Writing And Reading The Results: The Reporting Of Research Rigour Tactics In Information Behaviour Research As Evident In The Published Proceedings Of The Biennial Isic Conferences, 1996 – 2014, Lynne Ef Mckechnie, Roger Chabot, Nicole K. Dalmer, Heidi Julien, Cass Mabbott

FIMS Publications

Introduction. This study examined if and how information behaviour researchers include research rigour tactics in reports of their research projects. Method. A content analysis was conducted of the 193 research reports published in the 1996 – 2014 ISIC proceedings.

Analysis. Articles were coded for author affiliation, rigour tactics reported, and whether or not enough information was presented to allow readers to assess the quality of the research and replicate the study. Both quantitative (frequencies) and qualitative (excerpts from the articles) data are reported.

Results. In total 698 research rigour tactics were reported for an average of 3.6 per paper, a …

“Popcorn Tastes Good”: Participatory Policymaking And Reddit’S “Amageddon”, Alissa Centivany, Bobby Glushko

FIMS Publications

In human-computer interaction research and practice, policy concerns can sometimes fall to the margins, orbiting at the periphery of the traditionally core interests of design and practice. This perspective ignores the important ways that policy is bound up with the technical and behavioral elements of the HCI universe. Policy concerns are triggered as a matter of course in social computing, CSCW, systems engineering, UX, and related contexts because technological design, social practice and policy are dynamically entangled and mutually constitutive. Through this research, we demonstrate the value of a stronger emphasis on policy in HCI by exploring a recent controversy …

Boundary Objects In Information Science, Isto Huvila, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson, Eva Jansen, Pam Mckenzie, Adam Worrall

FIMS Publications

(Accepted for publication; final date unknown at present.) Boundary objects are abstract or physical artefacts that exist in the liminal spaces between adjacent communities of people. The theory of BOs was originally introduced by Star and Griesemer in a study on information practices at the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology but has since been adapted in a broad range of research contexts in a large number of disciplines including the various branches of information science. The aim of this review article is to present an overview of the state of the art of information science research informed by the theory …

The Case For Taxonomic Reparations, Melissa Adler

FIMS Publications

Critical histories of subjects and classifications have unearthed the spatial-temporal situatedness of knowledge organization structures and terminologies. Coming to terms with the cultural foundations upon which our knowledge organizations are built and the ways they change and stay the same means that we also confront difficult truths about epistemic and systemic violence. This paper brings KO scholars into dialogue with critical race theorists, indigenous studies scholars, and queer theorists around conversations about reparations and reparative reading practices. It argues that historical studies that expose processes of exclusion and marginalization reveal the need and possibilities for creating reparative taxonomies. The paper …

A Proposal: The Religious Information Practices Of New Kadampa Buddhists: Examining The Informational Nature Of Buddhist Practice And A Prolegomenon To A Buddhist Theory Of Information Practice, Roger Chabot (Kelsang Legden)

FIMS Working Papers

To provide a background for the study, in this section I will introduce the theoretical concepts and population of study that will feature in this project. I begin with an introduction to everyday life information seeking and its intersection with religion and spirituality then follow this with an introduction of religious practices understood as information practices. Afterwards, I provide a rationale for studying Buddhists and provide an introduction to the particular Buddhist sect that will be the focus of the research.

The Him Career Matrix: Illuminating A Framework For Professional Advancement, Elaine M. Zibrowski, Kelly J. Adams

FIMS Presentations

This project sought out to develop the first, Canadian HIM career matrix in order to:

1. Support a common language to describe the seven core competency areas in which HIM professionals can work;

2. Describe new and evolving roles in HIM in Canada;
3. Provide information on advanced career options available within our profession; and
4. Seek consensus around the common functions performed by Canadian HIM professionals

Empowered To Name, Inspired To Act: Social Responsibility And Diversity As Calls To Action In The Lis Context, Sarah T. Roberts, Safiya Umoja Noble

