students throughout their academic career and beyond.
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Provide highly-focused content for researchers. Expand course reserves to ensure equity and accessibility. Grow the digital collection to include ebooks, audio content, and streaming video. These tasks all fall under the academic librarian’s list of collection development goals—goals the pandemic only made more urgent. When university library budgets fall short, how can librarians do more with less?
In this second episode, Steven Rosato from OverDrive Professional breaks down how OverDrive’s staff of current and former librarians can alleviate the pressure of collection development. Representatives can weed through thousands of resources, highlight picks of interest based on relevant borrowing trends, or walk through which lending models would work best for an institution.
Steven also touches on OverDrive’s acquisition of RBdigital last year, which expanded its customers, global reach, and content. To wrap up the episode, Steven previews OverDrive’s hopes for the future, including more partnerships with service providers to better serve library needs.
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Supporting diverse students doesn’t end when they leave the classroom. In fact, our guests on this four-part series demonstrate that meaningful, valuable, and equitable support should begin before a student steps on campus and extend past graduation—even if they make their way outside of academia. This month, two academics and two publishers join us on the Authority File to discuss their unique perspectives, strategies, and needs to ensure equitable student support.
The first academic, Dr. Pamela Queen, a finance professor at Morgan State University, understands the importance of post-graduation support all too well. After reaching the glass ceiling in her corporate management position, she decided to return to academia with the aid of The PhD Project—a non-profit organization that works to increase workplace diversity by helping African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans earn their doctorates in business.
Joining Pamela, Dr. Rihana Mason, a research scientist at Georgia State University, found that GSU lacked a comprehensive list of DEI programs, curricula, and resources for students and the greater community. She and her colleague, Dr. Curtis D. Byrd, developed the Georgia State University Diversity Database, with the help of their indexing and inventory tool, THRIVE (Type, History, Research Preparation/Routines & Activities, Inclusion/Identity, Voice, Expectation).
Finally, Todd Baldwin and Miranda Nunhofer, both of SAGE Publishing, highlight projects that SAGE has introduced in support of DEI, including video resources, targeted author recruitment, and expanding their reach at student conferences.
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It’s no secret that diversity in reading mediums—print, ebook, audio—make for a more robust, accessible, and patron-friendly collection. But how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected circulation trends? As we inch closer to in-person learning, will audio and ebooks lose their appeal?
Steven Rosato, Manager of the Sales Team at OverDrive Professional, found himself asking the same questions. He decided to track usage trends pre- and during COVID, discovering that ebook and audiobook use (predictably) exploded. Moving forward, Steven believes that the demand in the scholarly audio market will only grow; the portability, accessibility, and predictability of audio are too useful for students to resist.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Steven chats about his findings and predictions for e-content engagement. He also digs into the genesis and development of the business management division of OverDrive, which works with academic institutions, corporate libraries, and government accounts.
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This week Bill talks with Will Davis, head of the OECD’s Washington office about what, exactly, the OECD is, how it got started, and how it works. He details how the organization operates by consensus, rather than through voting, and how it differs from other international organizations like the U.N. They also discuss the OECD’s research and how it’s used by a wide variety of sectors–from businesses to academics to government agencies–to make decisions and influence policy, and some of the OECD’s ongoing work in areas like the digitalization of the economy and building consensus on corporate minimum tax rates.
To catch a video version of the episode, be sure to tune in at the ALA Annual Conference, June 23-29, where this discussion will take place on the Showcase Stage.
Paula Krebs, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, is sick of having to defend the Humanities. Though Paula agrees that a public relations issue exists, she argues that the existing culture—whether in the form of political attacks, budget cuts, or even parents urging students to pursue other majors—needs to transform. “I get really tired of the rhetoric of crisis around the Humanities … The Humanities are the framework through which we examine and we critique and we try to change the culture—the culture is what’s in crisis.”
In this final episode, Paula asserts that the Humanities are at the forefront of our most pressing societal issues—the pandemic, white supremacy, and immigration, to name a few. Paula also explains how the MLA supports social and racial justice through conferences, shared resources, and vigorous engagement with the academic community.
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Paula Krebs, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, definitely did not expect insurrectionists to storm the US Capitol the day before the 2021 MLA Annual Convention. However, when she re-recorded her introductory video to reflect the societal temperature, she found that her most salient points remained—whether in crisis or not, the Humanities help us sift through and make sense of the nonsensical. “I wanted to let them know that the convention was a place that’s in the culture, not separate from the culture … and only after and with the kind of informed critical analysis of the Humanities can any kind of change happen.”
In this third episode, Paula unpacks how the Humanities have been affected and possibly invigorated by new and enduring crises like the coronavirus pandemic and a fraught political climate. Paula also digs into the inequitable effects COVID-19 has had on higher education, as well as encouraging changes in accessibility spurred by our current digital learning environment.
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If we only had access to the “right” news, would all of our information literacy problems be solved? Who is allowed to be the authority on a subject? How do we determine what is the truth?
The Modern Language Association recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of its Bibliography, a human-curated database of Humanities research. Paula Krebs, Executive Director of MLA, hopes that its team of editors and curators can help curb falsehoods, and teach users to understand the background of a source and its legitimacy in the field. “It’s about being responsible and accurate in participating in a larger conversation. It’s about acknowledging the work of others and not inventing things out of whole cloth.”
In this second episode, Paula digs into the hot topic of info lit and MLA’s role as both an authoritative source and a tool for accuracy. Paula also discusses how the Bibliography has changed over time, and the deliberations MLA makes to better implement inclusive practices in its resources.
Paula Krebs, Executive Director of MLA, doesn’t want the MLA Handbook “to be simply a reference work that sits on the shelf.” Instead, the latest edition has roughly 300 more pages than the previous, revealing the fluid, human mechanics behind our authoritative sources. In fact, Paula explains that many of these additions—visuals aids, online citation guides, inclusive language instruction—were made in response to user feedback. “People feel like they own this product … They want it to work for their students and themselves, and they want it to be a live object.”
In this first episode, Paula reveals how MLA listens and communicates with faculty, students, and its own committees, executive councils, and governance groups on editorial decisions. Paula also discusses why MLA wants its handbook to act not as a citation generator, but as a valuable aid for scholars on their academic journey. “We want it to be a tool for them to engage in scholarly conversation, and to understand how to credit the rest of that conversation.”
From her lifelong LGBTQ+ advocacy work to her time in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Cheri DiNovo understands the daily grind of activism from both sides. While inspiring, gratifying, and necessary, social movements require relentless persistence. “That’s the test for activism: you have to keep it going. You have to keep that momentum going.”
In this final episode, Cheri breaks down her tips for consistent and result-driven activism, and reflects on the sheer numbers and organization of today’s movements—MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street—compared to those of the 1960s and 70s. Cheri also discusses how to keep young people invested in politics without falling prey to apathy and cynicism. “I have to look at history and say, if you think dramatic change doesn’t happen, that’s unrealistic.”
Cheri DiNovo, former member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, has been inside the belly of the legislative beast. Known for passing a historic number of LGBTQ+ bills, Cheri forged many bipartisan connections, negotiating her way from “motherhood” issues into the more contested. In her own words: “I prefer to think, and I guess this is the Christian in me too, or at least the faithful person in me, that there is some good reason people sit in those seats. There is some motivating factor that they actually want to change the world for the better…We may disagree ideologically on everything, we may disagree on how to make the world better, but if we can start with that conversation and kind of proceed from there, we can get something done.”
In this third episode, Cheri delves into the politics of politics, picking apart the shortfalls of our political systems, as well as highlighting the value of lively debate and collaboration between lawmakers across party lines. Cheri also discusses the reform versus revolution mentality, and why she believes there’s value in reform on the way to revolution. “When push comes to shove, I think about simply saving lives…Laws change lives, and they save lives.”
In 2001, United Church of Canada minister Cheri DiNovo conducted the first legal same sex marriage. This led to prominent news coverage and a member of Parliament reaching out and suggesting she run for office. Though Cheri had a history of social justice activism, she was new to the traditional political process and its challenges. “I thought … perhaps I could accomplish more sitting in one of those seats in government than I could standing at the pulpit, and so I threw my hat in the ring. And I was incredibly naive. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
In this second episode, Cheri dives into the perils and grit of securing a party nomination—an undertaking she wouldn’t repeat if she had known the vitriol she’d receive from the press. Cheri also reviews the legislation she passed during her time in office, including a $10 minimum wage bill and Toby’s Act, which bars discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
“Queer evangelist,” “socialist clergy,” and “honest politician” are not phrases you typically see thrown together. Cheri DiNovo, former member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and current United Church of Canada minister, embraces all three.
Cheri lived on the streets, ran a headhunting agency, joined the clergy, and became a politician—one who passed the most LGBTQ bills in Canadian history, no less. Clearly, she had plenty of material to choose from for her memoir, The Queer Evangelist: A Socialist Clergy’s Radically Honest Tale. As she notes, “It’s been quite a life, and I think after I left politics I felt a need to kind of just do it for my own sake … I was writing it for myself.”
In the first episode of our four-part series, Cheri discusses her writing process and approach of radical honesty in and outside of politics. She also digs into the excessive capitalistic period of the 1980s, various factors that led her to join her church, and the culture shock of her first settlement charge in a rural town as a lifelong city-dweller.
The COVID-19 pandemic will leave a changed world in its wake. But will the changes continue post-pandemic? How many of the problems faced in the past year weren’t new, and only exacerbated due to underlying issues? How many will fix those flawed structures to soften the blow of future crises?
Greg Eow, President of the Center for Research Libraries, hopes that higher education will rise to the challenge. “Crises have beginnings and ends; COVID-19 will have a beginning and an end. But when I look at the crisis in the Humanities, and I look at the crisis in ‘scholcom,’ I’m thinking, those are not looking like crisis as much as they’re looking like condition. There’s something going on there where the institutions need to change.”
In this final episode, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at the MIT Press, digs into how the pandemic has affected libraries—shrinking budgets, increased demand for digital options—and therefore, Direct to Open’s rollout plan. Greg unpacks current conditions that threaten the scholarly ecosystem, and how stronger bonds between the university library, press, and faculty could be the solution.
Who doesn’t love a good ice cream social? Greg Eow, President of the Center for Research Libraries, believes that partnerships between university presses and libraries are key to developing sustainable knowledge dissemination practices. During his time at MIT Libraries, he would invite members of the Press to their annual ice cream social—any opportunity to mingle between groups was essential.
Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at the MIT Press, agrees, noting that university press and library staff are often more alike than they realize. “There’s an incredible number of very idealistic, nerdy, bookish folks that … love what they do, and they do it because the mission really matters, and I think that that personal resonance and connection, it shouldn’t be undervalued in terms of what it can produce.”
In this third episode, Emily and Greg chat about the potential new relationships between presses and libraries can create. Emily also breaks down the adaptability of MIT’s Direct to Open model for other presses, and key performance indicators of its success, like increased author buy-in. Greg explains the valuable role consortia can play in highlighting innovative projects like Direct to Open for libraries to keep on their radar.
After receiving a grant from the Arcadia Fund in 2019, MIT Press got to work building a collective action model for open access monograph publishing. The press juggled several obstacles, like limited data on OA monographs and having to determine a realistic target needed to sustain the program. With Direct to Open (D2O) now officially launched, how did it evolve into its current form today?
Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, speaks on “[upholding] the editorial and production integrity” in the design criteria for the program. Communicating with MIT’s authors on the benefits of publishing OA or assuaging any potential concerns played a role in the model’s development. Greg Eow, president of the Center for Research Libraries, unpacks another central component of the model: participation. How can this model fit into a library’s budget? Beyond looking at price, licensing terms, and content, what’s the value proposition of increased data and metrics? How can librarians change their perspective to see D2O as an opportunity to better asses the user experience?
In this second episode, Emily and Greg discuss D2O’s evolution, including helpful feedback from academic consortia. They also dig into what happens when a library signs up for the framework—access to an administrative portal, user statistics, and more—and the number of institutions needed for the pilot to be considered a success.
Monographs are an integral part of the Humanities, an area of academia known for its slower shift into the open access world. While journals and ebooks have adjusted to OA models with relative ease, publishers have struggled to do the same with monographs. What can be done?
In October 2019, MIT Press received a generous grant from the Arcadia Fund to publish a collection of monographs open access and to develop a sustainable publishing framework that other presses can use. Over a year later, with a pandemic in between, MIT Press is ready to unroll its library collective action model, Direct to Open (D2O).
In the first episode of our four-part series, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, offers a refresher on the goals of D20 and an update on the development process in the past year. Greg Eow, President of the Center for Research Libraries, joins the conversation to offer his perspective on CRL’s and other consortia’s role in bridging the divide between libraries and publishers.
At the very least, embracing new topics, themes, and authors makes modern literature more dynamic. At the very best, it can redefine what literature is by making it more equitable and representative.
Austin Clarke, a Black Canadian author in the 1960s-2000s, has been largely left out of the Canadian literary landscape. With collections like ‘Membering Austin Clarke, editor of the volume Paul Barrett hopes younger writers will come to appreciate older, sidelined generations. “I think if contemporary Canadian literature were to learn one thing it would be that many of the things that we struggle with today in terms of racism in publishing, sexism in publishing … these struggles are not new and that older writers have things to tell us.”
In the final episode of this series, Paul picks apart an Austin Clarke anecdote from the volume, reflecting on how the discriminatory environment influenced Clarke’s personality and professional decision-making. Paul also discusses how Clarke’s passing affected the project, and the ways in which contemporary CanLit has included a more diverse group of authors, expanding the canon in the process.
Writers cultivate their own style over time. Environment, perspective, and craft all inform character types, dialogue, setting, and themes. A complex place in the world can yield complex writing, but that doesn’t mean we leave the writer and their work behind.
Austin Clarke, a Black Canadian author of novels, essays, and short stories, was widely published from the 1960s onward and regarded as an important public figure. Yet, he has been largely left out of the CanLit record due to his race and not fitting the “typical” Canadian writing style. Paul Barrett, editor of ‘Membering Austin Clarke, hopes to rectify that exclusion. “People are publishing literary histories today of Canada and Canadian literature in the 1960s where Austin Clarke is a footnote, maybe two footnotes, right? His material isn’t seen as central to the question of what constitutes Canadian literature. And I think that’s the goal of this volume, to insist that actually his work is central to what constitutes Canadian literature.”
In this third episode, Paul walks through the difficulty of Clarke’s writing, most notably his depiction of women, and the value of interrogating—not ignoring—these elements. We also hear Clarke give a lively reading of his story “Doing Right,” which criticizes (and pokes fun) at the narrative of Canadian multiculturalism—genuine and uncomfortable laughter from the audience included.
Note: This episode includes explicit language.
The contemporary monograph tends to follow a standard template. Multiple academics examine a topic in a collection of essays. A single scholar carves out their corner of a specialized discipline. There’s an introduction, lengthy index, and somewhat impersonal writing style. But what if the content doesn’t allow for a “typical” monograph structure?
Edited by Paul Barrett, ‘Membering Austin Clarke embraces its subject’s complexity. Replete with essays by writers, colleagues, and scholars who dissect Clarke’s work and legacy, the volume also includes unpublished pieces from Clarke’s archives and personal remarks from close friends. As Paul explains, “His style is so complex and contradictory, and he is a person. He’s not just a writer; he’s a public figure … How do you capture all of that in a traditional academic monograph?”
In this second episode, Paul dives into the development and origins of the volume. Inspired by his postdoctoral research in McMaster University’s Clarke archives, the book first took shape as a special issue of The Puritan literary magazine. Paul discusses Clarke’s work in the collection—poetry, a fantastical story—and what they reveal about Clarke’s writing style, perspective, and world around him.
When discussing 20th-century Canadian literature, which stories come to mind? What overarching subjects or themes stick out? Most likely, multiculturalism, urban life, or Black diasporas are not at the forefront of the conversation.
Austin Clarke, a Black Canadian writer of novels, short stories, and poetry didn’t fit into the typical CanLit narrative. As Paul Barrett, editor of ‘Membering Austin Clarke explains, Clarke’s writing depicted migration and anti-Black racism—”he’s not writing about … old farmers staring wistfully into snowbanks, and, you know, having lives of quiet desperation.” So where does that leave his writing and his legacy?
In the first episode of this four-part series, Paul introduces us to Austin Clarke. A man full of contradictions—associated with both the Black Power Movement and conservatism–Clarke confronted his rejection from CanLit and the anti-Blackness he experienced head-on, refusing to be read one-dimensionally in his writing and personhood.
We often hail collaboration as the key to success in academic pursuits. But does higher education culture prevent collaborative relationships from developing? Has the pandemic opened up opportunities between departments that weren’t present before?
Susan Mizruchi, editor of Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age, explains how academia can encourage specialization or “tending our own gardens,” which prevents exciting, fruitful collaboration between departments. Susan argues that engaging librarians in pedagogy and librarianship in academia can only produce more well-rounded, comprehensive results.
In the final episode of this series, Susan discusses the value of collaboration between departments and its increasing necessity in our multi-dimensional, complex digital age. Despite our collective “Zoom fatigue,” Susan points out potential opportunities for interdisciplinary partnerships thanks to our new reliance on virtual technology and lack of geographical constraints.
Our digital age has brought with it a mushrooming number of sources, articles, and perspectives to choose from. What should be preserved? How open should resources be? How do librarians and archivists navigate our complicated, ever-changing digital world?
Susan Mizruchi, editor of Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age, discusses the concerns librarians hold as our digital footprint expands: how can we make information more accessible, and how do we teach new scholars around the world to sort, dissect, and apply this knowledge?
In this third episode, Susan discusses the duplicity of the digital age. What are some of the darker consequences of free, digital resources—overstimulation, the gatekeeping of information for profit—and how can we curb these negative growths? She also touches on how community archivists challenge traditional notions of what an archive should be through an activist agenda and aversion to institutional protocols.
Whether we like to admit it or not, politics surround our civic, professional, and personal lives. The media we choose, products we buy, and people we engage with reflect our own governance, political party, and position in society. So how do politics factor into the preservation, curation, and dissemination of digital materials?
Susan Mizruchi, director of the Center for Humanities at Boston University, discusses the politics that color the practice of preservation. What is the political urgency in protecting records? How do we ensure that archivists are being valued for their work? Does the compensation keep up with the ongoing pedagogical and technical roles that librarians are being asked to take on?
In this second episode, Susan talks the politics of protecting materials and the issues of status and pay that arise in librarianship. She also digs into the value of collaboration between librarians, archivists, and faculty, offering examples of mutually-beneficial partnerships that formed during the process of putting together her edited volume, Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age.
The digital age has brought an onslaught of changes to the practice of information preservation. With so much out there at a time, how can archivists keep up? How do librarians fit into the task of finding and safeguarding materials? How can archivists, curators, and librarians work together to collect, restore, and preserve information for years to come?
Susan Mizruchi, director of the Center for Humanities at Boston University, used the leverage of her administrative role to explore these questions. To her, the solution was within walking distance: connecting BU faculty and librarians with staff at the Boston Public Library. Inspired by a lively forum, Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age was born, bringing together experts from divergent fields in academia, as well as public libraries.
In this first episode, Susan explains her background as an academic and her longstanding involvement with public and academic libraries. She also speaks on the process of finding the text’s diverse contributors from across professional roles, countries, ethnicities, and subjects.
Against all odds, we’ve made it to the end of 2020. Moving into the new year, we need to make sure our pandemic solutions (raised wages, rent moratoriums, etc.) aren’t short term. How do we reshape our public health structures to address longstanding inequities?
This week is our final episode with the editors of Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19. Three of its editors, Jane Philpott, Sophie Thériault, and Sridhar Venkatapuram, discuss the inequities and vulnerabilities further revealed by the pandemic. Each takes a unique look at what steps Canada (and other countries) need to take to prevent a crisis like this from happening again.
In our final episode, Jane explains how we need to support our frontline workers—not only hospital staff, but those in retail, grocery, food service, and more—moving forward. Sridhar addresses the global approach we must to take to public health, instead of the highly individualistic perspective that nations like the US hold. Finally, Sophie and Sridhar tackle the big questions together: how does the way a government allocates its resources reflect its own structural inequities; and how can we ensure our leaders enact policies that help everyone, not just the “standard citizen”?
As health care workers and susceptible citizens receive the first COVID-19 vaccinations, many hope this will mark the beginning of the end of a dark, deadly period. But the vaccine rollout also deepens the same problems we’ve been facing all year: who are our most vulnerable, and how do we help them in an equitable way?
Last week, two of the editors of Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19, talked government response and accountability. The remaining three editors, Jane Philpott, Sophie Thériault, and Sridhar Venkatapuram, join us to continue the conversation. In these next two episodes, we shift gears into the equity and vulnerabilities of government response to COVID. What structural changes need to happen to prevent another public health crisis?
In this episode, we tackle policy measures, global response, and frontline workers. Sophie takes us through the First Nations’ roadmap on federal funding and measures to protect them from public health crises–how is this strategy relevant to safeguarding other underserved groups? Sridhar explains the dangers we’ve seen in officials treating populations as equally susceptible to the virus. Jane discusses the challenges of frontline workers that government officials fail to see, and how she hopes they’ll no longer be undervalued: “You can have all of the emergency departments and ICU beds ready that you’d like, but if you don’t actually have those frontline health workers, who are paid very little and put themselves at enormous risk … then people will die.”
As we look down the barrel of a COVID-19 winter, many of us would rather skip ahead to summer and what will hopefully be a (generally) vaccinated populace. Now facing the effects travel during the Thanksgiving holiday, many areas in the US are buckling under increased outbreaks on top of already staggering case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths. How have we not learned the lessons of the spring’s first wave?
This month we sat down with the editors of Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19, a volume rapidly assembled this past spring that covers Canada’s response to the pandemic as well as zooming out for a global perspective. Our first two episodes of the series are with Colleen Flood and Vanessa MacDonnell, both of the University of Ottawa, who looked at the nuances of Canadian federalism, accountability, and civil liberties in the face of COVID-19.
This first episode dives into the history of Canada’s Emergencies Act, and how it complicates the possibility of a united, national response to public health crises. Colleen and Vanessa also discuss the transparency needed in order to gain compliance over mask or travel mandates, and the positives and negatives of Canada’s swift—though closed-door—federal action taken in the early days of the pandemic.
This week in the US, Congress meets to hopefully pass a stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last stimulus bill, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which included cash payments, forgivable loans for small businesses, and expanded unemployment benefits, passed in late March. Almost 10 months later, with unemployment rates rising and provisions in the CARES Act soon expiring, pressure mounts in Washington. If nothing passes, who will be held accountable?
Colleen Flood and Vanessa MacDonnell tackle issues of Canadian and global accountability in the edited volume Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19. Vanessa explains how the courts and media play a role in holding the government responsible for pandemic-related legislation (or lack thereof). Colleen explains the successes and failures of Canada’s cooperative federalism approach to COVID. In some cases, the marble-cake technique might be a better option; First Nations in Canada used self-determination to enact policies better suited to their needs as a vulnerable population. However, Colleen argues, it has also led to disarray, confusion, and scrambled lines of communication across provincial lines.
In the second episode of this four-part series, Colleen and Vanessa highlight the significant difference between investments in public health and health care, which perhaps foretold the unprepared responses to the pandemic across the globe. “If you’ve done a good job investing in public health,” Colleen states, “people don’t even know that they should be thanking you.” They also look ahead and predict the future of vaccine deployment. Who will get it first? Is a national or provincial rollout more likely? And how will governments strengthen public trust in the vaccine?
As the fall semester and 2020 come to a close, what does the future look like for our libraries, colleges, and world? What new practices or workflows will we keep, and which will be abandoned come 2021 and beyond?
Sarah Copeland, director of desks and patron experience at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, voices her concerns over staff burnout once normal working functions return. Lauren Magnuson, head of collections, delivery and access at the California State University San Marcos, predicts that her library’s cost-per-use model will come in handy when the inevitable cuts to the collection come next fiscal year. “A cancellation in one area saves money, but then there’s costs in other areas, and so that’s really the challenge there, is that how do we make the cuts in a way that is totally sustainable?”
In the final episode of the series, Sarah and Lauren explain what pandemic-related policies they’ll be happy to say goodbye to, and their pie-in-the-sky hopes for next semester—expand contactless pickup, please! They chat about the sustainability of current staffing models, the empowerment their libraries have found on campus, and the tough decisions that must be faced next year.
When we sift through an author’s collection, we tend to think big-picture. What are the overarching themes, motifs, or morals? What will be their legacy? Luckily, Timothy Findley, the Canadian author and playwright, left behind a great number of books, plays, and memoirs for us to contemplate.
Sherrill Grace, author of Findley’s biography Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley, believes Findley’s legacy will be found in the broader messages of his work—warnings against power, violence, and oppression. Sherrill notes, “If we fail at something, Findley would have said we’ve failed our imaginations. We’ve failed to imagine that things could be different, that we’ve failed to pay attention.”
In the final episode of this series, Sherrill discusses one of Findley’s most acclaimed novels, Famous Last Words, and the often overlooked, though potent, The Telling of Lies. Sherrill also shares her hopes for the biography. Whether returning to Findley’s work or discovering it for the first time, she wants the audience to not only read Findley’s words, but listen to his cautionary tales.
How much have we learned about COVID-19 since February or March? Chances are, we’re no longer sanitizing our groceries or stockpiling gloves (if we ever were). Chances are, we’re no longer sanitizing our groceries or stockpiling gloves (if we ever were). No matter how much we prepare, as we know more, we adjust. New information calls for recalibration and flexibility. Sarah Copeland of the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and Lauren Magnuson of California State University San Marcos quickly discovered which plans worked and which didn’t. As they progressed further into the fall semester, each librarian had to rethink her library’s original strategy. Do we need to keep charging for late fees? Do students really want contactless locker delivery? Who should be the ones sanitizing computer lab keyboards and mice? In this third episode, Sarah and Lauren dive into the everyday of the fall semester, and the quick decisions that were necessary to keep workflows efficient and patrons safe. They also reflect on the transformation of work culture, and what’s been lost in the process. The stress of the pandemic and the lack of interacting face-to-face with your coworkers take its toll. As Sarah notes, “You forget how important some of the day-to-day check-ins and casual interactions are for just helping everything go smoother.” Sponsored byTaylor & Francis group
It’s the question routinely posed to artists, writers, and poets: who are your major influences? We expect famous names—Plath, Wallace, Morrison—but what about the people close to the creator who affect their character and, consequently, general oeuvre? Sherrill Grace, author of Timothy Findley’s biography, Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley, can certainly name some of Findley’s creative influences; Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Conrad, and fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood make the list. But Findley’s parents, other matriarchs in the family, and partner Bill Whitehead distinctly impacted his personal life and outlook, too. In this third episode, Sherrill discusses Findley’s main influences and themes, especially those that made their way into his most famous novel, The Wars. Sherrill also delves into her memorable experience meeting Bill Whitehead, who ultimately gave her access to the archives needed to write the book. “This man met me at the door, opened his arms, greeted me with such warmth and welcome that I rather knew my fate was sealed in that very moment.” Wilfrid Laurier University Press
It’s one thing to plan how to operate an academic library during a global pandemic. It’s a whole other beast to actually put it into action. Sarah Copeland of the University of Tennessee Chattanooga had to contend with an open library. Lauren Magnuson of California State University San Marcos had a fully virtual semester on her hands. How did each execute their plans? Sarah needed to switch from a two-desk service model to a single desk, enact a rotating cohort model in her staff, and ensure that students comply with mask and social distancing rules. Lauren, on the other hand, had to find solutions for the hundreds of students that relied on physical reserves for their textbooks. In this second episode, Sarah explains that using compliance walk-throughs as a way to connect with students produced better communication and familiarity with library staff. A clipboard kit of individually wrapped masks, straws, and handouts on university and library policy helped too. Lauren reveals that her library’s existing structure of building digital reserves eased the transition to remote learning—not to mention, uncovered how many students rely on the library for accessible, free options. Plus, San Marcos’ new patron driven approach amassed inclusive and diverse materials that the collection had previously lacked: “Students have really stepped in with what they’re requesting and what they’re researching, and shown that students are very good at identifying resources that are going to reflect their lived experiences.” Sponsored by Taylor & Francis group
What did you want to be when you were growing up? A doctor? An astronaut? A princess? As it turns out, most of our career ambitions at five, eleven, twenty-years-old don’t end up becoming a reality. The world shifts, as do our interests, talents, and prospects. Timothy Findley, the acclaimed Canadian author and playwright, originally set his sights on acting. Encouraged by a few minor roles at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, he moved to London to live with the Guinness family and study the craft. He spent most of the next decade playing bit parts, which led to many dissatisfied journal entries and disillusionment with the discipline. In this second episode, Sherrill Grace, the author of his biography Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley, discusses how the pains of traveling actor life—lousy food, unpleasant living spaces—added to Findley’s impatience and ambition for better things. Sherrill also touches on his journal entries and short plays that led to his transition into writing. As she notes, in hindsight, his talent was there all along: “I remember saying to myself at one point, ‘why is it taking so long for you, kid, to see who you really are here?’ It’s there.” Sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Miraculously, the end of the fall semester fast approaches. But before looking to spring, academic librarians will have to reflect on the past few months. With a full semester amidst a pandemic under their belts, what worked and what didn’t? Sarah Copeland’s library at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga is open to students, albeit with a number of restrictions. Stacks are closed and computer lab space is at a minimum, though hand sanitizer abounds. At California State University San Marcos, Lauren Magnuson tackles an entirely virtual fall semester, which includes a ramped-up patron driven acquisition approach and contactless lockers for print pickup. This month, we have the opportunity to dig into two divergent libraries’ plans, execution, and learned lessons during the COVID-19 fall semester. In this first episode, Copeland and Magnuson explain how their own institutions prepared for their re-opening plans, whether by specialized task force or a necessary all-hands-on-deck line of attack. They also come to find surprising similarities in their patrons’ needs—who knew today’s students would miss print books? Taylor and Francis group
The best teacher-student relationships are symbiotic. When students prod at an unexplored subject, a good instructor wonders why. They look deeper. They question why that topic pulled at the students to begin with. What stone is still unturned? While teaching the books of Timothy Findley, Sherrill Grace of University of British Columbia found her students resonating with the acclaimed Canadian author and playwright. They wanted to know the man behind works like The Wars, Famous Last Words, and Headhunter. Simply put, “other writers didn’t hit them the way this one did.” In the first episode of this four-part series, Sherrill explains how her students inspired her to look into Findley’s life, and the breadth of archival material—manuscripts, letters, journals—she happily dove into to write his biography, Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley. Sherrill also picks apart what Findley means to her, and why his work continues to reach current generations even after his passing. Sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Over the past three episodes, this series has explored what free time really is. It has explored how we can differentiate leisure from recreation and why we might want to do so. And it delved into the philosophical arguments about why it might be useful to carve out a subsection of Catholic solidarity that listeners can apply on a smaller, more human scale. The question then is, “So what? Why’s that useful to me?” In this episode, Conor Kelly, assistant professor at Marquette University, thinks through some of the most common ways Americans use their free time: from watching television to lurking on Facebook to watching football and basketball, and how they might get the most out of their free time. Kelly illustrates the ways he thinks through using his own free time, and how his moral convictions inform his personal decisions. In an interesting case study, Kelly explains the moral considerations he brings to watching football, and how the difference between the compensation of professional versus student athletes complicates the question of whether he should or shouldn’t watch them compete. Sponsored by: Georgetown University Press
