Library and Information Science Commons^™

From Creator To Curator To Author As Content: Nicolas Winding Refn, Transdiscursive Authorship, And Self-Branding In Twenty-First Century Media, Christopher J. Olson

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation traces Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s development from creator and curator to author as content within an evolving media ecology driven by capitalist ideology. A close critical study of Refn’s career from 1996 to 2019 offers insight into contemporary techniques of creating, collecting, and curating media texts, as well as the phenomenon of presenting oneself as content via discursive branding. Given that Refn’s career coincided with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the rise of digital platforms, he thus emblematizes what it means to be a creator working within an increasingly interconnected media ecology. Refn initially …

Characteristics Of Award-Winning Children’S Books About Agriculture: An Analysis Of Content, And The Perspectives Of Authors, Illustrators, And Publishers, Addison L. Beckham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this two-article qualitative study was to characterize children's literature about agriculture and to describe the perceptions of authors and illustrators who are responsible for writing and designing these successful publications. This will result in the ability of organizations like Feeding Minds Press to provide writers, illustrators, and publishers with effective strategies and techniques to improve the accuracy and overall quality of children’s literature about agriculture. Few parameters exist for authors of children’s books about agriculture (Biser, 2007). These parameters are necessary to ensure the quality and accuracy of these educational efforts (Serafini, 2012). Though Feeding Minds Press …

The Politics Of Preservation: Stewarding Artifacts In Archives, Kollynn Hendry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kay Bailey Hutchison served Texas and the United States in many capacities during her political career. She vastly impacted Texas, as well as Nacogdoches, Texas in particular, through her time serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives and as a United States Senator. In 2012, she donated her massive collection of gifts and memorabilia to the East Texas Research Center, a regional archive at Stephen F. Austin State University. The university honored her donation by creating a room to display the collection and interpret her influence on East Texas. Due to a rushed timeline, administrative interference, and …

“For What We Do Today Becomes The History Of Tomorrow”: A History Of The Bay View Historical Society, 1979-2015, Bradley Wiles

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a history of the Bay View Historical Society (BVHS), a non-profit cultural heritage institution located in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since its creation in 1979, the BVHS has assumed numerous roles related to preservation, documentation, education, information provision, social interaction, and public appreciation around the neighborhood’s history. This study’s overarching purpose is to examine how a modern local historical society assumes and approaches its role within the community it seeks to document, preserve, celebrate, and enrich. The central contention is that such institutions are given life when a range of conditions are conducive for …

Taking Science Museums To The Edge: How Science Museums Can Advocate For Social Justice, Education And Inclusivity Through Their Exhibits, Sasha C. Naples

Museum Studies Theses

Science museums have often associated affluent populations and quality education with access to scientific material and content. While these institutions have become more accessible in many ways, they can and should increase their efforts to include BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities and individuals. As the need grows for diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields so does the demand for science museums to include these communities’ needs and wants. This thesis discusses the need for and importance of BIPOC representation in science museums and what museums have already done to include them in their programming and …

The Red Jacket Peace Medal And Ethics Of Repatriation, Nicholas J. Oconnor

Museum Studies Theses

The Red Jacket Peace Medal and Ethics of Repatriation

Native Americans have had a long and arduous past. Many generations of tribal nations within the geographical and political context of the United States have experienced genocide, forced relocation, had their land seized, and cultural artifacts and remains stolen since the fifteenth century. Museums have become the primary institutions now owning the majority of variously acquired artifacts of Native American cultural heritage and displaying them in pursuit of scientific study. For the long overdue injustices done to Native Americans, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was established in …

Visual Representation Of Black Individuals At The Forefront Of Underground Railroad Interpretation, Alison Spongr

Museum Studies Theses

This thesis is grounded in a reflection and analysis of the building of an institution whose foundation and visuals position the narratives of Black individuals at the forefront of Underground Railroad interpretation. In 2018, the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center opened to the public after decades in the making. Its permanent exhibition, One More River to Cross, set in motion a shift in power – of whose stories are represented and shared – generated by visual activism.

