Deckled Edges

The research, library work, and library thoughts of Justin de la Cruz.

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Colleges Teach Students How to Think. Should They Also Teach Them How to Thrive?

By: Beckie Supiano

For: The Chronicle of Higher Education

This is a paywalled article, but it is a very good history of how colleges viewed their role in students’ lives. It focuses on well-being and “flourishing” classes at the University of Virginia and explains how some universities are trying to address students’ lives holistically, not just academically.

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Minimizing and addressing microaggressions in the workplace: Be proactive, part 2

C&RL News:  Minimizing and addressing microaggressions in the workplaceBe proactive, part 2

By:  Shamika Dalton and Michele Villagran

This is a great overview, with good examples and definitions:

Microaggressions are subtle, but they are not absolved of their effect. Research shows that the cumulative effect of microaggressions can 1) contribute to a hostile and invalidating campus and work climate; 2) devalue social group identities; 3) lower work productivity; 4) create physical health problems (i.e., depression, anxiety, insomnia); and 5) mental health issues due to stress, low self-esteem, and emotional turmoil.

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Is there an app for that? A review of mobile apps for information literacy classes

C&RL News:  Is there an app for that? A review of mobile apps for information literacy classes

A review of apps for educational purposes:

https://padlet.com/

https://www.socrative.com/

https://www.mindomo.com/

https://answergarden.ch/

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Western University: Information & Media Studies, by Karen P. Nicholson

A follow-up to Brian Quinn’s “The McDonaldization of Academic Libraries?” that explores how libraries typically adapt ideas and practices from corporate culture without fully examining them first.

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Digital Media and the Case of the Missing Archives

The more work that journalists create for the internet, the more work is rendered obsolete.

Longreads: Digital Media and the Case of the Missing Archives

By: Danielle Tcholakian

4/6/2018

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This essay is about online-only news sites that can completely vanish from the internet in an instant due to business takeovers or website updates. This can leave their writers out of luck for preserving their clips in order to get new jobs. It’s a good look at some of the issues we’re seeing with a lack of preservation practices for born digital content in various industries. This has happened to me a few times, actually – I edited for my college newspaper and wrote dozens of articles while I was there. A couple years after I left the website was completely updated and all of the previous content disappeared. The same thing happened again afterwards when I wrote dozens of music reviews and band interviews for a separate website.

A quote from this piece:

“History is a fight we’re having every day,” [Maria] Bustillos writes. “We’re battling to make the truth first by living it, and then by recording and sharing it, and finally, crucially, by preserving it. Without an archive, there is no history.”

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Books from 1923 to 1941 Now Liberated!

By: Brewster Kahle

For: Internet Archive Blogs

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I wrote a paper about copyright in grad school. It was actually supposed to be about critical theory, but I somehow just wrote about technology and YouTube and content creation and copyright. It was fun and not super well-researched but illuminating to look into that stuff. You can see a colorful chart above from the link: copyright started out as a means to give authors a way to capitalize on their work for a short period of time -- so others couldn’t just run copies of their work and sell it without their permission. It’s since grown into a behemoth of an institution since the publishing industry has grown and corporations have gotten involved. Stuff being in the public domain just means many more people have access to it. Great achievements of writing, music, art should be available to all for free or for a very cheap price.

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Why did Biloxi pull ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ from the 8th grade lesson plan?

Biloxi schools got a complaint from parents about language in the Southern classic “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

Why did Biloxi pull ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ from the 8th grade lesson plan?

BY KAREN NELSON

For: Sun Herald

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This happens all the time. Books are still banned because they make people feel uncomfortable. But the easiest way to get people to read books is to ban them. Technology being what it is these days, most books and tv shows and movies and albums aren’t just going to up and disappear, and you definitely can’t burn all copies of Mockingbird in the world...

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In 100 years, will today's digital files be accessible? Planning for 'digital obsolescence'

If you’ve happened to glance through an old family album, it is likely you’ve found photographs still around from over a century ago. Perhaps, too, you’ve

In 100 years, will today's digital files be accessible? Planning for 'digital obsolescence'

By: Kelly Moffitt

For: St. Louis Public Radio

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HOW NOT TO DO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

by:  Dariusz Galasiński

July 8, 2017

For: Personal blog [http://dariuszgalasinski.com]

Qualitative research is not exactly liked, especially in disciplines dominated by positivist, quantitative, ‘real’ science. We, qualitative researchers, object to representations of our research as fluffy and unscientific. And yet, I think, some of the criticisms we get are actually right.

