Recording: Cultivating Partnerships in Digital Humanities: Strategies, Tips, and Lessons Learned

There is a recording of the webinar held on 14 November 2022 Cultivating Partnerships in Digital Humanities: Strategies, Tips, and Lessons Learned presented by Max Evjen, Sharon Ladenson, Kristen Mapes, and Amanda Tickner; all at Michigan State University. It was sponsored by the ACRL ULS Professional Development Committee. The session included a "discussion exploring partnerships between the library and digital humanities (DH) colleagues at Michigan State University (MSU) ... collaborative work in developing spaces, programs, outreach, and events to connect scholars from across campus engaging in digital scholarship in the humanities and social sciences"  The video (40 minutes) is at https://youtu.be/Wsz6syooEGU
Photo by Sheila Webber: Dickens reading in Second Life, December 2021

Ghana's Media and information literacy market roadshow

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has a detailed report about an initiative in which its Kenyan partner Penplusbytes https://www.penplusbytes.org/ literally went out on the streets to make people aware of misinformation and ways to combat it. Their initiative included playing a radio drama in different languages (Twi, Ga, Ewe, Hausa and English) about misinformation found online, a dance contest and handing out flyers which mostly consisted of infographics. This was part of Global MIL week celebrations. The report is here:
Bodine, A. (2022, 2 December). Ghana's market roadshow: Media and information literacy for semiliterate users. https://akademie.dw.com/en/mil-for-illiterate-ghanaians/a-63955851

Social Annotation Tools

The latest in the ACRL Tips and Trends series is Social Annotation Tools (which "facilitate the collaborative markup and discussion of digital documents or web based content by a group of individuals") and as usual it consists of a few pages which concisely define the topic, discuss applications and drawbacks, and give useful links.  Download it at https://acrl.ala.org/IS/wp-content/uploads/Tips-and-Trends-Fall-2022.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: colourful cauliflowers, November 2022

California Conference on Library Instruction : call for for proposals extended

The Call for Proposals for the in-person conference California Conference on Library Instruction, to be held on 2 June 2023 at the University of San Francisco, USA, has been extended to 12 December 2022. The theme is Power and Empowerment: Labor, Agency, and Dynamic Relationships in Academic Libraries. "In our 50th anniversary of the California Conference on Library Instruction, we seek to examine the many power structures that influence the work of library instruction. Our work exists within structures that experience tensions between labor and power. We have the responsibility to recognize our power/authority in our space, yet we acknowledge challenges. We are constrained by budgets, lack of power, existing power structures, understaffing, and expectations to do with what we are given. We have the ability to empower students with information literacy and instruction through careful thought and understanding of their needs. We engage in work that challenges conventional wisdom, but we have constraints. Many other power dynamics impact our work as well. We are interested in how you have empowered yourself, your colleagues, your students, your campus, and your community".
More information at http://www.cclibinstruction.org/cfp-2023

Recent articles: deference behaviour; blended and flipped; Pandemic Information Access Challenges; digital humanities pedagogy; instruction for an engineering design

The latest complete issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship (a priced publication), Volume 48 issue 6 (2022) includes the following: 

- Manifestations of deference behavior in teaching-focused academic librarians by Lyda Fontes McCartin, Raquel Wright-Mair
- A silver lining for pandemic-weary libraries: How blended and flipped instructional programs have improved upon pre-pandemic norms by Kevin W. Walker
- Factors that influence librarian definitions of information literacy by Logan Rath
- Pandemic Information Access Challenges and Expectations about the Post-Covid Era: A Survey of Pakistan Students' Opinion Regarding Academic Libraries' Services and Staff by Syeda Hina Batool, Amara Malik, Muhammad Safdar, Amna Farzand Ali
- Prepare to be unprepared? LIS curriculum and academic liaison preparation by Kawanna M. Bright, Mónica Colón-Aguirre
- Online health information seeking and digital health literacy among information and learning resources undergraduate students by Esra Abdoh
- What contributes to a qualified digital humanities librarian and ideal digital humanities pedagogy? An exploratory qualitative study by Wuyan Yao, Peng Xiao
- Rapidly going virtual without sacrificing quality: Adapting instruction for an engineering design course by Brianna Buljung, Lisa Nickum, Patricia Andersen, Gyasi Evans
Go to https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/the-journal-of-academic-librarianship/vol/48/issue/6
Photo by Sheila Webber: winter skyline, November 2022

