RSS 1.0Professional Librarian Posters and Presentation Material
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Presentation material and Posters created by Professional Librarians of the Brock University Library.
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"It's a very straight space": gender-diverse students' narratives about the libraryHow do students with diverse gender identities experience and perceive the academic library? What can we learn from our students to help develop services, spaces and collections that support their safety and well-being? This presentation will highlight results from a qualitative case study at an academic library by exploring themes related to the students’ experiences with library workers, the library’s physical environment and its collections. The study results position the library as both a source of positive, transformational potential and site of harm and oppression. Students reported experiencing great discomfort while using library bathrooms and study spaces and were distressed by encountering library materials containing outdated, inaccurate information about gender identity/sexual diversity. Gender diverse students described affirming experiences with library workers while being confronted with library technology – e.g. computers – which deadnamed them. And they questioned why libraries provide platforms to transphobic speakers in the name of intellectual freedom and highlighted the dangers of espousing neutrality. While themes surfaced by this study reflect the participants’ individual lived experiences, they are broadly reflected in survey results, scholarly literature and other research documenting these concerns. Finally, this presentation will describe students’ suggestions for how academic libraries can bridge the gaps to become safer and more inclusive. Attendees will be invited to reflect on changes they could incorporate in their home libraries.
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"It's a very straight space": gender-diverse students' narratives about the libraryHow do students with diverse gender identities experience and perceive the academic library? What can we learn from our students to help develop services, spaces and collections that support their safety and well-being? This presentation will highlight results from a qualitative case study at an academic library by exploring themes related to the students’ experiences with library workers, the library’s physical environment and its collections. The study results position the library as both a source of positive, transformational potential and site of harm and oppression. Students reported experiencing great discomfort while using library bathrooms and study spaces and were distressed by encountering library materials expressing outdated, inaccurate information about gender identity/sexual diversity. They described affirming experiences with library workers while being confronted with library technology – e.g. computers – which deadnamed them. And they questioned why libraries provide platforms to transphobic speakers in the name of intellectual freedom and highlighted the dangers of espousing neutrality. While themes surfaced by this study reflect the participants’ individual lived experiences, they are broadly reflected in survey results, scholarly literature and other works documenting these topics. Finally, this presentation will describe students’ suggestions for how academic libraries can become safer and more inclusive.
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Subduing the “moral panic”: Sustaining a nuanced conversation about predatory publishingIntroduction: Predatory publishing has long raised alarm bells among faculty, librarians and research administrators. Often falsely conflated with open access publishing as a whole, predatory publishing is painted as a grievous threat to the sanctity of scholarly research and a waste of research funding. However, the 'moral panic'* over predatory publishing may be unjustified. Equipping researchers to make informed decisions about publishing is a more sustainable approach. Building partnerships and sharing evidence about faculty publishing patterns can support this type of advocacy. Description: Librarians at institutions without subscriptions to costly citation analysis tools such as Scopus may find it difficult to analyze open access publishing patterns. However, freely available academic search tools such as The Lens can provide useful snapshots to guide education and support for researchers. Data from Brock University indicates that our faculty are overwhelmingly publishing in OA journals which would not typically be deemed predatory. Partnering with institutional research services via outreach and workshops has allowed the Library to share this data and other information about open access with key audiences of research administrators and faculty. Outcomes: This outreach helps the Library to guide researchers towards a more robust understanding of open access and scholarly publishing and away from reliance on problematic tools such as blacklists. In addition to helping authors make informed decisions about where to publish, such programming has boosted uptake for research consultations around publishing and open access. Discussion: The presenter will share tools and strategies for implementing this collaborative approach at other libraries.
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InfoSkills PLUS: Your Key to Research SuccessDiscover the advantages of collaborating with other campus partners to develop, promote, and deliver a unique non-credit interactive information skills workshop series. Learn the importance of flexibility interactivity and modularity to the success of a non-credit information skills program. Learn how to incorporate the knowledge management practices of Learning Before, Learning During, and Learning After into team project activities.
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I still haven't found what I'm looking for: Reflections on 10+ years of providing library orientation and instruction to a Business English bridging programA librarian's personal reflection on 10 plus years of providing orientation and information literacy instruction to graduate students in a Business English bridging program at Brock University.
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Benchmarking business database holdings in Canada: Results of a gap analysisThis lightning talk presents the results of an exploratory study of the database holdings of an aspirant group of ten AACSB/Equis accredited Canadian business schools with doctoral programs. Who had the most databases? What were the most widely held titles? What does a gap analysis reveal about how Brock University fares against this aspirant group?
