Understanding the "Sexual Plagues": Evidence for Correcting Catalog Records for an Indiana State Government Publication

When Indiana’s State Board of Health began distributing “Social Hygiene Versus the Sexual Plagues,” an early twentieth-century sex education pamphlet intended to keep young men from risking sexually transmitted infection, this pamphlet positioned Indiana at the vanguard of a growing public health movement. “Social Hygiene Versus the Sexual Plagues” warned against both the “rapid invasion of the American home” by incurable ailments like syphilis and “the direful consequences of sex secrecy." Although these cautions may sound hyperbolic, or even simply strange, to our ears, the matter of providing sex education to unmarried individuals was deeply controversial. It took considerable effort to publish this title, which is still found in a number of Indiana libraries. The hidden story of the creation of this state government publication provides new information about its authorship and publication dates, which are often inaccurate in catalog records for this title

Professional Reading? Or the Case of Librarian Detectives in Mystery Fiction

In real life, reference librarians field a wide range of questions; in fiction, librarians-turned-amateur sleuths take on the classic murder question, “Whodunnit?” in addition to their library duties. A number of mystery series have come to feature crime-solving librarians. The prevalence of these librarian-as-detective books, including the Aurora “Roe” Teagarden mysteries by Charlaine Harris and the Claire Reynier mysteries by Judith Van Gieson, encourages consideration of features of the fictional librarian in her role as sleuth

From the Editor's Desktop

This general issue of Indiana Libraries focuses on Youth and Reading. A recent survey of Indiana Libraries readers indicates this is an area some would like to read more about. While youth services librarians are likely to find these articles most immediately relevant to their working lives, I’m hopeful that these essays will offer librarians in all venues insights into their patrons’ lives as readers. These authors delve into the types of books, programming, and issues that have constituted patrons’ experiences with libraries and reading during their formative years

Looking for love in all the wrong places: Accessing sexual and reproductive health information via the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.

The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (RGPL) has been described as a cultural barometer. It supports scholars of history and culture by providing access to ideas circulated via the mass media in earlier times, but its own coverage and indexing practices also reveal attitudes and values toward issues of the time. The Progressive Era (1900-1924) coincides with the founding and growth of the RGPL. Examining how the Guide directed readers’ attention to matters of sexual and reproductive health in its first quarter century demonstrates changes in social attitudes and has implications for scholarly work. The array of index terms required to locate information on this topic indicates both barriers to information access for contemporary readers as well as challenges for present-day scholars concerned with recovering information of the era

Podcasts and Partnerships: Learning Through Listening and Content Creation

Scholarly and practitioner interest in educational/pedagogical podcasts has been evident in many areas of educational praxis since 2007; however, we have seen relatively little attention to podcast pedagogy in LIS, despite the field’s role as an early adopter of media-making pedagogies. We see podcasts as a means of extending learning beyond our immediate environs by connecting with others, either across the globe or from the reaches of the archives. We will offer a discussion of varied collaborative frameworks that can support podcasting as a pedagogical praxis. The panelists have done research and developed podcasts in multiple courses and grant-funded, open-source settings. This range of experiences and learning environments enables the panel to make recommendations to instructors who want to bring new media (and new voices) into their classrooms, giving attention to both risks and rewards. Our panel will discuss developing podcasts as open-source learning resources and as community engagement assignments that challenge students to develop technology- and listening- based skills. Based on interdisciplinary theories and experience, this panel identifies emergent best practices for using podcasting in conjunction with instruction and learning. During this panel, we envision time for information sharing and discussion

A case for digital squirrels: Using and preserving YouTube for popular culture research

YouTube users around the globe upload 400 hours of content every 60 seconds, a quantity that leads to descriptions of the platform as “the world’s largest archive of moving images.” We look at how the myth of YouTube as an archive arises and evaluate sources that show its shortcomings in this respect. These discussions ground our recommendations for developing new practices for archiving YouTube content to support scholarly research, a recommendation that starts with a squirrel

Reimagining our Roles: Lessons from the Field in OER Authoring and Open Pedagogy

The redesign of a graduate course in the University of Iowa’s School of Library and Information Science to fully online, asynchronous delivery resulted in an improved class and a reimagining of what instruction, authorship, and institutional roles mean in a digital-first, open education endeavor. Creating a new OER textbook was central to the work of three individuals in different institutional roles who brought this revitalized learning project to fruition. Shifting to online instruction, beyond the borders of classroom walls, to suit the needs of working students presented the opportunity to rethink both course curriculum and instruction with open pedagogical practices at its core. In this presentation, hear from the faculty member who taught the course, the librarian who helped develop the OER, and the instructional designer who provided guidance for the online learning experience. Learn how this case study demonstrates that open pedagogy necessitates a holistic and simultaneous reframing of the course delivery, the OER textbook, and the instruction of students, and how projects such as this highlight the need to grow beyond traditional bounded roles within a university