“First we wanted to find out how journalists find and use information,” said Chimene E. Tucker, communications, journalism, and LGBT studies librarian at University of Southern California. “A simple survey would not work in this case,” she said, “because we needed to ask probing questions about methodology.” So the team conducted 50 semistructured, in-depth interviews … Continue reading Reporting in the “Post-Truth” Era
Emily L. Mross, business librarian at Penn State Harrisburg (PSH), defined a research party as a venue where students can drop in and talk informally about problems they are facing with their assignments, ranging from finding the best materials to figuring out how to cite sources in American Psychological Association style. “Basically, you give them … Continue reading Plan a Research Party
It turns out results would likely be different, depending on the focus on use (medical or recreational), the academic discipline involved, the geographic location of the researchers, and the sentiment expressed about the drug’s use. Seeber and Stott, who described their study as a “joint effort,” looked at a representative sample of 540 articles and … Continue reading The Search for Cannabis
“I am a refugee—present tense,” Nguyen said. “Although long ago I made the transition from refugee to bourgeoisie, I claim present tense because my earliest memories began as a refugee when I was 4 years old.” Put into an internment camp at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, Nguyen was soon separated from his parents and older … Continue reading The Refugee Experience
“AI began to be used more in the 1980s, when expert systems were developed to mimic the human decision-making process,” Kim said. The technology has advanced profoundly because the internet “allows a vaster scale of data, and high-speed computing has multiplied the power of processing.” Advances in artificial neural networks have produced a technique called … Continue reading An AI Lab in a Library
Alison Ricker, head of the science library at Oberlin (Ohio) College, said, “Librarians are all a force for science, simply by what we do.” Her message was amplified by a blue T-shirt draped over the panel’s table that read “I am a force for science.” Ricker explained it was distributed by the American Association for … Continue reading Libraries: A Force for Science
On Sunday, June 24, the governing Council of American Library Association (ALA) passed a historic resolution that “apologizes to African Americans for wrongs committed against them in segregated public libraries” and commends those “who risked their lives to integrate public libraries for their bravery and courage in challenging segregation in public libraries and in forcing … Continue reading Desegregating Public Libraries
The two immediately began playing a friendly game of one-upmanship. Hayden kidded Ferriero about the Library of Congress (LC) being older (established in 1800) than the National Archives (1934). Then Ferriero mock-complained that in 1935, then–Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam refused to relinquish LC’s copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the … Continue reading The Librarian and the Archivist
Egan told the audience that, like many other novels, Manhattan Beach was born in a library, specifically the Local History Room of the New York Public Library. She had wanted her next novel to be set in New York City during World War II, but did not know exactly where to start. The library staff … Continue reading The Story behind the Stories
Nnedi Okorafor, author of the Binti series of novellas about a spacefaring African girl, said that many of her characters have gotten “angrier and more destructive” over time. Binti, however, is “not a badass,” even though she is a superhero. “Her superpower is negotiation,” Okorafor said. “Science fiction and fantasy can offer a distorted lens … Continue reading Diversity in Science Fiction
Fieseler, an Auditorium Speaker at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans on June 23, told attendees his work is a “meditation on the consequences of closeted life in America.” The Up Stairs Lounge was an oasis, Fieseler said, where the mostly secret gay community could get together in a place “safe from the … Continue reading The Consequences of the Closet
Violaine Iglesias, director of business development for GVPi, a company in Arlington, Virginia, that provides hosting platforms for electronic publishers, opened by saying that “Accessibility is in very high demand among higher education institutions. Publishers are only now beginning to understand that accessible and discoverable video” is a high priority for educational institutions. She said … Continue reading Making Video Content Accessible
