scholarly journals The “Customer” is Not Always Right: Third-Party Sexual Harassment in Libraries

Author(s):  
Angela Lieu ◽  
Danielle Allard ◽  
Tami Oliphant

Third party sexual harassment is often experienced by frontline library workers and is perpetuated by the very patrons they endeavour to support. This paper reports on the results of an environmental scan designed to delineate the interdisciplinary scope of third-party sexual harassment, to describe methods and methodologies used to understand this issue from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and to inform future research in Library and Information Studies on this understudied, but critically important topic.

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren H. Mandel

Abstract Objective – Often people enter libraries focused on their primary information needs and haven't considered their need for spatial information to find their way to what they need. This presents unique wayfinding information challenges for libraries. Papers on library wayfinding often include some discussion of the lack of wayfinding research in libraries, but apparently there has been no comprehensive review of the LIS literature on wayfinding. Methods – This paper is a comprehensive review of library wayfinding literature, using the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text (via EBSCOhost) database to collect the dataset. Results – Findings indicate a small collection of library wayfinding research, primarily focused on academic libraries. Conclusion – Empirical research in this area is limited. Suggestions for future research on library wayfinding, including potential foci for that research, are presented.


Author(s):  
Tami Oliphant ◽  
Danielle Allard ◽  
Angela Lieu ◽  
Karla Mallach

Patron-perpetrated sexual harassment (PPSH) is increasingly recognized as a significant problem in the field of library and information studies (LIS) but is often described and treated as “unfortunate” and “part of the job.” The results from a large-scale survey (505 responses) where participants described incidents of PPSH in the workplace support widely held public statements that define PPSH as a form of gender-based violence (GBV), insisting that it must be named and treated as such. Naming PPSH as sexual harassment and a form of GBV has important implications for library workers, library workplaces, and the broader field of LIS.


Author(s):  
David James Hudson

Drawing on a range of critical race and anti-colonial writing, and focusing chiefly on Anglo-Western contexts of librarianship, this paper offers a broad critique of diversity as the dominant mode of anti-racism in LIS. After outlining diversity's core tenets, I examine the ways in which the paradigm's centering of inclusion as a core anti-racist strategy has tended to inhibit meaningful treatment of racism as a structural phenomenon. Situating LIS diversity as a liberal anti-racism, I then turn to diversity's tendency to privilege individualist narratives of (anti-)racism, particularly narratives of cultural competence, and the intersection of such individualism with broader structures of political-economic domination. Diversity's preoccupation with demographic inclusion and individual behavioural competence has, I contend, left little room in the field for substantive engagement with race as a historically contingent phenomenon: race is ultimately reified through LIS diversity discourse, effectively precluding exploration of the ways in which racial formations are differentially produced in the contextually-specific exercise of power itself. I argue that an LIS foregrounding of race as a historical construct - the assumption of its contingency - would enable deeper inquiry into the complex ways in which our field - and indeed the diversity paradigm specifically - aligns with the operations of contemporary regimes of racial subordination in the first place. I conclude with a reflection on the importance of the Journal of Critical Information and Library Studies as a potential site of critical exchange from which to articulate a sustained critique of race in and through our field.


Author(s):  
Marika Cifor ◽  
Jamie A. Lee

Neoliberalism, as economic doctrine, as political practice, and even as a "governing rationality" of contemporary life and work, has been encroaching on the library and information studies (LIS) field for decades. The shift towards a conscious grappling with social justice and human rights debates and concerns in archival studies scholarship and practice since the 1990s opens the possibility for addressing neoliberalism and its elusive presence. Despite its far-reaching influence, neoliberalism has yet to be substantively addressed in archival discourse. In this article, we propose a set of questions for archival practitioners and scholars to reflect on and consider through their own hands-on practices, research, and productions with records, records creators, and distinct archival communities in order to develop an ongoing archival critique. The goal of this critique is to move towards "an ethical practice of community, as an important mode of participation." This article marks a starting point for critically engaging the archival studies discipline along with the LIS field more broadly by interrogating the discursive and material evidences and implications of neoliberalism.