FIMS Publications

Social responsibility and diversity are two principle tenets of the field of library and information science (LIS), as defined by the American Library Association’s Core Values of Librarianship document, yet often remain on the margins of LIS education, leading to limited student engagement with these concepts and to limited faculty modeling of socially responsible interventions. In this paper, we take up the need to increase the role of both in articulating the values of diversity and social responsibility in LIS education, and argue the field should broaden to put LIS students and faculty in dialog with contemporary social issues of …

A Model Of Social Media Engagement: User Profiles, Gratifications, And Experiences, Lori Mccay-Peet, Anabel Quan-Haase

FIMS Publications

No abstract provided.

“Taking Back” Information Literacy: Time And The One-Shot In The Neoliberal University, Karen P. Nicholson

FIMS Publications

No abstract provided.

Display And Control In Online Social Spaces: Toward A Typology Of Users, Jacquelyn A. Burkell, Alexandre Fortier

FIMS Publications

Online social networks are spaces of social display where an astronomical amount of personal information, which would once have been characterized as private, is shared with a loose community of friends or followers. This broad sharing does not preclude participant interest in control, both over the content of the social network profile and over the audience that has access to that profile. Thus, issues of display and control are in tension in the context of online social networking. The goal of this research is to articulate the different subjective perspectives that characterize Facebook users with respect to the control …

Values, Ethics And Participatory Policymaking In Online Communities, Alissa Centivany

FIMS Publications

Drawing upon principles and lessons of technology law and policy, value-centered design, anticipatory design ethics, and information policy literatures this research seeks to contribute to understandings of the ways in which platform design, practice, and policymaking intersect on the social media site Reddit. This research explores how Reddit’s users, moderators, and administrators surface values (like free speech, privacy, dignity, and autonomy), hint at ethical principles (what content, speech, behavior ought to be restricted and under what conditions), through a continuous process of (re)negotiating expectations and norms around values, ethics, and power on the site. Central to this research are questions …

The Paradox Of Privacy: Revisiting A Core Library Value In An Age Of Big Data And Linked Data, Grant D. Campbell, Scott Cowan

FIMS Publications

Protecting user privacy and confidentiality is fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship, and such protection constitutes one of eleven values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). This paper addresses the concerns of protecting privacy in the library as they relate to library users who are defining, exploring, and negotiating their sexual identities with the help of the library’s information, programming, and physical facilities. In so doing, we enlist the aid of Garret Keizer, who, in Privacy (2012), articulates a fresh theory of the concept in light of American social life in the twenty-first century. …

Commercial Content Moderation: Digital Laborers' Dirty Work, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

In this chapter from the forthcoming Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture Online (Noble and Tynes, Eds., 2016), I introduce both the concept of commercial content moderation (CCM) work and workers, as well as the ways in which this unseen work affects how users experience the Internet of social media and user-generated content (UGC). I tie it to issues of race and gender by describing specific cases of viral videos that transgressed norms and by providing examples from my interviews with CCM workers. The interventions of CCM workers on behalf of the platforms for which they labor directly contradict …

In/Visibility, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

In online life there is a normative supposition that the information- and image-rich environment of the web and other platforms should provide unfettered access to the circulation of all types of content. Less attention is paid to what is not seen, to the invisible—be it actual content that is rescinded, altered or removed, or the opaque decision-making processes that maintain its flow. In/visibility online is central to the intertwined functions/mechanisms of user experience and platform control, further operationalized under globalized, technologically driven capitalism. A digital labour phenomenon that is both responsible for it and relies upon it: is …

Collaborative Approaches To The Management Of Geospatial Data Collections In Canadian Academic Libraries: A Historical Case Study, Leanne Trimble, Cheryl Woods, Francine Berish, Daniel Jakubek, Sarah Simpkin

