Claiming expertise from betwixt and between: Digital humanities librarians, emotional labor, and genre theory

Librarians\u27 liminal (intermediate) position within academia situates us to make unique contributions to digital humanities (DH). In this article, we use genre theory, feminist theory, and theories of emotional labor to explore the importance of discourse mediation and affective labor to DH and the interplay between these areas and academic structural inequality. By claiming our expertise and making explicit work that is often not visible, we can advocate for new and varied roles for librarians in digital humanities. Our analysis is informed by both theory and practice, and it takes a dialogic approach that depends upon the interactions between the two

Umbra Search

Review of Umbra Search, Reviewed April 2018 by Alexis Logsdon, MA, MLIS Research and Instruction Librarian, Fine Arts and Humanities DeWitt Wallace Library [email protected]

DeWitt Wallace Library Annual Report 2014-2015

Summary of library and media services activities for 2014-201

DeWitt Wallace Library Annual Report 2015-2016

Summary of library and media services activities for 2015-201

DeWitt Wallace Library Annual Report 2017-2018

Summary of library and media services activities for 2017-201

Making Something Out of Nothing: Building Digital Humanities Partnerships

In many smaller institutions, librarian partnerships on digital humanities projects can be piecemeal at best. Many of us engage in this work due to a personal interest (or even passion) for it, but work outside of big grants or specially-designed positions. In this workshop, we hope to engage participants in a lively discussion of strategies for engaging faculty, students, and other communities we work with to enhance ongoing projects and forge new ones together. This will be a highly participatory endeavor; we will share what has worked for us (and what hasn\u27t) and hope you will do the same

The Cost of Speaking Out: Do Librarians Truly Experience Academic Freedom?

Academic librarians might believe they are protected by academic freedom policies, but how extensive are their protections and what is their lived experience when it comes to freedom to speak and act in the workplace or in public? In the United States, the 2016 election and the rise of the Far Right and state oppression of marginalized communities brought urgency to these questions. Many librarians feel compelled to speak and act against oppression in and outside of the library. Academic freedom protection for librarians is far from settled practice, and is complicated by the profession’s focus on the broader concept of intellectual freedom for library users. The authors are interested in studying the experiences and perceptions of academic freedom among academic librarians, a topic which has not been widely studied. We are also interested in studying the relationship of social identity and financial status to academic freedom for library staff. Doing so raises interesting questions about academic freedom more broadly, such as the extent to which academic freedom policies matter when library staff stay silent out of fear of negative repercussions. In order to study these questions, we developed and issued a survey to academic librarians in the Fall of 2018. We hypothesized that most academic librarians would value academic freedom but not believe they are completely protected by academic freedom policies. We also hypothesized that librarians who belong to socially marginalized groups and/or are economically insecure would experience fewer freedoms in the workplace. In this paper, we provide a preview of our overall findings and also a more detailed analysis of the relationship of race and financial security to freedom of expression and experiences of infringement. Our initial findings support our hypotheses: academic freedom is very important to a sizeable majority of academic librarians. However, the degree to which they experience or perceive their own freedoms varies by scenario and by their racial identity and financial situation. Indeed, we find that non-white librarians and financially precarious librarians feel less free and experience more infringements than their white and financially secure counterparts

Power and Status (and Lack Thereof) in Academe: Academic Freedom and Academic Librarians

This is a postprint. The version of record can be found here: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2020/power-and-status-and-lack-thereof-in-academe.Academic librarians do not experience full academic freedom protections, despite the fact that they are expected to exercise independent judgment, be civically engaged, and practice applied scholarship. Academic freedom for academic librarians is not widely studied or well understood. To learn more, we conducted a survey which received over 600 responses from academic librarians on a variety of academic freedom measures. In this article, we focus specifically on faculty status for librarians and the ways this intersects with academic freedom perceptions and experiences. Even though all librarians who answered our survey share similar experiences when it comes to infringements on their freedom, faculty librarians are more likely to feel they are protected in their free expression. We find it useful to situate librarians within a growing cohort of “third space” academic professionals who perform similar duties to traditional faculty but lack tenure and its associated academic freedom protections. We argue that more attention needs to be paid in the library profession to academic freedom for librarians, and that solidarity with other non-traditional faculty on campus is a potential avenue for allyship and advocacy

Dangerous DH Liaisons: Librarians (Re)claiming Centrality in Digital Collaborations

Supporting and providing leadership for digital humanities initiatives, both inside and outside the classroom, is becoming a common part of the research librarian\u27s work. With our experience building relationships across departments and administrative units, librarians have an important role in ensuring DH work is meaningful and sustainable. In this session, we will explore how this work is a natural extension of liaison work that also expands existing conceptions of that role. Drawing from examples of our collaborations with faculty, staff, and students on DH projects, we will also discuss aspects of this topic which deserve wider and more explicit discussion, including 1) the lack of visibility of librarian contributions to this work and 2) the challenges and opportunities of working within different institutional contexts. All levels of experience with DH are welcome; we ask only that you come prepared to be part of a lively dialogue

Digital Humanities in Libraries: Where Are We Now?

It\u27s been five years since the first DASHcamp took place at the University of Minnesota, an early landmark meeting of digital humanists in Minnesota. This roundtable session will reflect on how far digital humanities has come since then, and speculate on DH\u27s future. Panelists are all DH practitioners working at local academic institutions