Alex H Poole - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Alex H Poole

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2024

This paper centers on feminism in post-World War II information science, namely in the context of... more This paper centers on feminism in post-World War II information science, namely in the context of the American Documentation Institute (ADI) and the subsequent American Society for Information Science (ASIS). We focus on the years between 1962, when ADI elected its first woman president, and 1988, when it celebrated its 50 th anniversary-a period that overlapped with that of second-wave feminism in the United States. This research makes three scholarly interventions. First, we contribute to the history of information science, particularly to the history of women in the field. Second, we train a feminist epistemology lens on the field. This involves considering women's participation, representation, and marginalization in information science, on the one hand, and the ways in which information scientists approached women's lives, experiences, and bodies, on the other. Third, we situate information science in the broader history of science, juxtaposing ADI/ASIS with other scientific societies' engagement with feminism. In contrast to the national political, social, and cultural changes it wrought, feminism made little headway in information science during this period. The field largely denied women equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2023

Data Science is a burgeoning area in the iField. But Data Science practices have far outstripped ... more Data Science is a burgeoning area in the iField. But Data Science practices have far outstripped the field's ethical safeguards. We argue that Data Science graduate education programs must address this critical problem. In this theoretical and conceptual paper, we posit an ordinary macroethics that we call data flourishing. We contend that this macroethics is most appropriately developed through a holistic, human-centered data science (HCDS)-based pedagogy that concentrates on cultivating communities of ethical practice (COEPs) through social learning. We favor embedding this macroethics throughout iField programs' graduate data science curricula and by extension, the entire data science education enterprise. This paper aligns with the 2023 ASIS&T annual meeting theme of translating research into practice, particularly the subthemes of "improving decision-making" and "understanding the power of information to develop human happiness, equality, and wellbeing."

American Archivist, 2022

This article analyzes 65 North American graduate archival education programs' course listings aga... more This article analyzes 65 North American graduate archival education programs' course listings against current professional standards as crystallized in the 2016 Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies (GPAS). The study addresses the following research questions: 1) What types of programs list graduate archival education courses?, 2) What types of courses do these graduate archival programs currently list?, 3) To what extent do archival programs' courses conform to GPAS?, and 4) What are the implications of a program's conforming or not conforming to GPAS? The authors' findings indicate an overriding tendency for graduate archival education programs to be hosted by LIS programs, especially under the auspices of iSchools. They identified a great diversity of graduate archival education programs and course listing combinations. Most important, they analyzed the archival curriculum coverage of 65 graduate archival programs to discern conformance with GPAS curriculum requirements. Although their findings may be used by programs for self-study, they also call into question the overall utility of GPAS and suggest the need for a more flexible approach.

American Archivist, 2023

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) has long involved itself with graduate-level archival ed... more The Society of American Archivists (SAA) has long involved itself with graduate-level archival education. It has sponsored committees and subcommittees, guidelines, roundtables/sections, student chapters, and pre-conferences. But limited empirical evidence exists regarding faculty members' view of SAA's involvement with graduate archival education. This exploratory qualitative case study employs semistructured interviews with full-time, tenure-track archival faculty. We address the ways in which SAA contributes to faculty members' teaching, faculty members' encouragement of students to join SAA, SAA student chapters and faculty advising, and how SAA might promote better communication, coordination, and collaboration between graduate archival education programs and practitioners. We contend that despite decades of effort on both sides, the relationship between graduate archival education programs and the Society of American Archivists remains disjointed, ultimately limiting the field's development. We offer recommendations and suggestions for future research to strengthen this relationship in the interest of improving student experience and the health of the profession.

Information for a Better World: Normality, Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity, 2023

This paper centers on the early years (1970-1975) of the Black Caucus of the American Library Ass... more This paper centers on the early years (1970-1975) of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The Caucus sought to combat structural, professional, and personal racism, to achieve equity in library employment, services, and materials, and to imbue Black librarians and Black library users at all types of libraries and in all geographic locations with a sense of dignity, pride, agency, and self-determination.