Free webinars: Best Practices of School Librarians

IFLA has organised webinars "for those who are interested in programs, services, collection development, and management of school libraries for building high-performing schools. Different IFLA school library-related guidelines will be introduced by IFLA Professional Division Committee Chair (Division F) in addition to speakers’ presentations of the best practices of school libraries in their home countries."
The first one on IFLA School Library Manifesto (2021) & Best Practices of School Librarians in Croatia (speaker: Dr. Zcjezdana Dukic) was held on 26 November 2022, and the recording is here The others are:
- IFLA School Library Guidelines: Best Practices of Teacher-Librarians in France. 4 February 2023, 4.30-5.30pm Hong Kong Time (10.30 am-11.30 am CET; 9.30-10.30 UK time)
- IFLA Educational Technologies and Student Data Briefing: Best Practices of Teacher-Librarians in Croatia. 8 April 2023, 4.30-5.30pm HKT (10.30 am-11.30 am CET)
- IFLA Media and Information Literacy & Best Practices of Teacher-Librarians in Singapore. 3 June 2023, 4.30-5.30pm HKT
Details at https://www.ifla.org/events/webinar-series-high-performing-schools-with-effective-school-libraries/ and registration at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_V3M22kVHQ_qljPLW0fZ8Jg
Photo by Sheila Webber: Squash and onions, November, 2022

Call for papers: Mediatized Discourses on Europeanization: Information, Disinformation, and Polarization & Digital Media and Younger Audiences

There are calls for papers for the journal Media and Commuication, for a special issue on Mediatized Discourses on Europeanization: Information, Disinformation, and Polarization, edited by Julia Metag, Florian Wintterlin and Kira Klinger; and for a special issue on Digital Media and Younger Audiences: Communication Targeted at Children and Adolescents, edited by Olga Kolotouchkina, Celia Rangel, and Patricia Núñez Gómez. The deadline for abstracts for both is 1-15 December 2022 and deadline for articles is 15-30 April 2023. More details here

Call for proposals: #FanLIS2023

There is a call for proposals for FanLIS2023, currently scheduled online for 18/19 May 2023, with the theme Halliday Journals and holodecks: audiences and information in sci-fi fandoms. "FanLIS 2023 is a CityLIS symposium to explore the intersection between fandom, fan studies, and library and information science.... All are welcome to submit, from fans, librarians, infopros, acafen and independent researchers. Email us if you have ideas but aren’t sure if they fit – we’re open to suggestions!" "Themes can include, but are not limited to, the following:
-The information behaviour and practices of sci-fi fans.
- The information behaviour and practices of fans of certain sci-fi franchises (e.g. Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Mass Effect, Quantum Leap, Ghost in the Shell, etc.).
- The history of sci-fi fandoms.
- Sci-fi fanzines and other amateur/small press publications.
- Representations of libraries, archives, museums and galleries in sci-fi worlds or franchises.
- Information technologies in sci-fi worlds or franchises.
- Fan-to-fan communications within sci-fi fandoms.
- Languages and language use in sci-fi.
- Fans as writers and readers of sci-fi and popular science.
- Copyright issues in sci-fi fandom.
- Sci-fi wikis, encyclopaedias, and other compendiums, whether online or offlin
- How fans research science and technology during the process of creating fanworks.
Send your 500 word proposals to both Ludi Price at Ludovica.Price@city.ac.uk and Lyn Robinson at lyn@city.ac.uk by midnight GMT on 31 December 2022
More info at https://blogs.city.ac.uk/fanlis/fanlis-symposia/fanlis-2023/call-for-presentations/
Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life and featuring some of DRD's New Xantis builds

New articles: Information behaviour of farmers; Health Literacy; AI and information; Personal Information Management; Information & visual disability

The latest issue of IFLA Journal (Volume 48, No. 4, 2022) is published open access at https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/2317 There are lots of interesting articles, covering library issues in many different countries, but picking out ones more relevant to this blog:
- An assessment of health information literacy among women in rural Lake Zone, Tanzania by Mohamed Kassim and Faraja Ndumbaro
- Knowledge mapping and visualization of personal information management literature, 1988–2020 by Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Chidiebube Blossom Williams
- A model of access to information among Nigerian rice farmers by Ugonna Benedette Fidelugwuowo
- Information needs and delivery channels: Experimental evidence from Cambodian smallholders by Selina Bruns, Oliver Mußhoff and Pascal Ströhlein
- Factors influencing the use of agricultural information by Vietnamese farmers by Hung Gia Hoang, Duc Van Nguyen and Douglas Drysdale
- Framework for the provision of information to the visually impaired in academic libraries in compliance with the Marrakesh Treaty by Samuel Macharia Were, Japhet N. Otike and Emily K. Bosire
Photo by Sheila Webber: lovely autumn beech tree, November 2022

Online: Identifying online scams, phishing, fraudulent websites and messages workshop

