SLAIS Colloquia 2011/2012
UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS) Colloquium Series Winter Term 1, 2011/12
Contacts: Eric Meyers, Aaron Loehrlein (SLAIS Faculty)
SLAIS Colloquia are recorded and broadcast through generous funding from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. See videos of past colloquia at http://www.slais.ubc.ca/news/news.htm.
Wednesday, October 13
12:00 –1:00 pm, Angus 237
Human-Centred Systems for Sustainable Living
Lynn Bartram, Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Abstract of the Talk: Reducing our ecological footprint requires not only new energy technologies but also new and more efficient energy use. But changing the way we use energy is proving challenging. A key part of this includes the homes we live in. Our research is concerned with how we can use interactive and mobile technologies to help residents make better energy and resource use decisions. In this talk, i will introduce some of the issues and describe our work on ALIS, the interactive system we have built for use in sustainable homes. I'll briefly discuss how we applied this in two recent highly efficient houses: NOrth House, the 2009 4th place entry in the International Solar decathlon, and West House, our newest industry-academic collaboration. Recently showcased at the 2010 Olympics, West House just relocated to its permanent site as a technology research space and an occupied living lab to further prototype and study residential methods to support sustainable living. I will conclude with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for carrying out this kind of work in the field.
Biography of the Speaker:
Lyn Bartram is an Assistant Professor at SFU's School of Interactive Art+Technology. She has had a somewhat varied career, starting with a BA in Political Science from UBC and detouring for a number of years into the murky depths of the music business before going straight, getting a Masters at the University of Waterloo and a PhD in Computer Science with Tom Calvert at SFU. Her research interests centre around HCI, visualization and more generally how complex information systems may help or hinder peoples' lives. With Rob Woodbury, she founded and leads the Human-Centred Systems for Sustainability Research group, and occasionally undertakes overly ambitious projects.
Wednesday, October 19
12:00 –1:00 pm, Lillooet Room, IKBLC
Keep Calm and Carry On or Freak Out and Throw Stuff; The Public Library Moving Forward
Paul Whitney, Educator and Consultant, Former City Librarian, Vancouver Public Library and former Chief
Abstract of the Talk: Amid escalating disruptive change in content provision and the widening economic malaise, the viability of public libraries is increasingly questioned. Drawing on his experience as a public librarian and copyright user rights advocate, Paul Whitney will discuss the implications of recent transformations for libraries. Whitney recently completed a research project on eBooks and Public Lending Right in Canada for the Public Lending Right Commission and is engaged in efforts to gain approval for a World Intellectual Property Organization international treaty on limitations and exceptions for libraries.
Biography of the Speaker:
Paul Whitney is a consultant and educator on library and public policy issues. He served as Chief Librarian at Burnaby Public Library for 13 years and as the City Librarian at Vancouver Public Library from 2003 to his retirement at the end of 2010. He has been involved in various professional activities throughout his career, including serving as President of the Canadian Library Association and the British Columbia Library Association. Paul is a member of the International Federation of Library Associations Governing Board and is the GB liaison to IFLA’s Copyright and Other Legal Matters Committee (CLM). He previously served six years as the Canadian representative on the CLM. Paul served on the Canadian Public Lending Right Commission and Executive for eight years and served at the Chair of the Library and Archives Canada Council on Access to Information for Print Disabled Canadians.
School Library Day Colloquium (Co-Sponsored with the UBC Education Library)
Wednesday, November 2
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm, Dodson Room, IKBLC
Project Information Literacy: What College Students Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age
Mike Eisenberg, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of Washington, The Information School, Co-Principal Investigator, Project Information Literacy
Abstract of the Talk: Project Information Literacy (PIL) is ongoing research project, based in the University of Washington's Information School. The project seeks to understand how early adults conceptualize and operationalize research activities for course work and "everyday life" use and especially how they resolve issues of credibility, authority, relevance, and currency in the digital age. Research in 2009-2010 collected data from over 10,000 students. Most recently, PIL studied how 560 college students managed technology and multitasked while they were in the library during "crunch time" (the final weeks of the term). Prof. Eisenberg will discuss the findings and implications of PIL research--for higher education but also for information work across settings and contexts.
Biography of the Speaker: Mike Eisenberg is the "founding dean" of the Information School at the University of Washington, serving from 1998 to 2006. During his tenure, Mike transformed the school from a single graduate degree program into a broad-based information school with a wide range of research and academic programs, including an undergraduate degree in informatics, masters degrees in information management and library and information science (adding a distance learning program and doubling enrollment), and a doctorate degree in information science.
