Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Towards Meaningful Research And Engagement: Indigenous Knowledge Systems And Great Lakes Governance, Deborah Mcgregor, Nicole Latulippe, Rod Whitlow, Kristi Leora Gansworth, Lorrilee Mcgregor, Stephanie Allen

Articles & Book Chapters

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples governed their relations in the Great Lakes region, guided by distinct political, legal, governance, and knowledge systems. Despite historic and ongoing exclusion of Indigenous peoples from Great Lakes governance in the Canadian context and other assaults on Indigenous sovereignty, authority, jurisdiction and responsibilities, Indigenous peoples have maintained their relationships with the Great Lakes. In recent years, Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) have made inroads in Great Lakes governance, thanks primarily to First Nation political advocacy. However, it remains a challenge to include Indigenous knowledge and implement approaches that bridge Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. …

Metadata Best Practices For Trans And Gender Diverse Resources, Trans Metadata Collective, Jasmine Burns, Michelle Cronquist, Jackson Huang, Devon Murphy, K. J. Rawson, Beck Schaefer, Jamie Simons, Brian M. Watson, Adrian Williams

Librarian Publications & Presentations

This document is the result of a year of work and collaboration by the Trans Metadata Collective (TMDC; https://transmetadatacollective.org/), a group of dozens of cataloguers, librarians, archivists, scholars, and information professionals with a concerted interest in improving the description and classification of trans and gender diverse people in GLAMS (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Special Collections). The Collective’s primary goal was to develop a set of best practices for the description, cataloguing, and classification of information resources as well as the creation of metadata about trans and gender diverse people, including authors and other creators.

Ocul Collaborative Futures (Cf) Decolonizing Descriptions Working Group Final Report, Erin Johnson, F. Tim Knight, Antonio Muñoz Gómez

Librarian Publications & Presentations

The broad objective of the working group is to develop recommendations on how to make descriptive metadata in Omni, the Collaborative Futures (CF) shared library services platform, more accurately and respectfully reflect Indigenous Peoples, knowledges, and contexts.

The following report was created by the OCUL-CF Decolonizing Descriptions Working Group and submitted to the OCUL-CF Metadata Management and Standards Committee as per its Terms of Reference.

In section 1 of the report, we have included a set of recommendations organized as follows:

● Recommendations on relationship building and consultation: The Working Group recognized that without this step, this work cannot advance …

Term Circles: Using Linked Data As A Tool To Mitigate Colonial Subject Bias, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

This paper considers the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) recommendation to “decolonize library access and classification” and begins by exploring the difficulty involved when addressing this recommendation working from within a colonial institution that represents a colonial worldview. It compares general characteristics of Western and Indigenous worldviews and considers the affect that these perspectives have on the organization of knowledge and information especially in relation to a controlled subject vocabulary like the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). It presents the “term circle” as a way to mitigate colonial biases by creating a hybrid subject language system using SKOS …

Emotions And Precedent, Emily Kidd White

All Papers

The philosophy of emotion raises complications for theories of precedent. This chapter argues that it is productive to think of the effect of some precedents as facets of legal reasoning that are related to the use and understanding of legal concepts as thick concepts. In legal reasoning, precedents are routinely invoked to explicate, and/or clarify the content of legal concepts that are at issue in a case. This chapter develops an argument by Bernard Williams, i.e., that one must avoid the risk of over-generalizing the relationship of emotions to thick concepts, by placing it in the context of legal reasoning. …

Osgoode Digital Schoarship: Osgoode Digital Commons And Ssrn Research Paper Series, Statistics 2021, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Statistical overview of activity of Osgoode Digital Commons and Osgoode Legal Research Paper Series (SSRN) prepared for faculty meeting December 10, 2021.

Using Linked Data To Mitigate Colonial Subject Bias, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

This presentation is inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Report and Recommendations released by the Canadian Federation of Library Associations in April 2017. With a focus on the “decolonization of library access and classification” in relation to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) it presents the term circle as a way to mitigate colonial biases by creating a hybrid subject language system using SKOS RDF/XML in a linked data context. This hybrid system facilitates Indigenous community participation in the control and development of subject metadata and suggests a new role for metadata.

A History Of Classifying Trans Subjects At The Library Of Congress Before 1963, Beck Schaefer

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

Open Access & Research Dissemination @ Osgoode, F. Tim Knight, Yemisi A. Dina

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Yemisi Dina, Chief Law Librarian and Tim Knight, Head of Technical Services from the Osgoode Library, will be discussing open access, publishing options, and the best tools for dissemination your research.