What is solidarity in Catholic philosophy, and what does it have to do with leisure? How does “everyday solidarity” differ from Catholic solidarity? Can “everyday solidarity” help a lay person make decisions about their free time? These are all questions Conor Kelly, assistant professor at Marquette University, explores in his new book, The Fullness of Free Time: A Theological Account of Leisure and Recreation in the Moral Life. Kelly explains solidarity as a way of thinking less about “number one” in order to create a good for everyone instead of just a good for the individual. But to his thinking, that good isn’t purely utilitarian. It’s more than that, and the reason why is wrapped up in Catholic social teaching. Kelly then takes this definition and, as he says, creates “a new species” within the genus of solidarity called “everyday solidarity.” But isn’t thinking about leisure an inherently “bourgeois” project, since not everyone has access to free time? Kelly explores that question and others in this week’s installment. Sponsored by: Georgetown University Press
Basketball players talk about “being in the zone” or “on fire.” Musicians describe losing themselves in the score. Characters “lead” their writers through a story. Gamers can lose hours in their digital worlds. What do all of these disparate practices and descriptions have in common? Well, for someone playing at or near their potential, each of these activities allows their practitioners to achieve what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the “flow” state: a sort of transcendence or a complete mental and physical absorption in a task. Conor Kelly, assistant professor at Marquette University, begins to unpack the relationship between flow state and leisure in this episode. Kelly argues that leisure can have intrinsic value, as opposed to purely instrumental value because, through leisure activities, we can achieve flow state, which he likens to the Catholic idea of “resting in God.” Join us for a look at free time and a thoughtful discussion on making it as productive as possible, and whether that should even be the goal. Sponsored by: Georgetown University Press
With work, family duties, household chores, who has free time? And when we do, should we zone out to Netflix and a quickly-depleting box of Cheez-Its? Or is free time better used on altruistic efforts in our own communities? How do we make our free time not only restorative, but meaningful? Conor Kelly, assistant professor at Marquette University, faces these questions in his new book, The Fullness of Free Time. Years in the making, the text can be traced back to the logistics of a much-needed fall break getaway during his undergrad at Notre Dame. When he asked a friend if she’d like to join the group on the trip, she said a better use of her time would be spent volunteering. “What you’re talking about just seems indulgent, was basically what she got at, and I was jarred a little bit, as you might imagine. No one wants to think of themselves as indulgent, particularly when the opposite is selfless acts of service for the world around you.” In this first episode of the four-part series, Kelly discusses how that fateful conversation stuck in his mind, coalescing into a dissertation and eventual volume. Kelly also explains the interplay between moral theology and theological ethics, and how studies from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi informed his work. Sponsored by Georgetown University Press
Some political moderates are forgotten in favor of flashier revolutionaries. Others are admired as compromisers crossing the aisle in the name of the greater good. But Jacques Necker, a moderate political advisor to France, didn’t exactly receive praise for his sharp critique of the French government. Necker’s On Executive Power in Great States took on a combative tone, unafraid to criticize the French constitution and even mock the French legislators’ self-righteousness. “Necker did not pull any punches,” Aurelian Craiutu, editor of volume, explains. “He was very aware that by espousing this critical tone, he would only consolidate his image as a lone wolf.” In this final episode, Craiutu discusses how Necker drew disparagers from both the Jacobins and the Royalists, eventually leading to his departure from the political scene in 1790. Craiutu also delves into the life of Necker’s daughter Madame de Stael, who took after her father by becoming a prominent political theorist and a real thorn in Napoleon’s side. Sponsored by: Liberty Fund
How much power is too much? For the executive branch of government, there must be enough restraint to prevent authoritarianism, and enough power to avoid becoming little more than an ornamental symbol. Popular political thought in the 1700s centered on the legislative branch, but Swiss-born French political advisor Jacques Necker believed that the executive branch was the key to a functional government. In contrast to the French Constitution of 1791, which greatly diminished the king’s power, Necker wrote that the legislative and executive branches should share the representation of the people, hold equal jurisdiction, and interlace their powers—not separate them. In this third episode, Aurelian Craiutu, the editor of Necker’s On Executive Power in Great States, discusses Necker’s unique vision for France’s executive branch as the “soul of the commonwealth” during a time of social unrest and eventual revolt against the monarchy. Craiutu also speaks to where Necker drew his innovative ideas: the English government structure and the American constitution. Sponsored by: Liberty Fund
The names that make it into the history books are often known for their courage, intelligence, or ingenuity. They might push society toward a different political, social, or economic system. Big changes go down in the history books. Patience and moderation don’t always. Jacques Necker, the 18th-century Swiss banker turned French economic advisor, was decidedly moderate. “He never ran after systematic novelties,” Aurelian Craiutu of Indiana University, Bloomington explains. “He tried to strike a balance between reverence for the past and necessary reforms, and it is here I would say that the core of his moderation lies: Necker was a defender of monarchy, but he was not a defender of absolute monarchy. He understood the importance of constitutional monarchy.” In this second episode, Craiutu, the editor of Necker’s On Executive Power in Great States, discusses the value of Necker’s moderate beliefs, and his seemingly radical decision to make the French budget public for the first time in history. Sponsored by: Liberty Fund
Guillotines. Marie Antoinette. Les Mis. Longstanding pop culture references aside, the French Revolution’s political and social impact on the world is still felt today. Though historians debate its causes, many point to the American Revolution’s influence as a starting point for France’s new republic. But every revolution needs a spark, and a little-known figure today, Jacques Necker, played a significant part in igniting the cries of vive la France! Aurelian Craiutu of Indiana University, Bloomington believes that though Necker’s role as a financial advisor for the French monarchy cannot be understated, his views on political thought and governance—particularly on the balance of powers—hold their own relevance even today. “Everyone knew of Necker during his lifetime as a rich man and as an ambitious man, but very few knew about Necker as a political thinker … it has taken a long time for his reputation as a political thinker to be consolidated.” Sponsored by: Liberty Fund
Generative. It’s a word that crops up throughout this week’s conversation on scholarly podcasting. For Hannah McGregor, it’s one of the things she finds most fulfilling about producing Secret Feminist Agenda—the way interactions with listeners and peer reviewers and the podcast’s guests can build something greater than the sum of its parts. Hannah and Siobhan McMenemy talk through what’s next for the Amplify Podcast Network and for the final season of Secret Feminist Agenda. Sponsored by: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Though it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually end. After months of upheaval, the potential for major changes in our health care, government, and education systems will be left in coronavirus’ wake. But what transformations will be permanent? Linda Van Keuren of Georgetown Medical, Sally Gibson of Missouri Western State, and Kat McGrath of the University of British Columbia have found the positives amidst waves of budget cuts and campus closures. Reliable teleworking, robust online services, and stronger partnerships between publishers and libraries are some of the adaptations they’d like to see stick around. In the final episode of this four-part series, Van Keuren, Gibson, and McGrath discuss the future of interlibrary loans for ebook content and how job descriptions for librarians will ultimately change. As university heads pull purse strings taut, they chat about how usage and demographic data could help mold library budgets moving forward. Van Keuren notes: “It’s much more meaningful with administrators and finance people to have that demographic information, as we have to make some tough decisions potentially in the months and years to come.” Sponsored by: SAGE Publishing https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/home
How can academic podcasters earn credit for their work within the academy? What would it take to build a distribution or discovery service for academic podcasts? How would that fit into, compete with or live alongside the existing podcast discovery services? Siobhan McMenemy and Hannah McGregor talk about what’s next for Secret Feminist Agenda now that the peer review process has wrapped up and the final season is coming to a close. They talk about their ongoing project, the Amplify Podcast Network, and how they hope it will give libraries, scholars—and everyone else—easier access to a range of scholarly podcasts. Sponsored by: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Being an academic librarian during a global pandemic means rolling with the punches. Whether it be budget cuts or temperature checks, librarians are adjusting in real time to the rapid changes needed to support to virtual learning. Sally Gibson of Missouri Western State found that the sudden reliance on digital content and services helped her staff get into their patrons’ shoes. “I think the one positive of having everyone working from home is that we were really able to find out what it’s like to be a distant student who’s off campus. We were able to troubleshoot some of the issues that they’d run into, or just have the overall experience of what they are going through.” In this third episode, Linda Van Keuren of Georgetown Medical and Kat McGrath of the University of British Columbia join Gibson to discuss the lack of student staff, loss of their physical space, and the appeal of point-of-need content delivery. In this new world of curbside pickup and socially-distant study, all solutions are welcome in today’s library. Sponsored by: SAGE Publishing
Like gathering storm clouds, the looming fall semester is on every student, teacher, and librarian’s mind. Articles, webinars, and discussion threads have exploded around the singular question: What’s your fall reopening plan? Linda Van Keuren of Georgetown Medical, Sally Gibson of Missouri Western State, and Kat McGrath of the University of British Columbia have adjusted their services and physical space to give students what they need quickly and efficiently. Whether it’s a closed-stack model, one-person-per-study-room rules, or ramping up virtual chat services, there will be little dilly-dallying among the stacks this September. However, they predict after years of trying to shepherd students into their libraries, it will be a strange 180 to ask their patrons not to linger. In this second episode, Van Keuren, Gibson, and McGrath break down their own institutions’ fall reopening plans, how the library has adapted to support student and faculty, and perhaps most importantly, how the heck they are feeling about all this rapid change. Sponsored by: SAGE Publishing
This episode dives into peer reviewing a podcast, and how a project that challenges the norms of scholarly publishing might just challenge the norms of peer review too. Hannah McGregor of Simon Fraser University and Siobhan McMenemy of Wilfrid Laurier University Press explore why they rethought peer review and how it worked for Secret Feminist Agenda, McGregor’s podcast. Secret Feminist Agenda, served as the test case for Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s attempt to provide podcasts with the same scrutiny and rigor the press brings to its academic books. But in the case of a podcast, what does peer review look like? How do you think about improving the scholarly aspects—and the production, sustainability, and audience—of a podcast? This four-episode series discusses all of those questions and more, while this episode really zeroes in on the “how” and “why” and “what it brings to the work” of peer review. Sponsored by: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Being flexible. Staying fluid. Chasing a moving target. Besides dealing with overused analogies, academic librarians face the challenging task of providing digital resources and assistance to faculty and students in an online learning environment many have never before experienced—nor been equipped to handle. Three librarians, Linda Van Keuren of Georgetown Medical, Sally Gibson of Missouri Western State, and Kat McGrath of the University of British Columbia, found surprising overlap in the strategies assumed and tools provided at their libraries in the aftermath of college closures in March, despite their institutions’ varying populations and needs. In the first episode of this four-part series, they discuss their institutions’ background, the first few weeks of scrambling online, and the new initiatives that have stuck through the summer months. Whether it’s collecting a COVID-19 resource list, creating online education workshops for faculty, or taking a deep dive into inventory lists to avoid superfluous spending, Van Keuren, Gibson, and McGrath have much to discuss on the universality of staying flexible, and the unique needs of their colleges’ populations. Sponsored by: SAGE Publishing
What does it mean to be “scholarly?” Or maybe another way of getting at what we mean here is, “what counts as scholarship? What should?” Those questions kick off Siobhan McMenemy and Hannah McGregor’s conversation about scholarly podcasting. What is it? How does it work? Can you even do that to a podcast? McGregor ‘s show, Secret Feminist Agenda, served as the test case for Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s attempt to provide podcasts with the same scrutiny and rigor the press brings to its academic books. But in the case of a podcast, what does peer review look like? How do you think about improving the scholarly aspects—and the production, sustainability, and audience—of a podcast? This four-episode series discusses all of those questions and more, while this episode dives deep into the skills an academic editor brings to the table and how they apply (or don’t or sort of do) to podcasting. Sponsored by: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
When COVID-19 entered our lives, one of the underlying anxieties from the looming illness was the uncertainty—when will life go back to normal? But as July comes to a close and the race for a vaccine continues, we face the reality of sitting with this pandemic long-term, and what that means for our education and economy. Dr. Rupert Maclean of RMIT University looks at both the short and long-term effects of the pandemic on education and the job market, and predicts a transformation in the 21st-century skills that employers will demand. “Intelligence isn’t just to do with one’s analytical skills and mathematical skills and scientific skills; there are many other areas of intelligence such as empathy, such as social intelligence.” In this final episode, Dr. Maclean considers the major elements of social disruption in this past year, and how our education systems need to adjust to alleviate our social, economic, and educational inequities. “What we have to do is diagnose the situation, and then look at what we can do to address the sort of tensions that are occurring to enable there to be a betterment of the human condition, rather than something which actually detracts for many people from the quality of their lives.” Sponsored by: Springer Nature
When we look back on this year, 10, 20, or 50 years down the line, what will we remember? What will become the official narrative of 2020? What will slip between the cracks of our collective memory? (Murder hornets, hopefully.) In Toni Samek’s co-edited volume Minds Alive: Libraries and Archives Now, contributors discuss the state’s control over access to archival materials, and how vital archives and all cultural memory institutions are in preserving history. During the current pandemic, in a time when anxiety and instant information breed conspiracy theories or dangerous falsehoods, Dr. Samek concludes that these institutions need to be able to collect and preserve these stories to dissect and understand them later. In this final episode, Dr. Samek explains the institutional collaborations that can develop between librarians, archivists, and curators in order to strengthen each branch for the betterment of society—whether during a global pandemic or not. “We have to think about institutions that share a space on the cultural and informational network and make sure that they’re working in solidarity even though the work that they do may be a little a bit different … At the same time, we work with records and we are in a sense memory institutions.” Sponsored by: University of Toronto Press
As wealth disparities grow and the costs of higher education rise, inequities in access to education become starker. The value of education to society depends in part on the number of people it reaches, but lawmakers and educators keep wondering: who’s going to pay for it? Dr. Rupert Maclean of RMIT University realizes the intricacies of this issue: “We have to look at what we can do to have education and schooling that is a benefit to all sections of the community, give everyone the chance to develop their talents to the full, and to also gain from the economic development potential of their particular country … but getting that balance right between what people should pay for individually and what the society should pay for is a very important dialogue that has to be worked out.” In this third episode, Dr. Maclean discusses how equitable access shapes job opportunities, which affects not only young people entering full-time employment, but older generations asked to update their expertise in order to remain economically valuable. “People are in occupations that are going out of favor, that are no longer required, and they have to retool or reskill themselves to actually be able to meet the changing job market needs.” Sponsored by: Springer Nature
In our capitalist society, libraries—free, public spaces—continually face the challenge of trying to prove their value through quantitative, tangible means. But what about the emotional value? The abstract, qualitative worth? The opening chapter of Dr. Toni Samek’s co-edited volume, Minds Alive: Libraries and Archives Now, poses the controversial question: Libraries—why bother? As budgets shrink and librarians struggle to prove their institutions’ worth, Dr. Alice Crawford’s chapter dives into the appeal of considering libraries through qualitative rather than quantitative means. Dr. Samek explains: “The traditional metrics of counting and tracking and using the records becomes problematic, so I think what’s she’s trying to do is really just inform and drive broader attention to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and thinking about the need for more sophisticated ways and metrics of understanding where we’re at and where we need to be.” In this third episode, Dr. Samek discusses how this provocative chapter answers the existential question of what’s the point? by coupling libraries with our fundamental rights. “I think what she does is really connect us to, in her own way, thinking about the universal declaration of human rights, and how much of those articles really do relate to humans’ interaction with information.” Sponsored by: University of Toronto Press
Item holds can function as both the bane of patrons, and valuable insight for librarians. The more holds on an item, the more popular it may be, helping inform future purchasing choices.
