Teachers\u27 Conceptualization of Diversity, Teaching, and Learning In a Culturally Responsive School

This paper seeks to understand how teachers at a local high school conceptualize and value diversity in regards to their own school and community. Through analyzing teachers’ responses to interview questions about their understanding of diversity and evaluation of multiculturalism in their school, researchers can gain a valuable insight into the school culture and seek to produce a learning atmosphere that welcomes, embraces, and values diversity. As schools become increasingly diverse all around the United States, it is essential to understand how faculty and staff members are understanding effects of increasing multicultural in schools, and how they can create a culturally responsive learning atmosphere and community. Thus, this research seeks to answer the question, “how do teachers create, understand and value a culturally responsive teaching and learning environment?

But How Do We Do Critical Librarianship?

Critical librarianship asks us to look more closely at the sociopolitical world both inside and out of our libraries. Indeed, a lot has happened in the world since I first saw the call for this special issue of OLA Quarterly. First, there was the exposure of an internal memo from a Google employee that denied that women were capable tech workers. Last week, there were escalating threats between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un about possible nuclear detonations. I finished writing in the wake of white supremacist demonstrations and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and as an unprecedented storm geared up to hit Houston. On Twitter and Facebook, I’m seeing fierce debate about whether to let Nazis use library space … and how you would even be able to identify Nazis to kick them out. In short, this is an urgent time to reflect on what critical librarianship is and what its aims are. As the #critlib chats on Twitter have gained interest over the past few years, I have seen the “critical” of critical librarianship interpreted in several overlapping and competing ways. First, critical librarianship is associated, for good reason, with critical theory, or what Kenny Garcia calls a “critical theorist framework that is epistemological, self-reflective, and activist in nature” (2016). Critical theory encompasses the work of many scholars who reflect on and critique social structures. The call for this issue noted that critical librarianship has been criticized for being overly philosophical or theory-heavy. In the case of the #critlib chats, we wanted a place for librarians to talk about how they use critical pedagogy in particular, inspired by the work of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and other scholars, as well as our own experiences as learners and teachers. Our emphasis, however, was on doing and how practice informed thinking, and in turn, how this new mode of thinking could influence new forms of practice. This spiraling transformative dialog between theory and practice can be described as praxis, and it requires an openness both to learning about new ideas and to try new things

Applying Automated Theorem Proving to Computer Security

While more and more data is stored and accessed electronically, better access control methods need to be implemented for computer security. Formal modelling and analysis have been successfully used in certain areas of computer systems, such as verifying the security properties of cryptographic and authentication protocols. However, formal models for computer systems in cyberspace, like networks, have hardly advanced. A highly regarded graduate textbook cites the Take-Grant model created in 1977 as one of the \current examples of security modelling and analysis techniques. This model is rarely used in practice though. This research implements the Take-Grant Protection model\u27s four de jure rules and Can Share predicate in the Prototype Verification System (PVS) which automates model checking and theorem proving. This facilitates the ability to test a given TakeGrant model against many systems which are modelled using digraphs. Two models, one with error checking and one without, are created to implement take-grant rules. The first model that does not have error checking incorporated requires manual error checking. The second model uses recursion to allow for the error checking. The Can Share theorem requires further development

Residency Programs and Demonstrating Commitment to Diversity

This paper was presented on March, 28, 2015, at the Association for College and Research Libraries Conference in Portland, Oregon. Full Conference proceedings are available here. Post-graduate internships, residencies, and fellowships have existed in research libraries since the 1930s, and have increasingly become a diversity recruitment and retention method of college and university libraries since the 1980s. These programs recruit recent graduates from Library and Information Science programs for training and specialization in some aspect of academic and research librarianship, usually under a term-limited contract of one to three years, often with a stated goal of contributing to the diversity of the profession by recruiting candidates from historically underrepresented groups. Despite these longstanding efforts, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in academic librarianship is stark. In 2010, non-white academic librarians represented less than 15% of credentialed librarians working in higher education (ALA Diversity Counts). In fact, this percentage is roughly the same as it was in 1990, ten years after residency programs first began addressing the lack of diversity in the profession. During this time, however, diversity among undergraduate students has increased by 15% in colleges and universities. Moreover, academic librarianship is less diverse than faculty membership in colleges and universities. Non-white faculty members represent more than 20% of full-time teaching positions in higher education (Digest of Education Statistics, 2012). While higher education is becoming more diverse, from students to professors, academic librarianship shows no noticeable movement. If residency programs are not fulfilling their mission of increasing diversity in the profession, what diversity-related function are they serving? We argue that there may be elements in the design, marketing, and administration of residency programs that are counter-productive to their diversity-focused goals. Historically, postgraduate positions in research libraries were created to address a critical gap between knowledge gained from Library and Information Science education and the specialized skills needed to work in research and academic libraries. What are the consequences of a hiring strategy for temporary positions that emphasizes professional development on persons from traditionally underrepresented groups (i.e. racial and ethnic minorities)? Qualitative research dating back to the late 1990’s shows residency participants reporting everything from subtle discrimination, such as patronizing attitudes from colleagues, to the more explicitly stigmatizing, such as the words “affirmative action”, “minority”, and “diversity” in the job title (Brewer, 1997). We believe there are better ways for academic libraries to demonstrate their commitment to diversity than simply administering these programs. This paper will offer a critical analysis of the diversity focus these programs take

From the Guest Editors

Protecting patron privacy is a core tenet of the ethics of librarianship. The American Library Association's Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2019) emphasizes that protecting the privacy of library users is key to ensuring intellectual freedom because surveillance and monitoring produce a "chilling effect on users' selection, access to, and use of library resources." In 2005, librarians in Connecticut made headlines by standing up against the FBI and the USA Patriot Act to protect patron records (Cowan, 2006). Faced with a clear threat to privacy, these librarians sued the U.S. government in defense of their patrons' rights. However, the daily erosion of privacy facing patrons today is often more insidious and the day-to-day work of protecting privacy in libraries is less visible. This issue of the Oregon Library Association Quarterly is dedicated to stories of how library workers across Oregon try - and sometimes struggle - to live up to our professional responsibility to protect privacy. These stories come from all corners of our library ecosystem, from public and academic institutions and from large and small communities. The articles presented here provide snapshots of some of the current challenges that libraries face around privacy, as well as some practical tips for dealing with these challenges. We have also included a short guide to relevant state laws, which we hope provides context for the issue as a whole

Highly efficient Localisation utilising Weightless neural systems

Efficient localisation is a highly desirable property for an autonomous navigation system. Weightless neural networks offer a real-time approach to robotics applications by reducing hardware and software requirements for pattern recognition techniques. Such networks offer the potential for objects, structures, routes and locations to be easily identified and maps constructed from fused limited sensor data as information becomes available. We show that in the absence of concise and complex information, localisation can be obtained using simple algorithms from data with inherent uncertainties using a combination of Genetic Algorithm techniques applied to a Weightless Neural Architecture

Making a Third Space for Student Voices in Two Academic Libraries

When we think of voices in the library, we have tended to think of them as disruptive, something to control and manage for the sake of the total library environment. The stereotype of the shushing librarian pervades public perception, creating expectations about the kinds of spaces libraries want to create. Voices are not always disruptive, however. Indeed, developing an academic voice is one of the main challenges facing incoming university students, and libraries can play an important role in helping these students find their academic voices. Two initiatives at two different academic libraries are explored here: a Secrets Wall, where students are invited to write and share a secret during exam time while seeing, reading, commenting on the secrets of others; and a librarian and historian team-taught course called History on the Web, which brings together information literacy and the study of history in the digital age. This article examines both projects and considers how critical perspectives on voice and identity might guide our instructional practices, helping students to learn to write themselves into the university. Further, it describes how both the Secrets Wall and the History on the Web projects intentionally create a kind of “Third Space” designed specifically so students can enter it, negotiate with it, interrogate it, and eventually come to be part of it

Making a Third Space for Student Voices in Two Academic Libraries

When we think of voices in the library, we have tended to think of them as disruptive, something to control and manage for the sake of the total library environment. The stereotype of the shushing librarian pervades public perception, creating expectations about the kinds of spaces libraries want to create. Voices are not always disruptive, however. Indeed, developing an academic voice is one of the main challenges facing incoming university students, and libraries can play an important role in helping these students find their academic voices. Two initiatives at two different academic libraries are explored here: a Secrets Wall, where students are invited to write and share a secret during exam time while seeing, reading, commenting on the secrets of others; and a librarian and historian team-taught course called History on the Web, which brings together information literacy and the study of history in the digital age. This article examines both projects and considers how critical perspectives on voice and identity might guide our instructional practices, helping students to learn to write themselves into the university. Further, it describes how both the Secrets Wall and the History on the Web projects intentionally create a kind of “Third Space” designed specifically so students can enter it, negotiate with it, interrogate it, and eventually come to be part of it

Making a Third Space for Student Voices in Two Academic Libraries

The article examines initiatives including an activity Secrets Wall in which students secretly write secret during exam times and and History on the Web, librarian and historian team-taught course. Topics discussed include creation of third space for student voices, secrets wall offered at the University of Iowa Main Library to help students in final exam and secret wall as a third space for students to offer outlet for authentic self-expression and dialogic information