Resetting Normal: Women, Decent Work And Canada's Fractured Care Economy, The Canadian Women's Foundation, Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, Ontario Nonprofit Network, Fay Faraday

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

Women in Canada have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to an extent that threatens to roll back equality gains. Economic losses have fallen heavily on women and most dramatically on women living on low incomes who experience intersecting inequalities based on race, class, disability, education, and migration and immigration status. The pandemic crisis has highlighted the fragility of response systems and the urgent need for structural rethinking and systemic change.

Worldviews, Term Circles, Linked Data, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

The CFLA-FCAB Truth & Reconciliation Report advises that libraries address “structural biases” in knowledge organization. This session explores the effects a Western worldview has on our ability to successfully “integrate Indigenous epistemologies” and decolonize our approaches to knowledge organization, the need for respectful consultation with Indigenous communities, and linked data as a way forward. This session features Camille Callison, Anne Carr-Wiggin and F. Tim Knight and is one of several sessions at OLA SC 2020 concentrating on the respectful decolonization of Canadian libraries.

On Emotions And The Politics Of Attention In Judicial Reasoning, Emily Kidd White

Articles & Book Chapters

Legal doctrine regularly requires judges to both understand and use emotions in different ways. This chapter explores the role of emotions in fixing and sustaining judicial attention on the impact of a law on the constitutional rights of an individual or group. That certain forms of wrong or harm, including forms of political and social exclusion, are difficult to detect in the absence of focused attention is, I think, what Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘Man-Moth’, excerpted here in epigraph, intends to express. This chapter explores the role of emotions in setting up the serious, sustained inquiry into the impact of a …

Enhancements To Heinonline Author Profiles, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

Words And Worldviews: Decolonizing Description, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Recommendation #5 in the CFLA-FCAB Truth & Reconciliation Report advises that libraries address the “structural biases in existing schemes of knowledge organization and information retrieval arising from colonialism.” It suggests that one way to do this is by “integrating Indigenous epistemologies into cataloguing praxis and knowledge management.” This requires conversations and collaborations, learning and unlearning. In this panel, F. Tim Knight and Sharon Farnel will discuss their paths toward understanding the inherent differences that exist between Western and indigenous approaches to knowledge, and explore what decolonization means in the context of library resource description.

Research Dissemination @ Osgoode Hall Law School: An Update, Yemisi Dina, Teodora Naydenova

Librarian Publications & Presentations

A presentation on research dissemination metrics for Osgoode faculty with statistics derived from the Osgoode Digital Commons, SSRN, and HeinOnline.

Cripping The Ethics Of Disability Arts Research, Roxanne Mykitiuk, Andrea Lamarre, Carla Rice

Articles & Book Chapters

The use of multimedia story making and drama based narrative in disability health research raises conventional ethical issues of informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality. In this chapter we explore unique ethical issues that arise when working with non-normatively embodied research participants in a highly collaborative way, using arts based mediums that transgress boundaries of anonymity and privacy, and call for difference-tailored processes of consent. People with disabilities have long been the object of medical and health research and the subjects of biomedical ethical transgressions, giving rise to the need for stricter human subject protocols about consent, confidentiality and anonymity. However, …

Heinonline’S World Constitutions Illustrated In Top 5 Fcil Sources, Yemisi Dina

Articles & Book Chapters

World Constitutions Illustrated provides access to constitutions of various jurisdictions. There is a current constitution in the original language, one English language translation for each country, and amending laws for each constitution.

The database provides access to constitutional development documents, which is very important and critical, especially when researching smaller economies and jurisdictions. It serves as a one-stop shop for materials that may not necessarily be easily available anywhere else.

What About Classification Bias?: Channeling Sandy Berman, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

As libraries explore new avenues of information access, the need for a critical evaluation of our bibliographic tools is more important than ever. With the potential of the emerging semantic web and the promise of linked data, how will systems originally designed to organize closed physical collections translate to an increasingly fragmented digital information space? How will deep-seated cultural biases affect access to a cross-cultural information environment? This paper will review the work of Sandy Berman’s Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People aiming to explore a critical framework to evaluate the cultural interoperability of …

Book Review: Americanah By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Yemisi Dina

Articles & Book Chapters

Americanah is based on a love story that revolved around 3 continents - Africa, North America, and Europe. The themes of race, gender, and identity feature prominently in this award winning novel. Adichie’s story gives a vivid description of the lives of young teenagers of various ethnic and class structures in military-ruled Nigeria from the late 1970s to the 1990s and the beginning of a democratic government. It subtly describes the different ramifications of corruption and highlights a very degenerative period and the beginning of professional brain drain in the country.