Jill Grunenwald, Communications Specialist at OverDrive, discusses OverDrive’s approach to the admin side of its Libby app. While some librarians choose to manually look at the holds list and how many people are waiting on an item, they also have a more hands-off option, “that will automatically manage the holds and put a cart together based on a high hold ratio if needed, and they can buy it from there.”
In this final episode, Grunenwald drills down into the types of lending models libraries can choose from—metered access; one copy, one user; simultaneous-use—and which are most practical for an institution’s needs. She also discusses OverDrive’s growing catalog of university press titles, course texts, and foreign ebook and audiobook options.
Community work doesn’t have clear-cut, one-size-fits-all solutions. Each community in need requires a unique approach, meaning successful community development requires action rooted in malleability, empathy, and most importantly, communication.
Sarah Todd of Carleton University wanted the chapters in her edited volume, Canadian Perspectives on Community Development, to be in conversation with each other. Many work to challenge existing theory, bumping shoulders to reveal disparity and innovative problem-solving. “There are other people working toward social justice who have a very different vision of what that social justice is … and that’s not a problem unless we stop having conversations with each other and asking new questions.”
In this final episode, Todd discusses how even though the end result of the text is stunningly cohesive, connection between theories more than anything else was what she and co-editor Sébastien Savard were aiming for when assembling the work. She looks ahead, explaining how the volume gives her hope for the future of community work in Canada. “I think the beauty about the theories in these collections is they don’t give the answers and solutions. What they do is they open up possibility, and I think, that’s where freedom lies, right? Freedom isn’t in the solutions and answers. It’s often in what we can imagine beyond those solutions and answers.”
As the publishing industry embraced digital reading options, audiobook and ebook reading app choices exploded to accommodate the modern, mobile patron. But how do you make an app that appeals to both public and academic library end-users? Accessibility is a safe place to start.
OverDrive has marketed its Libby app as a “one-tap reading app” that’s streamlined, user-friendly, and most importantly, accessible. Jill Grunenwald, Communications Specialist at OverDrive, explains why the app’s customizable features—font size, lightness, and typeface, e.g. OpenDyslexic—make it ideal for students. “It’s easy for people to log in and then once they’re in, they can make whatever changes they need to to be able to maximize the app for their own personal needs.”
In this third episode, Grunenwald dives into how libraries have marketed Libby to students, and the usage data and metrics the app provides to the admin. She also acknowledges a top concern from librarians: “Having worked with public libraries for so long we are well aware that there are concerns about privacy. We are very sensitive to that, and the system is built to maintain that.”
One assumption about community work is that state actors function as the rigid, weighty authority compared to local powers’ more flexible, adaptable direction. However, like most things in life, the dynamic is much more nuanced than that.
Sarah Todd of Carleton University explains how local level authorities can be just as rigid as those on the state level. Some local communities have even called upon the state to enact changes that smaller jurisdictions couldn’t provide. “It’s a bit like dance … the state is the one that sets the music and is the lead and the community is trying to adapt and play around that, but sometimes the community also needs a bit of support and guidance. That push-pull has really different impacts depending on the context.”
In this third episode, Todd discusses the process of compiling, curating, and reviewing her exhaustive collection, Canadian Perspectives on Community Development. By pulling together studies from all over Canada, she and her co-editor Sébastien Savard were determined to present perspectives that both supported and opposed one another. “We were trying to take a real intersectional approach, to both geography, language, and identity, and to create as much theoretical diversity and as much interdisciplinary conversation as we could. Then the challenge was, we had all this, how to line it up against and put pieces in conversation with each other.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every trade—publishing and librarianship included. But what has it revealed about these markets? How can stakeholders best prepare for the fast-approaching fall semester? What of these temporary changes will stick once we regain “normalcy”?
Jill Grunenwald, Communications Specialist at OverDrive, explains how OverDrive has adjusted to meet student and faculty needs during the pandemic. “We’ve actually started working closely with our publishing partners to try and provide more access to content. A lot of publishers have stepped up and reduced pricing or have changed their lending models to open up access, which is greatly appreciated.”
In this second episode of the four-part series, Grunenwald discusses how OverDrive has made headway into the academic library market. Both appealing to academic libraries and adjusting to challenges of the pandemic have revealed similar needs: “Readers are relying on ebooks and audiobooks more than ever, so if nothing else I think it sends the message that it’s important that libraries of all kinds invest in this type of content, and also that publishers embrace the format as well.”
Theory is not a hard-and-fast rule. It’s a fluid practice, something that warps and bends due to new information, context, and the situation it’s being applied to.
Sarah Todd, of Carleton University, believes that one of the dangers of applying theory to community work is clinging so tightly to a belief that it drowns out that community’s needs. When privileged, university-educated outsiders enter highly marginalized communities, they must recognize that “one always has to be open to the possibility that your theory may be wrong and it may not work, and that you have to create the openness and the humility for the community to tell you that and for you to hear that and pivot and change in your practice.”
In this second episode, Todd explains how her book, Canadian Perspectives on Community Development, seeks to explore the many types of community development theory, the flexibility of each, and how theory can connect a practitioner to the larger goal of community work. “Is what you’re doing actually creating more equality, or is it just making people settle down and live with the conditions of inequality that they’re becoming accustomed to? It lets us ask those critical questions of the work that we’re doing.”
Librarianship can lead one to many places. Jill Grunenwald, Communications Specialist at OverDrive, has worked in collection development, at a career college, and as sole librarian at a prison in Cleveland, which inspired her memoir Reading Behind Bars.
“It was actually really challenging in a lot of good ways,” Grunenwald explains. “I was the only librarian, so I did all of the work. It was a good and very quick introduction into being a librarian after grad school.” After several library jobs, Grunenwald now works in marketing, managing OverDrive’s blog and co-hosting the podcast Professional Book Nerds.
In this first episode, Grunenwald discusses her duties at OverDrive, the ins and outs of being a podcast host, and some of her favorite comfort reads during the pandemic—historical fiction, anyone? Join the conversation to hear Grunenwald chat about her background and passion for books: “My poor TBR just keeps getting longer and longer!”
Collaboration is a key component of academia. While it’s easy to romanticize the lone scholar typing away in an ivory tower, academics working together birth some of the best and most exciting ideas—especially when each holds a different background or perspective.
Sarah Todd, an English-speaking professor at Carleton University, discovered this for herself in meeting Sébastien Savard, a Francophone professor at the University of Ottawa. Coediting journals at the Canadian Association of Social Work Education, Todd and Savard found commonalities and differences in their approaches to teaching social work, resulting in their own coedited volume, Canadian Perspectives on Community Development. “What we wanted was the learning that was happening in our friendship across linguistic communities to be sketched out into a textbook, so the students in our classrooms and the scholars we work with would also have the opportunity for that kind of excitement and learning and curiosity.”
In the first episode of this four-part series, Todd talks the book’s fruition and gives some history to community development in Canada. A complicated and diverse effort, Canadian community development varies deeply based on a region’s history and culture. By working with Savard, Todd explains that she deepened her understanding of differing communities’ approaches to social work—especially between Francophone and Anglophone ones—and emphasized how “each tradition has both its strengths and its limits that we can learn from.”
Karina Vernon, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, knew that when collecting material for her book, The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, she couldn’t include everything: “The fantasy of the total archive—it’s an impossibility.” She enacted several editorial guidelines to achieve her goal of presenting diverse Black stories that expanded the dominant narrative of the prairies.
She sought out unique pieces—spoken word, letters, oral histories, and rap. She hunted for contributions from women writers, queer voices, and an even count from all provinces of the prairies, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Most importantly, “I also wanted to choose material that was self-conscious in some way about race that would reveal something about Black life on the prairies.”
In the final episode of this four-part series, Dr. Vernon discusses her inclusive process of collecting entries for the archive, and highlights some of her favorite pieces. When audiences pick up the volume, she hopes that they’ll widen their own perspectives as well: “I ask readers when they encounter something that challenges them, that they might not identify with, to make space for listening, to perhaps approach the material differently with open ears, with the willingness to sit with something that might be different or uncomfortable because it will allow us to hear a story that has not yet been told.”
Though this may sound crass, a topic like a global pandemic—something that naturally attracts gossip, mania, and misinformation—is a gold mine for information literacy instructors. Is that pre-print reliable? Is that headline’s only purpose to strike an emotional chord? Who should you listen to, the politician or the scientist?
But even as the need for information literacy programs grows, proving its value can be difficult at the institutional level. Roz Tedford at Wake Forest University, Dan Chibnall at Drake University, and Sarah Morris at Emory University Libraries, explain that the key is to show “librarians as being these multidisciplinary people that have these critical thinking skills to showcase.”
In the last episode of this four-part series, the guests discuss the scale of info lit in an ideal world, how to measure the success of their instruction, and how they’ve incorporated the pandemic into their class discussions. Mila Steele, Senior Publisher of Social Sciences at SAGE Publishing, reveals how SAGE has provided materials to students, faculty, and librarians during this crisis: “As an industry, publishing isn’t known for being a swift current, so it was quite a revolutionary feeling for us to feel like, just drop everything. What’s our supply chain? How can we help? How can we support in terms of getting stuff out there?”
‘Scholarly’ does not equate to detached, apathetic, or impartial. In some cases, a researcher’s emotional ties to a subject can even give the topic more weight or urgency. Karina Vernon, Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough, indeed felt a great pull to her subject, Black life and literature in the Canadian prairies.
Dr. Vernon, a Canadian Prairie native whose family originated from Honduras, felt that her collection, The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, though academic, was deeply personal: “I thought that my sister and I and our father were the only Black people to live on the prairies, and that was so deeply incorrect. So I had to research my way into an identity. The archive has become my story.”
In the third episode of this four-part series, Dr. Vernon digs into the process of her archival research, including looking in unexpected places, like memoirs of sports figures, and a few of the surprises—letters from Mildred Ware, the wife of famous cowboy John Ware—she found along the way. Perhaps most importantly, in her hunt she unearthed stories that reflected her own: “I saw myself honestly, and I saw many of us, who went to open up the book of history or literature, only to find ourselves not there.”
It’s a crucial question on educators’ minds: How do I get my students to engage with the material? For a subject as timely and essential as information literacy, interest in the area has only grown as misinformation swells, the political divide deepens, and the public faces a relentless 24-hour news cycle just a tap away on their devices—but how can you make sure these lessons stick?
Roz Tedford at Wake Forest University, Dan Chibnall at Drake University, and Sarah Morris at Emory University Libraries have all taken some creative approaches to info lit. Whether it’s blending popular and scholarly sources or viewing late night specials on replication studies (thanks John Oliver!), each underscores how important it is to drill these lessons into students through practical use.
In this third episode, the guests swap best practices, including how to adjust their teaching styles to accommodate their Generation Z, Internet-fluent learners. Tedford, Chibnall, and Morris all hope to empower their students through lessons in logical fallacies, the scientific method, and the importance of legitimate expertise. Chibnall hopes to instill the mindset that, “if the idea does not have any merit, if it’s baseless … all of a sudden you open this door and it’s just an empty closet; there’s nothing in it.”
Anthologies have the power to not only reshape the past, but also reflect on the current cultural moment. In The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, Karina Vernon, Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough, grapples with how her collection amends the history of the prairies, while impacting current North American cultural and social politics.
Dr. Vernon explains that when shaping the volume, she wanted to bring to light representations of Black life in the Canadian prairies that hadn’t before been properly acknowledged. In that unearthing, she also had to confront how Black histories on the prairie entangled with indigenous life: “I wanted to think of Black stories, Black literature, and Black life in a way that also made space for indigenous stories and histories.”
In this episode, Dr. Vernon discusses how Black and indigenous histories intersect on the prairie, and how that intersection fits into the current political climate in Canada. She explores the range of voices and texts included in the anthology—”the songs, the gospels, the shouts, the stories, the recitations, the prayers”—and the scholarly possibilities the collection holds for the classroom and beyond.
Though misinformation has long been part of our news and media, the 2016 election galvanized academics, librarians, and researchers into combating the issue with renewed force. Their methods have grown into a multidisciplinary approach that interweaves media literacy, social sciences, and data science through one-shots, workshops, and interactive lesson plans.
Roz Tedford at Wake Forest University, Dan Chibnall at Drake University, and Sarah Morris at Emory University Libraries all saw the need to build information literacy classes that would serve students long after graduation. Tedford states: “It’s almost less critical in terms of their academic research for the four years that they’re at college, and more critical of educating them to be good citizens for the rest of their lives.”
In the second episode of this four-part series, Tedford, Chibnall, and Morris discuss how the 2016 election influenced their information literacy curricula, as well as how their courses have developed in the ensuing years. Mila Steele, Senior Publisher of Social Sciences at SAGE Publishing, joins the conversation to discuss how publishers can develop content that supports faculty and librarians’ digital literacy goals.
Writers like Sinclair Ross and W.O. Mitchell shaped the popular image of the Canadian prairie settler as white, anglophone, and male, and the region’s image as sweeping grasslands broken by farms and small towns. The prairies in fact have a much more diverse history—and collection of writers—than the popular images suggest. We talk with Karina Vernon, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, whose work complicates and expands those images.
