IOPN Journals (Illinois Open Publishing Network)
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“Begging to be heard”: The Profession’s Exclusion and Marginalization of Neurodivergent Librarians
Get PDFWhile libraries are increasingly implementing practices and services designed to serve neurodivergent patrons, such efforts have not yet been extended to neurodivergent library employees, resulting in a lack of research or best practices for workplace neuroinclusion. This research addresses that gap by investigating neuroinclusion in public and academic library workplaces and identifying barriers to and enablers of inclusion and empowerment. This work highlights the voices of neurodivergent librarians and their journey of negotiating identity and deploying embodied knowledge to navigate the barriers and enablers they encounter in their workplace and profession. This study will inform how libraries can alter their workplace environment, practices, and professional norms to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of neurodivergent librarians.
Historically, neurodiversity research has been conducted on neurodivergent people from a medicalized perspective, focusing on diagnosis and characteristics of individuals and proposing interventions or changes to the individual or their behavior. This study instead centers neurodivergence by adopting a neurodiversity paradigm and critical disability approach to conducting research with and by neurodivergent people themselves, in accordance with their priorities and values.
This study will expand library literature by attending to the various intersecting identities of neurodivergent people and analyzing the impact of professional norms and expectations on the workplace experiences of neurodivergent librarians. Through the development of this unique critical approach to ‘centering neurodivergence,’ this work will also contribute a new research paradigm for future research on neurodiversity. Furthermore, this dissertation will highlight neuroinclusive workplace practices that librarians can enact in their library workplaces
University Governance for Responsible AI
Get PDFWith the democratization of access to artificial intelligence via large language models, such as ChatGPT, questions about AI ethics in education are at the forefront of educational policymaking. How do we teach students to engage with AI ethically in coursework, research, and careers? What uses of AI constitute violations of academic integrity? What norms need to be established about AI in higher education? This research evaluates official strategy and policy documents from a wide array of research and liberal arts schools in the U.S. via a combination of thematic and structured content analysis, to surface policy and ethics concerns and the institutional structures that shape restrictions, rights, and interventions, following assessment of interrupter reliability. Results highlight the concerns of universities and emerging approaches to intervene with respect to the appropriate use of AI in education. Policy recommendations are made based on the emerging strategies and norms identified via analysis.
Accelerating Dialogue on Health and LIS
Get PDFIt is our goal to accelerate dialogue on the intersections of health and LIS through an engaging and collaborative panel in which both the panelists and audience participate in a dialog that highlights research and engagement with students on this topic. Panelists include:
Barbara A. Alvarez, Sexual and reproductive health information in public libraries. This brief talk discusses findings from a national study about sexual and reproductive health information in public libraries. Exploring concepts like library anxiety, abortion stigma, and intellectual freedom, this presentation considers how libraries can participate in making sexual and reproductive health information more widely available.
Beth Bloch, Just a Scientist Living in an Engineer\u27s World: Epistemological Hierarchies and Values Implications in Biomedical Engineering. This study investigates the identity and value conflicts faced by biomedical engineers and reveals an enculturated preference for engineering approaches over scientific ones. By analyzing responses from interviews and surveys, it sheds light on the educational and practical implications of fostering epistemological hierarchies among interdisciplinary researchers designing novel biomedical technologies.
Jesselyn Dreeszen Bowman and Leah T. Dudak are disabled/chronically ill scholars who have written and analyzed an autoethnography about being disabled in conference spaces through theories of crip time as opposed to neoliberalism in academia. In this, we will focus on our suggestions for changes to conferences to make them more healthy and accessible for disabled bodies.
Abigail L. Phillips, Pleas from billboards and hopeful messages on posters encourage those struggling with mental crises to reach out to timely health support, call 988, and/or text a crisis line. As promising as these services are, the reality is that these hotlines, text lines, and warm lines often have a significant wait period and/or are inadequately staffed to properly help. What happens when emergency mental health resources offer much more than they can deliver? Lack of sufficient funding, confusing/odd hours of operation, and an overwhelmed staff leaves a distressing gap for this critical, lifesaving services.