Changing The Landscape Of Scholarship, Louis Mirando, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

Osgoode Digital Commons: One Million Downloads And Still Counting!, Louis Mirando

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Osgoode Digital Commons, the institutional repository and digital archive of Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, offering world-wide access to the research and publications of the School’s scholarly community, achieved a significant milestone when it reached one million downloads in the early morning of Monday, November 21, 2016, less than three years since its inception.

‘Wannabe Toxic-Free?’ From Precautionary Consumption To Corporeal Citizenship, Dayna Scott, Jennie Haw, Robyn Lee

Articles & Book Chapters

Ecological citizens are increasingly encouraged to adopt ‘precautionary consumption’ – a set of practices aimed at shielding them from the potential health harms of exposures to everyday toxics. The utility and the effects of precautionary consumption in relation to common chemical exposures are investigated. Precautionary consumption is not only of questionable utility, but is fundamentally misguided as an approach for inspiring antitoxics organizing. The failure of this approach is in part due to its assumption of a naturally bounded, autonomous individual who is able to maintain an impermeable boundary between herself and the environment. Drawing on the work of material …

Ripples And Triples In The Bibliographic Data Pool : Rda And Linked Data, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Beginning with the RDA ripples that are visible on the surface of the bibliographic data pool, this presentation reviews some highlights of the “new” cataloguing rules and explores the shifting perception of bibliographic data as we slowly drift toward a linked data future.

Converting Marc To Rdf, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

5 steps to converting MARC bibliographic records to RDF Dublin Core.

Challenging Classification Bias With Linked Data, Juliya Borie, F. Tim Knight, Jordan Hale

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Can library classification systems find new ways to deal with charges of bias? Can linked data contribute a more inclusive representation of diverse voices and communities? This panel will discuss the inherent biases present in cataloguing and classification, and consider the potential for linked data to provide a space to highlight and explore the challenging political issues that can arise in our work. These include issues related to jurisdiction, territory, and community with examples drawn from legal classification and the classification of cartographic resources.

Registered Savings Plans And The Making Of Middle Class Canada: Toward A Performative Theory Of Tax Policy, Lisa Philipps

Articles & Book Chapters

Politicians across Canada’s political spectrum strive to position themselves as defenders of the middle class, and tax policy is a prime vehicle for making this pitch. Any tax reform proposal can be examined critically to evaluate its likely distributional impacts and how well these map onto specific definitions of the middle class. This article attempts, however, a different project. Drawing on the ideas of Judith Butler, it analyzes instead how tax policy produces middle-class identity through the very process of claiming to advance middle-class interests. The case study for this purpose is the rise of tax incentives for saving as …

The Kf Modified Linked Data Project, F. Tim Knight, Sarah Sutherland

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Libraries have a lot of legacy data to bring to the linked data table. As the potential of the semantic web grows, it’s clear that controlled methods of organization will be critical for its success. This panel discusses two projects to take existing library cataloging and metadata standards and transform them for use as and within Linked Open Data platforms. Tim and Sarah have set out to explore if library classification standards can facilitate and improve semantic navigation as an online controlled vocabulary. They are using a specialized legal classification scheme known as KF Modified. The project has two phases: …

Foreign Investor Protection And Climate Action: A New Price Tag For Urgent Policies, Gus Van Harten

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

From a climate perspective, not all investment is equal. Desirable investment in clean energy needs encouragement and protection, while undesirable investment in fossil fuels needs clear policy signals to avoid further investment in destructive activities and stranding more assets. In this paper, evidence is presented on how foreign investor protection provisions in trade and investment agreements tilt the playing field in favor of entrenched incumbents and against urgent action on climate; on the potential for a massive expansion of investor-state litigation and risks to climate policy in proposed trade deals; and on key flaws in recent European Commission proposals to …

Osgoode Digital Commons: An Update, F. Tim Knight, Louis Mirando

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Presentation delivered by F. Tim Knight at the Osgoode Hall Law School faculty meeting May 12, 2014.

Linked Data And Canadian Legal Resources, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

An overview of the basic theory and building blocks that support linked data; the growth of the so-called linked open data cloud; how this idea might be applied to legal resources and some of the challenges involved; and what organizations like CanLII can do to support linked data developments