My first attempt at creating a monoprint graphic. It’s a librarian with a bow tie!
Month: March 2016
Subtext into text
From A National Descent into Trump’s Pants,
“Rather, Mr. Trump turns subtext into text, whether it’s about immigration or torture. Republican candidates had sent certain messages to voters for years, and now the party hears them coming back from Mr. Trump translated, or perhaps decoded.”
Let kids make and clean up their own digital mess
I’m posting less and less about my kids on FB (the one place I share kids photos) and thinking of stopping altogether.
New York Times: Don’t Post About Me on Social Media, Children Say
Scholarship and popular media
The underlying assumption here is that scholarship should influence political and public discourse. I don’t disagree, but that is not why it exists. Building knowledge is not the same a building public awareness and to hinge tenure/promotion on the latter would make a broken system even more broke.
Academic librarians’ reflections on SciHub
I’m finally catching up on the news surrounding SciHub. Here’s a roundup of my favorite reflections from academic librarians so far.
The Academic Librarian reminds us that what’s illegal is not necessarily unethical:
“There’s a moral case for arguing that current copyright law is unjust law that creates a form of information apartheid for researchers who aren’t affiliated with the relatively wealthy institutions that can afford the access.”
Kevin Smith at Scholarly Communications @ Duke calls our attention to copyright’s true purpose:
“Copyright law is an instrumentality, not a good in itself. It’s role in our legal system is to encourage creativity and the production of knowledge. When it ceases to do that it deserves to be challenged and changed.”
The always-on-point Gavina Libriana brings us back to our moral obligations as librarians:
“It’s our soul. We had best get to shaping it into something we can live with.”
Marcus Banks aptly points out the contradiction that many academic librarians wrestle with in the course of their duties:
“I’ve long raged against having to think about and deploy access control mechanisms within the libraries where I have worked. I became a librarian in order to maximize access to information, not to meter it out stingily. But dem’s the breaks baby cakes. Part of being an academic librarian today involves providing uncompensated copyright enforcement for publishing interests, in order to reinforce values you do not even believe in.”
The Chronicle’s piece on the role of librarians in this fight too quickly assumes we are all “stuck in the middle.” I would bet that many of us wouldn’t hesitate more than a few seconds before “pirating” published research for the sake of a patron. If you want more, check out John Dupuis’s roundup.
I don’t like rhubarb that much anyway
Rhubarb isn’t available, so I making peach and cherry chutney instead.
Empirical research is a logical operation
“Empirical research is first and foremost a logical rather than a mathematical operation.” (Babbie 2012).
For me, this reminder makes quantitative methods of analysis a bit easier to approach.
Hard to resist live tweeting
I’ve decided to take a month off Facebook and Twitter to focus on writing in other spaces like here and WordPress. But I’m also attending a talk by Dr. Safiya Noble on “The politics of online information: algorithmic ethics and the commodification of big data(bases) in libraries.”
It’s really hard to not live tweet this. So good.
I dream in links
I had a dream last night that I was telling a colleague about this post.
Chris Bourg on The Neoliberal Library: Resistance is not futile
February giving 2016: Girl Scouts of the USA
For 2016, I pledged to give to something I like every month. This month, I am making a donation to the Girl Scouts of the USA.
More that just a delivery system between cookies and my mouth, the Girl Scouts have made significant additions to their mission and advocacy efforts over the few years, including building support systems for girls who want to progress in STEM and entrepreneurship fields and providing a welcoming community for the LGBT and trans community. On top of all that, their Oscar appearance was the highlight of the event.