Author(s):  
Tim Gorichanaz

A synthesis of the work of Michael Buckland reveals the critique that, for too long, LIS has been a one-sided coin. Growing out of professional education, LIS has traditionally nurtured only its applied, practical and empirical side. Challenging this imbalance, emerging research in LIS points to the development of the basic, liberal arts and conceptual side of the discipline. Indeed, the advent of JCLIS reflects this trend. An interest in basic LIS is welcome for a number of reasons: By clarifying key concepts, it will lead to improved practice; by contributing more widely to human knowledge it will fulfill the obligations of being an academic research department; and by exploring information issues which are becoming relevant to all members of society, it will realize a greater purpose. This paper surveys the extent to which the basic side of LIS has emerged, examining the content of the top LIS journals and the curricula of the top LIS institutions. The findings point to an inchoate reverse, but one with numerous challenges that remain beyond the horizon. This paper serves as an invitation to researchers and educators to consider how they can further contribute to minting the basic side of the coin of LIS.


Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thatayaone Segaetsho ◽  
Julie Moloi

In the past few decades, digital technology has found a place in the acquisition, arrangement, description, preservation, and dissemination of information. However, heritage institutions are perturbed by the challenges of digital preservation strategies particularly for education. Despite continuous investment in digital preservation, there are limited skilled professionals to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and competencies required to drive digital preservation in Botswana. Therefore, this paper investigated the knowledge, skills and competencies related to digital preservation in the teaching curricula of the Department of Library and Information Studies (DLIS) at the University of Botswana. Data collection was done through intensive structured interviews with specific educators who teach courses on digital preservation in the archives and records management stream. The study revealed that despite the fact that the educators in preservation courses are aware of current trends in digital preservation, most of them have not obtained formal degree certification specific to digital preservation. The findings further revealed that minimal digital preservation competencies are observed in the teaching curricula. A significant number of challenges observed illustrated mainly a lack of resources and limited skills in terms of practical demonstrations by educators. The curricula mostly lacked clarity on long-term and short-term digital preservation. The study recommends that DLIS and other institutions should conduct surveys or curriculum auditing on digital preservation in order to improve the teaching content. A significant number of shortcomings regarding digital preservation that could motivate further studies are also discussed under the conclusion and recommendations section of this study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bodin Chinthanet ◽  
Raula Gaikovina Kula ◽  
Shane McIntosh ◽  
Takashi Ishio ◽  
Akinori Ihara ◽  
...  

AbstractSecurity vulnerability in third-party dependencies is a growing concern not only for developers of the affected software, but for the risks it poses to an entire software ecosystem, e.g., Heartbleed vulnerability. Recent studies show that developers are slow to respond to the threat of vulnerability, sometimes taking four to eleven months to act. To ensure quick adoption and propagation of a release that contains the fix (fixing release), we conduct an empirical investigation to identify lags that may occur between the vulnerable release and its fixing release (package-side fixing release). Through a preliminary study of 231 package-side fixing release of npm projects on GitHub, we observe that a fixing release is rarely released on its own, with up to 85.72% of the bundled commits being unrelated to a fix. We then compare the package-side fixing release with changes on a client-side (client-side fixing release). Through an empirical study of the adoption and propagation tendencies of 1,290 package-side fixing releases that impact throughout a network of 1,553,325 releases of npm packages, we find that stale clients require additional migration effort, even if the package-side fixing release was quick (i.e., package-side fixing releasetypeSpatch). Furthermore, we show the influence of factors such as the branch that the package-side fixing release lands on and the severity of vulnerability on its propagation. In addition to these lags we identify and characterize, this paper lays the groundwork for future research on how to mitigate propagation lags in an ecosystem.


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