Emily Vardell, Infertility impacts one in every eight couples; however, there is a lack of information and a social stigma that impacts information practices. Participants in a qualitative study described seeking information to counteract difficult emotional responses and obtain a sense of control. High levels of emotional and physical investment may lead to the experience of feeling consumed by information.
Following mini-talks on these five topics, the panel discussion will open to the audience to share their ideas related to teaching, researching, and experiencing health within LIS. All are welcome to participate in this conversation.
Performance as Truth in the LIS Classroom
Get PDFLibrary and Information Science instructors are including art in their teaching. Ibekwe (2020) asked students “to produce artworks that illustrated how chosen information and communication theories operated in plausible, real-life, or historic contexts” (p. 427). Dali et al. (2015) describe substituting an “academically informed creative writing” option for what would typically be an academic writing assignment, “in other words, a short story that would read like fiction while touching upon the essential issues involved in dissecting and understanding the experience of reading” (p. 302). Hartel et al. (2017) proposed reinventing conventional essay assignments as a “creative deliverable,” a more spacious translation of course content into any format of the arts, including non-material manifestations such as dance or musical composition.
In the LIS field, performance is most commonly associated with children’s librarianship. McDowell and Cooke (2022), discussing storytelling, note “those skills and practices have not been readily available to or understood as important for everyday libraries and librarians” (p. 373). Worthington (2017), analyzing LIS syllabi, found that the “vast majority of courses that included storytelling, puppetry, and read-alouds were childrens’ courses” (pp. 211-212). Even these courses are typically elective rather than required, and performance is often ungraded (p. 210).
Vardell and Nelson’s (2020) adventurous “Teaching Reference Interview Skills with Improv” reports on the benefits of improvisation activities, which can enhance communication, empathy, and teamwork–all essential to a librarian’s interactions with the public.
Our panel will share how we incorporate performance into our LIS classrooms. We discuss performance for children’s librarians as well as for students entering other areas of the LIS profession. We examine how performance gets at Truth that can be difficult or impossible to access through other means. And, we consider the ethics of requiring student performance in a course.
Exploring Soft Skills through the Fundamentals of Improv Comedy
Emily Vardell will discuss how she uses improv comedy exercises to discuss and practice the soft skills necessary for successful reference service interactions. She uses the exercises as an active learning activity in a required reference services course to help LIS graduate students more organically explore soft skills. In addition to outlining the improv exercises, Emily will explore how she leads class discussions on the connections between improv and the soft skills needed to be an effective and responsive librarian. Students report that the opportunity to explore the provision of reference services through an improv lens helped them connect to many of the soft skills inherent in effective reference provision such as being flexible, meeting someone where they are at, making connections, and affirming patron needs. These soft skills are key to effective reference interviews but can be difficult to convey in a standard practice the reference interview exercise. By marrying discussions of improv comedy with reference skills, students are able to engage and explore these soft skills from a different lens.
The Price of Stories is Sometimes Too High: Learning from Students’ Personal Narrative Performance
Brian Sturm will share his experience in a Storytelling for Social Justice course for first year undergraduates. Designed to help them develop their own voices, the class was a bit too successful when one student used the opportunity for revenge on another student. He’ll cover lessons learned and changes made to the course to avoid this “misuse” of storytelling in the classroom.
Breathing Life into Read-Alouds
Sarah Beth Nelson will discuss the read-aloud assignment in her Library Materials for Children course. She prepares students for this assignment with a workshop on “breathing life into read-alouds,” which includes recognizing the reader’s creative contribution to the story. She will also share student thoughts on authenticity and authority as they relate to reading books aloud. What if a librarian wants to share a book with children, but isn’t sure they are the right person to read it aloud? By practicing a read-aloud and giving each other feedback, students experiment with stepping into the authority that the reader role asks of them. Sarah Beth has had students perform in person during face to face class, and more recently online by recording their performance.
