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algorithms and libraries: a case for paying attention

That technology influences information and behavior through built-in and often invisible assumptions is neither a new phenomenon nor new to dialogue among librarians. (Although we could always stand to talk about it more than we already do.) In this post, I highlight some recent contributions on algorithms and libraries in hopes of keeping it in the forefront. If we didn’t already, librarians have to care about algorithms now.

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Room to Grow?

Jennifer Jarson is the Information Literacy and Assessment Librarian and Social Sciences Subject Specialist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.  Her research interests include information literacy and student learning pedagogy […]

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Structuring My Time

This is part of the ongoing ACRLog/HLS collaboration. Check out ACRLog for Madison Sullivan on “Librarianship Doesn’t Need Professionals” Read more about the project here!    Heidi Johnson is the Social Sciences […]

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a difficult book

As the semester nears its end — like a rogue semi reaching the top of a runaway truck ramp — I’m wrapping up a slow read of The Power to Name (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), Hope Olson’s feminist critique of library classification systems. It is kicking my ass.

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whose future?

You’re not alone in worrying about the future. In fact, we are not alone in our profession-wide agonizing over “the future of ___,” nor are we alone in chasing a […]

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greening and sustaining libraries

It can be easy, faced with big statements and bigger revelations, to forget that a billion small, everyday choices also play a role in environmental impacts like climate change. What place do libraries have in this landscape? What does it mean for them to be “green” or “sustainable”? A review of Greening Libraries (2012) and Focus on Educating from Sustainability: Toolkit for Academic Libraries (2014).

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Saving Twitter

Digital preservation has found its way into the mainstream of modern librarianship. Odd and awkward as it may feel to us in these early days, saving Twitter is a critically important project that can help us redefine what it means to be a librarian and reclaim some of our lost cultural significance.