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ACRL Closes with Carla Hayden | American Libraries Magazine

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference in Baltimore came to a close on March 25 with another full morning of programs and a closing session with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

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A collection of news about and response statements to the White House’s proposed budget.

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Let's remember our trailblazers.

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Choosing to Lead: The Motivational Factors of Underrepresented Minority Librarians in Higher Education

ACRL announces the publication of Choosing to Lead: The Motivational Factors of Underrepresented Minority Librarians in Higher Education, edited by Antonia P. Olivas, Ed.D. Through case studies, promising practices, and specific strategies for cultivating diversity in academic library leadership, th

http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=11971

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/969646217

Hmm, this looks pretty good.

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Registration Begins for New Biometric Scanners at Atlanta Campus Library Entrances

Posted on November 3, 2016 to Georgia State University’s Library Blog

by Katherine Marie Wilson

https://blog.library.gsu.edu/2016/11/03/registration-begins-for-new-bioscanners-at-library-entrances/

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I have seen news of some public libraries experimenting with biometrics, but it’s an unsettling trend. The FAQ here is misleading: it states “No actual fingerprints are captured or stored by the system” and that the fingerprint readers only generate numbers, but above in the main post it says everyone has to register their fingerprint with “Auxiliary Services” because they need something to compare the reading to.

Firewalls are a good start to protecting user data, and a system for eliminating data 6 months after users leave is good, but not good enough for this kind of sensitive data.

I try not to be alarmist, but we need to assume that any gathered data is vulnerable to leaks and to other unintended uses (like government agencies using the data for other purposes) and so we should weigh the possible benefits of the data against the possible detriments. This personal level and nature of user data seems antithetical to libraries’ commitments to user confidentiality and privacy, which is a core ALA value.

Let’s skip this trend for the sake of our users, please.

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WATCH: Woman stops at all 54 Philly libraries in a single day

The next time you feel you're having a busy and overwhelming day, it might help to remember the video you are about to watch. While you're at it, you can make a good reading list as an aid to unwind.

WATCH: Woman stops at all 54 Philly libraries in a single day

BY MICHAEL TANENBAUM For: PhillyVoice

Video:

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The challenge facing libraries in an era of fake news

Since the 19th century academic librarians have helped students navigate the complex world of information. In today's unpredictable information environment, how might they rethink their role?

I know this is the hot topic right now and everyone has a hot take, but this is a pretty good (neutral-ish, I think) analysis of what’s been going on. 

I’m keen on critical theory and thinking about why we teach certain things. But if I think about it too much, it’s kind of paralyzing. This write-up does a good job of showing that:

In such an environment, how is a librarian or faculty member supposed to respond to a bright student who sincerely asks, “How can you say that a blog post attacking GMO food is less credible than some journal article supporting the safety of GMO food? What if the journal article’s research results were faked? Have the results been replicated? At the end of the day, aren’t facts a matter of context?”

I also like the opening thought experiment of how the news on smoking would’ve been received in the ‘60s if they had had the type of technology we have today. It kind of implies that it’s harder now to propagate one main narrative, even if that narrative is 99% irrefutable / true. I suppose this is good for some things and bad for other things. 

I mean, I know that when that health report on smoking came out some people didn’t care and others said it was made up. Because some people are still smoking. (Although, admittedly, they could know the health effects and not care.) But I suppose it is actually easier to make everything less believable -- when anyone these days could photoshop or video edit or fabricate documents. We all SORT OF know this, although I think everyone still gets tricked into believing falsities from time to time (e.g., forgetting that every single magazine cover is photoshopped beyond the pale).

In other real ways I also know that a lot of teachers (and, by extension, librarian instructors) don’t bother much with theory. They go into the classroom with their agenda and teaching outline and stick with it time and time again. It’s much easier that way, and inevitably part of the student population will learn something from that approach. Is it worth it to consider all the messiness that comes with teaching and learning? Does that help us reach even more students? Or should we be less concerned with how many students “get it”? More concerned with what they are getting?