“Between the American Revolution in 1776 and the end of the Civil War in 1865, thousands of freedom seekers escaped slavery …

A Pelican's Journey To Flight: A Louisiana National Guardsman, The Development Of The United States Army Air Service, And The Human Cost Of Military Innovation, James H. Smith

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

George E. Dicks deployed to the Mexican Punitive Expedition and World War I with the Louisiana National Guard. He recorded his experience in writing and photography, which reside in the Jackson Barracks Military Museum in Chalmette, Louisiana. His memorabilia reflect an officer’s perspective on early military aviation and parallel to the United States military’s experimentation with aviation. Through experimentation, Dicks became an aerial observer in World War I.

This thesis explores George E. Dicks’ memorabilia and how it both represents the development of the American Air Service and the human cost of military aviation with photographic evidence. By representing aviation’s …

Negotiating Authenticity: Reproducing The Past For The Present, David Symanzik-Stock

Theses and Dissertations

Negotiating Authenticity: Reproducing the Past for the Present explores how reproductions connect us to the past. From Rembrandt restrikes to plastic souvenirs, reproductions occupy an important chapter in an object’s biography. This exhibition considers the complex relationships between "original” artifacts and their reproductions, which historically has been the focus of scholarly debate. Walter Benjamin, in his 1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproduction, highlights the intrinsic questions posed of this relationship – when an original work of art (or object) is reproduced, what relationship does both the reproduction and its model (the original) have with …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …

The Rise And False Of Confederate Monuments, Julia M. Hamilton

Museum Studies Theses

Removing Confederate monuments in the United States has caused a racist, violent, and deadly backlash. Those who are against removing Confederate monuments make claims that doing so is erasing history and culture. This thesis argues that removing these monuments corrects history because Confederate monuments are not historically accurate. Factual historic evidence is provided as well as literature to support this claim. Case studies are provided that explore different institutional responses to racist Confederate monuments and problematic museum displays. This paper explores the responsibility that historic public spaces must ensure accurate information is available to the American public.

Function And Aesthetic Value: An Analysis Of The Milwaukee Public Museum's Thai Royal Silver Collection, Aislinn Sanders

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes 45 objects from the Thai Royal Silver collection currently housed at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM). Of these, 41 were donated by a single donor, Dr. Louis Schapiro, who collected the objects during his time working as Medical Advisor for the King of Siam in 1931-1932. Following his death, his son Mark held onto the objects until 1969, when they became a part of the MPM’s collection. The chosen objects include boxes, bowls, and other types of vessels. Through researching this collection, the following questions guided the direction for this thesis: How did the silver industry begin …

Practicing Re-Enlightenment : Technology Revisited In The Age Of Climate Change, Gyuri Kang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the age of climate change, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh asks whether humanity is prepared for the unthinkable nature of climate events. The Earth’s climate is changing faster than humans can expect and adapt. Ghosh warns that modern people are too deranged to imagine in what forms of changes are approaching. His term, derangement, suggests that humans are no longer able to imagine the future world shaped by climate change. The signals of the unexpectable realities of climate change, however, may be hidden in existing knowledge. Here, technology can help us access this hidden knowledge through its ability to …

The Divine Consumptive: The Depiction Of Tuberculosis In Jane Eyre, Haley Highfield

Theses and Dissertations

Disease was a constant and unavoidable facet of life in British society during the Victorian Era. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of disease, the true cause of these illnesses remained mysterious until the turn of the century. With the origins of many of these diseases being either unknown or ascribed to mistaken sources, effective treatment was an impossibility. Tuberculosis is a prime example of this conundrum. Even with an estimated twenty-five percent of the British population dying from this particular disease during the nineteenth century, the actual provenance for infection was not discovered until 1882 with Robert Koch’s identification of the …

"Neighborhood Library Modernization": Public Library Expansion In Milwaukee During The 1960s And 1970s, Madeline Brenner

Theses and Dissertations

By the second half of the 20th century, public libraries expanded their reach across American cities and transformed the urban landscape. With almost 10,000 libraries in U.S. cities by 1960, new library development was at an all-time high. Despite this success, few scholars have analyzed these critical changes. Since the historical scholarship on library development is limited, this thesis analyzes the history of public library development in Milwaukee during the 1960s and 1970s. The goals of community engagement and partnership through city-wide circulation of material guided the development of branch library construction under the Ten-Year Library Plan of 1962 to …