In pursuit of sources during her graduate studies, Dr. Vernon stumbled upon an archive that included accounts of Black settlers. This discovery cracked open her perception of her home—the Canadian prairie—and sent her on a years-long hunt for Black writers from the prairies. The result is The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology.
In the first episode of this four-part series, Dr. Vernon explains the process of gathering word-of-mouth or other untraditional sources, the inclusivity of the anthology, and the task of defining a collection that hadn’t before been seen as an archive. She also talks the personal connection she developed to the book’s subject matter: “It changed my research trajectory, but ultimately it really changed my life and my own conception of myself, my history, and my place on the prairies.”
Conspiracy theories. Fake news. Flat Earthers. These buzz words have seeped into our common vernacular. But how does misinformation spread? How does the internet expand its influence? And how can academics keep the next generation of students from falling prey to falsehoods?
In this four-part series, three instructors, each with their own unique backgrounds—Roz Tedford, Director of Research & Instruction at Wake Forest University; Dan Chibnall, STEM Librarian and Assistant Professor of Librarianship at Drake University; and Sarah Morris, Head of Instruction and Engagement at Emory University Libraries—discuss their own approaches to information literacy and the common traps their students fall into.
In this first episode, Tedford, Chibnall, and Morris grapple with how the internet acts as a double-edged sword. While it allows for greater connection across the globe, it can also breed echo chambers that spread false information. Joined by Mila Steele, Senior Publisher of Social Sciences at SAGE Publishing, this episode explores why ‘bad science’ and conspiracy theorists thrive in the digital age, and why an interdisciplinary approach to misinformation can be so powerful.
Publishers, librarians, and scholarly market experts have debated the future of open access publishing for decades now. What have they found? That it’s difficult to enact far-reaching, equitable, and sustainable change across an entire market. However, MIT Press hopes to make waves by creating an OA monograph publishing model usable for all presses, currently in the works thanks to a three-year $850,000 Arcadia grant.
Raym Crow, Senior Consultant at SPARC and researcher on the project, explains that to publish more OA monographs, replicable frameworks need to be introduced. If more institutions successfully adopt these models, “then other presses that have different risk profiles and maybe aren’t as deeply funded also would be willing to try.”
In this final episode, Terry Ehling, Director for Strategic Initiatives at MIT Press, offers background on the press’ commitment to open access, and how OA could affect the dynamic between presses and their institutions. Ehling and Crow also take a bold look ahead at the future of the OA monograph market and the potential change MIT Press’ model could make for other presses.
With a three-year $850,000 Arcadia grant in hand, MIT Press has set to work building an open access publishing model that all presses can use. But what are the benefits of one model over another? What elements are most important to authors and publishers? How do you ensure inclusivity, scalability, and equity across a framework? These are the questions Raym Crow, Senior Consultant at SPARC and researcher on the project, must answer in the press’ quest to find a replicable OA monograph publishing model.
Terry Ehling, Director for Strategic Initiatives at MIT Press, joins Crow to explain the difficulty in aligning the philosophical ideals of open access with the practicalities of the academic publishing market. Crow offers a sobering perspective on why current OA models fail: “people will come in and say yes, even of altruistic basis, say ‘yes, we want to participate in this.’ The problem is that kind of support erodes over time because it’s unsustainable, unscalable, and inequitable.”
In this episode, Crow zeroes in on the criteria needed for MIT’s model—immediate access, inclusivity, replicability, and, of course, “the model has to generate sufficient revenue … and that revenue has to be stable over time, and predictable over time.” Crow and Ehling also compare serial models to collective models, and discuss whether or not MIT Press’ inherent focus on STEM titles will influence the framework’s principles.
Open access monographs are a relatively new product, and the existing distribution infrastructure for print monographs is largely opaque to publishers. That means, when building a financial framework for open monographs, there isn’t much reliable data out there. But MIT Press,
The press hopes its three-year $850,000 grant from the Arcadia Fund will help produce a sustainable business model all presses can adopt to publish OA monographs. As a researcher on the project and a Senior Consultant at SPARC, Raym Crow is quite aware of the lack of useful data on OA monographs. He says that those working on the project are “forced to treat it as a new service” since monograph publishing “doesn’t yield the same kind of market data that you get from subscriptions or other kinds of products and services.”a staunch supporter of open access materials, is working to set a precedent.
In this episode, Crow explains what data they can use, and the risk involved in building a framework for a new service. Terry Ehling, Director for Strategic Initiatives at MIT Press, discusses the press’ background with the Arcadia Fund, its motivation for building this framework, and how the press has used the grant thus far.
In the past twenty years, scholarly monograph sales have sharply declined. As the publishing world moves online, the skills that can’t be robotized—copyediting, designing, marketing—continue to add up. While many hoped digitization would reduce printing costs, therefore paving the way for increased open access materials, Terry Ehling, Director for Strategic Initiatives at MIT Press, explains that it’s actually “replacing some of the nonprint components, those costs, with costs related to technology, so it’s actually escalating.”
Thanks to a three-year $850,000 grant from the Arcadia Fund, MIT Press has the chance to look for a sustainable way to produce open access monographs. While there are divergent OA structures in place around the world, the goal is to build a cohesive financial framework and business model that all presses, small or large, can use to publish OA monographs.
In this first episode, Ehling gives some background into how MIT Press, one of the largest North American university presses, has managed to remain profitable in this difficult publishing environment. Raym Crow, Senior Consultant at SPARC and researcher on the Arcadia-funded project, zooms out to offer perspective on different types of open access monograph practices currently in use.
Nature.com recently became the first journal to roll out Seamless Access, a new federated authentication system designed to connect researchers with the version of record rather than pirated copies of journal articles. Librarians, however, have expressed privacy concerns about the federated access model. Laird Barrett, Digital Product Manager at Springer Nature, addresses those concerns and more in this episode. At the end of the day, libraries and publishers “have a shared end-user and customer in all this which is the researcher… I think we both want to enable their access to legitimate and trusted sources.”
In this final episode on Seamless Access, Barrett offers the inside publisher scoop on how researchers use their devices, the differing North American and European views of federated authentication, and a possible standardized, transparent practice for data collection between publishers and end-users.
In academic publishing, nothing exists without controversy. When Seamless Access came out last year, both praise and apprehension spread. Because Seamless Access has the ability to collect information on a user, librarians voiced privacy concerns.
Heather Flanagan, Program Director at SeamlessAccess.org, remains adamant, “Seamless Access is about the identity discovery process. That’s really all it is. It’s not about storing a user name. It’s not about storing a user password … The identity provider actually controls that behavior.”
In this episode, Laird Barrett, Digital Product Manager at Springer Nature, joins Flanagan to discuss these concerns. They dig into the biggest misconceptions surrounding the service, and what they have done to set the record straight, asking: “What can we present to help people understand what the service is and what the service isn’t?” This episode parses exactly those questions.
Laird Barrett, Digital Product Manager at Springer Nature, understands the need for collaboration to ease authentication services. Barrett explains, “researchers are bouncing in between publishers’ sites to get content, so if you just make that authentication experience easier on one publisher’s site, that doesn’t really solve the problem for researchers.”
In this episode, Barrett discusses Springer Nature’s collaborative efforts to facilitate the authentication process. Springer, the first publisher to implement Seamless Access, recently teamed up with a group of five publishers to develop a more efficient way for researchers to learn if they have access to content.
Heather Flanagan, Program Director at SeamlessAccess.org, points out that the publisher collaboration is great, but that institutional politics and a lack of communication between libraries and the campus IT department are potentially bigger hurdles for Seamless Access advocates. As Barrett articulates, both parties, publishers and Seamless Access developers, have the same question in mind: “What’s the next piece of pain that you can suck out for researchers?”
A one-step, streamlined access service born out of the RA21 initiative last June, Seamless Access uses federated identity as its authentication process to allow researchers to access content from different publishers at any place or time—not just when they’re using their institution’s IP address. Simple, right?
Still technically a beta service, Seamless Access has needed to revise its model to please researchers, publishers, and librarians. Should the Seamless Access button have one universal button design on all publishers’ websites? What if it clashes with a publishers’ site design? Why isn’t proxy authentication good enough? Why are librarians raising privacy concerns? What’s the difference between Seamless Access and GetFTR?
In this episode, Heather Flanagan, Program Director at SeamlessAccess.org, explains how Seamless Access has had to accommodate publishers’ and researchers’ concerns. Laird Barrett, Digital Product Manager at Springer Nature, discusses what drove Springer Nature to become the first academic publisher to implement Seamless Access on Nature.com, and what he thinks makes the service so appealing to end users. Find out what Seamless Access is. Learn about librarians’ initial concerns, and discover how to solve them.
The definition of field research is “to collect qualitative data.” Though a rather scientific description, David Danelo, Director of Field Research for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, argues that at the heart of all field research is a story. While writing his latest book, The Field Researcher’s Handbook: A Guide to the Art and Science of Professional Fieldwork, Danelo wanted to emphasize how storytelling is the ultimate goal of research. “Story is about relating change, and so when we’re talking about the experience of field research, we’re talking about the experience of change.”
In the final episode of this four-part series, Danelo, a former US Marine Corps infantry officer, also talks the more personal side of field research. He explains how going from a life in the military, something “very focused on delivering solutions that were more martial and violent and definitive,” to a profession based in empathy, compassion, and most importantly, listening, has affected him as a person: “It’s really just a chance to listen to people talk about things that matter to them … a chance to connect in a new way with our common humanity.”
As a former Marine Corps infantry officer, David Danelo knows that a researcher’s unique background and life experiences shape their perspective and can bias them even before they get out in the field. Not being aware of biases and how they could impact perspective is a major liability for a researcher. Danelo, Director of Field Research for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, believes self-awareness is crucial, as a researcher can naturally elicit trust or build rapport with particular groups of people based on their life experience. The key, Danelo claims, is that you aren’t “going to change who you are, but you can use who you are to your maximum advantage in collecting data.”
In this week’s episode, Danelo unpacks his latest book, The Field Researcher’s Handbook: A Guide to the Art and Science of Professional Fieldwork, explaining how the true art of data collection, he believes, “is just knowing yourself well enough to understand what your skill sets are and how they relate in the field.”
For David Danelo, the road to defining his job title was a long one. A Naval Academy graduate and US Marine Corps infantry officer, he knew after serving that he wanted to be paid to travel and write—a good place to start, but how to find a steady foothold within the freelance journalism world? The answer, he discovered, was in front of him all along: field research.
In this episode, Danelo, the Director of Field Research for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, explains that though he would later come to define his type of writing as field research, which is, essentially, data collection in the real world, he spent years writing without a solid definition for his work. In his latest volume, The Field Researcher’s Handbook: A Guide to the Art and Science of Professional Fieldwork, he makes the point to show how field research includes many areas outside academia, such as manufacturing, energy, and other trades. Danelo believes extending beyond theory and “really trying to tease out” the methodology of field research makes for a comprehensive book that’s applicable both outside and in the scholarly world.
Are ‘.org’ websites still more trustworthy than ‘.com’ ones? If a source has been tampered with, is it still a primary source? How do we teach students what is trustworthy or not if it’s something we’re just supposed to know?
In this week’s episode, Ellen Carillo, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, discusses authority online, or lack thereof, the differences between primary and secondary sources, and how “seeking out perspectives that don’t align with your own can help students mitigate the consequences of bias.” Carillo reasons that teaching students how to understand their own partiality and reactions to news stories can help them separate background from fact, therefore helping determine the credibility of a digital source.
Carillo hopes the lesson plans in her latest book, the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy, will teach students how to “go from searching for, collecting, and synthesizing sources to constructing their own knowledge, their own definitions.” Carillo unpacks why the book’s media bias chart and lessons are fantastic tools to teach digital literacy skills, skills she hopes will stick long past graduation.
Social media has made sharing everything from cat videos to manifestos easier than ever. To paraphrase Spiderman, “But with great ease comes great responsibility…” The responsibility to properly evaluate myriad sources. Ellen Carillo, assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, unpacks what it means to read digital media laterally, in short, by reading across the web from site to site, rather than vertically down a single source. Her latest volume, the nuanced MLA Guide to Digital Literacy, extends the practice of digital literacy beyond rudimentary checklists, and gives students the context for why these digital literacy tools are needed in America today.
Oh, how the internet has changed…
Once, homely, Comic Sans-ridden websites occupied the top-search returns in Google and blurry, camcorder-recorded videos glued users to YouTube. Now, nearly everyone has the means to create professional-looking media or websites, thanks to the ubiquity and fairly affordable pricing of high quality products like smartphones and website builders.
In this episode, Ellen Carillo, associate professor at the University of Connecticut and author of the new book, the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy,discusses the misconception that proficiency in using digital media equates to skill in evaluating it, and how that misconception has prevented teachers from training their students to be digitally literate. While students today may know how to post a story on Instagram or tweet a .gif on Twitter, it doesn’t mean they are equipped with the skills necessary to find primary sources or determine biases in digital news stories. Carillo also thinks through what universities can do to incorporate digital literacy into every discipline, and what this delay in literacy has meant for students—and our democracy—as educators scramble to catch up.
Income, religion, region, and party—all of these divide America. But another divide is the one between those who are digitally literate and those who aren’t. Ellen Carillo, associate professor at the University of Connecticut, works to shrink that divide, with her new book the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy. While it’s designed to serve as a textbook—with hands-on activities, writing prompts, and sample lesson plans all included—it also functions as more. It’s a real-life guide to evaluating sources and making sound choices for those struggling to withstand the derecho of information howling around us every day.
In this episode, Carillo breaks down eight guiding principles of digital literacy, clarifying that students are not the only ones who need to learn its lessons. It “plays a huge role in what it means to be a citizen.” Which is why each of us could use fifteen minutes or so of enlightened conversation on the hows and whys of the important and often-overlooked topic of digital literacy.
Building a diverse contributor pool requires intentionality and—as Bryan Keene of the J. Paul Getty Museum discovered—a number of different perspectives to point out limitations, blind spots, and oversights. In this episode, Keene explains how he ensured Toward a Global Middle Ages is as inclusive as possible. Peer reviewers played crucial roles in suggesting diverse scholars and works, as did Keene’s own colleagues at the Getty. Thanks to the combined effort of his team of designers, editors, and his rights coordinator, Keene compiled manuscripts from every corner of the world from a host of unique backgrounds. Keene describes the practicalities of organizing such an exhaustive book, such as formatting the impressively-long reference list, standardizing spellings of titles across languages, and choosing which dating conventions were most appropriate for a volume that looked beyond European time lines.