Western Libraries Publications

Special Issue: Geospatial Data Management, Curation, and Preservation - Part 2

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is a consortium of the twenty-one university libraries in Ontario, Canada. Since 1967, OCUL member institutions have worked together to share costs and workload through collective purchasing and licensing of information resources and more recently through the establishment of a shared digital infrastructure known as Scholars Portal. Under the auspices of OCUL, Ontario's university map librarians formed the OCUL Map Group in 1973 to seek opportunities to communicate and collaborate to improve the collections and services they offer their users. The opportunities …

A New Approach To Evaluating Information: A Reflection On Radar, Kevin Tanner, Kim Mcphee

Western Libraries Presentations

For instruction librarians, teaching information literacy (IL) skills is often an important aspect of any lesson plan. One area of IL includes the critical evaluation of sources, an essential skill that students need to succeed as aspiring scholars and researchers. This ability to differentiate “good” from “bad” information is beneficial to students beyond their academic careers, and will help them navigate the “sea of information” for the rest of their lives. Typically, such evaluation skills are taught through applying the CRAAP test: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. While humorous and memorable, the name of this test devalues the usefulness …

Leveraging Resources Across Units And Universities To Address Academic Literacies And Research Skills In Ontario Graduate Students, Melanie Mills, Elan Paulson

Western Libraries Presentations

Student2Scholar (S2S) is a fully online and open course that aims to teach academic literacies and research skills to social science graduate students. Set to launch in December 2015, S2S was conceived of and created by a diverse and distributed team of academic librarians, university staff, and graduate students from three Ontario Universities: Western, the University of Toronto, and Queen’s. Members of the project team brought with them varying degrees of experience and expertise across a range of disciplinary and teaching and learning backgrounds, including: adult education, information literacy, and online learning (to name only a few).

S2S serves as …

Altmetrics Concepts And Practices, Janice Winkler

Western Libraries Presentations

Researchers are often asked to demonstrate their productivity and the impact of their research when they apply for funding, as well as when they go up for promotion and tenure. One of the ways they do this is by using traditional bibliometrics. Librarians, publishers, and institutions are other stakeholders with sometimes widely varying use cases for research impact metrics. Unfortunately, some traditional research impact metrics have been identified as barriers to open access initiatives, including Scholarship@Western.

Altmetrics provide an alternative or complement to traditional metrics. They generally use information available on the web to determine how research output is used …

Professional Identity And You: Why Self-Concept Matters In Librarianship, Kevin Tanner

FIMS Presentations

Kevin Tanner addresses the importance of professional identity in librarianship. In the Summer 2015 semester, he completed an independent study on the construction of professional identity of librarians on Twitter through professional development and networking. During this session, he shares the results of that study and give suggestions on how you can begin to find your own professional identity while still retaining your individuality. While there are many stereotypes about librarians, they are not “one-size-fits-all” professionals, and a new modern image of the professional has begun to emerge in the digital age through a thoughtful reflection on identity.

Academic Data Library Services In Canada Over Time, S Vincent Gray, Elizabeth Hill

Western Libraries Publications

This Excel spreadsheet both supplements and was used to create the maps (also included) presented in The Academic Data Librarian Profession in Canada: History and Future Directions, a chapter by Vincent Gray and Elizabeth Hill in the forthcoming (2015) ACRL volume The Academic Data Librarian in Theory and Practice. Data were compiled from information sent from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries and Statistics Canada.

Enhancing Key Digital Literacy Skills: Information Privacy, Information Security, And Copyright/Intellectual Property, Jacquelyn A. Burkell, Alexandre Fortier, Lisa Di Valentino, Sarah T. Roberts

FIMS Publications

Key Messages

Background

• Knowledge and skills in the areas of information security, information privacy, and copyright/intellectual property rights and protection are of key importance for organizational and individual success in an evolving society and labour market in which information is a core resource.
• Organizations require skilled and knowledgeable professionals who understand risks and responsibilities related to the management of information privacy, information security, and copyright/intellectual property.
• Professionals with this expertise can assist organizations to ensure that they and their employees meet requirements for the privacy and security of information in their care and control, and in order to ensure that …

Interrogating Course-Related Public Interest Internships In Communications, Sandra Smeltzer