We engage with five literatures in this paper; each engagement shows the inter-penetration of information and library science with larger currents of political, social, and cultural history. First, historian Stephen Tuck posits a “long freedom struggle” starting with Emancipation in 1863, not merely a narrow civil rights period embracing the late 1950s and first half of the 1960s. The Black Caucus’s work comprised a crucial part of this broader, longer, multifaceted Black protest agenda. Second, like Tuck we embrace an ecumenical definition of Black activism: both building and resisting proved essential. We explore Black Caucus activism in four cases of resistance and four of building. Third, following historian Darlene Clark Hine, we argue that Black middle-class professionals, in this case librarians, played a vital role in the freedom struggle. Fourth, we complicate the conventional periodization narrative in library and information science history that ends with the desegregation of state associations and public libraries by the end of 1966. The struggle for racial equality and equity in librarianship remained far from complete. Fifth, scholars have paid considerable attention to the desegregation of public libraries but have neglected other aspects of the freedom struggle in LIS.

The American Archivist, 2022

Since the 1936 founding of the Society of American Archivists, the archival field has struggled w... more Since the 1936 founding of the Society of American Archivists, the archival field has struggled with the challenges inhering in professionalization, namely the merits or demerits of institutional or individual accreditation or certification. In 1989, SAA helped establish the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), which confers individual certification by written examination. In 1993, ACA modified its bylaws to require graduate education to be eligible for the exam. But, although a relationship clearly exists between certification and education, scholars have not explored, much less profited from, the insights of archival educators. This qualitative case study uses semistructured interviews with thirty-three tenure-track or tenured faculty program directors from graduate archival programs across North America to understand how educators perceive and address certification. Findings reveal that educators are ambivalent about certification, its relationship to graduate education, and its vocational value. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and offer suggestions for research and practice.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2022

This paper brings together and enriches the heretofore dispersed literature on information work a... more This paper brings together and enriches the heretofore dispersed literature on information work and information practices. It does so under the auspices of Critical Race Theory (CRT), intersectionality, and care work. Using the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States as the context for an exploratory, qualitative case study, we propose the concept of intersectional information work practices (IIWP) to denote the cluster of information-centric tasks in which Black women carers engaged. Seeking, scanning, searching, monitoring, finding, receiving, retrieving, using, and sharing information-Black women carers performed each of these IIWPs in dealing with health care providers, tests, illness and treatment, wellness, logistics, and avoiding misinformation. An IIWP lens sheds light on the too often invisible labor of Black women carers. Such a lens also brings into high relief the importance of scrutinizing power and (in)equity, race, gender, and class in exploring foundational Information Science concepts.

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 2022

.

iConference 2022, 2022

Based on a qualitative, exploratory case study, this research pivots around a three course, twelv... more Based on a qualitative, exploratory case study, this research pivots around a three course, twelve credit, one year post-baccalaureate certificate (PBC) centering on community-based learning (CBL). We unpack the experiences and elicit the insights of our first cohort of Fellows (2020-2021). Interviewees discussed their motivations for applying; their project-based CBL work in three courses (data science, design thinking/UX, and a capstone) performed individually or in teams; their community competencies development (communication, technical, design, and community needs analysis); the ways in which the PBC enhanced their career opportunities (pursuing the Master's degree, tying in their PBC work with their current jobs, and its salutary impact on their career prospects); and how the certificate promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through targeted recruitment, a cohort structure, and community engagement. We discuss and reflect on lessons learned, the ways in which our research extends and complicates the existing literature, and suggestions for future research.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2021

Addressing the data skills gap, namely the superabundance of data and the lack of human capital t... more Addressing the data skills gap, namely the superabundance of data and the lack of human capital to exploit it, this paper argues that iSchools and Library and Information Science programs are ideal venues for data science education. It unpacks two case studies: the LIS Education and Data Science for the National Digital Platform (LEADS-4-NDP) project (2017-2019), and the LIS Education and Data Science-Integrated Network Group (LEADING) project (2020-2023). These IMLS-funded initiatives respond to four national digital platform challenges: LIS faculty prepared to teach data science and mentor the next generation of educators and practitioners, an underdeveloped pedagogical infrastructure, scattered and inconsistent data science education opportunities for students and current information professionals, and an immature data science network. LEADS and LEADING have made appreciable collaborative, interdisciplinary contributions to the data science education community; these projects comprise an essential part of the long-awaited and much-needed national digital platform.

