Library and Information Science Commons^™

Collections & Connections, Jennifer Wilson

Collections & Connections

This spring/summer 2013 issue features Al and Jeane Baker honored for their in-kind gift to the libraries' centennial mural as well as Dr. Nicholson who won this year's Kentucky Literary Award for his book about Derby. The issue also highlights the 2013 SOKY Book Fest that brought in 130 authors. It reports the newly renovated Commons at Cravens and the just installed web-based service StackMap, which can visually guide users to the stacks of books in Cravens Library using their smart phones. As usual, all of the Libraries’ literary events have been mentioned in the issue, particularly the new grant-supported …

Mass. Memories Road Show: Your Place In Massachusetts History, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Joanne Riley, University Archives & Special Collections, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photographs and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where everyone is invited to bring photographs to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

To date, the Mass. Memories Road Show has digitized more than 5,000 photographs and stories from across the state, creating an educational resource of primary sources for future generations. Over time, we plan to visit each of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

Community Engagement: Computer Skills For The Homeless, Fannie Cox

Faculty Scholarship

What does it mean to provide information literacy skills? The number of homeless people is growing regardless of their socio-economic status, age, gender, race, religion, or ethnicity. An Outreach Librarian from a university developed a community partnership to teach computer skills to residents of a homeless shelter. This paper presents the benefits, impacts, and outcomes of these classes for both the residents and librarians.

Information – Power To The People: Students And Librarians Dialoguing About Power, Social Justice, And Information, Mandy J. Swygart-Hobaugh M.L.S., Ph.D.

University Library Faculty Publications

This chapter provides a case study of teaching an Honors Freshman Seminar at Georgia State University. The pedagogical goals for this course were: (1) to push the boundaries of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education; (2) to engage students in applying critical-theoretical and social-justice frameworks to the course topics via dialogic, problem-posing learning; and (3) to expand and challenge the students’ perceptions of librarianship by elucidating the role librarians play in social justice and democratizing efforts related to information access. Twelve students consented to content analyses of their assignment texts. The …

Update From The International Resource Network, Kalle Westerling

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The International Resource Network (IRN), the global network of researchers, activists, artists, and teachers sharing knowledge about diverse sexualities, hosted by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, as so far had a time of reorganization and applying for future funding. Meanwhile, the local organizations and projects associated with the network continued to grow and expand.

Information - Access: Denied, Riccardo M. Purita

SURGE

I have been privileged during my lifetime to always have the opportunity to learn about something if I wanted to. When I became interested in music and psychology—or even when I was learning how to apply for college—I googled it. The resources to obtain information have always been there for me: access to computers, the internet, books, journals. It is hard to imagine my life without a computer or access to books to learn about the world, and even harder to imagine if I did not know how to read or write. For this, I can thank my education and …

Diversity And Equity...Community Building Strategies In Public Libraries For Multicultural Communities, Rajeswari Chelliah

Research outputs 2013

The research project focused on the community building potential in the public library due to increasing diversity in multicultural groups. Diversity in Australia and the world at large, is challenged by groups with backgrounds of traditionally embedded mind-sets, civil unrest, war, intolerance and poverty, and who live within the socio-cultural framework of the host culture. Building cohesion and integration among the residents is vital for all nations. The exploratory research project investigated the current level of public library services to Multicultural groups to obtain library staff views. The views of Multicultural individuals about their local public library experiences and information …

Queer Housing Nacional Google Group: A Librarian’S Documentation Of A Community-Specific Resource, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Beginning with a discussion of information access and its relationship to communities, this article is a first-person experience for creating a community-specific information resource, a queer housing listserv called Queer Housing Nacional. Written as a case study for how librarians may apply their skills to community as well as document the journey of this time capsuled listserv, one may find that this listserv may complicate librarianship’s promotion of open access, instead, encouraging closed participatory group structures, with collective distributions of power. Included are multiple email exchanges from the listserv, as well as Appendices of survey questions, notable responses, and …

Engaging The Homeless Through Technology And Information Literacy, Fannie Cox

Faculty Scholarship

The University of Louisville (U of L) Libraries' outreach mission is to encourage the development of information literacy (IL) and critical thinking in individuals. In March 2010, a community engagement partnership began between Ekstrom Library and the Wayside Christian Mission for the libraries to provide a basic computer skills class to its clients (referred to as students), many of whom had never used a computer. Now in its fourth iteration, the class named Wayside 100 provides students an opportunity to develop skills that may assist them with increasing their educational level, succeeding in college, as well as overcoming homelessness.

Patrolling The Web For Pirated Content, Iram Zehra Mirza, Shahina Islam

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study is an attempt to get the insights on attitudes and behavior of people in the changing media landscape. The study highlights the online piracy of videos, games, movies, slides, mash-ups etc and addresses the impact that piracy is laying upon on the mindsets of users who are indulged in such activity. The study also signifies the reasons behind piracy, the frequency of doing so, modes of accessing, and likelihood of discontinuing the same. The study is one of its kinds which can be used as a means of awareness against the mass infringement cases which can help in …