In My Skin, Her Skin: An Artistic Exploration Of The Intersection Of Queer Femininity And Body Image, Stephanie Allen

Senior Theses

This project aims to visually record the feeling of being seen and queer women and non-binary people’s developing knowledge of their identity. Using interview questions that focused on body satisfaction, body selectiveness in partners, queer identity, and one’s relationship with femininity, a series of “floating collages” was created to record and juxtapose the appearance of the body with one’s internal relationship to the body. By realistically showing a variety of different body types that all relate to queerness and femininity in some way, one may expand their presupposed notions about the body enforcing identity. Additionally, despite these varying appearances of …

Data Science: A Study From The Scientometric, Curricular, And Altmetric Perspectives, Michael Joseph King

Selected Full Text Dissertations, 2011-

This research explores the emerging field of data science from the scientometric, curricular, and altmetric perspectives and addresses the following six research questions: 1. What are the scientometric features of the data science field? 2. What are the contributing fields to the establishment of data science? 3. What are the major research areas of the data science discipline? 4. What are the salient topics taught in the data science curriculum? 5. What topics appear in the Twitter-sphere regarding data science? 6. What can be learned about data science from the scientometric, curricular, and altmetric analyses of the data collected? Using …

Propuesta De Sistematización De La Gaita Como Patrimonio Cultural De Colombia, Laura Juliana Acosta Londoño

Sistemas de Información, Bibliotecología y Archivística

La gaita colombiana representa uno de los géneros e instrumentos musicales más importantes de la Región Caribe, gracias a su tradición y sonido autóctono merece ser reconocida, valorada, conservada como patrimonio cultural inmaterial de Colombia y de la humanidad. Así pues, el objetivo del presente trabajo es generar una propuesta de sistematización de la gaita colombiana como patrimonio cultural de Colombia donde se trabajará una metodología con enfoque cualitativo, tipo de investigación descriptiva, con método de investigación documental, utilizando como técnica el análisis de contenido y la matriz de análisis como instrumento.

Entre los autores relevantes para el desarrollo de …

Creating The Experience: Engaging Millennials In Museums With A Focus On Jewish Millennials And Museums, Sarah G. Drozda

Museum Studies Theses

In this research, I explore two main ideas: The relationship that millennials have with museums and what programming excites them into coming back to the museum. To do this, I did a background review of the motivations and passions of the millennial generation, as well as various programming that have engaged millennials in museums. As someone who is a millennial and passionate about Jewish museums and Jewish engagement, I focused my research on how museums can help to bring Jewish millennials closer to their heritage, culture, and Jewish identity. A good segment of Jewish millennials is not drawn to traditional …

Proof Positive: Applications Of Chemical Analysis Techniques In Art Forgery Detection, Joseph Fryc

Museum Studies Theses

In response to the subjective nature of older forgery detection techniques, modern forgery detection methods rely heavily on chemical analysis of the materials utilized in a given piece of work in order to make authenticity determinations. Chemical methods of detection at their core provide an objective determination of facts regarding the composition of materials utilized in contested pieces and provide a relative date of production for those materials. In this way, chemical analysis helps service the field of modern forgery detection as a direct compliment to traditional stylistic analysis, by providing extra data on the piece that can often be …

Museums & Environmental Sustainability: Are They Doing Enough?, Alexandra M. Dwyer

Museum Studies Theses

As the world continues to be affected by the rapid rates of climate change, institutions from every sector are transitioning to become more sustainable by reducing or eliminating their harmful habits on the ecosystem. Whether by their own accord or external pressure from current legislative action to cut carbon emissions, institutions are shifting towards a sustainable future. For museums there are additional unique reasons to adopt sustainability into various aspects with their institution. The most influential reason is that museums have a responsibility as community leaders and change makers. However, looming questions remain: Are museums doing enough? Are these cultural …

