Articles, Preprints, and Presentations by CUL Staff
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A Collection of articles, preprints and presentations by the Staff of the Cornell University Library.
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Item Solidarity and Fragility: Preserving Activist ArtifactsCalco, Steven; Farwell, Marcie; Parker, Elizabeth (2024-09)Since the founding of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives in 1949, our collecting strategy has explicitly focused on assembling the most complete record of labor activism possible. Part of this mandate includes collecting and preserving the material culture and artifacts of the American labor movement. These artifacts include traditional items such as labor broadsides, banners, posters, badges, and pins and non-traditional items like a shoe stolen from a scab that was covered in bronze to commemorate a successful strike. The management collections at Kheel include artifacts, such as fabric samples and company letters documenting the sale of Lowell (Slave) Cloth, that on their surface seem to be the antithesis of activist artifacts, but through their use in other contexts have become powerful symbols in modern activist spaces. The materiality of these early objects of protest and activism serves to engage our patrons in a way that documents and records often do not. Their size, color, iconography, and craftsmanship make them striking examples of past activism, but that materiality also creates serious concerns around the preservation of and access to these items. This presentation discusses the ways in which Kheel Center archivists have engaged students and the public with activist artifacts through active learning lessons and exhibitions, while processing archivists have sought to improve access to the artifacts through robust description, and taking the appropriate steps to protect them from the ravages of time.Item Infrastructure Needs in 21st century Audiovisual ArchivesBerney, Tre (Tre Berney, 2024-09-25)Over 90% of the data that exists today was created within the last decade. Audiovisual archives maintain that same challenges they have always had, yet archives aren’t prepared for the onslaught of content being produced. It is increasingly how we communicate and consume information. In order to inhabit this digital world, we must reframe how we think of audiovisual content. It is created, managed, preserved, and made accessible in the context of a data-driven world. This talk will focus on core components of infrastructure that are required to continue our work on capturing and maintaining our shared record in a multi-disciplinary world. It will also raise questions around perception of audiovisual materials in the field of research data management. There is a coming convergence in best practices from archives to research data management that should be explored.Item Whose Authority?Daniels, Laura E.; Magagnosc, Jacqueline K.; Parker, Elizabeth (2024-07)Commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is a core value of our institution, therefore this work is integral to everything we do. How does one build this commitment into daily work in a sustainable way? With our current library leadership heavily invested in these values, we as metadata practitioners are trying to integrate, in a sustainable and equitable way, our work within the broader organizational ecosystem.Item "It isn't part of our language"Folsom, Steven; Daniels, Laura E. (ALA Editions, 2024)In spring 2021 Steven Folsom approached Laura Daniels with a question: how might we address the fact that our catalog records use the subject “Iroquois Indians” when the people described by that term call themselves Haudenosaunee? This question, and the ensuing discussion about the issues of accurate representation as well as retrieval, led to an investigation that has resulted in at least one subject heading change proposal to the Library of Congress, a deepened appreciation for the complexity and the importance of direct communication around terminology in controlled vocabularies, and ongoing questions around what is and what should be considered an authoritative source. This case study outlines the process through which the authors sought guidance and received feedback from members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Indigenous scholars. Provided is an account of challenges encountered (both with communication and with accurate representation of words and names), decisions made, and unresolved questions and concerns related to the representation of the Haudenosaunee and Indigenous people more broadly in controlled vocabularies such as Library of Congress Subject Headings.Item Systematic Reviews Of The Literature Vs. Reviewing Literature Systematically: What’s The Difference?Bahureksa, Lindsay (2024-03-14)Throughout the research cycle, researchers of all levels—from faculty to undergraduates to the librarians and staff that support them—will encounter the question: what is known about this topic, and where does my research fit into it? In recent years, there has been a push towards performing systematic reviews to answer this question. However, while systematic reviews can comprehensively survey the research topic, the process