Academics have long championed the term “globalization” for expanding Eurocentric perspectives to include a broader, better represented world. However, Bryan Keene of the J. Paul Getty Museum reveals how globalization, despite its inclusive intentions, can homogenize instead of diversify, often ignoring the painful effects of colonization, and flattening or even dismissing diversity among countries and regions. In Keene’s new and exciting edited volume Toward a Global Middle Ages, contributors instead use globalization to reveal diversity. They employ the French variant of globalization, “mondialisation”—roughly translated to “world-making strategies”—to acknowledge histories and cultures outside of Europe during the medieval period. By focusing on microhistories in Northern Africa, Indonesia, South America and beyond, Toward a Global Middle Ages demonstrates how “Europe is just a small region in a greater Afro-Eurasia … just one place in a much larger world.”
Is it possible to pull apart the Eurocentric perspective long cast upon the Middle Ages to not only include, but focus on other parts of the globe? Bryan Keene of the J. Paul Getty Museum certainly thinks so. In this episode, Keene discusses how contributors used illustrated manuscripts as a tether to dive into the medieval period in his monumental edited volume Toward a Global Middle Ages. Using broad terms like “the book,” “identity,” or “itineraries” as a guide, this work breaks out of its art history concentration to include the multidisciplinary perspectives of its many contributors, and redefines the word “medieval” to establish a fresh, modern take on the Middle Ages.
Global approaches to the Middle Ages have long been part of historical and literary studies, but only over the last ten years or so has a global approach emerged within the field of art history. In this episode, Bryan C. Keene, associate curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, discusses the timeline of assembling his monumental edited volume Toward a Global Middle Ages: Encountering the World through Illuminated Manuscripts, and what a “Global Middle Ages” actually means.
During the Charleston Conference’s Vendor Showcase Bill caught up with Caroline Muglia of the University of Southern California to talk about her presentation, “Developing a Framework for Measuring Reuse of Digital Library Collections: Discovery, Assessment, and Sharing.” In their conversation Caroline covers what she means by reuse, how user privacy is written into how she and the team with which she works think about reuse, and how reuse can help libraries demonstrate value.
In this episode Suzanne Mangrum details her ambitions and her process for promoting Open Educational Resource (OER) adoption at Middle Tennessee State University. Recorded live during the vendor showcase at the Charleston Conference.
This episode was recorded live on the show floor of the Charleston Conference. Mark Derks jumps right into a conversation with Mary Ellen Sloane of Middle Tennessee State University about a workshop she runs for graduate students on data management and visualization.
Electronic publishing has opened up new ways for libraries to lend books, new apps, new loan periods, more copies—as well as different cost structures.
In this episode, Lindsey Levinsohn talks about OverDrive’s app, the evolving collection, and a variety of lending models.
In some ways, the internet has disintermediated libraries from their patrons, and disrupted traditional avenues of book distribution, but at the same time it has opened up new possibilities for electronic distribution. This has opened up a whole class of metrics, and a wealth of information about their readers that was previously hidden from publishers.
In this episode, Lindsey Levinsohn talks through disintermediation, what it means for libraries, and what sort of information a service like OverDrive sends back to publishers.
Academic libraries are leveraging new technologies to reach students and faculty where they are—whether that’s through apps to bring them ebooks or research management software to streamline the grant application process. As the content and service mix at libraries changes, new privacy issues and value propositions arise.
Lindsay Levinsohn of OverDrive Professional shares her thoughts on demonstrating the library’s value on campus by harnessing analytics while respecting user privacy.
The library collection is not what it once was. Administrators are asking questions about devoting large amounts of space to housing books, and librarians are adapting their spaces to meet changing user needs. Stacks are being replaced by meeting spaces, learning commons, and computer labs. But in this environment, libraries also need to provide the materials—physical and electronic—to meet the educational and research needs of their patrons.
This week, Lindsay Levinsohn of OverDrive addresses the changing nature of the academic library collection and thinks through the opportunities those changes provide.
Libraries are collecting different data now than they were say, ten years ago. That changes has come in part because of advances in technology and in part because of the way librarians perceptions of their data have changed. Kristen Tepfer of SAGE publishing talks about some of the ways the data she provides to her clients have changed and why it is, while Dr. Carol Tenopir talks through collecting additional survey data to answer the question, “So what?” Dr. Stephanie Evergreen talks data-driven decision making.
Is it possible to visualize qualitative data? How do libraries justify their collection, staffing, and other priorities with data? How has that data changed over the last decade, since the ascendance of the turn-away?
This episode dives into the different types of data libraries collect and how librarians can use them to inform themselves and justify their decisions to the university’s administration.
In this episode, Dr. Carol Ember describes how researchers in the U.K. used the extensive ethnographic record in HRAF to form hypotheses about the spread of AIDS through cultural practices involving human saliva. She also elucidates a bit of research she and her late husband, Melvin Ember, along with a political scientist undertook to determine whether the claim that democracies don’t fight each other—which is widely circulated in studies of international relations—is an artifact of treaties like NATO, high standards of living and other features of contemporary democracies, or whether it’s a more general principal that can be applied across polities. Dr. Peter Peregrine also explains the power of index searching and examines the quality of the ethnographies collected in HRAF.
To learn more about HRAF, visit the Human Relations Area Files website.
What tools should be in every data vizzard’s toolbox? How do you create a visualization for something like a cost-benefit analysis? What makes for a great graph title? Dr. Stephanie Evergreen and Kristen Tepfer talk data visualization for libraries, and offer foundational ideas for creating great data visualizations.
What’s the difference between value and ROI, and which should an academic library be reporting? Are there best practices for making a case with data? What are the limits of library data, and how can publishers help push beyond those limits? Dr. Carol Tenopir of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Stephanie Evergreen of Evergreen Data, and Kristen Tepfer of SAGE Publishing talk data in libraries, and walk listeners through how to communicate a library’s value using data.
Vocational awe is a term Fobazi Ettarh uses to “[describe] the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries, as institutions, are inherently good.1” Though it may seem counter-intuitive that assuming a library is “inherently good” can lead to unproductive ends, Fobazi makes the case for examining the history of libraries and the stories told about them in order to understand why librarians are asked to feel inspired by their jobs, and how that inspiration isn’t always best for the librarian or the patron. In her discussion with Bill Mickey, Fobazi turns a critical eye on the library to find ways to make it better—for everyone.
Big academic publishers are trying to turn big data on researchers and the research life-cycle into big money. Karen Phillips talks through SAGE’s priorities regarding data (hint: it’s not about collecting reams and reams of it) and how user behavior is making discovery services feel a bit old fashioned. Johan touches on how researchers are interacting with materials on mobile devices, and Richard outlines how those changing user behaviors are impacting Penn’s interactions with the library’s users.
Been hearing buzz about ACRL’s new research agenda, “Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future?” In this episode, Bill talks with the current chair of ACRL’s Research and Scholarly Environment Committee (ReSEC), Yasmeen Shorish, and incoming chair, Nathan Hall—two ReSEC members involved in creating and promoting the report—about how this research agenda is different from any other agenda ACRL has published. They address the report’s structure, how that structure was achieved, and how they anticipate the agenda will help inform other research projects. While the agenda sets a high bar for systemic change, it also provides ample opportunities for ongoing research projects and actionable takeaways to create momentum toward that change.
They also address ways that ACRL is supporting the agenda in an ongoing way through grants to support research aligned with the priority areas detailed in the report.
To download a free copy of the report, click here.
Privacy has long been a core value for librarians. In this episode, Johan Tilstra talks about how privacy can be maintained as library services, access, and discovery become increasingly interconnected via an ever-growing array of technology providers and platforms. In doing so, he describes an early learning experience for Lean Library when it discovered that it was collecting more browser data than it wanted or needed from its users. The company’s response to the issue is instructive for service providers and librarians alike. Richard Griscom follows up that discussion with perspective on the University of Pennsylvania Library’s strong stance on privacy and the values it looks for in service providers.
For students and researchers finding the right article, book, or video, isn’t enough. Gaining access is key. Librarians may come at the question of discover like, well, librarians, instead of thinking through the problem from a student or researcher’s perspective.
This week Bill continues his conversation Karen Phillips, Johan Tilstra, and Richard Griscom about taking on the user’s point of view, how discovery needs to morph into delivery, and how traditional services just aren’t matching up with contemporary user behavior.
Researchers’ habits have changed. They expect seamless access to every relevant article or book chapter whether they’re on campus or off. And the way they work is changing libraries. Libraries can offer more content than ever before, but when a researcher reads a relevant article, do they even know the library made that access possible?
Karen Phillips of SAGE Publishing, Johan Tilstra of Lean Library, and Richard Griscom of the University of Pennsylvania libraries, talk through content delivery, library technology, and the skillsets librarians need to deliver. They also discuss how library purchasing can be an expression of the library’s values and what that might look like in a largely digital sphere.
How can a library motivate faculty to adopt free or low-cost textbooks and course materials? What role can DRM-free titles and journals play in lowering students’ textbook costs?
Beth Bernhard of UNC Greensboro and Kelley Squazzo of Project MUSE explore how the libraries at UNCG have answered those questions through an innovative mini-grant program. Beth explains how the idea came about, how the library implemented it, and what the result has been. Kelley talks through the market trends that are playing out in microcosm at UNCG, and how they line up with Project MUSE’s content strategy and mission. The two of them also discuss a partnership that the UNCG libraries have developed with the bookstore and how it’s helping to lower costs for students, as well as some of the benefits that working with a non-profit aggregator like MUSE can bring to libraries, faculty, and students.
The economy is changing. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 14% of all jobs in OECD countries will will be lost to automation and an additional 32% will likely see “significant changes” due to technology. But technology isn’t the only factor affecting the future of work. In this episode, Iain Williamson from the OECD and Ryan Johnson of Georgetown University lay out the factors shaping the economy of tomorrow and the skills workers will need to adapt to it. They also dig into some of the ways higher education is already changing to meet the challenge through enhanced credentialing programs and a variety of other tactics. Join us for a discussion about the future of work and what it will take for the world’s economies to transition workers to tomorrow’s economies.
In this first of four episodes focusing on nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews and the ongoing evolution of the organization, Bill talks with Richard Gallagher, the President and Editor-in-Chief, about the organization’s history and how those first reviews came together. They also discuss what goes into a review, how the process has changed over the years, and they begin to look ahead to how opening up content at Annual Reviews—by making it freely available to read and reuse on the web—allows this vital synthesis of research in areas like Public Health to reach a wider audience and achieve greater societal impact.
In the world of scholarly publishing, keep buying up pieces of the publishing infrastructure to streamline workflows and contain costs. Mergers and acquisitions abound. At the same time, Big Deals squeeze library budgets a bit more every year with locked-in price increases. The tension between publishers and librarians has been mounting for years, but only recently have Wiley, Elsevier, and Springer Nature begun to strike transformative agreements to move from paying for subscriptions to paying for publication.
How do university presses fit into this environment? What have the changes meant for them? Emily Farrell and Nick Lindsay talk with Bill Mickey live on the ACRL show floor about the variety of tactics, products, and approaches that the MIT Press is developing and pursuing to transform scholarly publishing from within. Mission-driven publishing turns out to be a vibrant, scrappy enterprise full of surprises exciting new approaches.
Brian Gray, and his colleagues, spearheaded innovations in the Kelvin Smith Library’s approach to First Year Experience programming at Case Western Reserve University. Originally, librarians visited classrooms in a traditional outreach campaign, but with only ten librarians and between eighty and ninety 17-student “First” seminar sections, the library staff was quickly overwhelmed. That’s what led Brian, as Team Leader for Research Services, to experiment with techniques for reaching more first-year students outside of their “First” seminars. Moving outside the seminars highlighted the soft- and non-traditional skills librarians needed to engage students and led to the development of what Brian calls the Personal Librarian. What is a Personal Librarian? How did Brian up-skill his research and outreach team? That’s what he and Ian Singer, General Manager at Credo Reference, discuss with Authority File host Bill Mickey live on the show floor at the 2019 ACRL conference.
Brian and Ian also tackle trends in the FYE space, how the First Year Experience and Personal Librarian Conference came about (and where it’s going), and why Case and Credo have been able to form such a fruitful partnership around FYE.
This week, many of you will trek to Cleveland for the ACRL conference. This episode highlights just a few of the many attractions in Cleveland, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and lets you know how to connect with Bill and the Authority File while you’re at the conference. We’ll be recording episodes live on the show floor, so if you’re going to be in Cleveland, be sure to listen to this episode for the lowdown, and even if you’re not, tune in anyway for a bit of a preview of the conference and the many interviews we’ll be posting shortly afterward.
In the final of four episodes focusing on nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews and the ongoing evolution of the organization, Bill talks with Richard Gallagher, the President and Editor-in-Chief, about Subscribe to Open, a pilot program that enlists subscribing libraries to help open up journal content. They also discuss Plan S, and Richard offers a few ideas for smaller publishers who are thinking about changing their business models.
In the third of four episodes focusing on nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews and the ongoing evolution of the organization, Bill talks with Richard Gallagher, the President and Editor-in-Chief, about Knowable Magazine, digital publication that’s free to read and reuse (CC BY-ND), and brings a journalistic lens to the organization’s expert content. They discuss how it serves as a bridge between Annual Reviews’ academic review articles and the broader needs of the science-interested public. Richard also articulates the importance of accurate scientific information to a well-informed democracy.
In the second of four episodes focusing on nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews and the ongoing evolution of the organization, Bill talks with Richard Gallagher, the President and Editor-in-Chief, about the organization’s desire and efforts to move to an open access publication model. The first journal test case was the Annual Review of Public Health, and Richard discusses the remarkable uptick in use the journal has seen. One surprise Richard highlights is the variety of places using the journal. More universities than ever have begun downloading the content as well as health policy organizations, and, interestingly, prisons. What lessons can be learned from this expanding usage? Listen to find out.
With this episode, Choice is pleased to wrap up a semi-regular series of interviews with OAT-winning authors. The Outstanding Academic Titles(OATs for short) are an annual list of the best academic titles reviewed by Choice. The 2018 list is just out and available in our January 2019 issue and online at ChoiceReviews.org.
In this series, Dr. Randolph Cornelius, professor of psychological science at Vassar College and longtime Choice reviewer, interviews Dr. Heidi Maibom, professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, about empathy and her most recent edited work, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy. Their discussion ranges widely over the volume’s chapters, and brings together Dr. Cornelius’ psychological work with Dr. Maibom’s philosophical insights. They begin their conversation with perhaps the most foundational question in the study of empathy: what, precisely, is it? And from that base, they build a nuanced and informative description of empathy that incorporates insights from science, philosophy, environmentalism, and spirituality.
Dr. Cornelius gets Dr. Maibom discuss how empathy, compassion, and moral decision making are related; what psychopaths can teach us about empathy, and whether there’s an empathy deficit in the United States.
With this episode, Choice is pleased to continue a semi-regular series of interviews with OAT-winning authors. The Outstanding Academic Titles(OATs for short) are an annual list of the best academic titles reviewed by Choice. The 2018 list is just out and available in our January 2019 issue and online at ChoiceReviews.org.
In this series, Dr. Randolph Cornelius, professor of psychological science at Vassar College and longtime Choice reviewer, interviews Dr. Heidi Maibom, professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, about empathy and her most recent edited work, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy. Their discussion ranges widely over the volume’s chapters, and brings together Dr. Cornelius’ psychological work with Dr. Maibom’s philosophical insights. They begin their conversation with perhaps the most foundational question in the study of empathy: what, precisely, is it? And from that base, they build a nuanced and informative description of empathy that incorporates insights from science, philosophy, environmentalism, and spirituality.
