216: Lisa Feldman Barrett

January 25, 2022 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Guest host Troy Swanson chats with Lisa Feldman Barrett, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, about her background, her neuroscience beach read, Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain, mindfulness, and why your brain is not for thinking.

Read the transcript!

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is the University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She also holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior. She is the author of countless research articles and books but most notably her recent book Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain and her and her 2018 book How Emotions are Made.

Dr. Barrett received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for her revolutionary research on emotion in the brain. She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, the APS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Psychology in 2021. Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Barrett has testified before Congress, presented her research to the FBI, consulted to the National Cancer Institute, appeared on Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman and The Today Show with Maria Shriver, and been a featured guest on public television and podcast and radio programs worldwide. She is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada.

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He is also the President of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy. Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campuses Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL.

SHOW NOTES:

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Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain

213: Meredith Farkas – Slow Librarianship

November 30, 2021December 13, 2021 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Meredith Farkas, faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon, about her path to librarianship, the concept of slow librarianship, avoiding techno-saviorism, and why she ended her long-running American Libraries column.

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Meredith Farkas (she/her) is a faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon, a perpetual beginner, and a recovering workaholic. From 2007-2021, she wrote the “In Practice” column for American Libraries, focusing on accessible technologies, collaboration, values-driven work, antiracism, and reflective practice. She has also authored the blog Information Wants to be Free since 2004. Meredith was honored in 2009 with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology, and in 2014 with the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award. She’s been in many different leadership and management roles in her career, but her favorite role is working with students and faculty as an instruction librarian.

SPONSOR:

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

Information Wants To Be Free
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211: Shannon M. Oltmann

November 2, 2021November 1, 2021 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Shannon M. Oltmann, author of Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries, about the definition of intellectual freedom, why intellectual freedom is important to the library profession, how to handle materials challenges, and how intellectual freedom overlaps with the right to privacy.

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Shannon M. Oltmann is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. She obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Her research interests include information ethics, censorship, intellectual freedom, information policy, public libraries, privacy, and qualitative research methods. Oltmann is the Editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy and on the Editorial Board for Library Quarterly. She recently published a book, Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries. She has presented her research at academic conferences such as the Information Ethics Roundtable, the Annual Conference of the Association for Information Science & Technology, the iConference, and the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry. Her work has been published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Library Quarterly, Public Libraries Quarterly, Collection Management, Libri, and Library and Information Science Research.

SPONSORS:

Book Buddies: Ivy Lost and Found, from Candlewick Press
Ivy Lost and Found, the first of a charming new early chapter book series about library toys and the children who borrow them, written by Newbery Honoree Cynthia Lord and illustrated by Stephanie Graegin. In a starred review, Booklist called Ivy Lost and Found “an engaging story of insecurity overcome by hop, courage, and love.” Ivy is the library’s newest book buddy —a toy that can be checked out just like a book—but she’d rather go back to being what she was before: the librarian’s favorite childhood doll. So when Fern—a child with a new stepfamily who also wishes she could go back to the way things were—takes Ivy home, they embark on an adventure together that helps both of them find confidence and belonging in their changing worlds. Ivy Lost and Found is available now, and look for upcoming books in the Book Buddies series coming in Spring 2022!

SHOW NOTES:

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Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries

208: Julie Ann Winkelstein

September 21, 2021September 20, 2021 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Julie Ann Winkelstein, author of Homelessness and Libraries: an Action Guide, about her path to librarianship, terminology when discussing homelessness, compassion fatigue, and creating an action plan.

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Julie Ann Winkelstein, MLIS, PhD, is a librarian, writer, activist and teacher. She is the author of Libraries and Homelessness: An Action Guide (Libraries Unlimited), as well as several book chapters and journal articles, and was a contributing author and primary editor of the IFLA “Guidelines for Library Services to People Experiencing Homelessness.” Winkelstein created and teaches a library school master’s level course on homelessness, poverty and public libraries at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a similar course at the University of Washington. She has presented internationally on the topic of libraries and homelessness, including LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, and through an IMLS grant provided trainings and workshops for library staff on this topic. She worked for 20 years as a public librarian in a range of roles, from jail and prison librarian to family literacy coordinator to young adult and children’s librarian. Her work focuses on the intersection of social justice and public libraries.

SPONSOR:

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

Libraries and Homelessness: an Action Guide
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207: Hugo Mercier

September 8, 2021September 8, 2021 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Guest host Troy Swanson chats with Dr. Hugo Mercier, research scientist and author of Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe, about cognitive science, how humans think they make decisions (and how they actually do), intuition, and why we aren’t as easily fooled as we think (…or are we?).

Read the transcript!

Hugo Mercier who holds the PhD in cognitive sciences and is a research scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris where he works as part of the Evolution and Social Cognition team and the Collective Intelligence team. He is the co-author with Dan Sperber of the book The Enigma of Reason, and, most recently, he is the sole author of the book, Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe.

Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

Subscribe to the Circulating Ideas newsletter for a deeper dive into this episode’s content!
The Enigma of Reason
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe

201: David Lankes – Forged in War

June 15, 2021November 2, 2021 ~ circideas ~ 1 Comment

Steve chats with David Lankes, author of Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society, about his new position at the University of Texas at Austin, whether or not libraries are neutral (spoiler: they’re not), knowledge infrastructure, and how the wars of the 20th century shaped propaganda, how data is collected and used, and the development of our information society, from telegraphs to the internet.

R. David Lankes is the director of the University of South Carolina’s School of Information Science, soon-to-be Full Professor and Virginia & Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship at the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin, a Visiting Researcher at the French National Library School ENSSIB, and recipient of the American Library Association’s 2021 Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for distinguished contribution to reference librarianship and the 2016 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship. His book, The Atlas of New Librarianship won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. Lankes is a passionate advocate for librarians and their essential role in today’s society.

SHOW NOTES:

Sign up the Circulating Ideas newsletter!
“Lankes to join Texas iSchool as Virginia & Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship”
“Are Libraries Neutral?” American Libraries
Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society | audiobook
Information Hunters by Kathy Peiss
Libraries Lead the New Normal podcast

199: The Library’s Guide to Graphic Novels

May 4, 2021August 10, 2021 ~ circideas ~ 1 Comment

Steve chats with John Ballestro, editor of The Library’s Guide to Graphic Novels, along with many of the contributors, to discuss the ever-changing ways that graphic novels are created, packaged, marketed, and released, exploring such topics as the history of comics, collection development, cataloging, and specialized resources.

SHOW NOTES:

The Library’s Guide to Graphic Novels
ALCTS
Fantagraphics
“The Differences Between Manga, Manhwa & Manhua, Explained” [CBR.com]
Graphic Medicine
The Comic Book Collection (Library of Congress)
Cataloging Graphic Novels (Library of Congress)
LCSH 1430
DC Archive Editions

Recommendations:

Digger by Ursula Vernon
Graphic Medicine – Penn State Press
Graphic History Series – Oxford University Press
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Guy Delisle
Joe Sacco
East Asia Comics Collection – University of Pennsylvania
Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fries
The Bad Doctor by Ian Williams
Epileptic by David B.
Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
What It Is by Lynda Barry

196: Noah Lenstra

February 2, 2021January 2, 2021 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Noah Lenstra, author of Healthy Living at the Library, about the Let’s Move in Libraries initiative, why it’s important to work with community partners, examples of health literacy programming, and how libraries have adapted their programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Noah Lenstra started Let’s Move in Libraries in 2016 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s School of Education, where he is an assistant professor of library and information science. His research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed publications, and in June 2020, his book Healthy Living at the Library was published by Libraries Unlimited. He earned his dissertation in 2016 from the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where he also completed his MLIS.

SHOW NOTES:

Healthy Living at the Library
Let’s Move
Let’s Move in Libraries
StoryWalk

195: Callan Bignoli and Lauren Stara

January 5, 2021December 30, 2020 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Steve chats with Callan Bignoli and Lauren Stara, authors of Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries: a User Experience Approach, about how they met and decided to write a book together, how the New York Public Library lions guided their thinking, and the myriad issues libraries need to consider to prepare for future change.

CALLAN BIGNOLI is the director of the library at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. She gathers inspiration from everywhere to inform user-centered practices and push the profession forward. Callan studies and speaks about user experience design, library management, and social issues in technology, challenging students and colleagues to fight for a more just and human future. She tweets at @eminencefont and can be reached at callan.bignoli@gmail.com.

LAUREN STARA is a library building specialist with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, helping public libraries around the Commonwealth improve their physical spaces. A registered architect and a librarian, she has worked in and/or consulted for libraries in eight US states, three Canadian provinces, and three Eastern European countries. She has taught at library schools in Canada and Bulgaria, and she speaks and presents frequently on library design, design thinking, and service design. Lauren can be reached at lauren.stara@gmail.com.

SHOW NOTES:

Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries: a User Experience Approach
Ambient Findability by Peter Morville
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
“Vocational Awe and Librarianship: the Lies We Tell Ourselves” by Fobazi Ettarh | In The Library With The Lead Pipe
Library Space: A Planning Resource for Librarians

192: Jeremy Shermak

October 13, 2020October 12, 2020 ~ circideas ~ Leave a comment

Guest host Troy Swanson chats with journalism professor Jeremy Shermak, about the state of journalism, misinformation vs. disinformation, the collapse of local news, and the media literacy skills librarians need to understand.

Jeremy Shermak is a journalism professor and the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, Coast Report, at Orange Coast College. He earned his Ph.D. in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin and previously studied journalism at the University of Missouri and Indiana University. He is a former journalist, managing editor and media analyst. His research interests include sports journalism, weather and climate communication, political communication, and journalism routines. You can follow him on Twitter @JeremyShermak.