Mike's current work focuses on information literacy, information problem-solving in virtual environments (funded by the MacArthur Foundation), and information science education K-20. His "Big6 approach to information problem-solving" is the most widely used information literacy program in the world. Mike is a prolific author (9 books and dozens of articles and papers) and has worked with thousands of students-pre-K through higher education-as well as people in business, government, and communities to improve their information and technology skills.
Wednesday, November 9
12:00 –1:00 pm, Dodson Room, IKBLC
Digital Literacy: Changing the Dynamics of Learning
William Cope, Research Professor, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Abstract of the Talk: We can use new technologies to do conventional, old things—as we do when we transfer Gutenberg’s typographic schemas onto desktops or the heritage logic of classrooms into learning management systems. This presentation explores seven ‘affordances’—things we could do differently with new media technologies, even though much of the time we do not. The things I am going to highlight are by no means written into new media technologies. In fact, these are all things that, with effort, we could have done with printed texts and in traditional classrooms, and sometimes did. The change of greatest significance is the economy of effort.
The presentation will be around the wrong way, starting in the first half with the practicalities of a several projects I am working on for the US Department of Education. For these projects, we have been building an online writing, learning and assessment environment, and trialing it in schools. I will show this. In the second half of my talk, I will get into the theory and explore the seven affordances: collaboration, differentiation, metacognition, ubiquity, multimodality, agency and evaluation.
Biography of the Speaker:
Bill Cope is a Research Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at University of Illinois, and is co-author or editor, with Mary Kalantzis, of a number of books in the fields of curriculum and assessment, recently including: New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, Cambridge University Press, 2008; Ubiquitous Learning, University of Illinois Press, 2009 and Literacies, Cambridge University Press, 2011. He is a former First Assistant Secretary in the Australian Government's Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. He is inventor of a ‘Method for the Creation, Location and Formatting of Digital Content’, US Patent 7,886,225 B2.
Wednesday, November 16
12:00 –1:00 pm, Dodson Room, IKBLC
After Digital Repatriation: Articulations of Heritage, Community, and Cultural Property in a Northern Athapascan Hunting Group
Amber Riddington, New Media Artist
Abstract of the Talk: Using examples from her collaborative and applied work with the Doig River First Nation, a Dane-zaa Athapaskan group in northeastern BC, folklorist Amber Ridington will discuss some of the issues of cultural representation and cultural property that have surfaced and have been mediated within the Doig River community, and other Dane-zaa communities with shared interests, during a sequence of digital cultural heritage projects since 1999.
These collaborative projects began with simple goals of digital preservation and digital repatriation, and have expanded their scope and implications to include cultural reclamation and language revitalization as they have grown to incorporate participatory ethnography, participatory exhibition, and global distribution through the Internet. Doig River's most recent collaborative project with Amber is the award winning virtual exhibit, Dane-Wajich - Dane-zaa
Stories and Songs: Dreamers and the Land hosted by the Virtual Museum of Canada (www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Danewajich 2007). This exhibition integrates subtitled Dane-zaa and English video narratives, interpretive e-text, photographs of the production process, recordings of archival songs, and contemporary and archival images of traditional lands in order to showcase Dane-zaa culture and to address present concerns faced by the community as they negotiate legacies of colonialism and a changing relationship to the land.
These projects signify the possibilities and challenges for the use of digital media to both conserve and represent Indigenous heritage. Amber will discuss her efforts to recontextualize archival materials and standardize the catalogue system, the development of a community defined process of documentation and self representation, and Doig River's initiatives to balance protecting and sharing their cultural heritage materials with the public through a tradition based attribution and clearance protocol for the use and distribution of archival heritage materials.
Biography of the Speaker:
Amber Riddington is a folklorist with experience producing and curating exhibits, websites and documentaries that showcase cultural traditions. Amber’s interest in cultural documentation grew out of her background in archaeology. During her eight years as a contract archaeologist (1992-2000) she became interested in not just what people left behind but also peoples’ living traditions – their stories, their songs, their lifeways - and what these mean to them. Amber holds an M.A. in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University, a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia and is currently a doctoral candidate in Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS) Colloquium Series Winter Term 2, 2011/12
Location: TBA
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall, UBC
Contacts: Eric Meyers, Aaron Loehrlein(SLAIS Faculty)
SLAIS Colloquia are recorded and broadcast through generous funding from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. See videos of past colloquia at http://www.slais.ubc.ca/news/news.htm.
Thursday, January 26
4:30-5:30 pm
TOPIC: TBA
Paulette Bourgois, MACL Colloquium
Author of Franklin the Turtle Series
Abstract of the Talk: TBA
Biography of the Speaker: TBA
Wednesday, March 14
12:00 –1:00 pm
TOPIC: TBA
Joan Mitchell, OCLC
Editor-in-Chief, Dewey Decimal Classification
Abstract of the Talk: TBA
Biography of the Speaker: TBA