Dr. Cornelius gets Dr. Maibom discuss the role of empathy in altruism, the function of empathy, and the way in which the possible evolutionary history of empathy illustrates the deep ties that bind humans to the natural world.
With this episode, Choice is pleased to continue a semi-regular series of interviews with OAT-winning authors. The Outstanding Academic Titles(OATs for short) are an annual list of the best academic titles reviewed by Choice. The 2018 list is just out and available in our January 2019 issue and online at ChoiceReviews.org.
In this series, Dr. Randolph Cornelius, professor of psychological science at Vassar College and longtime Choice reviewer, interviews Dr. Heidi Maibom, professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, about empathy and her most recent edited work, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy. Their discussion ranges widely over the volume’s chapters, and brings together Dr. Cornelius’ psychological work with Dr. Maibom’s philosophical insights. They begin their conversation with perhaps the most foundational question in the study of empathy: what, precisely, is it? And from that base, they build a nuanced and informative description of empathy that incorporates insights from science, philosophy, environmentalism, and spirituality.
Dr. Cornelius gets Dr. Maibom dig into the nuts and bolts of empathy in this episode. They discuss the differences between cognitive and affective empathy, whether we can be overcome by empathy, and whether empathy is a two-faced emotion.
With this episode, Choice is pleased to debut a semi-regular series of special interviews with OAT-winning authors. The Outstanding Academic Titles (OATs for short) are an annual list of the best academic titles reviewed by Choice. The 2018 list is just out and available in our January 2019 issue and online at ChoiceReviews.org.
In this series, Dr. Randolph Cornelius, professor of psychological science at Vassar College and longtime Choice reviewer, interviews Dr. Heidi Maibom, professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, about empathy and her most recent edited work, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy. Their discussion ranges widely over the volume’s chapters, and brings together Dr. Cornelius’ psychological work with Dr. Maibom’s philosophical insights. They begin their conversation with perhaps the most foundational question in the study of empathy: what, precisely, is it? And from that base, they build a nuanced and informative description of empathy that incorporates insights from science, philosophy, environmentalism, and spirituality.
Dr. Cornelius gets Dr. Maibom to explain some of the thinking behind the structure of The Handbook in this episode, and in neat philosophical style, Dr. Maibom parses Dr. Cornelius’ probing about why empathy is an interesting phenomenon for a philosopher to study into its personal and disciplinary parts. Along the way, they begin to uncover some ideas about what differentiates “emotional contagion” from “empathy proper.”
For this mini-series, Bill chats with Mary Ellen Davis, ACRL’s executive director about the upcoming ACRL conference in Cleveland Ohio, Project Outcome, and the ACRL’s efforts around Equity Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). Episode 70 starts with some must-sees at the ACRL conference, like Alison Bechdel (Bechdel? The Alison Bechdel!?), silent disco-ing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and just what ACRL means by “Recasting the Narrative.” Bill and Mary Ellen then move on to talk about Project Outcome: what it is, how librarians can use it, and where they will be able to find the results.
For this mini-series, Bill chats with Mary Ellen Davis, ACRL’s executive director about the upcoming ACRL conference in Cleveland Ohio, Project Outcome, and the ACRL’s efforts around Equity Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). In this episode, Bill and Mary Ellen discuss the ACRL’s recent action to adopt EDI as a core commitment. Mary Ellen articulates exactly what the ACRL board has committed to, what it means for the ACRL to have made such a commitment, how that commitment is changing the way the ACRL operates. She takes a few moments to talk about the ways EDI has been a longstanding value within the organization, and lists just a few of the ways ACRL’s activities promote inclusivity.
For this four-part series, The Authority File takes a break form its usual interview format to present a panel Bill moderated at the Charleston Conference called, “Marketing Academic Library Resources and Services: How Marketing and Outreach Support a Library’s Value Proposition—and an Analysis of Current Practices.” The panel covered the current state of marketing and outreach activities at libraries and what these initiatives look like at different types of institutions. It also presented the results of a survey Choice conducted on library marketing and outreach. In this episode, the panelists discuss the marketing and outreach of digital resources and the priority placed on them.
For this four-part series, The Authority File takes a break form its usual interview format to present a panel Bill moderated at the Charleston Conference called, “Marketing Academic Library Resources and Services: How Marketing and Outreach Support a Library’s Value Proposition—and an Analysis of Current Practices.” The panel covered the current state of marketing and outreach activities at libraries and what these initiatives look like at different types of institutions. It also presented the results of a survey Choice conducted on library marketing and outreach. In this episode, the panelists discuss why there seems to be a lack of formality, best practice development, and appropriate staffing around marketing and outreach activities at academic libraries.
For this four-part series, The Authority File takes a break form its usual interview format to present a panel Bill moderated at the Charleston Conference called, “Marketing Academic Library Resources and Services: How Marketing and Outreach Support a Library’s Value Proposition—and an Analysis of Current Practices.” The panel covered the current state of marketing and outreach activities at libraries and what these initiatives look like at different types of institutions. It also presented the results of a survey Choice conducted on library marketing and outreach. In this episode, the panelists discuss the main objectives of their library’s marketing and outreach. They also dig into assessment of outreach and how the library’s outreach aligns with the library’s and institution’s goals.
For this four-part series, The Authority File takes a break from its usual interview format to present a panel Bill moderated at the Charleston Conference called, “Marketing Academic Library Resources and Services: How Marketing and Outreach Support a Library’s Value Proposition—and an Analysis of Current Practices.” The panel covered the current state of marketing and outreach activities at libraries and what these initiatives look like at different types of institutions. It also presented the results of a survey Choice conducted on library marketing and outreach. In this episode, the panelists introduce themselves, discuss what defines marketing and outreach, its current state of practice, and how that state was developed.
For this four-part series, Bill speaks with Becky Brasington Clark, the head of the Library of Congress’ publishing office and Carol Saller, chief copyeditor of the Sixteenth Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Their conversation weaves together the mission of publishing at the Library of Congress and the ethical and moral considerations that emerge from editorial, style, and publishing norms. In this episode, Becky offers insights into how the publishing office amplifies the Library of Congress’ outreach efforts, and Carol talks about why all of the style guides are sick to death of arguing over the Oxford comma.
For 25% off the Seventeenth Edition’s cover price, go to chicagomanualofstyle.org and use the promo code CHOICEPOD25.
For this four-part series, Bill speaks with Becky Brasington Clark, the head of the Library of Congress’ publishing office and Carol Saller, chief copyeditor of the Sixteenth Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Their conversation weaves together the mission of publishing at the Library of Congress and the ethical and moral considerations that emerge from editorial, style, and publishing norms. In this episode, Becky provides a deep dive on the publishing office’s criteria and procedures for producing books, while Carol addresses a few items in the Seventeenth edition of the Manual that made it in just under the wire. She also previews a few items the staff at the University of Chicago Press are keeping an eye on for the Eighteenth edition.
For this four-part series, Bill speaks with Becky Brasington Clark, the head of the Library of Congress’ publishing office and Carol Saller, chief copyeditor of the Sixteenth Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Their conversation weaves together the mission of publishing at the Library of Congress and the ethical and moral considerations that emerge from editorial, style, and publishing norms. In this episode, both Carol and Becky reflect on how style can and does reflect a cultural moment, the politics of copyediting, and how maintaining flexibility as a copyeditor can actually be a virtue.
For 25% off the 17th Edition’s cover price, go to chicagomanualofstyle.org and use the promo code CHOICEPOD25.
For this four-part series, Bill speaks with Becky Brasington Clark, the head of the Library of Congress’ publishing office and Carol Saller, chief copyeditor of the Sixteenth Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Their conversation weaves together the mission of publishing at the Library of Congress and the ethical and moral considerations that emerge from editorial, style, and publishing norms. In this episode, Becky Brasington Clark provides insight into how publishing helps further the Library of Congress’ mission, the office’s role in originating projects, and the office’s criteria for selecting publishing partners. Carol Saller talks through the origin of the CMOS Q&A and the Shop Talk blog, and provides a bit of perspective on the motivations for bringing out a new edition of the manual.
For 25% off the 17th Edition’s cover price, go to chicagomanualofstyle.org and use the promo code CHOICEPOD25.
This week, Dr. Carol Ember and Dr. Peter Peregrine discuss their research into the cultural responses to disaster. Dr. Ember and her colleagues are investigating societies that lived in hazard-prone environments to see which cultural practices may have been adaptive. As part of the same grant, Dr. Peregrine has examined catastrophic disasters—because they are more readily apparent in the archaeological record—to determine what cultural features may have led to more adaptive societies. Their insights help to shed light on ideas for adapting culturally to climate change and illustrate the way pre-modern cultures can offer insights for addressing contemporary problems.
To learn more about HRAF, visit the Human Relations Area Files website.
In this week’s episode, Dr. Carol Ember explains how the Harvard Song Project partnered with HRAF to data mine the cultural record to better understand the variety of ways humans use of song. She also highlights the ways in which HRAF’s structure—as a collection of human-tagged and annotated documents—make it a particularly valuable resource for data miners. In addition, Dr. Peter Peregrine discusses HRAF’s utility to museum curators who may have unidentified objects or objects with little context in their collections.
To learn more about HRAF, visit the Human Relations Area Files website.
In this series Dr. Carol Ember, president of HRAF, and Peter N. Peregrine, professor of archaeology at Lawrence University, join Bill to talk about the history, make-up, and relevance of HRAF—and how the cultures and cultural practices contained within its million pages of information can illuminate a wide variety research areas. This episode zeroes in on HRAF’s interdisciplinary inception, the research needs it was designed to meet, as well as its deep organizational structure.
To learn more about HRAF, visit the Human Relations Area Files website.
This week each of our guests talk through library anxiety inducers for their incoming cohorts of freshmen, and some of the tactics they use to allay those anxieties, while educating students about the resources the library can provide. They also discuss bringing folks other than undergraduate students into the library and weigh some of the benefits of these practices.
In this episode, Bill, Danielle, Andrew, and Ray discuss bringing empathy to the library—some of their successes and difficulties—as well as tactics for connecting with busy faculty and adjunct instructors to maximize the impact of library instruction.
Bill, Ray, Danielle, and Andrew talk through ideas for expanding the library’s reach among first year students in this week’s episode. Andrew thinks through the opportunities and drawbacks in East Bay’s move away from a required first year experience course, while Danielle offers strategies Pasadena uses to engage students who opt not to take the voluntary first-year experience course. And Ray offers his thoughts on key elements of FYE programming.
This week Bill talks about the student library experience with librarians from a community college, a master’s granting institution, and a university. He gets perspective on the different types of FYE programs at each institution and how the differing student bodies shape the programming—or don’t—at Pasadena City College, California State University East Bay, and California State University, Fresno.
This week Bill, Ray, Lisa, and Laura talk tactics for collaboration—who should you build bridges with? Students? Faculty? Other library departments? What if there’s not time? How does partnering with an off-campus group work? Bill finds answers to these questions and others with this week’s group of expert panelists.
This week, Bill talks with Ray, Laura, and Lisa about collaboration as a key component of first year experience programming and development, and some of the things that can complicate the library’s efforts to collaborate. They also talk about strategies for sustaining the collaborations without reinventing the wheel year after year.
In this episode Bill speaks with Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Ray Pun and Laura Kohl about a study Lisa recently published in Communications in Information Literacy that examines first year student misconceptions about information literacy—how those misconceptions take root, what they are, and how librarians can help root them out. They take for an example the common misconception, “All library sources are credible” and examine how a student might arrive at that specific “successful error,” as Bill dubs it.
Learn how Bryant University integrated information literacy into its list of five things that differentiate a Bryant education, and how that led the library into developing both a summer bridge course and four courses designed to teach the differentiators. Laura Kohl, Director of Library Services, provides insight into how things got started and what it takes to keep iterating and innovating while maintaining a tight focus on the program’s goals. Lisa and Ray also provide their views on collaboration and how to foster it. Don’t miss the episode!
In this final episode about big data research, we focus on the utility of pulling data sets out of the desk drawer and making them available for wider examination and manipulation. Ian also dives into the problems that can arise when research funders don’t take into account the specialized tools researchers sometimes develop to dig into their data and how the loss of those tools can result in heterogeneous methodologies that complicate interpreting huge data sets.
In this third of our four episodes about big data research, we continue our conversation by focusing on the The University of Southern California’s library’s day-to-day work with Big Data, and how integral partnerships with researchers are to understanding the individual research questions and the tools necessary to answer them. They also discuss how prevalent big data research is at USC and some of the exciting projects that are currently in the works.
In this second of our four episodes about big data research, we continue our conversation by focusing on the library’s role with not only services and instruction, but how big data impacts collection practices and how it’s altering the relationships between libraries and vendors. Fundamentally, a library’s broader strategy for supporting big data research starts with the reference interview and grows from there.
In this final episode of our four-part series on the evolution of institutional repositories, our guests talk about how they not only sustain engagement with their IRs, but grow it as well. A key driver of success is relationships. Partnerships with faculty and students are, of course, crucial, but Illinois Wesleyan’s Stephanie Davis-Kahl and Utah State University’s Dylan Burns both describe how they target entities such as admissions and university communications to help expand the circle of repository influencers. They also put the time in for personal connections with individuals, which is also important to expanding the repository’s promotional network. Stephanie and Dylan also talk about how they’ve kept the IR mission purposefully broad in scope to accommodate a range of content types and the communities it serves.
For this series on the research methodologies around—and library support of—big data, our guests discuss the growth of big data research and how the academic library is stepping up to meet its unique service and instruction needs. In this first episode of our four-part series, we define what the term “big data” means in an academic setting and how big data research is outgrowing its science-based origins and bleeding into the humanities and social sciences.
In this third episode of our series on institutional repositories, Illinois Wesleyan University’s Stephanie Davis-Kahl and Utah State University’s Dylan Burns describe how their IRs are currently structured and how they’re are opening up new collaborative opportunities. At USU, for example, the physics department has been especially active with the IR, going so far as to use it for their personal websites to display their lab work, pre-prints, posters, and presentations. At Illinois Wesleyan, Davis-Kahl notes that the inclusion of faculty governance documents has become a “really useful way of learning about the institution, understanding what discussions have been the most contentious or the most important in the institution’s history, and, more importantly, it’s really helped to communicate to the faculty and administration what an IR is capable of doing.”
Institutional repositories are not part of the service package libraries have traditionally offered their patrons, but the institutional repositories at Utah State University and Illinois Wesleyan University have both recently celebrated their tenth anniversary and continue to support their library’s missions. In this episode, Dylan Burns and Stephanie Davis-Kahl discuss what it took to start the repositories at USU and IWU, how student and faculty work helped to launch the repositories, and how the strategies for the repositories have changed along with the academy.
Join us for an insightful discussion on what it took to get the repositories up and running at USU and IWU.