requires significant resources. Instead, insights and best practices from the systematic review process may help researchers review literature more effectively. This introductory-level presentation is focused on defining intuition about what a systematic review versus a literature review is, what hurdles there might be in performing systematic reviews, and how approaches developed in systematic reviews can still support create robust, reproducible literature reviews and minimize bias.Item Media in Archives at CULBerney, Tre (2024-03-20)This was a guest lecture given by Tre Berney as part of English 6050 Archives and Artifacts (seminar) in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Spring Semester. It covers media challenges in archives, specifically time-based media. It covers how processing of non-paper-based collections is handled at Cornell University Library, and it touches on the larger archives environment, digital storage, and more.Item Entity Metadata Management API: A Specification for Communicating Changes to Entity DescriptionsFolsom, Steven; Warner, Simeon (2024-03-06)The Entity Metadata Management API (EMM API) is an effort with the LD4 community to define a specification for communicating changes to linked data entity datasets so that data consumers are aware of new, updated, and deprecated entities as the dataset evolves over time. Understanding these types of changes is critical for a number of use cases including local caching of labels and caching of full datasets. The specification builds on the widely adopted W3C ActivityStreams specification with usage patterns appropriate for entity datasets. This presentation will provide an overview of the use cases and specification. We will also share examples of early implementations (including the Library of Congress, e.g. id.loc.gov subjects), demonstrating the specification is ready for adoption.Item On this Rock: Why Democracies Need LibrariesWestbrooks, Elaine L. (2024-02-27)In a time of intense political polarization, libraries in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. Yet the Pew Charitable Trust has documented that Americans have consistently put their trust in libraries more than other institutions. Carl A. Kroch University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks will discuss how research libraries promote and sustain democratic activities by highlighting the role Cornell’s librarians play in providing citizenship education, stewarding facts, and building pluralistic and diverse communities—activities that fundamentally make our democracy more secure and stable for future generations.Item Cornell University Library (CUL) Browser IP Obfuscation Task Team Recommendation ReportHowell, Debra; Chandler, Adam; Blumenthal, Amy; Johns, Erica; McCracken, Peter; Morris-Knower, Jim; Stergion, Peter (2024-01)Internet privacy and the ability to access electronic resources safely and reliably are fundamental concerns for libraries and their users. In 2024, a significant change is anticipated in the form of a new browser IP obfuscation setting. The setting aims to enhance user privacy by obfuscating their true IP addresses by transparently routing queries for online content through secure proxies. While this may benefit user privacy, it also raises important questions about its impact on libraries and their ability to provide access to electronic resources efficiently, given our reliance on IP-based authentication in licensing.Item Strategies for Critical Visual Literacy Instruction in Small Liberal Arts InstitutionsKrahmer, Debbie; Buell, Jesi; Keen, Sarah (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2024-01-04)Small liberal arts institutions face unique challenges when addressing visual literacy in academic library and archives instruction settings. Given the hybrid nature of job duties at institutions of this size, librarians and archivists often are not trained specifically in visual literacy or visual arts disciplines, and they often perform multiple functional duties in addition to instruction and support multiple disciplines. Resources and time for professional development can be limited, and instructors generally are limited to teaching one-shot sessions. The first section will complicate conventional methodologies and offer ideas for applied learning in both digital and in-person spaces. When examining traditional visual literacy, it is important to challenge the framework we were taught so that the field keeps growing and so that these principles align with student experiences. Next, using methods from museum education and history methods workshops, the second section will examine how students are empowered to demystify the understanding of visuals without formal arts training. This section encourages sessions that ask questions of visuals and reinforce an individual’s powers of observation and other ways of knowing. The last part will explore how visual literacy is more than just the “visual” in the traditional sense; it can involve description, haptics, tactile, and other ways of “seeing.” When incorporating values of Universal Design and Disability Studies, visual literacy expands to allow all users, regardless of level of sight, to interact, understand, and explore visual mediums.