Makerspaces in Libraries: Social Roles and Community Engagement

The maker movement is an important phenomenon in re-conceptualizing libraries, because library makerspaces have the potential to retain and reinvigorate the core values and roles of librarianship. This chapter discusses social roles library makerspaces might assume in communities, as well as examples of ways library makerspaces promote active community engagement. The chapter begins with four perspectives to conceptualize library makerspaces, including library as place, new librarianship, radical change theory, and communities of practice. The chapter also discusses the concept of community and its differing meanings, using case studies to illustrate varying conceptions of community. Implications for LIS educators and researchers are included with reference to the case studies. Library makerspaces can promote knowledge creation, access, learning, and equity and diversity within and through their communities. Grounded in the core values of librarianship, library makerspaces have the potential to articulate these concepts and draw attention to new ways of understanding of the role of libraries in the contemporary knowledge society

"The Teaching of Reference Must Keep Pace": Teaching Sources and Searching in an Evolving Reference Environment

Since the advent of the web, libraries have seen a steady decline in the number of questions being asked at the reference desk, especially for ready reference questions requiring brief, factual answers. Reference work has moved away from ready reference questions to emphasize in-depth research consultations, information literacy instruction, and curating online collections and patron guides. As library and information science education evolves to keep pace with the changes in reference work, traditional "sources" assignments in which students seek answers to factual questions do not adequately reflect the work of contemporary reference librarians. At the same time, knowledge of reference sources and search skills are still valued by practitioners. LIS instructors teaching reference courses must develop new learning activities and assignments to help students develop the source evaluation, selection, and search skills needed for contemporary reference work.Copyright 2023 University of Illinois Board of TrusteesEmbargoe

Protecting Indigenous Cultural Heritage Across Borders: A Delphi Study of International Traditional Cultural Expression Laws

WIPO has been struggling with issues surrounding how to protect TCEs on an international level since the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore (IGC) was established in the year 2000. While many iterations of legal principles for the international protection of TCEs have been drafted, commented on by member states, and revised, no binding treaty has been enacted. The purpose of this study is to gather a group of international legal experts with experience in the area of the protection of TCEs to determine the areas of consensus using the Delphi impirical method. The data reveals areas of national law that are adequately protecting TCEs within the borders of a particular nation, as well as national laws that could use some additional areas of protection or enforcement. The research team seeks to accurately summarize and report on the areas of agreement among the international experts involved in this research to further explore areas for progress in protecting TCEs internationally across borders.Campus Research Board, Center for Global Studie

Changing Activism: Hal Baron Lays Out Strategy for Civil Rights in Public Housing

This issue of SourceLab introduces readers to Changing Activism: Hal Baron Lays Out Strategy for Civil Rights in Public Housing, a Civil Rights Era memorandum written by Hal Baron that argues for fair housing in Chicago. This publication is part of the digital documentary edition series SourceLab, based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our Editorial Board conducts rigorous peer-review of every edition

Illinois Department of Transportation’s Seeding Standards and Best Management Practices

To provide evidence-based revisions to Section 250 of the Illinois Department of Transportation roadside specifications manual, we conducted a literature review, an experimental planting, and a survey of previously planted roadsides. We created newly designed native seed mixes and field tested these mixes in comparison with existing IDOT mixes. After one year of growth in lawn, roadside, and slope areas, we found overall positive effects on native species cover using the newly designed native mixes. We surveyed 34 native species plantings along roadsides in Indiana and Illinois and evaluated several variables to determine which factors led to long-term establishment, finding cover by seeded native species and native species overall increased with distance from road and decreased with increasing soil nitrate and phosphorous. We further found that number of native species and seeded native species increased with distance from road and greater seed mix diversity, whereas richness of non-native, non-seeded species was greater at shorter distances from the road. Across all sites, 84 of the 150 native species seeded at sites were never observed in our surveys, but 28 native species were observed at more than half of the sites in which they were seeded. Our results suggest native plantings can persist on roadsides for several years after planting, but that specific site-level factors increase the likelihood of long-term success.IDOT-R27-25

DIRECTIONS IN DRUMMING: THE ARTISTRY OF TONY WILLIAMS, JACK DEJOHNETTE, BILLY COBHAM, AND THE MUSIC OF MILES DAVIS, 1968-1971

This thesis examines the innovations of drummers Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, and Billy Cobham in Miles Davis’ recordings from 1968 to 1971. During this transformative period, Davis' music underwent a significant evolution. These years saw a shift from a traditional acoustic jazz sound to an electrified, rock-influenced one, laying the foundation for jazz fusion. This thesis examines Williams, DeJohnette, and Cobham's contributions to Davis' music, analyzing their styles, choices, and the synergy between their rhythmic innovations and Davis' compositions. This research examines each drummer's distinctive approaches through an in-depth analysis of studio recordings, live performances, and historical context. It considers their stylistic choices, technical advancements, and improvisational interplay. By highlighting the drummers' creative input, this study underscores their indispensable role in one of the most dynamic periods of Miles Davis's illustrious career. This study highlights these drummers' technical and artistic innovations and situates their contributions within the broader historical and cultural shifts of the late 1960s and early 1970s. By illustrating how their rhythmic concepts expanded the vocabulary of jazz drumming, this research underscores their indispensable role in one of the most dynamic and influential periods of Miles Davis' career

Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen: Social Networks of Rejected Applicants

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cherokee Freedmen—the people of African descent formerly enslaved by the Cherokees—and their descendants were required to apply for enrollment on Cherokee census rolls, administered by the United States, to receive land allotments, annuities, and benefits as Cherokee citizens. A chronological examination of the lives of rejected Freedmen applicants through their interview transcripts, combined with a non-linear visualization of their social networks, this project revitalizes the rejected Cherokee Freedmen applicants who are multiply marginalized from the Cherokee Nation, the United States, and the Cherokee Freedmen community. This visualization further aims to offer a less hierarchical experience of digitized archival materials. This project also explores the goals, process, and limitations of the Cherokee census rolls to contextualize how the Cherokee Freedmen status has been determined by a particular racial, economic, and bureaucratic dynamics within the Cherokee Nation.History of Black Writing’s Black Book Interactive Project (BBIP) Digital Publishing Scholars ProgramNEH Digital Humanities Advancement GrantAfrican American Studies Publishing Without Walls 2 (AFRO-PWW 2) at the University of Illinoi

Metadata Schema Assessment Framework

Slides for an ALA webinar introducing the Metadata Schema Assessment Framework developed by Core's Metadata Standards Committee that began in 2019 and published in October 2024

A Shift to Life-Centered Systems Thinking: Teaching Modules to Design Regenerative Futures.

This paper critiques the use of design thinking (DT) to solve wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) and proposes life-centered systems thinking (LCST) as a better process to design for systemic positive impact. It presents a series of LCST modules that design educators can use to either start a prompt or act as a provocation to pause and pivot a project already in motion. This paper also details the strengths and weaknesses of each teaching module and how it was created, revised, and adapted based on student and instructor feedback in design courses at three different universities. The results are exciting and hold promise to increase designers’ ability to design more climate and socially responsible outcomes. Design is taught through a linear approach, with project prompts that historically focused on the intended visual outcome, leaving little room to investigate the root causes of an issue. Over the past two decades, DT has emerged from research done at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design to “...tackle society’s most intractable problems” (McCarthy, 2022, p. 40). It adapted the design process (largely known only to design disci- plines) into a formulaic, step-by-step, human-centered, solution-focused method that any profession can understand and implement to address simplistic to systemic problems. However, as DT hopes to be more successful in solving systemic global issues, it still is a comparatively reductive toolkit that most often fails to meet the complex challenges at hand. It is unable to gaze beyond our anthropogenic perspective where “...the prevailing theories of design thinking in organizations remain entrenched in the making or techne - paradigm. Ironically, this serves to maintain the status quo and stifle progress” (Lee, 2021, p. 497). Instead, a more holistic approach for adapting to our cultural shifts and growing climate crisis is to engage in LCST. LCST, as the authors see it, differentiates itself as a practice and mindset that is framework agnostic, discipline inclusive, nature- inspired, life-centered (not exclusively human-centered), and intersectional in its approach to problem framing. Like systems thinking (ST), it gives ... designers a powerful tool for circumnavigating the problems of the age. Focus on relationships over parts; recognize that systems exhibit self-organization and emergent behaviors; analyze the dynamic nature of systems to understand and influence the complex societal, technological, and economic ecosystem in which you and your organization operate. (Vassallo, 2017) LCST is a fluid practice that does seek solutions but is problem focused. It is also a mindset, a way of seeing the big picture and the details simultaneously by visualizing connections, causes and effects, and relationships between people, the planet, and their actions. In other words, LCST shows how everything is connected and that our natural systems depend on a dynamic non-equilibrium trying to achieve balance. Indigenous biol- ogist Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015) builds upon this definition more poetically: “The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants. My breath is your breath, your breath is mine. It’s the great poem of give and take, of reciprocity that animates the world” (p. 344)

AEMS News and Reviews: Winter 2013 (Issue: #47)

The 2013 winter issue of the AEMS Newsletter includes four reviews that should be of interest to a variety of audiences. "Families of the Philippines," reviewed by Roger Bresnahan, will likely be most relevant to educators working with younger learners. Per Kværne offers a review of "Bon: Mustang to Menri," a film that draws attention to the relatively little-known Bon religion of Tibet, which has long existed in the shadow of the better-known Tibetan Buddhism of the Geluk school. "Woman Rebel," reviewed by Tim Lubin, should be of particular interest to those teaching about women's issues and women in Asia. Last but certainly not least, Ryoko Sakurada highlights the value of the film work of an ethnologist in 1980s China. Given the rapid changes China has undergone in the past three decades, this film may serve as a valuable record of local life and culture that is increasingly difficult to find today.Center for East Asian and Pacific Studie