San Francisco Changemakers: A PCC Wikidata Pilot Project

Inspired by the 96 people whose images appear on San Francisco’s Ella Hill Hutch Community Center murals, students in the University of San Francisco Martín-Baró Scholars and Esther Madríz Diversity Scholars programs (2015-2019) wrote and edited Changemakers: Biographies of African Americans in San Francisco Who Made a Difference. The biographies within celebrate Black excellence and honor the legacies of African American educators, community activists, politicians, sports figures, pastors, doctors, entertainers, artists, and parents in San Francisco. In 2020, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) issued a call for participation in a pilot project to explore Wikidata community practices and establish relationships between Wikidata and library authority files. An interdepartmental Gleeson Library working group chose to create or enhance Wikidata items for the 96 persons listed in the Changemakers book. The list gave the working group a discrete set of identities and offered the potential to tie into existing Wikimedia/Wikipedia projects/articles and collaborate with campus centers and students on projects of significance to University of San Francisco, with an emphasis on underrepresented communities

Trends and correlates of abscess history among people who inject drugs in Massachusetts: A mixed methods exploration of experiences amidst a rapidly evolving drug supply

Background: Injection drug use poses significant risk for skin and soft tissue infections, such as abscesses. In places with endemic fentanyl and an increasingly contaminated drug supply, injecting and injection-related harms may be increasing, yet are understudied. We aimed to explore abscess prevalence, experiences, and themes among people who inject drugs (PWID) in the context of an evolving drug supply. Methods: Between 2019 and 2022, we surveyed and interviewed Massachusetts- based PWID about current drug use behaviors and abscess experiences. Chi-square tests explored correlates of abscess history and trends for past-year abscess percentages over time. Transcribed interview data were analyzed to identify themes related to abscess risk and opportunities for intervention. Results: Of the 297 PWID surveyed, 65.3% reported having an abscess at the injection site in their lifetime; 67.5% of these instances occurred within the last year. Reported past-year abscesses increased from 36.7% to 75.6% between 2019 and 2022. Correlates of past-year abscesses included frequent injection; methamphetamine, crack, or fentanyl use; and injection into the neck or calf. Methadone treatment was associated with significantly fewer recent abscesses. Interview data (n=151) confirmed the identified abscess risks, including syringe sharing and lack of hygienic supplies. Qualitative interviews provided additional data regarding healthcare provider stigma contributing to healthcare avoidance and the self-treatment of abscesses with adverse results. Conclusions: Abscesses are an increasing concern among PWID residing in areas of high fentanyl prevalence and a contaminated drug supply. Community drug checking, overdose prevention sites, injection hygiene interventions, and improved access to care are indicated

The mind and the faculties: the controversy over 'primitive mentality' and the struggle for disciplinary space at the interwar Sorbonne

This article deals with some aspects of the study of the mind between the 1920s and 1940s at the University of Paris. Traditionally the domain of philosophy, the study of the mind was encroached upon by other disciplines such as history of science, ethnology, sociology and psychology. These disciplines all had weak institutional status and were struggling to constitute themselves as autonomous. History of science did not as a rule reject its relationship with philosophy, whereas ethnology, sociology and psychology were constructing their identities by breaking away from philosophy. A discussion about Lévy-Bruhl’s La mentalité primitive, hosted by the Société Française de Philosophie in 1923, showed that the positions of philosophers, sociologists and psychologists about the questions posed by the book, namely the fixity and universality of the mind, were strictly linked with their views about the ‘scientificity’ of ethnology. A compromise between fixity and historical transformation of the mind was put forward by Gaston Bachelard, who institutionally represented the discipline of history and philosophy of science. This discipline was institutionally linked to ethnology, psychology and sociology, but, unlike them, had no claim to ‘scientificity’. Bachelard realized this compromise by breaking the unity of the mind and by employing an extra-institutional discipline: psychoanalysis. His freedom of choice corresponded with an increasingly weak institutional position for the discipline of history and philosophy of science