Archival Science, 2021

Who an archivist is-much less what an archivist does-has long remained an enigma. Glossing Crèvec... more Who an archivist is-much less what an archivist does-has long remained an enigma. Glossing Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782), Society of American Archivists president Posner (1957) mused, "What, Then, Is the American Archivist, This New Man?" Posner's rumination pointed to a complementary question, that is, how should an archivist, however defined, be educated? Expanding Posner's focus from the United States to North America, this exploratory qualitative case study unpacks the most pressing issues facing graduate archival educators and archival education more broadly. First, we review the literature. Second, we state our methodological approach. Third, we discuss findings, homing in on faculty, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), digital technology, and sustainability. Fourth, our discussion addresses our findings' implications. Fifth, we offer conclusions and directions for future research. Cox (2000a) lamented, "indicative of [archival studies's] youthfulness is the fact that we have done so little research about our own educational programs" (p. 375). Two decades later, his observation remains valid. This article addresses this knowledge gap. Literature review Archival educators, the curriculum, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion, digital technology, and sustainability-all represent nodes of scholarly debate in North American archival discourse. Archival educators Though archival educators remain understudied (Gilliland, 2011), scholars discuss the need for full-time faculty, balancing teaching and research, and the faculty-practitioner relationship.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2022

This exploratory mixed-methods case study relies on semistructured interviews with tenure-track f... more This exploratory mixed-methods case study relies on semistructured interviews with tenure-track faculty members from North American graduate archival programs and a survey of North American graduate students and early career professionals to explore how archival education programs incorporate technology. We asked faculty members not only about the technologies they currently teach, but also their curriculum priorities, topical wish lists, and future challenges to and changes in archival education. We asked students and early career professionals whether they wished their graduate program had better prepared them technologically. Findings revealed that although both groups saw technology and digital curation as current and future areas of priority, students and early career professionals felt ill-equipped to engage with technology in practice. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the previous literature and adumbrate opportunities for future research.

Proceedings of the Association for Library and Information Science Education Annual Conference: ALISE 2021, 2021

This qualitative case study breaks new ground theoretically and empirically by bringing affectivi... more This qualitative case study breaks new ground theoretically and empirically by bringing affectivity and the ethics of care to bear on graduate LIS education. Drawing upon semistructured interviews with 33 leading archival educators, this research centers on educators' and students' affective reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students struggled to complete academic work, to develop community, to stave off feelings of loneliness and isolation, and to attend to family or caretaking responsibilities or challenges. Educators meanwhile struggled with the transition to online education, with the loss of interpersonal connections with students and colleagues, and with the necessity of depending wholly upon technologically-mediated communication. Educators responded both sympathetically and empathetically by focusing on students' wellbeing, by adding flexibility to deadlines, and by increased responsiveness and outreach. We contend that the pandemic surfaced a nascent feminist ethics of care, and we advocate for developing this into a full-fledged ethics of pedagogical care.

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 2021

It is simply not enough to declare that because one is a member of an underrepresented community ... more It is simply not enough to declare that because one is a member of an underrepresented community that a commitment to diversity and social responsibility can be taken for granted. Neither can one assume that lack of membership in an underrepresented group precludes a commitment to social responsibility and diversity in teaching and research.-Roberts & Noble (2016), p. 518. In a 2018 report on the future of Library and Information Science (LIS) education, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) underscored the profession's lack of racial and ethnic diversity, which seemed ever more conspicuous given national demographic changes (Sands, Toro, DeVoe, Fuller, & Wolff-Eisenberg, 2018). The report pointed out barriers to formal LIS education: not merely its cost, but also its tendency to adopt synchronous delivery of course content, thus penalizing those without flexible schedules, and its lack of RA and TA positions for distance learners. It recommended that LIS programs recruit from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) more generally, provide a greater number of scholarships, recruit paraprofessionals, and weigh the merits of alternative methods of educational credentialing. But the concerns raised and the suggestions proffered by IMLS have a lengthy history. Fully four decades before the report, scholars such as Carter (1978) identified similar problems and offered similar recommendations. In the late 2010s, in fact, LIS continued to stare down a bedeviling paradox. The profession's inveterate ideal of and concomitant commitment to serving diverse communities and users equally had failed to translate into diversity, equity, and inclusion in LIS education or in the profession overall (Jaeger,