Storytelling for Social Justice and Advocacy
Nicole Cooke will discuss the creation and implementation of her Storytelling for Social Justice and Advocacy course. Incorporating a mixture of public speaking, storytelling, personal narrative, and current social justice issues, students learn and practice the processes and skills needed to orally advocate for themselves, the profession, and the issues they care about most passionately. Grounding their passion with ethics and cultural competence, Cooke, and her students, place special emphasis on the question “Is this my story to tell?”
Using data and self-reflection, instead of props, puppets, and picture books, student tellers learn how to lend their voices to amplify the social justice issues in their communities
“Tweet of the town”: Synthesizing Local and Social Media Discourse on Book Bans
Get PDFThis project explores the intersection of local and online discourse around book bannings. I use the McMinn County School Board’s decision in 2022 to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir, Maus, as a case study for this discourse. Through a combination of interviews with McMinn County residents and data collected from Twitter, I argue that social media has altered local community discourse and responses to book bannings. Interviews with local residents asked them to discuss their experiences when Maus was removed by the school board and to reflect on how the local community responded amidst worldwide scrutiny once the event reached digital spaces via social media. Online discourse on Twitter involved collecting tweets mentioning the McMinn County Schools Twitter account along with tweets discussing Maus to understand the broader online response to the board’s decision. I use Danielle Allen’s discourse flow model as the theoretical framework for this project and in my initial findings, discourse around the Maus ban has traveled as described by Allen. In the age of social media, discourse frequently begins at the local level before traveling online and then back into local spaces. Ongoing data analysis has shown that locally, residents were concerned with not only the board’s decision, but also the perception of their community once news of the banning spread. This is supported by online discourse on Twitter, where initial analysis shows frequent characterization of the McMinn County community in a negative light based on the school board’s actions
A Feasibility Study of AI-Generated Resources for K-12 Information Literacy
Get PDFIn today\u27s rapidly evolving digital landscape, nurturing information literacy (IL) skills is paramount for lifelong learning and informed citizenship. School library programs serve as crucial catalysts in this endeavor, imparting essential IL competencies to K-12 students and fostering a community adept at accessing, evaluating, and utilizing information resources responsibly. However, the abundance of information sources complicates the task of discerning credible and relevant sources from unreliable ones. Additionally, the widespread presence of false, misleading, or outdated information presents significant challenges to educators striving to impart students with essential IL skills.
This proposal seeks to address these challenges by investigating the potential of using generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), specifically the ChatGPT, in the creation and dissemination of IL information for K-12 educators. Specifically, the study will evaluate resources generated by ChatGPT on digital citizenship using the template aided by Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship, a widely recognized and utilized resource for information literacy in K-12 education. By assessing the suitability and effectiveness of AI-generated resources, the study aims to provide insights into the potential of AI in supporting IL instruction. The results of the study can guide future development in K-12 information literacy curricula by providing and utilizing valid and reliable AI-generated resources for IL education.