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Scaling up research data services: a saga of organizational redesign gone awryAn academic library may initiate organizational renewal and redesign in order to better pursue new strategic priorities. In the case of the Brock University Library, one of these priorities was active engagement throughout the research life cycle. The draft organizational design framework proposed the creation of a new unit that takes a holistic life cycle approach to research, including data literacy, research data management and other services. Unfortunately, it also called for the elimination of the role of subject liaison librarians, who would be redeployed in other ways. No one was more shocked at this turn of events than me, because as the Business and Economics Librarian, I know how crucial it is to understand the disciplinary landscape with respect to research practices in order to develop research data services that align with researcher needs. This study provides evidence for the discipline-specific needs of business and economics researchers for data reference, data literacy, and data retrieval assistance, derived from a content analysis of graduate student theses and a review of consultation statistics. Will this evidence be sufficient to preserve this role, or will this become a saga of organizational redesign gone awry?
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Selling Infrastructure as a Service to facultyPresentation material for session presented at 2020 Access Conference for session entitled Selling Infrastructure as a Service to faculty. Abstract: Libraries aim to provide tools and platforms to support the research enterprise of the institution. This session will look at how a Docker based IAAS service was branded and marketed to researchers. The real challenge was communicating what could be done with the service in a way that avoided jargon and was accessible to introductory users.
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Accounting students and information competence: evidence from course syllabi and professional accounting association competency maps.As Brock University’s business liaison librarian, I have had some success integrating information literacy in the business administration curriculum. However, there have been very few requests for instruction in undergraduate accounting courses. Therefore, in the spirit of evidence-based librarianship, I conducted a syllabus study in order to gain insight into the library use and research expectations of accounting faculty for their undergraduate accounting students. Syllabi from 65 sections of 23 accounting courses were examined from the 2008/09 academic year. Each course section was assigned a level of library use based on a scale of 0 (no research required) to 4 (significant research required). Over 58% of all course sections required no research or library use and only 13% of course sections, mostly at the 400 level, actually required some amount of library use or research. These findings were compared to the expected professional competencies and proficiency levels as articulated by professional accounting association competency maps and an expectations gap was identified. As Brock University Library’s goal is to integrate information literacy into the curriculum, this evidence-based study will serve to open a dialogue with accounting faculty regarding information competence so that a course-integrated information literacy program may be planned and delivered in alignment with curricular and professional expectations.
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Visualize your doppelgänger: using information graphics to benchmark AACSB-accredited business schools.A poster presented at the 2013 SLA Annual Conference, Business & Finance Division poster session, June 10, 2013 in San Diego, CA.
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Revolution or evolution? Lessons learned from a business syllabus study.Although the business school student population at Brock University was growing, requests for traditional in-class information literacy instruction (ILI) sessions were declining as faculty made room in the curriculum for ‘service learning’. I conducted a comprehensive syllabus study of the undergraduate business curriculum in order to better understand this evolving instructional environment. My primary objective was to investigate the research, data, and library use expectations of business school faculty for their undergraduate students, to gain deeper insight into the extent and nature of research-intensive assignments, including those with a service learning component. My secondary objective was to identify new instructional opportunities in order to be strategic in my outreach efforts. A total of 257 syllabi from 86 courses (representing 91% of all course offerings) were rated according to a 5-point scale of prescribed research, data, or library use. Initial analysis identified 38 different courses with significant research expectations, including 13 courses with a service learning component. A comparison of the 38 research-intensive courses against my own ILI statistics identified 26 courses (including 10 service learning courses) for follow up contact. I hope to devise a plan to provide more relevant and responsive ILI support for these research-intensive courses. As a result of this syllabus study, I now have a much better understanding of the undergraduate business curriculum, and where I might add value, in order to revolutionize my ILI practice.
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How To Fulfil All Our Lending and (Our Patrons’) Borrowing DreamsCollaborative Futures (CF), a project to implement a shared library system for 14 Ontario universities, is about radical collaboration. The CF Shared Resources Working Group will discuss dreaming big to create, sell, and implement a vision of long and liberal loan policies, minimal fines, and easy cross-consortium borrowing.
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To Jupyter and Beyond: Computational Notebooks in the LibraryHave you heard of Jupyter? Better yet, have you heard about how computational notebooks can be used to teach technologies and are part of the reproducible science movement? This session will show you the Juptyer platform and explain why you should know about it.
