Booknote: Appalachian Health and Well-Being

(Cross-posted from The Itinerant Librarian)


Robert L. Ludke and Phillip J. Obermiller, eds. with Foreword by Richard A. Couto, Appalachia Health and Well-Being. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2012.  ISBN: 978-0-8131-35861.

Genre: nonfiction, reference work
Subgenre: Appalachia, health, health care, academic essays anthology
Format: Hardcover
Source: Hutchins Library, Reference Collection

This note is a reference book review. We currently have this book in our collection at Hutchins Library; I saw it on our new reference books' shelf, and I decided to make this note both to help me better know this resource and to see if it can be helpful for our students here. In this note, I will mainly look at key features of the book, how it is organized, and why it may be useful and how. On a small side note, I will probably pull some notes or items from this review to write a small quick review for our library's blog about this book. What I am saying is this note is a bit different than my usual booknotes.

In our library, we get a lot of questions related to Appalachia and the region in general. Appalachia is also a big part of the college's curriculum, especially in the required reading second semester General Studies course, so we are always looking for resources in this area. Health in the region is often a popular topic in those classes, so this book seems relevant.

I need to note it was published in 2012. For some of our classes that may require sources within 5 years (for reasons I will not go into here), this book may already be "too old." However, for classes looking at the region more broadly and at overall conditions in the region, this book can be useful.

The book is a collection of scholarly signed essays on various health related topics in the region. The book is organized as follows:

• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Three major parts, each containing a series of essays. The book has a total of 16 essays. The major part topics are: 
• Appalachian Health Determinants
• Appalachian Health Status
• Urban Appalachian Health
• Acknowledgements
• Selected bibliography
• List of contributors
• Index

In his foreword to the book, Professor Couto tells us chapters in this book "addressed all the factors that promote health and well-being, including economic, political, psychological, environmental, and social ones" (xi). Maybe "all" is a bit too ambitious, but a look at the book's contents shows work "to put health and health care in a socioeconomic and political context" (xi). For many classes here on campus, specially in that General Studies curriculum I mentioned, this book can provide a good start for student research assignments.

This book is not just a collection of essays. The book's foreword and introduction provide a good overview of the complex issues of the region in terms of health and health care. The editor writes,

"This volume takes a broad perspective by focusing on the health of all Appalachians, both residents of Appalachia and those who have migrated from the region" (1).

The introduction's overview goes over various essential topics in a brief but clear manner in order to provide background material. Some of these topics include:

• Medical services for rural areas
• Health innovations
• Definitions and concepts

What the book does not cover and why. This is the kind of statement that students and researchers need to pay attention to when considering a source for a research task or assignment as it presents the limitations of the work being considered:

"There are important Appalachian subpopulations (e.g African Americans, Hispanics, Eastern Band Cherokee) and health cohorts (e.g. those with HIV/AIDS) that are not discussed in this volume. Although women's health is reasonably well represented here, many other subgroups in Appalachia are not. This is not an intentional omission; it is caused by an unfortunate lack of reliable regional data on these populations" (16). 

The book's introduction includes a section on "organization of this book." Good scholarly essay collections often include this kind of section. Here the editors define how a book is organized and why they chose their book's arrangement as well as briefly describes each essay in the book. So for students, read the introduction, specially this part, to quickly assess how well this book may suit your assignment or not. For many topics on Appalachian health and health care, you may find this book is a good source. At the end of the introduction you will find endnotes and references used in the introduction, which can be useful for expanding your research.

In the book, each scholarly essay has its own list of references as well. Again, those references are a tool to help students and researchers expand their research. We librarians often call using references from a source "citation mining." Want to learn more about this research technique? You can ask your local friendly librarian.

Finally, the book has an index of terms you can use to locate specific contents in the book. Book also contains various tables, charts, and graphs.

I'd say for some of our classes here, especially for some in the General Studies curriculum as well as classes here and in other places in Appalachian Studies, health, and wellness, this book can be a good resource.

Note: no stars rating. This is a reference book. If you have questions about why I did not rate this book, see my book review statement. 

Booknote: Burning the Books

(Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

Richard Ovenden, Burning the Books: a History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-674-24120-6.

 

Genre: nonfiction

Subgenre: books and reading, history, libraries, archives, preservation, LIS

Format: hardcover

Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library

 

As the subtitle states, this is a history of the deliberate destruction of knowledge. Destruction can go from warfare and pillage (what the author might charitably call "displaced or migrated" archives, but we'll get to that). As of this post, the book is relatively up to date on the issue, an issue that not many regular people think about or even realize. Even when it comes to their own data online and how it is being raided and monetized, not many people think about it nor do they give a passing thought as they sign up for yet another online service or social media site, casually and willingly giving them their information. 

