Library Comps Prompts

Thinking and talking about libraries and their many issues

[library-comps-prompts]

Trigger warnings

A recent School Library Journal article “Trigger Warnings and Emotional Distress” describes the question of trigger warnings in this way:

Librarians, educators, and free speech advocates are divided over the benefits—and potential harm—of trigger warnings. Supporters say that advance warning about certain types of content serve to protect students from trauma they may experience while absorbing passages involving violence, sexual situations, or other content. Opponents claim that a warning amounts to the same thing as labeling a book, leading down a slippery slope to censorship.

How can libraries balance their responsibility to provide unfiltered access to materials with their responsibility to make them more accessible to students who have experienced trauma?

Should this be handled differently for different types of materials (e.g. violence vs. sexual situations)? Or in different kinds of libraries? (school? public? academic?) 

[library-comps-prompts]

Predatory open access publishers

“In academic publishing, predatory open access publishing is an exploitative open-access publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not). "Beall's List", a regularly updated report by Jeffrey Beall, sets forth criteria for categorizing predatory publications and lists publishers and independent journals that meet those criteria.”--Wikipedia.

At least, that list was available until recently; it has now been shut down. 

What responsibility do libraries have to help their faculty identify appropriate publication venues? Is a blacklist or similar database a good way to achieve this? If so, how should it be maintained?

[library-comps-prompts]

Badass surveillance

Recently, a student was writing a paper using Google Docs in a library computer lab. When she resumed working on it at home later, she found that it had been altered, with inappropriate content added. The student was grounded by her parents, and she reported what happened to a librarian the next day. Using a mix of Google Docs revision history, computer lab sign-in records, and library surveillance footage, the librarian was able to identify and punish the culprits, and clear the student’s name.

Is this a good outcome? As the librarian, what would you have done here?

How do you weigh the reputation of the “hacked” student with the privacy of other library computer lab users?

Do your answers depend on whether this is a school library or public library?

How is this similar or different than librarians’ response to the Patriot Act?

[library-comps-prompts]

A Birthday Cake for George Washington

A major book children’s book publisher produced a picture book about Hercules (chef and slave of President George Washington), in which the slaves are depicted as joyful and proud to be of service. Reviewers called the book “sorely incomplete”, providing “a dangerously rosy impression of the relationship between slaves and slave owners”. Following this criticism and that on social media, the publisher ceased distribution of the book.

Was this a good outcome? Was this censorship? What responsibilities do librarians (and school librarians in particular) have to challenge or protect materials such as this in their libraries?

[library-comps-prompts]

Pretend patrons?

A pair of library employees in Florida were discovered creating fake patrons in their library system and checking out unpopular books to them that would otherwise be weeded (removed from the collection) by their automated system. The library director has been put on administrative leave.

This story was covered by major blogs, and has provoked heated discussion on tumblr. Is this an appropriate way to do collection development? Did library staff respond appropriately, and if not, what should they have done instead?

[library-comps-prompts]

What is this?

When I was in library school, we had a comprehensive exam at the end of the program that you had to pass to graduate. Five essay questions (choose three) to be answered over the course of three or four hours, snacks provided. This was one of my favorite parts of the program. At least, studying for it was.

As aspiring librarians, we were quite organized about our studying. Our study group looked at exam questions from the past seven years, identified common themes, studied relevant resources, and practiced writing essays. There were many general questions that appeared frequently (strategic planning, controlled vocabulary, information literacy) but my favorites were the ones about current events and how to best respond to difficult situations; that seven-year period included The Patriot Act, the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, and the start of Google Books. 

I often see news stories or situations and think, “that would be a great comps question!” I’ll be putting those here, possibly with my thoughts on them. I hope to hear your thoughts (long or brief!) as well.