2019
4
Sep
/
1 Comments
Against medicine: Constructing a queer-feminist community health informatics and librarianship
In Brief Community health informatics (CHI) is rapidly developing as a field of library practice but remains constrained by unexamined definitions of “community”, “health”, and “informatics” as separate and unified terms. This is further complicated by a failure to situate libraries within a history of institutional oppression which continues to work itself out in the... Read More
In Brief Proactive chat help has gained attention in academic libraries for increasing the number of questions from online users. Librarians have reported a significant increase in chat traffic, particularly related to research. So far, library websites have been the primary target of proactive chat implementation efforts, leaving subscription databases largely untouched and their users... Read More
2019
7
Aug
“All I did was get this golden ticket”: Negative Emotions, Cruel Optimisms, and the Library Job Search
In Brief Drawing from survey results and interviews with recent job seekers, this article investigates the effect behind defeatist attitudes, anxieties, resiliency narratives, and intimacies that are central to librarian successes and failures. Connecting these narratives with Lauren Berlant’s cruel optimism, we explore the dangerous attachment LIS job seekers have with the field. While library... Read More
2019
24
Jul
Shifting the Balance of Power: Asking Questions about the Comics-Questions Curriculum
In Brief We shift the balance of power in this paper by discussing a particular library lesson, the Comics-Questions Curriculum, with some of the students who participated in it, several years after they completed the workshop. By interviewing students and including them as co-authors of this paper, we re-center students in our analysis of this... Read More
2019
10
Jul
All carrots, no sticks: Relational practice and library instruction coordination
In Brief: This article explores the relational practices that comprise the feminized work of instruction coordinators in academic libraries. It is a continuation of research originally presented at the 2017 Association of College and Research Libraries Conference. Through the lens of relational-cultural theory and social constructions of work, this expanded research analysis names the specific... Read More
2019
12
Jun
New Hampshire Public Library Services for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence
In Brief Domestic violence and sexual assault survivors experience unique information needs that can be answered through formal avenues such as a crisis center or police/court proceedings, but many survivors do not take a formal route to recovery. This survey seeks to identify what services and policies guide New Hampshire public libraries in providing services... Read More
2019
22
May
Normalize Negotiation! Learning to Negotiate Salaries and Improve Compensation Outcomes to Transform Library Culture
In Brief This article explores academic librarians’ experiences with compensation negotiation, using a combination of survey and interview data. Specifically, we focus on where librarians learned how to negotiate, where they sought or found advice, where they wished they had received information, and what factors would help them negotiate and improve their outcomes in the... Read More
2019
1
May
No results found: A review of biographical information about award-winning children’s book authors in subscription and free resources
In Brief Prompted by recent discussions of diversity and representation in children’s literature, this study evaluates resources recommended to students for author study assignments in children’s/young adult literature courses at one university. Striving to provide research materials that reflect the communities and experiences of students at The University of New Mexico—a Hispanic serving research university... Read More
2019
17
Apr
Preparing Early Career Librarians for Leadership and Management: A Feminist Critique
In Brief This article explores the opportunities and challenges that early career librarians face when advancing their careers, desired qualities for leaders or managers of all career stages, and how early career librarians can develop those qualities. Our survey asked librarians at all career stages to share their sentiments, experiences, and perceptions of leadership and... Read More
In Brief Libraries are haunted houses. As our patrons move through scenes and illusions that took years of labor to build and maintain, we workers are hidden, erasing ourselves in the hopes of providing a seamless user experience, in the hopes that these patrons will help defend Libraries against claims of death or obsolescence. However,... Read More