The book is arranged into 15 chapters. Each chapter is a case study illustrating the deliberate destruction of knowledge and information. However, it is not just destruction. The book also presents stories of librarians, archivists, and other ordinary people working to save knowledge, often at great risk to their lives. Each chapter can stand alone as an essay. The chapters together give a picture from ancient times to the modern day. 

Ovenden is the director of Oxford University's Bodleian Library, so the book does have a bit of a British focus and voice to it. Being British, i.e. from a former colonial power, he does tend to minimize some pillaging of artifacts, files, books, etc. from former colonies. Those are the files often labeled as "displaced or migrated" as in forcefully migrated from the former colony to colonial powers. Heck, let's be honest, the Bodleian holds a significant number of things that really belong to other countries, and they are not about to return them anytime soon. I did have mixed feelings reading this book given the issue of archives pillaging and him taking a bit of pride in it. 

Putting that issue aside, the book does make some good points that everyone should consider. The latter parts of the book where the author discusses digital archives and texts and issues of preservation are a must read. He also goes over issues of privacy and how so much information is now controlled and exploited by private corporations who have no concern about things like preservation. If we do not take action to preserve things now, there will be very little if anything for the future. 

Overall this is a pretty good book. Though aimed at general readers, it feels a bit more aimed at librarians and archivists, so to some it may be preaching to the choir. Yet for general readers, the book provides a good historical overview and a good discussion of key issues. Despite some issues, I think more people outside places like academia and elite circles need to read this. In the end, I liked it. It od not perfect but it is pretty good. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

* * * * * 

Additional reading notes: 

Author's motivation to write the book: 

"This book has been motivated by my own sense of anger at recent failures across the globe-- both deliberate and accidental-- to ensure that society can rely on libraries and archives to preserve knowledge. The repeated attacks on them over the centuries need to be examined as a worrying trend in human history and the astonishing efforts made by people to protect the knowledge they hold should be celebrated" (5). 

On the difference between libraries and archives. There is some generalization in the statement, and I am sure a librarian and an archivist or two may wish to add a thing or two. Still, for the lay person this may be useful or at least make sense: 

 

"Archives are different from libraries. Libraries are accumulations of knowledge, built up one book at a time, often with great strategic purpose, while archives document directly the actions and decision-making processes of institutions and administrations, even of governments. Libraries often hold some of this material as well-- the printed Journal of the House of Commons, for example-- but archives are by their nature full of material, often mundane in its character, not intended to be read by a mass audience" (8). 

Just a nice quote: 

"There is nothing more to the credit of a library than that every man finds in it what he seeks" -- Gabriel Naude, 1627 (qtd. in 71). 

When Flickr lowered the limit of free photo storage in 2019, it illustrated the fickle nature of many free online services and why you always need your own backups: 

"The problem that the Flickr case throws up is one of trust in the companies that now control knowledge online. Active users will have known about the coming changes, and were perhaps able to move their data on to other platforms. Others who did not move fast enough perhaps lost images of their lost ones or a photographic record of their adventures. Gone in the blink of an eye" (200). 

A relevant question given the U.S. elections in 2016 and 2020: 

"Where so much political campaigning takes place in the realm of social media, how can we be sure that our feeds are not being manipulated unlawfully, and that online campaigning is being done openly and fairly, and with the consent of individuals, unless the data collected by those companies can be archived for open scrutiny" (210). 

On the dysfunctional relationship between people and tech companies: 

"At the heart of the current relationship between the public and the major tech companies is the problem of trust. We all use their services, partly because we have become reliant on them, but increasingly the public does not trust them. Society has created a huge bank of knowledge but has privatised its ownership, management and use, even though the knowledge was created freely by individuals around the world. Arguably the owners of the companies are beginning to be viewed by the public with a sense of dystopian fear and suspicion" (213). 

To sum up, the author presents the five functions of libraries and archives we lose when they get lost or destroyed: 

• "Firstly, they support the education of society as a whole and of specific communities within it. 
• Secondly, they provide a diversity of knowledge and ideas. 
• Thirdly, they support the well-being of citizens and the principles of the open society through the preservation of key rights and through encouraging integrity in decision-making.
• Fourthly, they provide a fixed reference point, allowing truth and falsehood to be judged through transparency, verification, citation, and reproducibility. 
• Finally, they help root societies in their cultural and historical identities through preserving the written record of those societies and cultures" (225). 

 

Some books from the book's bibliography I may want to read later: 

•  David E. Fischman, The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. (2018). ISBN: 9781512603309.
• Meg Leta Jones, Ctrl+Z: the Right to be Forgotten. ISBN: 9781479876747.
• Gabriel Naude, Advice on Establishing a Library. (This is available for borrowing via Internet Archive)
• Rosenbach, A Book Hunter's Holiday. (also available for borrowing via Internet Archive)
• Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. ISBN: 9781541758001.