This study directly engages with the conference theme of the evolution of information by examining the potential of employing AI-generated information for K-12 information literacy education. It introduces a novel approach to both the production and consumption of information
White Girls in the Apocalypse: Race, Gender, and Sexuality at the End of the World
Get PDFThe post-apocalyptic white girl savior is merely one installment in a long line of young adult tropes for female characters. Popular media in the post-apocalyptic girl savior subgenre include novels and media adaptations of The Hunger Games (2008; 2012), and The Red Queen (2015), and television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), Once Upon a Time (2011), Van Helsing (2016), Wynonna Earp (2016), and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018). Critical discussions of whiteness in film, television, and literature independently draw attention to how each of these forms constructs race and cultural belonging. In this article, I draw from all three formats in order to interrogate formations of whiteness specific to teen and young adult women. Valerie Babb comments that “because it is a created identity, whiteness is sustained through hegemony, a complex network of cultural creations, including among other things, literature, museums, popular music, and movies” (Babb 4-5). Building on Babb’s assertion of the omnipresence of whiteness in culture, the cross-media scope of this project shows the consistency of racial assumptions across platforms. This discussion of white girl saviors is particularly important since these stories are often left out of critical discussions of the White Savior trope. The white girl saviors in these stories often win at the expense of people of color, reifying whiteness, and specifically white reproductive femininity as the anchor of moral right and cultural progress. I identify six common traits that the post-apocalyptic girl savior subgenre uses to substantiate its heroines’ whiteness as a central and natural aspect of heroism including: belonging to the lower socio-economic class, being the chosen one, being uncomfortable with her symbolic role, being at the center of a love triangle, caring for a child, and being a tragic figure. These traits reflect larger patterns that scholars such as Richard Dyer explicitly link to the cultural naturalization of whiteness and power, and I argue, establish certain cultural expectations for teen activists that ignore the historical patterns of activism and may create hostility toward, or even foreclose opportunities for, activists who do not meet these requirements
Cosplay Collaboration Videos: Community Interactivity in Times of Pandemic
Get PDFCosplay has developed with the influences of contemporary society since its early beginnings. From analog event-based interactions to online activities, this growth in popularity has been gradual and encountered challenges along the way. The COVID pandemic lockdown conditions of 2020, however, have been extremely disruptive for conventions. Cosplay activities online have changed from a supporting element of the physical event to being the only option available for a period. In tumultuous times human society has proved capable of adapting rapidly and popular culture is no different. Particularly during the early days of the restrictive measures, there was a burst of online activity and for the global cosplay community this manifested as cosplay collaboration videos. These cosplay community-based projects coalesced around themes familiar to the fandom from anime and manga to games and beyond. The global reach of the digital realm facilitated groups to come together in cooperation in a unique way which inspires further development of tools available to cosplayers.
From Manipulative Masterminds to Flirtatious Fools: An Examination of Male Sweet Voice Archetypes in Anime
Get PDFAnime characters make use of many linguistic features, such as grammatical patterns, vocabulary, and vocal quality, to index specific character traits or archetypes. This includes both “role language”, associated with membership in social groups, and “character language”, associated with more abstract traits such as personality. This paper aims to expand upon the description of the archetypes conveyed through a traditionally feminine vocal quality called “sweet voice” and discusses how the use of this style in anime has broadened to encompass more masculine characters and archetypes as well. While women using sweet voice tend to be considered mature and genuine, interpretation of male sweet voice can range from gentlemanly, to morally questionable and manipulative, to something closer to flirtatious comic relief. Male sweet voice characters, similar to their female counterparts, have certain patterns in their word choice and grammatical speaking styles, although these stylistic patterns are less universal for male characters. Not only are the male sweet voice archetypes in anime different from those of female sweet voice characters, but these male characters are also able to freely swap styles, in vocal quality, vocabulary and grammar, where female characters cannot. Furthermore, the use of female sweet voice patterns by male voice actors can be used specifically to code characters as transgender women, something not possible with female sweet voice. These differences demonstrate that male sweet voice is not just female sweet voice overlaid onto male characters, but rather a specific evolution of the female styles specific to male characters
Exploring STEM Learning Information Sources for Rural Children and Caregivers
Get PDFAn understanding of how people seek and use information is foundational to the development of public library services. This poster explores what information sources rural caregivers seek out to support children’s STEM learning in their everyday life and at public libraries, and the level of trust towards the information sources. We conducted a case study of 20 rural caregivers with children (5-11 years) from five different States. Online surveys were distributed, asking participants to rate the level of trustworthiness for each information source they seek out when they support children’s STEM learning. The survey also asked participants to share how they use the public library for STEM learning by sharing specific anecdotes and describe the reasons for using or not using the library for STEM learning. Preliminary findings provide insights into the relationship between the most frequently used and the least trusted information sources that rural caregivers seek out to support their children’s STEM learning. The findings further guide LIS researchers and practitioners in designing public library services and programming for rural communities with valid and reliable sources of information for STEM learning