Ledgers Of The W.T. Carter And Brother Lumber Company: An Archival Processing Project, Christopher Cameron Cotton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company began in 1898 and operated until 1968 when it was sold to the U.S. Plywood Corporation. The Polk County, Texas company harvested longleaf pine during a crucial period of development for the Texas economy. The lumber industry was the state’s first large scale commercial enterprise not dependent on farming and provided a model for future extractive industries in the state. The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company town of Camden, Texas exemplifies rural implementations of the company town system in the Texas lumber industry. This public history thesis provides a brief history of …

The Nature Of Informal Educators In Science Centers, Science Museums And Zoos: Case Studies Of Personnel, Practices, Programs, Outreach And Organization, Courtney Erickson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Informal Science Centers provide educational experiences for people across the country daily. While the terminology is often similar, there are differences between institutions, often determined by mission, organizational structure, and experience. The purpose of this study was to identify shared experiences and unique characteristics of eight informal science centers around the country. The significance of the study was to add to the understanding of informal science educators' responsibilities, organizational structure, decision-making process, and development. Data for the study was collected using qualitative measures through a researcher-created interview, sent to fifteen institutions, after the recommendation from two well-known informal science researchers. …

Accessibility For All: Digitization In Museums, Shayna Diamond

Museum Studies Theses

The role museums have in society is an ever-changing one. As institutions of knowledge, culture, and humanity, they are subject to the same evolutions as the people they represent, educate, and serve. Thus, as digitization movements have swept the world, efforts to bring museums into the digital age have increased. This paper discusses digitization in the museum context, addresses the digitization of collections and exhibitions, and examines how digitization tools open those resources for public access – in particular for people with disabilities. The aim of this topic is to demonstrate how said digitization can best be utilized for the …

The Public Innovations Explorer: A Geo-Spatial & Linked-Data Visualization Platform For Publicly Funded Innovation Research In The United States, Seth Schimmel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Public Innovations Explorer (https://sethsch.github.io/innovations-explorer/app/index.html) is a web-based tool created using Node.js, D3.js and Leaflet.js that can be used for investigating awards made by Federal agencies and departments participating in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant-making programs between 2008 and 2018. By geocoding the publicly available grants data from SBIR.gov, the Public Innovations Explorer allows users to identify companies performing publicly-funded innovative research in each congressional district and obtain dynamic district-level summaries of funding activity by agency and year. Applying spatial clustering techniques on districts' employment levels across major economic sectors provides users …

Museums & Community Resilience: Improving Post-Crisis Outreach In Latinx Communities By Combining Library And Museum Practices, Sua Lorena Mendez

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Museums are held in the public trust and are accountable to their communities, including minority groups such as the Latinx population. Despite this, museums struggle to engage with Latinx communities, who are particularly affected during and after a crisis or emergency. Currently, museums do not have professional guidelines on supporting community resilience, or a community’s ability to respond to and recover from a crisis. In contrast, libraries, which function as similar community organizations, have field-wide community resilience plans and professional librarians have actively researched how libraries can assist their communities after a significant crisis. Using a multi-case library and museum …

Remembering Why: Finding Direction In The Face Of Unsustainable Collections Practices, Megan Barr

Museum Studies Theses

Shifts in the philosophy and practices that guide museums have changed the way we collect and what we collect. However, professional standards and expectations related to the management and use of those collections have largely remained unaltered. Museum professionals are repeatedly confronted by the impracticality and near impossibility of achieving accepted professional standards when managing collections. It is clear that the profession needs to rethink the practices and policies that shape our daily work assumptions, but where do we begin? Using Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle as a guide, we will rearticulate our purpose and reexamine the practices that get in …

Aiming To Reenact: The Efficacy Of Military Living History As A Learning Tool, Leah T. Glenn

Museum Studies Theses

People around the world have been fascinated with recreating the past since antiquity. Over the past century, however, the presentation of historical information using various forms of human interaction and animation has gained increasing attention, at least in the historic site community if not largely accepted among academic historians. Utilizing a number of non-traditional tools to create a multisensory experience for visitors, this “living” history aims at entertaining the public while providing insights into the past not easily gained through more academic means. Further, there have been many sites, particularly those with a military theme, that have chosen to utilize …