Journal of New Librarianship

Shining the Light

Heather Blicher — 2024-08-07

Open educational resources (OER) gained traction in education with a focus on affordability and access to ensure students avoid undue hardship due to the high cost of textbooks. Now we must push beyond affordability and access to include equity. Equity ensures that content does not include unintentionally biased content, a lack of culturally relevant content, underrepresentation, exaggerated negative associations, and limited positive associations. Open Oregon Educational Resources centers equity in the Targeted Pathways project by including grant-funded equity consultants as a part of the leadership team. The DEI-focused roles of the equity consultants ensure inclusive and accurate content design to promote the value of differences between people. This article includes background on the Targeted Pathways project and explains how equity consultants challenge authors and leadership team members to engage differently by reflecting on personal agency and positionality, including equity strategies used to ensure the content developed will provide a student experience that it is inclusive and respectful of all individuals.

Conquering Imposter Syndrome

Lynne Lambdin — 2024-08-07

Imposter Syndrome is an experience that many new professionals struggle with in their day-to-day work lives. With a strong technological background, succeeding in a systems librarian role seems natural and easy. However, some responsibilities require more traditional skills associated with librarianship, like reference services, instructional support, and collection management. This column emphasizes the significance of professional development and the necessity in gaining a skill set that ensures a more well-rounded library professional and library employee. It offers a head-on approach to combating the feeling of inadequacy when changing one’s career. Imposter syndrome does not have to be a long-term feeling.

Creating Space for Equitable Academic and School Librarian Relationships

Lisa Cheby — 2024-08-18

Though school and academic librarians both are information science professionals tasked with teaching and supporting information literacy on their campuses, biases inherent in educational institutions create a hierarchy between the two groups. This divide creates inequity in partnerships. Using Tamarack Institute’s Collaboration Spectrum Tool (2017) we seek more precise language to describe these partnerships in order to create conversations as equal colleagues rather than through the divide of secondary and higher education. As the outreach and education librarian tasked with building relationships with students and educators in our local K12 schools, we hope to reimagine our relationship with school librarians in order to strengthen libraries at all levels and support students in becoming proficient in information competency skills.

The Myth of the 'Born Digital'

Carmen Cole — 2024-08-07

We may incorrectly assume that because many of our students were “born digital,” and have never known a time without computers in their schools or classrooms, they are innately digitally literate. However, interactions with students at all levels in a variety of settings such as introductory undergraduate courses, graduate seminars, and technology-focused workshops have demonstrated that some students struggle with or are unaware of basic computing and digital literacy concepts like file management and information organization. This article explores how librarians liaising with different subject areas have worked to incorporate digital literacy objectives into their instruction and outreach initiatives.

Book Damage and Repair in School Libraries

Heather Parks — 2024-08-07

The author is a trained book conservator and frequently gives free book repair workshops to local public and school librarians. This study was a nationwide survey of American school librarians to inform future workshops. Participants were asked what types of book damage were most often found. They were then asked if those damaged items were weeded, repaired or left as-is. And finally, they were asked for a description of how they chose to repair the damage. The author added suggestions to supplement the repair techniques participants discussed.

Epistemic Vaccination

Ian O'Hara — 2024-10-23

The rapid adoption of the open internet and social media technologies for information seeking and sharing has led to the utilization of these technologies as vehicles for the spread of computational propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation. Scholars have investigated multiple avenues to combat the cognitive failure that results in acceptance and sharing of widespread misinformation. The most promising identified thus far is a psychological concept known as inoculation theory. This method can be conceptualized as a misinformation vaccine that can increase critical evaluation of newly encountered information and thereby increase the probability that this information will not be cognitively integrated and subsequently further shares within an individual's information network. This review aims to thoroughly discuss and synthesize the literature on disinformation and how inoculation theory fits within already utilized pedagogical paradigms as a potential antidote for this pertinent issue through the lens of critical information literacy.