iConference 2021, LNCS 12645, 2021

This paper contends that Community-Based Learning (CBL) promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion... more This paper contends that Community-Based Learning (CBL) promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Library and Information Science and iSchool education. First, we set forth our methodological approach, which is a qualitative case study. Next, we review the literature on diversity, experiential learning, and Community-Based Learning (CBL). Third, we describe how one iSchool is implementing community-based learning in a novel way by embracing data science and design thinking in its pedagogical approach to a new three-course, twelve-credit post-Baccalaureate certificate. We discuss the institutional context for the certificate, the project partners, the twelve CBL Fellows, and the curriculum, which includes two new courses (Design Thinking for Digital Community Service and Data Analytics for Community-Based Data and Service) and a capstone. We conclude by offering directions for future research.

The Library Quarterly, 2020

Scholarship on LGBTQ rights in library and information science remains lamentably underdeveloped.... more Scholarship on LGBTQ rights in library and information science remains lamentably underdeveloped. This research excavates the hidden history of the American Library Association’s Task Force on Gay Liberation between 1971 and 1986. Despite rampant legal and extralegal discrimination, the TF’s members and their allies refused to remain invisible, second-class citizens; they embraced voluntary, grassroots, democratic action.
This research develops the concept of communities of protest information practices (PIPs). It adumbrates a framework comprising four PIPs that distinguished the TF’s work: performative, communal, constructive, and corrective. These practices constituted vital ontological and epistemological interventions in heteronormative librarianship. This research provides a robust conceptual framework to examine not only LGBTQ people, but also other marginalized groups’ protest work.

Library and Information Science Research, 2020

Concern and even conflict over information privacy and access to personal, sensitive, information... more Concern and even conflict over information privacy and access to personal, sensitive, information owns a lengthy, complex, and disputed history in the information professions. A historical case study, this research explores the ethical tensions between information access for (re)use and information privacy regarding queer archival materials. It engages with small worlds and normative behavior, with codes of ethics, and with issues of power and social justice. Various small worlds'
definitions of normative behavior condition and potentially determine their positions on access to perceived sensitive information. Further, information professionals may overlook codes of ethics even when addressing ethical challenges. Finally, the power of information professionals to effect social justice may be overestimated.
Implications for practice and directions for future research are suggested.

Journal of Documentation, 2020

This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives’ information work. Community archive... more This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives’ information work. Community archives and archiving projects represent unprecedentedly democratic venues for information work centering on essential documentary concepts such as custody, collection development and appraisal, processing, arrangement and description, organization, representation and naming, collaboration, resource generation and allocation, activism and social justice, preservation, reuse, and sustainability.

Library Quarterly, 2020

Employed at the Library of Congress for more than a half century (1871-1923), Daniel Alexander Pa... more Employed at the Library of Congress for more than a half century (1871-1923), Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) was the institution’s first African American professional. His life and career sheds light on four broad themes in African American history. First, Murray and his network of public intellectuals debated the most pressing social, political, and cultural issues of the time. Murray wrote voluminously on African American literacy, history, and bibliography, on racial science, and on industrial work; further, he spent much of his career cobbling together an African American encyclopedia. Second, Murray’s life and work showed the combustible intersection of class and race that often cleaved the black community as they debated the best strategies to achieve full citizenship in Jim Crow America. Third, as a professional librarian, Murray engaged the public sphere, marshaling his intellectual authority in service of racial uplift purposes. Finally, Murray adds to our understanding of African American social, cultural, professional, and political life in Washington D.C. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Participatory Archives: Theory and Practice, 2019

