In the Library with the Lead Pipe – Page 6 – An open access, peer reviewed journal

In Brief Information capitalism, the system where information, a historically, largely free and ubiquitous product of basic communication, is commodified by private owners for profit, is entrenched in our society. Information brokers have consolidated and swallowed up huge amounts of data, in a system that leaves data purchase, consumption, and use largely unregulated and unchecked....

In Brief The practice of hiring consultants in academic libraries is widespread, but research on the topic is not. We argue that this practice stems from underlying neoliberal ideals that may disenfranchise library workers. This research is the first to include the experiences and perspectives of library employees to better understand the practice of hiring...

In Brief Burnout issues are of increasing concern for many service professionals, including Library and Information Science (LIS) workers; however, the majority of articles addressing burnout in the LIS field describe methods of coping with burnout, but do not ascertain trends and preventable factors. The purpose of this study was to identify the percentage of...

In Brief What if we brought the same compassion and learner mindset that we use with students to our interactions with colleagues? Inspired by change management through the lens of appreciative inquiry and interpersonal effectiveness, a team of University Library faculty and staff developed a series of professional development workshops to establish a shared baseline...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Librarianship at the Crossroads of ICE Surveillance

Consultants in Canadian Academic Libraries: Adding New Voices to the Story

When Does Burnout Begin? The Relationship Between Graduate School Employment and Burnout Amongst Librarians

Leading from the Center: Reimagining Feedback Conversations at an Academic Library

Against medicine: Constructing a queer-feminist community health informatics and librarianship

Sliding Across the Database Divide with Proactive Chat Help

“All I did was get this golden ticket”: Negative Emotions, Cruel Optimisms, and the Library Job Search

Shifting the Balance of Power: Asking Questions about the Comics-Questions Curriculum

All carrots, no sticks: Relational practice and library instruction coordination

New Hampshire Public Library Services for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence