Twitter Use by Academic Libraries in New York State

Twitter can be a productive tool for academic libraries to use when sharing information, marketing services, and building relationships with students, yet it is difficult to know whether academic libraries are utilizing this platform by creating an independent library account. Furthermore, if academic libraries do have accounts, it is valuable to understand what academic libraries use Twitter for, and what kinds of media they share. The purpose of this study then is to investigate whether academic libraries in New York State (NYS) use Twitter, and if they do, how and why. Based on a sample of 226 academic libraries of 2- and 4-year institutions with physical locations, the results of the analysis found that approximately 48% of academic libraries in NYS have a Twitter account. A content analysis of a random sample of 21 academic libraries in NYS showed that academic libraries primarily use Twitter as a resource to share information about events in and outside of the institution, by sharing links to other information and content

Plotting Survival (To Live in the Hurricane's Path)

This essay attempts to understand how residents of the Eastern Caribbean island of Waitikubuli,2 otherwise known as Dominica, who inhabit an animate, 751-km2 landmass of high volcanic mountains, dense rainforests, rushing rivers, and unstable soils contend with cyclones that have the power to spin their worlds into disarray. Storms that bring pain and loss. That bring regrowth and new beginnings. These vast meteorological phenomena, with an average diameter of 500km, bring heavy rains, flash floods, high seas, and winds as fast as 265km per hour

Plotting Survival (To Live in the Hurricane's Path)

This essay attempts to understand how residents of the Eastern Caribbean island of Waitikubuli,2 otherwise known as Dominica, who inhabit an animate, 751-km2 landmass of high volcanic mountains, dense rainforests, rushing rivers, and unstable soils contend with cyclones that have the power to spin their worlds into disarray. Storms that bring pain and loss. That bring regrowth and new beginnings. These vast meteorological phenomena, with an average diameter of 500km, bring heavy rains, flash floods, high seas, and winds as fast as 265km per hour

When 'blood speaks': naming the father and the mystics of kinship in Dominica, Eastern Caribbean

This article explores the mystical implication of fathers in reproduction in Dominica, Eastern Caribbean. It traces naming acts that assign paternity at various points in the filial life course, each attempting to disambiguate paternity. Confronting a recurring anthropological problematic – the problem of paternity (paternity’s inherent putativity) – the article argues that Dominicans contest uncertain physical fatherhood through the proverb ‘blood speaks’. The article elaborates how relatedness reveals itself in the subtle bodies of kin at three moments: through a local version of the couvade (‘sympathetic pregnancy’); in elders’ post-partum ritual scrutiny of children’s bodies for familial resemblances; and during serendipitous encounters in later life. The article highlights how physical fatherhood is disclosed in fathers’ and children’s symptoms, appearances, and sensations, revealing their kinship in transpersonal terms. Therefore, blood ‘speaks’ to counter broad brushed narratives of Caribbean fatherly absence by revealing the physical and spiritual significance of fatherhood. Herein, the article revives classic anthropological debates on legitimacy, the couvade, and Caribbean kinship, whilst contributing to contemporary theorizations of blood and naming

Goodnight Colston. Mourning Slavery: Death Rites and Duppy Conquering in a Circum-Atlantic City

In the wake of the riotous procession that toppled the statue of Edward Colston, this essay sketches an ethnographic itinerary through the spectral geographies of Bristol, a circum-Atlantic city haunted by the ghosts of slavery. The paper offers aCaribbean cosmological reading of the toppling and aqueous burial as a kind of duppy conquering, a vital act of social renewal that clears ground for processes of spiritual and affective repair. The paper then explores two rituals of restoration—a remembrance ceremony for an enslaved woman and an inchoate ancestral invocation upon an empty plinth—alongside other, kindred paths of repair in the long afterlife of Atlantic slavery

Using GeoSpatial Analysis to Evaluate Relationships Between Cancer Incidence and Social Factors in Brooklyn, NY

This study explored the spatial distribution of cancer incidence in Brooklyn, NY. Using publicly available data, the relationships between cancer incidence and factors linked to cancer were investigated. Furthermore, the study explored the value of using large amounts of data with GIS techniques to quickly analyze geographic trends for cancer