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2024

This paper centers on feminism in post-World War II information science, namely in the context of... more This paper centers on feminism in post-World War II information science, namely in the context of the American Documentation Institute (ADI) and the subsequent American Society for Information Science (ASIS). We focus on the years between 1962, when ADI elected its first woman president, and 1988, when it celebrated its 50 th anniversary-a period that overlapped with that of second-wave feminism in the United States. This research makes three scholarly interventions. First, we contribute to the history of information science, particularly to the history of women in the field. Second, we train a feminist epistemology lens on the field. This involves considering women's participation, representation, and marginalization in information science, on the one hand, and the ways in which information scientists approached women's lives, experiences, and bodies, on the other. Third, we situate information science in the broader history of science, juxtaposing ADI/ASIS with other scientific societies' engagement with feminism. In contrast to the national political, social, and cultural changes it wrought, feminism made little headway in information science during this period. The field largely denied women equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2023

Data Science is a burgeoning area in the iField. But Data Science practices have far outstripped ... more Data Science is a burgeoning area in the iField. But Data Science practices have far outstripped the field's ethical safeguards. We argue that Data Science graduate education programs must address this critical problem. In this theoretical and conceptual paper, we posit an ordinary macroethics that we call data flourishing. We contend that this macroethics is most appropriately developed through a holistic, human-centered data science (HCDS)-based pedagogy that concentrates on cultivating communities of ethical practice (COEPs) through social learning. We favor embedding this macroethics throughout iField programs' graduate data science curricula and by extension, the entire data science education enterprise. This paper aligns with the 2023 ASIS&T annual meeting theme of translating research into practice, particularly the subthemes of "improving decision-making" and "understanding the power of information to develop human happiness, equality, and wellbeing."

American Archivist, 2022

This article analyzes 65 North American graduate archival education programs' course listings aga... more This article analyzes 65 North American graduate archival education programs' course listings against current professional standards as crystallized in the 2016 Guidelines for a Graduate Program in Archival Studies (GPAS). The study addresses the following research questions: 1) What types of programs list graduate archival education courses?, 2) What types of courses do these graduate archival programs currently list?, 3) To what extent do archival programs' courses conform to GPAS?, and 4) What are the implications of a program's conforming or not conforming to GPAS? The authors' findings indicate an overriding tendency for graduate archival education programs to be hosted by LIS programs, especially under the auspices of iSchools. They identified a great diversity of graduate archival education programs and course listing combinations. Most important, they analyzed the archival curriculum coverage of 65 graduate archival programs to discern conformance with GPAS curriculum requirements. Although their findings may be used by programs for self-study, they also call into question the overall utility of GPAS and suggest the need for a more flexible approach.

American Archivist, 2023

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) has long involved itself with graduate-level archival ed... more The Society of American Archivists (SAA) has long involved itself with graduate-level archival education. It has sponsored committees and subcommittees, guidelines, roundtables/sections, student chapters, and pre-conferences. But limited empirical evidence exists regarding faculty members' view of SAA's involvement with graduate archival education. This exploratory qualitative case study employs semistructured interviews with full-time, tenure-track archival faculty. We address the ways in which SAA contributes to faculty members' teaching, faculty members' encouragement of students to join SAA, SAA student chapters and faculty advising, and how SAA might promote better communication, coordination, and collaboration between graduate archival education programs and practitioners. We contend that despite decades of effort on both sides, the relationship between graduate archival education programs and the Society of American Archivists remains disjointed, ultimately limiting the field's development. We offer recommendations and suggestions for future research to strengthen this relationship in the interest of improving student experience and the health of the profession.

Information for a Better World: Normality, Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity, 2023

This paper centers on the early years (1970-1975) of the Black Caucus of the American Library Ass... more This paper centers on the early years (1970-1975) of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The Caucus sought to combat structural, professional, and personal racism, to achieve equity in library employment, services, and materials, and to imbue Black librarians and Black library users at all types of libraries and in all geographic locations with a sense of dignity, pride, agency, and self-determination.

