Service Point Staff Become Content Creators: Now, that’s a pivot!

When the COVID pandemic closed our busy academic, front line service staff were challenged to find work to replace the in-person support and assistance that they provide onsite. How did we respond? In addition to expanding our chat service, we gathered back burner projects from across the libraries and supported staff to take on new opportunities, such as creating content for web projects, reviewing and editing close captions of oral histories and instructional tutorials, checking ejournal links, and more

Moving from CRAAP to ACT UP as a source evaluation tool!

Tired of teaching CRAAP (currency / relevance / authority / accuracy / purpose) as a source evaluation method as part of your information literacy lesson plan? Consider transitioning to ACT UP instead! ACT UP (Author | Currency | Truth | Unbiased | Privilege) incorporates the concept of privilege in publishing into the conversation, and encourages students to discover and share the work of often overlooked researchers in their own work. Includes a variety of links to site where researchers who self-identify as women, Black/POC, or LBGTQ share their publications

ILLiad and Alma learn to play well together

In technical terms, VCU Libraries repurposed a plug-in developed for NCIP integration between ILLiad and Alma for borrowing and lending functions in ILLiad. In layman\u27s terms, we created a way to connect ILLiad and Alma so patrons can see all their loans (from us and other libraries) through one account

I Spy: Patron Privacy Issues at Your Library

Using photo examples of situations that may expose patron information or compromise intellectual freedom ideals, this presentation will help library staff understand how to protect your patron\u27s privacy and to advocate for privacy within your library. Examples include open holds shelving with patron name visible, self-check machine receipts that contain the patron name, print signup sheets that show patron name and contact info, and many more

Moving from CRAAP to ACT UP!

Lightning Tal

Gender-Inclusive Library Workgroup Report

The Gender-Inclusive Workgroup explored how VCU Libraries can better serve trans and gender-nonconforming users and staff. The group’s recommendations cover library spaces, staff, systems, services, and culture. Key recommendations include highlighting existing all-gender restrooms; building more gender-inclusive restrooms; expanding availability of menstrual products and disposal bins; continuing support for name-of-use changes in library systems; minimizing display of legal name in library systems; offering ongoing staff training in gender-inclusive language and customer service; and encouraging staff to share pronouns. The workgroup also recommends pursuing a culture of shared learning and inclusive thinking, with a reminder that gender identity is one facet of multiple intersecting identities for people in the VCU community

Review of policies addressing the viewing of legal pornography in ARL libraries

This article uses document analysis to review the content of the policies available on the library websites of 119 academic member institutions of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) for policies that address viewing legal visual (video or images) pornography on computers within library spaces. The authors seek to answer the question: How do ARL member libraries address the viewing of legal online pornography by adults in their library spaces as noted in policies or guidelines on their website

Viewing Porn in Academic Libraries: Critiquing ARL Member Library Policies

We reviewed Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member library policies about viewing legal online pornography in their spaces. In our review of more than 100 policies, we discovered that they were more ambiguous than expected. We discuss how our research can help inform policy review for your library and support library staff

Ramsey's 'Universals'

Ramsey’s Universals has not been served well by its critics and, as a result, the real and important contentions of Ramsey’s essay are often obscured in discussion of his work. This thesis is intended to form the beginning of an attempt to rectify this by offering an exposition and critique of Ramsey’s essay that is particularly sensitive to the background context and purpose of the essay as a whole and to the subtle structure of the argumentation within it. The construction of the arguments in Universals is so intricate that to assess any of its arguments without placing them in the context of the overall strategy of Ramsey’s essay is to grossly underestimate them. For this reason, most of the labour in this thesis will be directed towards articulating Ramsey’s concerns in his essay and the way in which Ramsey’s arguments are supposed to supplement each other in order to establish his main contentions. These tasks take up the first two chapters. Only then will the third chapter consider one particular argument- the incomprehensible trinity argument- and assess whether it is successful by first identifying the role that the argument is intended to play in the overall structure of Ramsey’s argument and then asking whether or not the argument can be said to fulfil such a role. This final chapter is a mere beginning towards a proper critique of Ramsey’s difficult and subtle argumentation in Universals. Nonetheless it serves as an example of how offering a critique of Ramsey which places his arguments within the context and concerns of the essay as a whole, while it does not immediately vindicate them of all criticism, shows them to be far more subtle and robust than they have been estimated to be