Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Speculative Telephone: Oral Historians And Digital Librarians On How Libraries Could Be, Kae Kratcha

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

In the summer of 2023, librarian and oral historian Kae Bara Kratcha interviewed three oral historians about their relationships to libraries and their dreams for what digital libraries could be. Then they played portions of each oral historian interview for a digital librarian and asked the librarian to speculate about what their jobs and lives would be like if they implemented the oral historians' ideas about digital libraries. “Speculative Telephone: Oral Historians and Digital Librarians on How Libraries Could Be” is eleven edited audio tracks of wide-ranging conversation on topics like public space, online communities, library anxiety, relationships with library …

Let Us Fail: Speculative Futures And Digital Librarianship, Natalia Estrada, Kristina Bush, Stacy Snyder

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Let Us Fail explores what digital librarianship work might look like if digital library workers were not tied to the technology, infrastructure, or work culture of academia that we currently experience. We explore what work could look like if we were given the agency to play and be creative, support to learn from failure, and freedom from traditional assessment metrics. This podcast dreams about a future in which digital library workers are self-directed, autonomous workers with the capacity to explore, experiment, and iterate.

Desire Paths In The Information Landscape, Victoria Van Hyning, Mason A. Jones, Travis Wagner

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Libraries and archives serve so many different users who come to information institutions with various perspectives, needs, experiences, and desires around accessing physical or digital collections. While our users may find what they are looking for immediately, many have to beat their own paths through complex systems and metadata that doesn’t align with their needs. Their search strategies may leave digital “desire paths”–alternative routes through the information landscape that can show us how to better meet their needs. This article covers three scenarios where users’ desire paths can be seen or where gaps around user experience can be better addressed. …

Editors's Introduction, Leah Powell Duncan, Janina Mueller, Rachel Starry, Sl Ziegler, Emily M. Zinger

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Editors' Introduction. Special Issue, "Turning it Off and Back On Again: Speculative Digital Librarianship"

Editors' Introduction, Sophia Ziegler, Leah Powell Duncan

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Introduction to Journal of Critical Digital Librarian, Vol.2 Issue 1

From Mapping Place To Mapping Space In Library Gis Work, Lena Denis

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

At many academic libraries, library workers run the teaching, general reference consultations, technical troubleshooting, and software and licensing maintenance in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for their institutions. This is very much the case in the Data Services unit of Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries, where staff receive requests for help with a wide variety of mapping projects every semester. Sometimes they are straightforward requests for technical assistance, but sometimes they underpin much deeper investigations into how to situate people and significant events through time and geographic settings. This article discusses these types of requests in the context of the philosophical …

Leveraging Critical Information Literacy To Develop Social Justice-Minded Data Literacy Competencies, Ben B. Chiewphasa, Matthew L. Sisk

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Librarians who interact with data in different contexts can come together in a community of practice – leveraging each other's perspectives to collectively engage with critical librarianship and reimagine social justice-related learning outcomes for information and data literacy programming. Specifically, this paper explores the overlapping goals of different critical literacies (such as critical information literacy and QuantCrit), showcasing that synergies exist between social justice-oriented librarians with distinctive roles and responsibilities. By leveraging a community of practice as a vehicle for continuing education in inclusive pedagogy, librarians can empower their patrons, students, and colleagues to challenge and act upon surrounding data …

Toward Ethical And Inclusive Descriptive Practices, Shira Peltzman, Kelly Besser

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

This case study describes the context which galvanized our Collection Management unit at UCLA Library Special Collections to collectively craft a descriptive practices statement within a study group focused on an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. This paper discusses the planning and design of the study group, our direct engagement at meetings, collaborative iteration, and liberatory pedagogical strategies that enabled the statement’s publication, and its impact within our department, library, and beyond. This work speaks to radical descriptive change and provides a potential path for the development of ethical and inclusive descriptive practices at other institutions.

Toward Empathetic Digital Repositories: An Interview With Diego Pino Navarro, Sophia Ziegler

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Diego Pino Navarro is a systems architect and open source software developer from Chile. He is the Assistant Director for Digital Strategy at the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) where he manages the digital services team. Diego is also the Lead Architect of Archipelago Commons, an open source digital library software for cultural heritage materials.

In this interview from October 18, 2021, Sophia Ziegler talks to Diego Pino Navarro about his work with Archipelago, and specifically how he invokes the role of empathy in ongoing digital library software development. Diego talks about his efforts to build a digital library …

Using Digital Libraries To Engage The Whole Student: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, Trauma-Informed Classrooms, And Project-Based Learning, Alejandra Torres

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Engaging students with an online library does not have to be limited to research purposes only. This essay includes lesson plan ideas that use the Louisiana Digital Library to engage middle and high school students in ways that help amplify their curiosity and explore their identities. To ensure the lesson plans engage the whole student, I ground them in three components (culturally sustaining pedagogies, trauma-informed classrooms, and project-based learning) and seven core values. These lessons could be used alone as writing workshops or can be used to introduce or make connections to other concepts. The activities are adaptable to fit …

Listening, Care, And Collections As Data, Jacqueline Wernimont

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

This paper takes the sonification (the translation into sound) of data from sterilization recommendations made under eugenic laws in the United States as a case study in navigating the terrain between a commitment to caring for and with impacted communities and the potential affordances and perils of using sensitive collections as data. The author discusses ways that feminist care ethics and collections as data research intersect in a digital humanities project.

Centering The Margins In Digital Project Planning, Dorothy Berry

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

This paper uses the example of the development of a digital collections program at Harvard University’s Houghton Library to provide an introduction to building programmatic and equitable collections online. Focusing on why, how, and what goes into programmatic digital collections through examples of ongoing project workflows and special projects workflows, the paper introduces methods for digital project planning that center diverse histories.

It Matters Who Does This Work: An Interview With Tonia Sutherland, Sophia Ziegler

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

Tonia Sutherland (she/her) is assistant professor in the Library and Information Science Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She serves on the SAA Council, and is author of the forthcoming book Digital Remains: Race and the Digital Afterlife. Dr. Sutherland holds a Ph.D. and an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information, as well as a BA in history, performance studies, and cultural studies from Hampshire College. Her work focuses on the interactions of technology and culture, and emphasizes critical work within the fields of archival studies, digital studies, and science and technology studies. …

Editors' Introduction, Sophia Ziegler, Leah Powell Duncan, Gina Costello

Journal of Critical Digital Librarianship

No abstract provided.