We engage with five literatures in this paper; each engagement shows the inter-penetration of information and library science with larger currents of political, social, and cultural history. First, historian Stephen Tuck posits a “long freedom struggle” starting with Emancipation in 1863, not merely a narrow civil rights period embracing the late 1950s and first half of the 1960s. The Black Caucus’s work comprised a crucial part of this broader, longer, multifaceted Black protest agenda. Second, like Tuck we embrace an ecumenical definition of Black activism: both building and resisting proved essential. We explore Black Caucus activism in four cases of resistance and four of building. Third, following historian Darlene Clark Hine, we argue that Black middle-class professionals, in this case librarians, played a vital role in the freedom struggle. Fourth, we complicate the conventional periodization narrative in library and information science history that ends with the desegregation of state associations and public libraries by the end of 1966. The struggle for racial equality and equity in librarianship remained far from complete. Fifth, scholars have paid considerable attention to the desegregation of public libraries but have neglected other aspects of the freedom struggle in LIS.

The American Archivist, 2022

Since the 1936 founding of the Society of American Archivists, the archival field has struggled w... more Since the 1936 founding of the Society of American Archivists, the archival field has struggled with the challenges inhering in professionalization, namely the merits or demerits of institutional or individual accreditation or certification. In 1989, SAA helped establish the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), which confers individual certification by written examination. In 1993, ACA modified its bylaws to require graduate education to be eligible for the exam. But, although a relationship clearly exists between certification and education, scholars have not explored, much less profited from, the insights of archival educators. This qualitative case study uses semistructured interviews with thirty-three tenure-track or tenured faculty program directors from graduate archival programs across North America to understand how educators perceive and address certification. Findings reveal that educators are ambivalent about certification, its relationship to graduate education, and its vocational value. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and offer suggestions for research and practice.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2022

This paper brings together and enriches the heretofore dispersed literature on information work a... more This paper brings together and enriches the heretofore dispersed literature on information work and information practices. It does so under the auspices of Critical Race Theory (CRT), intersectionality, and care work. Using the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States as the context for an exploratory, qualitative case study, we propose the concept of intersectional information work practices (IIWP) to denote the cluster of information-centric tasks in which Black women carers engaged. Seeking, scanning, searching, monitoring, finding, receiving, retrieving, using, and sharing information-Black women carers performed each of these IIWPs in dealing with health care providers, tests, illness and treatment, wellness, logistics, and avoiding misinformation. An IIWP lens sheds light on the too often invisible labor of Black women carers. Such a lens also brings into high relief the importance of scrutinizing power and (in)equity, race, gender, and class in exploring foundational Information Science concepts.

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 2022

.

iConference 2022, 2022

Based on a qualitative, exploratory case study, this research pivots around a three course, twelv... more Based on a qualitative, exploratory case study, this research pivots around a three course, twelve credit, one year post-baccalaureate certificate (PBC) centering on community-based learning (CBL). We unpack the experiences and elicit the insights of our first cohort of Fellows (2020-2021). Interviewees discussed their motivations for applying; their project-based CBL work in three courses (data science, design thinking/UX, and a capstone) performed individually or in teams; their community competencies development (communication, technical, design, and community needs analysis); the ways in which the PBC enhanced their career opportunities (pursuing the Master's degree, tying in their PBC work with their current jobs, and its salutary impact on their career prospects); and how the certificate promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through targeted recruitment, a cohort structure, and community engagement. We discuss and reflect on lessons learned, the ways in which our research extends and complicates the existing literature, and suggestions for future research.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2021

Addressing the data skills gap, namely the superabundance of data and the lack of human capital t... more Addressing the data skills gap, namely the superabundance of data and the lack of human capital to exploit it, this paper argues that iSchools and Library and Information Science programs are ideal venues for data science education. It unpacks two case studies: the LIS Education and Data Science for the National Digital Platform (LEADS-4-NDP) project (2017-2019), and the LIS Education and Data Science-Integrated Network Group (LEADING) project (2020-2023). These IMLS-funded initiatives respond to four national digital platform challenges: LIS faculty prepared to teach data science and mentor the next generation of educators and practitioners, an underdeveloped pedagogical infrastructure, scattered and inconsistent data science education opportunities for students and current information professionals, and an immature data science network. LEADS and LEADING have made appreciable collaborative, interdisciplinary contributions to the data science education community; these projects comprise an essential part of the long-awaited and much-needed national digital platform.