FIMS Publications

This article examines the benefits and drawbacks of for-credit, unpaid internships geared towards the public good. Attention is focused specifically on communication internships with non- governmental, non-profit, and community-based organizations. Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with students, staff, faculty, and host organizations, the author advances a critical model of service learning that more fully recognizes the labour of community partners and encourages students to consider what role they can and should play in advancing the public good. The article also highlights two key issues vis-à-vis public interest internships that are of particular relevance to the field of communications. …

Tactical Destabiliazation For Economic Justice: The First Phase Of The 1984-2004 Rhythm & Blues Royalty Reform Movement, Matt Stahl

FIMS Publications

This article examines an early (1980s) phase in a two-decade effort towards ‘royalty reform’ in the US recording industry, whereby ageing African American rhythm & blues performers sought to redress systematic underpayment of record royalties. The record companies to which these performers had signed in the 1940s and 1950s had contractually obligated themselves to provide biannual statements of royalty accounts, and to pay artists record royalties, once initial costs had been recouped. Yet this is rarely how things turned out, and many performers found themselves broke and vulnerable as they reached retirement age, even though many of their records had …

Awareness And Perception Of Copyright Among Teaching Faculty At Canadian Universities, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

In this talk I discuss the results of a survey of Canadian university faculty members undertaken from October to December 2014. The survey sought to determine teaching faculty awareness of copyright law and institutional policy and training, and how they would respond in various scenarios.

Analysis of the results suggests that while faculty members are aware of the existence of their institution's copyright policy, much fewer know whether their institution offers training. Of those who do know about training, only one-third have attended. However, faculty who have attended copyright training find that their knowledge is enhanced by the experience.

It …

Reading Among Older People: A Concise Overview, Paulette Rothbauer, Nicole Dalmer

Data and Test Instruments

No abstract provided.

The Library Is Our Lab: The Case For Print Books In An Academic Library, Fran Gray, Peggy Ellis

Western Libraries Presentations

Humanities researchers consider the library to be their laboratory, and its print collections their essential research equipment. In spite of anecdotal evidence that both students and faculty in the Humanities prefer print materials over e-books, academic libraries are allocating a steadily increasing proportion of their acquisitions budgets toward the purchase of e-books across all disciplines. What is the impact of this trend on the work of these researchers? At Western University in London, Ontario, we surveyed faculty members and graduate students in the Arts and Humanities faculty and those in the History department to gain a better understanding of their …

The Mcdonaldization Of Academic Libraries And The Values Of Transformational Change, Karen P. Nicholson

FIMS Publications

No abstract provided.

Adr Presentation: Open Access, Joanne Paterson

Western Libraries Presentations

Publishing in an open access repository gives your research global reach. Wide dissemination of your work can mean more citations and more impact. Getting your scholarly work published is as easy as uploading a paper to a website. Find out how Scholarship@Western can benefit you and how it can help you meet the requirements of funding agencies for open access.

Scholarship@Western & Open Access: What's In It For Me?, Joanne Paterson

Western Libraries Presentations

Publishing in an open access repository gives your research global reach. Wide dissemination of your work can mean more citations and more impact. Getting your scholarly work published is as easy as uploading a paper to a website. Find out how Scholarship@Western can benefit you and how it can help you meet the requirements of funding agencies for open access.

Transitioning & Preparing Library Students: Canadian Pd Programs, Amanda R. Kelly, Sajni Lacey

FIMS Publications

In an increasingly competitive job market, extra-curricular professional development (PD) opportunities prepare and equip Masters-level LIS students to secure employment and excel in their careers. In addition to reviewing and examining existing extra-curricular PD initiatives available through current ALA accredited Masters-level programs in Canada, a potential structure for developing, framing, and delivering PD programs is proposed. Findings from a review of university websites reveal a lack of consistency across schools in PD opportunities geared to transitioning and preparing students for future careers. Prospective directions for educational organizations to further develop their program offerings for students and recent graduates are explored.