How can librarians motivate publishers of every shape and size to implement COUNTER compliant reporting on their products? Does a publisher ever adjust their subscription rate based on COUNTER usage statistics? Bill, Iris, Lorraine, and Stuart explore the answers to these questions and others relevant to publisher-library relations in this week’s episode.
In February of 2018, Choice released the first in a series of white papers designed to provide actionable intelligence on issues important to academic librarians. That white paper was titled, The Evolving Institutional Repository Landscape, and was written by this week’s guest Judy Luther. In this episode, Judy talks with Bill about the current state of the institutional repository: what institutions are using them for, some of the trends based on institution size, how Lorcan Dempsey’s idea of “The inside out library” fits with the use of institutional repositories, as well as many other issues.
Two librarians also join the discussion in upcoming episodes to provide insight into exactly what is working at one small liberal arts college, Illinois Wesleyan University, and one large research institution, Utah State University. Join us for an in-depth discussion that touches on best practices as well as more theoretical concerns.
What did it take to build consensus on standards in the scholarly publishing marketplace? Who were the key players, and how did they motivate publishers, aggregators, and librarians to work together? This week, Bill dives into the history of COUNTER and uncovers a few gems about the people that worked tirelessly to bring digital standards to scholarly publishing.
In this episode, Lorraine Estelle of COUNTER, Stuart Maxwell of Scholarly IQ, and Iris Hanney of Unlimited Priorities discuss COUNTER credentialing and how the COUNTER standards allow libraries and publishers to assess value. They discuss the underlying logic of digital standards, and how consistency, credibility, and comparability are key to the development of standards in general.
This week Wendy Queen, Director of Project MUSE; Barbara Kline Pope, Director of Johns Hopkins University Press; Dean Smith, Director of Cornell University Press; and Sayeed Choudhury, Associate Dean for Research Data Management and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center at the Sheridan Libraries offer their thoughts on the future of open publication and the tension between the ideology behind open publication and the practical considerations that must go into any business decision. They talk about the ways ideology and practicality can complement each other and how publishers, aggregators, and libraries need to work together to reduce the need for redundant deposit. They also discuss how—especially in the humanities and social sciences—educating authors about the reach and access open publication provides is part of an ongoing process that’s only just beginning.
Sayeed Choudhury of Johns Hopkins’ Sheridan Libraries details the collaboration between the library, JHU Press, MUSE Open, and the Black Press Research Collective. Together they are producing a “new aggregation” that connects primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship across multiple platforms. Learn how that collaboration came about and why bringing in researchers’ voices was so important to shaping the publication strategy.
Black Press in America represents a collaborative strategy for publishing that respects the needs of researchers and leverages the strengths of libraries, university presses and aggregators. Learn about it and how similar projects may shape open publication.
Open access publication in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is well established, though still a marginal percentage of the market, while in the humanities and social sciences, open publication is still in its infancy, without a firmly planted business model. Hear how Dean Smith, the publisher of Cornell University Press, navigates the sometimes fraught and binary positions of librarians, publishers, and authors when talking about open access, and how Cornell University Press is working to develop sustainable open business models through experimentation with grants and workflows.
This episode explores grant funding for open books, partnerships with services like MUSE Open, discovery, and metrics, and highlights one university press’s efforts to open up its catalog and the ways those efforts are paying dividends of greater use and increased visibility.
Publishing open access used to mean posting the full text or a .pdf of a work online, but the world of open academic book publishing is growing new forms and containers as well as new business models. In episode 34, Wendy Queen, Director of Project MUSE, and Barbara Kline Pope, Director of Johns Hopkins University Press, weigh in on the promise of open academic books, the experiments shaking up traditional book publication, and the connections that MUSE Open will bring to open access books when it launches this summer.
We’re in the early days of and evolving market. Publishers and platforms are working toward greater discoverability, integration, and reach. Learn about their hopes, strategies, and ideas in this week’s episode.
This week, explore some of the tensions that spring from expanding the classroom beyond its physical confines and opening it up to anyone willing to put in the time and effort through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Does the amount of time instructors have to put into these classes match the educational outcomes for the participants? How far can the mission of an institution extend before financial realities begin to kick in? What happens when students bear more and responsibility for their own learning? This episode explores these questions and offers insights from SAGE’s recent white paper, Assessing the Impact of Educational Video on Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Learning: The Current State of Play.
What is cognitive load, and how does it affect student learning? Does video use increase or decrease the cognitive load on the part of the viewer? This week, Michael Carmichael of SAGE Publishing and Dr. Jeffrey Karpicke of Purdue University discuss the ways student behaviors and the environments in which they learn are shaping how they learn. They also discuss how presenting content through video may impact cognitive load. They also dive into the results of their experiment and what they demonstrate about graphics, cognitive load, and student engagement with video.
From how-tos and brief explainers that break down complex concepts into bite-sized chunks of information to long-form documentaries and feature films, video has found its way into almost every corner of higher education. But what makes for a successful educational video, and how would we judge that success? This week Michael Carmichael, Video Publisher at SAGE, and Dr. Jeffrey Karpicke of Purdue University think through these questions and talk about how their recent study, reported in the white paper Assessing the Impact of Educational Video on Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Learning: The Current State of Play, examines the role of graphics—everything from clip art to custom animations—in enhancing student engagement, critical thinking, and information retention.
What do we know about students’ learning comprehension and video use? What do students say about their desire to interact with video in different types of learning environments? How are learners—from kindergarten students all the way up through adults—actually learning from videos, and how might video producers increase engagement with the videos being used in varied learning environments? These are some of the questions this week’s guests tackle. They also define the flipped classroom and blended learning, and discuss how video fits into these new instructional models. If you are interested in how video impacts student learning, then this week’s episode provides a great introduction to the subject and offers insights from SAGE’s recent white paper, Assessing the Impact of Educational Video on Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Learning: The Current State of Play.
What do academics and librarians get wrong about financial evaluation and assessment? Is there a difference? What is a book’s unit cost within the library, and why does it matter? How do a library’s public relation efforts dovetail with its finances? In this week’s episode Bill wraps up his conversation on library finances with University of West Florida Dean of Libraries, Robert Dugan, co-author of the new book from ACRL, Financial Management in Academic Libraries: Data-Driven Planning and Budgeting. They talk through the uses and limitations of library metrics and offer an example of best practices that can be drawn from peer comparison, and they touch on the difference between expenditures and costs. Give this week’s episode a listen for an insightful look at how responsible libraries can manage their finances to meet the needs of their community.
How do institutional procurement policies impact spending? When is leasing a good option for libraries? When is buying? What parts of the budget should be allocated on a nine-month versus a twelve-month cycle?
Robert Dugan, co-author of the ACRL title, Financial Management in Academic Libraries: Data-Driven Planning and Budgeting, walks listeners through the warren of budgeting, procurement, and reporting issues surrounding and underlying academic libraries. Using his institution, the University of West Florida, as an example, he discusses how the library helps students navigate textbook affordability, and he provides an insider’s look at his personal internal management information system—the same one he’s been using for decades—to help consolidate reporting into a more streamlined and accessible package.
Why is a library’s budget a political document? Dean of the University Libraries at the University of West Florida and author of the recent book, Financial Management in Academic Libraries, Robert Dugan, explains in this week’s episode that budgets express how library management prioritizes services and programs. Without unlimited resources, libraries have to rank what they do and then commit to doing it based on the funding they receive from the institution. The budget is a statement that promises to use allocated resources to successfully carry out specific services. Further, Dugan explains how to get past the idea that a budget is a constraining document. Rather than stressing out about the lack of funds available to enable all of the services a library must provide, managers, as they become more familiar with their budgets, begin to understand how the budget connects to the strategic plan. In other words, stop fretting about the bottom line. Instead, work with the parts of the budget that can be influenced.
In a world of fluid authorship and textual explosion, the very definition of a document is evolving in unexpected and exciting ways. Old categories give way to new, and items that seemed clearly outside the bounds of textuality are finding their way into the mix. Sound, video, and games all inform our understanding of texts. In this week’s retrospective episode Joe Janes, the author of the book Documents that Changed the Way We Live, offers his perspective on what it means to be a document and talks through the history surrounding the Rosie the Riveter poster and Webster’s Dictionary.
With data breaches like those that struck Equifax, Target, and a host of organizations varying from industrial to governmental, how can libraries best protect their patrons data and, more fundamentally, their privacy? When is it ok to pass along data to a vendor? What policies best reflect the ideals and values of libraries and librarians? In this retrospective episode, Bobbi Newman and Bonnie Tijerina address these issues and many more that face the contemporary librarian.
How do you increase the library’s profile and usefulness for freshmen students? Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan, authors of The First Year Experience Cookbook, published by ACRL, offer some ideas on collaborating with other organizations on campus, coordinating activities for freshmen around information literacy, and tools for strengthening librarians’ instructional services. In this special retrospective featuring selected highlights from The Authority File’s many episodes, Bill Mickey, editorial director at Choice, dives into all of that and more.
Leslie Madden, Laura Carscaddon, and Denita Hampton talk with Mark Derks about how library managers can navigate change in their libraries and help their employees approach change with positive attitudes.
Leslie Madden, Laura Carscaddon, and Denita Hampton talk with Mark Derks about constructing work teams and Eileen Wasserman’s methods for respectful interaction in the workplace.
Mark Derks continues his conversation with Leslie Madden, Laura Carscaddon, and Denita Hampton. They discuss the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type test and team-building tips from their experience at Georgia State University Library.
Mark Derks, filling in for Bill Mickey, talks with Leslie Madden, Laura Carscaddon, and Denita Hampton about their recent book, Now You’re a Manager. They share lessons from their journey into management, and how they worked their way up to their current roles.
The Authority File took last week off, but the host, Bill Mickey, left a little something to pique your interest for next week. (Hint: management, anyone?)
In the final segment of Choice’s discussion with Janet Hyunju Clarke, Raymond Pun, and Monnee Tong, editors of Asian American Librarians and Library Services, each of the guests shares their perspective on diversity in librarianship today, and Monnee relates the story of San Diego children’s librarian Clara Breed, who worked and corresponded with Japanese-American children during their internment during World War II.
In this third of four episodes, Bill Mickey, Janet Hyunju Clarke, Raymond Pun, and Monnee Tong explore the institution’s role in diversifying the profession, and they talk about some of the strategies librarian Cynthia Del Rosario employs to convince students from underrepresented groups that librarianship offers unique opportunities for serving their communities.
Bill Mickey talks with Janet Hyunju Clarke, Raymond Pun, and Monnee Tong in the second of a four-part series about the oppositional nature of Asian American Studies as a discipline, and Monnee explains what the program “Talk Story” is and how libraries can implement similar programs to reach their own diverse communities.
In this final episode of our 4-part series with Joe Janes, author of Documents That Changed the Way We Live, we talk about the AIDS Quilt. While not technically a document as we might think of one, the quilt nevertheless preserves an important part of cultural history in America. Joe discusses that dynamic and how many of the documents and objects in his book take on lives of their own, adding new layers of cultural significance over generations.
In this third episode of our 4-part series about Joe Janes’s new book, Documents That Changed the Way We Live, we discuss the famous “We Can Do It” poster. The take-charge, cultural icon Rosie the Riveter depicted in the poster, it turns out, isn’t who you think she is. We’ll talk about that and how this particular document might be less of a “document that changed the world” than the other way around.
In this second episode of our 4-part series with Joe Janes, author of Documents That Changed the Way We Live, we dig into Webster’s Dictionary. Joe illuminates how Noah Webster set out to make a uniquely American dictionary that attempted to capture the identity of a still emerging country. We’ll also learn a little bit about Noah himself and how the dictionary’s contemporary version, Merriam-Webster, has become a darling of social media.
In this first episode of our 4-part series that highlights some of the documents that Joe Janes writes about in his book, Documents That Changed the Way We Live, we’ll talk with Joe about how the book came together, why these documents are worthy of exploration, and how they have an uncanny ability to take on new meanings depending on their historical context.
In this week’s episode, host Bill Mickey sits down with The Authority File producer Mark Derks to share a few thoughts on the motivation for the program and how it fits into the broader digital transformation taking place at Choice. They survey the past two months of content and share behind-the-scenes dirt on what goes into putting together an episode, while relating their thoughts on the show’s successes and heartbreaks. Finally, they preview the next two months of content and let you know how you can put your questions to The Authority File’s guests (hint: #TheAuthorityFile).
In this fourth and final episode of the Protecting Patron Privacy series, Bobbi Newman and Bonnie Tijerina, editors of Rowman & Littlefield’s Protecting Patron Privacy: A LITA Guide, wrap up their interview with Choice by talking about how libraries can actually implement forward-thinking privacy policies and guidelines for their patrons—from managing the sheer volume of procedural issues with a small staff to working with institutional administrators to develop “same-page” guidelines and protections.
In this episode, we discuss the ethical considerations libraries must face when they begin to formalize their missions around patron privacy. While patrons are encouraged to use resources as they see fit, it’s actually the library’s responsibility to help them understand and manage their privacy implications. Newman and Tijerina, editors of Rowman & Littlefield’s Protecting Patron Privacy: A LITA Guide, also talk about how libraries should manage expectations around “in-house” technology and third-party platforms (cloud computing, digital content vendor services, and social media, for example).
Choice continues its conversation with Bobbi Newman and Bonnie Tijerina, who edited Rowman & Littlefield’s Protecting Patron Privacy: A LITA Guide. The editors reveal that the public is not as resigned to data capture and manipulation as you might think—and that students, despite their transparent tendencies online, are actually pretty savvy about privacy. Further, Newman and Tijerina discuss how libraries can navigate the corporate and political influences on privacy regulation and commercialization.
In this first of four episodes about how, and why, libraries should protect the digital privacy of their patrons, Bobbi Newman and Bonnie Tijerina, editors of Protecting Patron Privacy: A LITA Guide, talk about how their book project came together, the broader privacy issues libraries need to be aware of, and the challenges they face. What are the specific privacy policies, laws, and regulations librarians should be advocating for? How should they empower patrons to understand how personal data is being used and what they’re getting for it?
In this fourth and final episode of the First-Year Experience series, The First-Year Experience Cookbook editors Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan wrap up their wide-ranging interview with Choice by discussing information literacy standards, trends, and how to partner with other departments to extend the library’s influence.
Students arrive for their first year at school from all over the world and bring with them an endless range of life experiences. In this third installment of the First-Year Experience series, Cookbook editors Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan talk about how to tailor information literacy programs for students of all backgrounds.
Choice continues its conversation with Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan, who edited ALA’s The First-Year Experience Cookbook. The editors reveal how collecting “recipes” (actual lesson plans and programs contributed by academic librarians for teaching info literacy to first-year students) expanded their own understanding of the first-year experience and how these programs can ease “library anxiety.”
In this debut of Choice’s new podcast, The Authority File, editorial director Bill Mickey speaks with Raymond Pun and Meggan Houlihan about their new book published by the ALA, The First-Year Experience Cookbook, which is a collection of lesson plans and assessment activities for engaging first-year students in the library. Ray and Meggan discuss what it means to be a first-year experience librarian and offer tips for implementing first-year experience programs.