Archival Science, 2021

Who an archivist is-much less what an archivist does-has long remained an enigma. Glossing Crèvec... more Who an archivist is-much less what an archivist does-has long remained an enigma. Glossing Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782), Society of American Archivists president Posner (1957) mused, "What, Then, Is the American Archivist, This New Man?" Posner's rumination pointed to a complementary question, that is, how should an archivist, however defined, be educated? Expanding Posner's focus from the United States to North America, this exploratory qualitative case study unpacks the most pressing issues facing graduate archival educators and archival education more broadly. First, we review the literature. Second, we state our methodological approach. Third, we discuss findings, homing in on faculty, curriculum, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), digital technology, and sustainability. Fourth, our discussion addresses our findings' implications. Fifth, we offer conclusions and directions for future research. Cox (2000a) lamented, "indicative of [archival studies's] youthfulness is the fact that we have done so little research about our own educational programs" (p. 375). Two decades later, his observation remains valid. This article addresses this knowledge gap. Literature review Archival educators, the curriculum, interdisciplinarity and collaboration, diversity, equity, and inclusion, digital technology, and sustainability-all represent nodes of scholarly debate in North American archival discourse. Archival educators Though archival educators remain understudied (Gilliland, 2011), scholars discuss the need for full-time faculty, balancing teaching and research, and the faculty-practitioner relationship.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology , 2022

This exploratory mixed-methods case study relies on semistructured interviews with tenure-track f... more This exploratory mixed-methods case study relies on semistructured interviews with tenure-track faculty members from North American graduate archival programs and a survey of North American graduate students and early career professionals to explore how archival education programs incorporate technology. We asked faculty members not only about the technologies they currently teach, but also their curriculum priorities, topical wish lists, and future challenges to and changes in archival education. We asked students and early career professionals whether they wished their graduate program had better prepared them technologically. Findings revealed that although both groups saw technology and digital curation as current and future areas of priority, students and early career professionals felt ill-equipped to engage with technology in practice. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the previous literature and adumbrate opportunities for future research.

Proceedings of the Association for Library and Information Science Education Annual Conference: ALISE 2021, 2021

This qualitative case study breaks new ground theoretically and empirically by bringing affectivi... more This qualitative case study breaks new ground theoretically and empirically by bringing affectivity and the ethics of care to bear on graduate LIS education. Drawing upon semistructured interviews with 33 leading archival educators, this research centers on educators' and students' affective reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students struggled to complete academic work, to develop community, to stave off feelings of loneliness and isolation, and to attend to family or caretaking responsibilities or challenges. Educators meanwhile struggled with the transition to online education, with the loss of interpersonal connections with students and colleagues, and with the necessity of depending wholly upon technologically-mediated communication. Educators responded both sympathetically and empathetically by focusing on students' wellbeing, by adding flexibility to deadlines, and by increased responsiveness and outreach. We contend that the pandemic surfaced a nascent feminist ethics of care, and we advocate for developing this into a full-fledged ethics of pedagogical care.

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 2021

It is simply not enough to declare that because one is a member of an underrepresented community ... more It is simply not enough to declare that because one is a member of an underrepresented community that a commitment to diversity and social responsibility can be taken for granted. Neither can one assume that lack of membership in an underrepresented group precludes a commitment to social responsibility and diversity in teaching and research.-Roberts & Noble (2016), p. 518. In a 2018 report on the future of Library and Information Science (LIS) education, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) underscored the profession's lack of racial and ethnic diversity, which seemed ever more conspicuous given national demographic changes (Sands, Toro, DeVoe, Fuller, & Wolff-Eisenberg, 2018). The report pointed out barriers to formal LIS education: not merely its cost, but also its tendency to adopt synchronous delivery of course content, thus penalizing those without flexible schedules, and its lack of RA and TA positions for distance learners. It recommended that LIS programs recruit from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) more generally, provide a greater number of scholarships, recruit paraprofessionals, and weigh the merits of alternative methods of educational credentialing. But the concerns raised and the suggestions proffered by IMLS have a lengthy history. Fully four decades before the report, scholars such as Carter (1978) identified similar problems and offered similar recommendations. In the late 2010s, in fact, LIS continued to stare down a bedeviling paradox. The profession's inveterate ideal of and concomitant commitment to serving diverse communities and users equally had failed to translate into diversity, equity, and inclusion in LIS education or in the profession overall (Jaeger,