Open-Source Migrations

Emma Beck — 2024-10-23

This paper examines open-source migrations from the early career librarian perspective. After being on the implementation team for two open-source migrations in two years, the author noticed stark similarities in the two experiences. The paper will discuss the challenges all migrations face and challenges more specific to open-source systems. These include lack of resources, changing timelines, and lack of system sustainability. The paper will then move on to provide recommendations for other early career librarians who are implementing open-source system. The paper will also offer ways colleagues and supervisors who are not working on the implementation can support these migrations and the people.

Review of the Book Creators in the Academic Library: Instruction and Outreach

Alyssa Denneler — 2024-08-07

Review of the book Creators in the Academic Library: Instruction and Outreach, edited by Alexander C. Watkins and Rebecca Zuege Kuglitsch. Association of College and Research Libraries. 312 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8389-3970-3

Review of Empathy by Design: Empathy-Driven Marketing for Libraries

Joyce DeStasio — 2024-08-07

ABSTRACT

Review of Dantus, S.B. (2024). Empathy by design: Empathy-driven marketing for libraries. Association of College and Research Libraries.

Review of Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library: Designing Spaces, Policies, and Services

Deborah Hathaway — 2024-08-07

Review of the book Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library: Designing Spaces, Policies, and Services, Kelsey Keyes and Ellie Dworak. Association of College and Research Libraries. 312 pp. ISBN 978-8-89255-553-1 $82

Book Review Undergraduate Researchers and The Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices

Laura Lipke — 2024-08-18

The 2023 second edition of Undergraduate research and the academic librarian: Case
studies and best practices co-edited by Merinda Kaye Hensley, Hailley Fargo, and Stephanie
Davis-Kahl, reflects the recent socio-political cultural changes that have impacted the evolution
of academic library programs focused upon the undergraduate population and their research
skill development. Through the models chosen for this edition, programs which highlight the
necessity for remote learning, the needs of minoritized students and the overall benefits of
initiating research skills at the undergraduate level are provided to inspire the reader. The
programs described also provide creative collaborations between the academic libraries and
various university programs. By providing program descriptions, reflections, recommendations
and best practices in each chapter, Undergraduate research and the academic librarian
provides guidance and creative suggestions for new librarians, academic librarians and research
and instruction programs seeking to address the research instruction needs of a diverse
undergraduate student population.

Review of Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces

Breanne Kirsch — 2024-08-18

This is a review of the manuscript Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces edited by Maggie Murphy, Stephanie Beene, Katie Greer, Sara Schumacher, and Dana Statton Thompson. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. 452 pp. ISBN 978-0-8389-3991-8 $120

Review of Rethinking Institutional Repositories: Innovations in Management, Collections, and Inclusion

Amy Parsons — 2024-08-18

A review of Cromwell, J., ed., Rethinking institutional repositories: Innovations in management, collections, and inclusion. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2023.

Review of Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries: Theories, Methods, and Cases

Kevin Adams — 2024-10-23

Librarians and students alike find themselves living in a world where maintaining their digital privacy feels nearly impossible. Alaxandria Chisholm and Sarah Hartman-Caverly open one of their workshops asking attendees to consider where they have recently left data tracks. Answers might include map apps, dating apps, workout apps, streaming websites, or even library databases. These tracks create data shadows that are used for advertising, training algorithms, and even creating data dossiers that can be sold to law enforcement. There is an inherent tension between the commitment to privacy that librarians hold as a core value and the academic library’s drive to integrate new technologies. As libraries have pushed the line of privacy by engaging with social media, negotiating contracts with database vendors that collect patron data, and participating in learning analytics, academic librarians are increasingly aware of the existential threat posed by what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism. As librarians seek to educate themselves to better understand the ways in which the traditional library commitment to privacy fits into increasingly omnipotent government, corporate, and now academic surveillance apparatuses, librarians are faced with feelings that are commonly expressed by patrons and students regarding privacy: overwhelm and resignation. In Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries, an edited volume, editors Chisholm and Hartman-Cavalry successfully capture the urgency that the existential threat of surveillance structures pose to humanity, while presenting work that will allow librarians to start contemplating and integrating privacy into their professional practice. Central to Chisholm and Hartman-Caverly’s edited volume is a human focused approach that follows their teaching philosophy: “privacy is about respect for persons, not about protecting data.” (x)