There is a free online workshop on 29 November at 15.45 UK time (GMT) on Identifying online scams, phishing, fraudulent websites and messages. This is related to the Maddie is Online series developed by Dr Konstantina Martzoukou at Robert Gordon University, Scotland.
"As part of this free online session, Maria Bell from Mesomorphic will offer an overview of the 4th theme of our new series of Maddie is Online: ethics of online safety and security" They will be reviewing the toolkit they have developed, which can be found here: https://online.visual-paradigm.com/community/bookshelf/default-1444l1ntn9
They'll explore the concepts: "How to recognise messages, websites or e-mails where the sender/owner appears to be different from who they are; Understand why it is important to know how to recover a device or account if it gets compromised / hacked; To create awareness of whom to contact if you find that your account has been hacked, if embarrassing images of you are being shared, or if you experience something else that is really unpleasant."
"We have created an imaginative story ('To donate or not to donate?'). Maddie, the central character of our series, receives an email from her school, reminding her class that it is the last day for donating money to the school nominated charity, ‘Strong Family Corners’, before it gets collected and sent to the charity. In the email, there is a bank account to make the payment with the logo of the charity and the email has been sent by a teacher. Maddie decides to donate to the charity. However, the next day, when she goes to school, she realises that the charity name is not the same and that the email of the teacher was hacked. Someone had used his email details to send this message to all the school and several children had followed the link to make the payment, exactly like Maddie. How could Maddie have protected herself? Should she avoid giving to any charities once and for all?"
Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/identifying-online-scams-phishing-fraudulent-websites-and-messages-tickets-470954125467

Call for proposals: Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science /l’Association canadienne des sciences de l’information

There is a call for proposals for the 51st Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science /l’Association canadienne des sciences de l’information (CAIS/ACSI) which will take place on 6-9 June 2023, online, and free of charge. The deadline for proposals is 31 January 2023 and the theme is Imagining Information. Proposals may be submitted in English or French. Proposals can be for: Papers; Lightning Talks; Panels. There is also a Student Research Forum.
"We meet and structure the world through Imagination. The act of imagining enables inner and outer transformation. It assists in the construction of ourselves, our societies, and even our reality, it helps us to envision and to realize what is possible but it also limits. Collective imagining figures into forming hopes and strategies for the future, but also constructs the past.
"Imagination can be speculative, but imagination coupled with action can also be resistant and a powerful method toward moving toward liberation. Imagination has a strong connection to imagining, whether imagining new theoretical pathways, reflecting on the past, constructing or utilizing imagining as methodology. Imagination, while sometimes devalued, is a creative and resourceful force. For the 51st annual conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science, we invite attendees to consider imagining in its many senses and forms, from imagining potential futures for the field and our society, to the nature and function of imagination in information experiences and phenomena."
"Submissions may cover, but are not limited to, the following: Conceptions of information or documents as imagined or imaginary objects; Imagining and Indigenous ways of knowing/methodologies; LIS’ intersection with theories and theologies of mind; Imagining otherwise: information and social imaginaries, liberation, and Imagination as resistant; Conceptualizations of time: structuring the past through imagination, and a time “before”; Theoretical Speculations of the future; Restrictions and control of knowledge through imagined structures; Re-imagining the future of scholarly communication; Envisioning the future of information societies and professions; Virtual reality, technologies, and information spaces; Imagined communities (Nations, Readers, Lovers); Dreaming as information experience."
Full details at https://www.cais2022.ca/ and submissions (you have to create an account) at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caisacsi2023

Photo by Sheila Webber: Imagined future: taken in the 3D virtual worlds Second Life, November 2022

Farewell, Searcher

Another stalwart of the online era is retiring - the magazine Online Searcher, which used to be a go-to reference point for tips on advanced searching. Most of it is priced only, but there are some free tidbits online, including in the final issue:
Badke, W. (2022). Trust the Science? Implications for Online Research. Online Searcher, 46(6).
and a couple of ones from other recent issues
Lasda, E.M. (2022). What’s in a Citation? Motivation and Classification of Citing References. Online Searcher, 46(5).
Badke, W. (2022). Should We Give Up on Information Literacy? Online Searcher, 46(3). (fortunately the answer is no!)
Price, G. (2022) Saving the Web for Posterity. Online Searcher, 46(2)

Recording: Untold Stories ... Continued! Information practices in Bangladesh, and in the US-Mexico borderlands

A webinar held on 28 October 2022, co-organised by ASIS&T European Chapter and the Information School, University of Sheffield, UK. Dr Viviane Hessami presented her research: The Use of Notebooks by Bangladeshi Village Women to Backup Digital Data and Dr Sara Vannini presented on The information practices and politics of migrant-aid work in the US-Mexico borderlands. The webinar was chaired by Dr Andrea Jimenez, Information School, University of Sheffield. The recording is embedded below and the link to it is here. The event also celebrated Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2022.
Dr Hessami is a Lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow in the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Australia https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/viviane-hessami Dr Vannini is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield Information School http://www.saravannini.com/wordpress/