iConference 2021, LNCS 12645, 2021

This paper contends that Community-Based Learning (CBL) promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion... more This paper contends that Community-Based Learning (CBL) promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Library and Information Science and iSchool education. First, we set forth our methodological approach, which is a qualitative case study. Next, we review the literature on diversity, experiential learning, and Community-Based Learning (CBL). Third, we describe how one iSchool is implementing community-based learning in a novel way by embracing data science and design thinking in its pedagogical approach to a new three-course, twelve-credit post-Baccalaureate certificate. We discuss the institutional context for the certificate, the project partners, the twelve CBL Fellows, and the curriculum, which includes two new courses (Design Thinking for Digital Community Service and Data Analytics for Community-Based Data and Service) and a capstone. We conclude by offering directions for future research.

The Library Quarterly, 2020

Scholarship on LGBTQ rights in library and information science remains lamentably underdeveloped.... more Scholarship on LGBTQ rights in library and information science remains lamentably underdeveloped. This research excavates the hidden history of the American Library Association’s Task Force on Gay Liberation between 1971 and 1986. Despite rampant legal and extralegal discrimination, the TF’s members and their allies refused to remain invisible, second-class citizens; they embraced voluntary, grassroots, democratic action.
This research develops the concept of communities of protest information practices (PIPs). It adumbrates a framework comprising four PIPs that distinguished the TF’s work: performative, communal, constructive, and corrective. These practices constituted vital ontological and epistemological interventions in heteronormative librarianship. This research provides a robust conceptual framework to examine not only LGBTQ people, but also other marginalized groups’ protest work.

Library and Information Science Research, 2020

Concern and even conflict over information privacy and access to personal, sensitive, information... more Concern and even conflict over information privacy and access to personal, sensitive, information owns a lengthy, complex, and disputed history in the information professions. A historical case study, this research explores the ethical tensions between information access for (re)use and information privacy regarding queer archival materials. It engages with small worlds and normative behavior, with codes of ethics, and with issues of power and social justice. Various small worlds'
definitions of normative behavior condition and potentially determine their positions on access to perceived sensitive information. Further, information professionals may overlook codes of ethics even when addressing ethical challenges. Finally, the power of information professionals to effect social justice may be overestimated.
Implications for practice and directions for future research are suggested.

Journal of Documentation, 2020

This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives’ information work. Community archive... more This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives’ information work. Community archives and archiving projects represent unprecedentedly democratic venues for information work centering on essential documentary concepts such as custody, collection development and appraisal, processing, arrangement and description, organization, representation and naming, collaboration, resource generation and allocation, activism and social justice, preservation, reuse, and sustainability.

Library Quarterly, 2020

Employed at the Library of Congress for more than a half century (1871-1923), Daniel Alexander Pa... more Employed at the Library of Congress for more than a half century (1871-1923), Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) was the institution’s first African American professional. His life and career sheds light on four broad themes in African American history. First, Murray and his network of public intellectuals debated the most pressing social, political, and cultural issues of the time. Murray wrote voluminously on African American literacy, history, and bibliography, on racial science, and on industrial work; further, he spent much of his career cobbling together an African American encyclopedia. Second, Murray’s life and work showed the combustible intersection of class and race that often cleaved the black community as they debated the best strategies to achieve full citizenship in Jim Crow America. Third, as a professional librarian, Murray engaged the public sphere, marshaling his intellectual authority in service of racial uplift purposes. Finally, Murray adds to our understanding of African American social, cultural, professional, and political life in Washington D.C. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Participatory Archives: Theory and Practice, 2019