My librarian spidey-sense is tingling

I learned the other day that Pinterest, the mecca for brides, DIYers, and natural mothers, is no longer providing results for searches on variations of the word “vaccine.” Why? The aforementioned “natural mothers” typically reject standard vaccination for their children, and due to the absence of scientific support of this, those natural mothers often create their own communities, both online and off. Pinterest is one of those communities, and allows users to share visual “proof” of the harm of vaccines along with advice and support. This is a powerful mechanism, and the natural mothering community has embraced it. Hard. Pinterest, […]

Changing of the Guard

I’m teaching a brand new class this term, and I was surprised by its popularity. It’s a first year seminar, in the brand new Digital Culture and Information minor. Lots of shiny new stuff. Including my students. It’s been a while since I exclusively taught first year students; I often deal with seniors writing honors theses or doing capstone projects, or students in higher level courses. I haven’t had a dedicated class for first years since my last position. So it strikes me, sometimes, how thoughtful first year college students are these days. Perhaps my students are self-selecting (in fact, […]

Social Media #librariangoals

I haven’t written in a while. My inspiration for writing today is a conference I attended yesterday at Radford University, The Innovative Library Classroom (TILC). I have attended this conference every year since it’s birth in 2013, and always find that it re-inspires my #librariangoals. This morning I’m working on updating my professional digital identity, which means creating separate social media accounts for my librarian identity. My reasoning is that my personal social media presence is part progressive politics, part feminism, part parental humor, a little bit of librarianship, and lots of silliness. I am very conscious of the fact that […]