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Are we walking the talk? Tensions between librarians' values, academic freedom and open scholarshipOpen access - the practice of freely sharing scholarly outputs online -- is steadily garnering support across the research community. At academic institutions, libraries are usually the standard-bearers for this trend, advancing open scholarship by providing services, infrastructure and funding - for example, employing scholarly communication experts, operating institutional repositories, and funding open access publication costs. This investment in personnel and resources reflects a shared priority of advancing more equitable systems for creating and sharing knowledge. Our professional organizations publicly espouse these values and engage in advocacy to advance open access projects and uptake. At an institutional level, library workers often lead the development of campus open access policies which encourage or commit researchers to publicly share their work. In Canada, nine academic institutions and ten libraries/librarian councils have adopted open access policies. Despite this wealth of activity and public professions of support for open scholarship, it is unclear whether academic librarians in Canada actually practice what we preach. Most of the open access statements/policies adopted by libraries merely encourage workers to make their scholarship freely available. Anecdotal evidence indicates a minority of us are actually archiving our work in institutional repositories or publishing in open access journals. This paper will provide preliminary results from a survey exploring how Canadian academic librarians’ professional, personal and collective values impact our publishing practices. In particular, results from this study will indicate how academic freedom provisions -- articulated in collective agreements, institutional policies and by professional organizations including CAPAL and CAUT -- may affect whether we choose to support open access with our words and actions. Academic freedom is usually appreciated as a protective measure, guarding librarians and faculty against repercussions for work or speech which may be viewed as controversial. Independently choosing how to disseminate research is often a key tenet of academic freedom policies. Accordingly, librarians may experience tension between our personal/professional support for the principle of open access and our will to exert academic freedom and publish where we please – including closed-access venues. This discordance not only affects our own scholarly practices but should also be acknowledged within librarians’ continuing efforts to encourage faculty to embrace open access.
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Cluster Computing for Humans -OR- Have you heard of this HPCPack?Presentation material from code4Lib North 2019, held at McMaster.
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Git It Done with GitHub: Digital Scholarship with Open ToolsPresentation material from Lightning Talk done at Digital Odyssey, 2019. Held in North York Central Library. Event sponsored and organized by Ontario Library and Information Technology (OLITA), a division of Ontario Library Association (OLA)
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Licensing, DemystifiedSlides from 2019 OLA Conference presentation
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Codifying Academic Freedom: An Examination of Collective Agreements for Librarian Specific LanguageAcademic Freedom is a foundational component of the modern University. The notion is brought to life and exercised through a very particular article of the collective agreement. This article almost always provides a well honed, lofty, and almost self-evident description of the protections to teaching, and research that need to be maintained. Challenging ideas in the classroom are shielded from the reluctant hang wringing of administrators. Research that pushes boundaries and challenges norms proceeds with a slow march for the betterment of all. Our traditional Faculty colleagues conduct their business with full confidence that their activities are well protected, yet what about us as Professional Librarians? In most cases we can rely on this same exact article to afford protections. This is of course due to the fact that we are in the same bargaining units as those traditional Faculty members and are bound to the language as well. Yet, when pressed, does this language really offer protections to Professional Librarians that are specific to the work they conduct? A judicious application of teaching and research for the traditional Faculty member is hard to parallel with certain core Librarian duties. Where does collection development fit? Collaborating on an in-depth research consultation that might unearth ideas contrary to what the institution holds as fundamental? In some cases the collective agreement is silent on these activities. While most would view these types of conduct allowable under the spirit of academic freedom it is possible that a strict interpretation would exclude these endeavours from established protections. Fortunately this is not always the case, and as time progresses breaks to this trend develop. A selection of collective agreements of Canadian universities now have specific provisions for the conduct of Professional Librarians under the overarching concept of Academic Freedom. This paper will attempt to present this landscape by examining text from collective agreements of Canadian institutions to see how (if at all) protections for Librarians are constructed.
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Beyond CRAAP: Critical Thinking in the Age of Fake NewsIn this age of fake news, clickbait, and alternative facts, how can we equip students to find the truth? While fake news is not a new concept, its ubiquity has made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fabricated. Library professionals have long been in the business of teaching critical thinking and source evaluation. How can we leverage this knowledge to teach students to be confident information consumers and creators? This session will review online learning content created by librarians at Brock University, including a media literacy tutorial for students in the Teacher Education program, and an online workshop on identifying fake news and critically evaluating news information. We will explore the importance of teaching media literacy and critical thinking skills, outline strategies for moving beyond the checklist approach to evaluating information, and share successes, challenges and next steps.
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Engaging Faculty to Advance Campus Open Access Policies: Strategies and Lessons LearnedAs champions of creating more equitable systems for sharing scholarly research, libraries are typically the leaders in developing open access policies at their institutions. This work aligns with evidence that effective policies can accelerate researchers’ adoption of open access and increase their rates of open access publishing/archiving. The benefits of Institutional open access policies include increasing public access to taxpayer-funded research, enhancing the visibility and impact of an institution’s research output and supporting author rights. While increasing numbers of institutions are adopting these policies, they are often a tough sell due to misconceptions about open access and concerns about infringing on faculty's academic freedom to publish where they please. Presenters and participants will discuss strategies for working with stakeholders to overcome barriers and create buy-in for openly sharing research. Participants will learn of models and tools for open access policy development and presenters will share insights and campus engagement strategies from their development of institutional open access policies at York University and Brock University.