 

 Book qualifies for this 2021 Reading Challenge: 

 

Random thought: It is OK to ask

Sometimes the simplest yet most challenging part of the job is showing students and reassuring them it is OK to ask for help when confused, so on.

A small epiphany I had after a library instruction session some time back.

Article Note: On Impactful Research Appointments

Doing research consults with students is a big part of the job for the instruction librarians at my library. With COVID-19 in swing, we had to move the operation from in person to fully online, using the by now ever popular Zoom platform to do virtual consultations. The research appointment can be a source of anxiety for students as it is, and I would say it can be more so online. So I picked up this article to see what new ideas I can pick up to help students out. 

 

The author argues that the research appointment offers invaluable benefits for both the student and the librarian including better information literacy skills, nurturing trust and a sense of community. The article then argues that librarians need to develop and use their interpersonal skills as well as use empathy to help students decrease their anxiety about the library and meeting with a librarian. Make a good impression and the students will keep coming back, or so the author's argument goes. 

 

To be honest, a lot of the steps the author presents are things we do here at our library. I think the article may be really helpful to new librarians or to students in library school taking the reference services class. 

 

Notes and takeaways from the article: 

 

• The value of the research consultation: "The benefits of the scheduled consultation are plentiful, as the service not only impacts a patron's research capabilities positively, but also dissolves library stereotypes, reduces research anxiety, and builds the user's trust in the library" (1). 
• The literature confirms a belief we hold here in our library that research consults allow us to better engage students and keep their attention. As we often tell our students, when you schedule an appointment with one of us, you get the undivided attention of the librarian. Sure, you can stop at the Reference Desk and ask questions, which is fine, but that session may be shorter and can get interrupted by other students asking questions as well.
  
• This is also why for our information literacy workshops, which we were doing for incoming freshmen prior to COVID-19, were capped at 5 to 6 students. That is the number where the librarian can engage with students effectively, keep them engaged and get them to be active participants. 
• How the librarian performs in the consult is crucial: "The core weight of the research appointment depends on the librarian's performance, namely, whether or not they employ interpersonal skills, practice empathy, and build trust. In conjunction with providing adept information literacy guidance, these qualities lay the foundation for a successful research appointment, resulting in the diminishing of a student's library anxiety and the establishing of community" (2). 
• This seems a bit wordy for saying the librarian needs to be a human being and more than just an information and skills teacher. You are building relationships with students, and if you show empathy and those soft skills management gurus talk about, the students will remember you, come back when they have other needs, and they may even tell their friends. 
• The author writes that "the librarian's level of approachability directly relates to the success or failure of the research appointment" (4). This seems basic enough. Author further writes, "consequently, a successful research appointment is one that the student perceives as effective" (4). One of the questions I always ask the student as we wrap up a consult is if the consult is helpful for them, did they get what they needed at this time? 
• Things the librarian needs to do during the reference interview (kind of thing librarians should have learned in library school to be honest): ". . .listen to the student's needs, pose open-ended and follow-up questions, and then verify that they understand the user's research focus" (4). Also, the librarian needs to be a positive enabler for the student encouraging the student's curiosity and interest in the research topic. This helps build up the student's confidence. Providing the student some emotional support is part of the task for librarians as well. For me, this goes along with my theory of librarians as confessors. 
• More on open-ended questions: "By asking the user open-ended questions in the approach of Socratic teaching, and by inspiring a safe setting, the user will understand that their participation is welcomed and necessary" (8). Or so we hope. Once in a while you do get that student in consult where it feels like you are pulling teeth to get answers from the student. 
• This is a lesson I learned way back when I was a school teacher, admitting some degree of vulnerability so to speak. It was a way to humanize the teacher a bit as well as build student confidence if they saw themselves as sources of information and learning as well. We all learn together in the classroom. This is also applicable in research consults. The author writes, "To further establish the partnership, the librarian may admit that they are not an all-knowing expert. Specifically, while the librarian has research expertise, they do not have the same familiarity with the student's chosen academic discipline. As such, the librarian would appreciate guidance and brief subject overviews from the student at times" (8).
• As I often tell the students, I am not all knowing, but I am very good at knowing where and how to find what you need. So if the student gives me a little subject guidance on their topic, I can help them find the way. And in case of doubt, I do send them back to their professor, who is the subject expert to get clarification. Once they get clarification, they are welcome to come back and work with me. Once or twice I've even written to professors asking for some clarification on behalf of a student from a consult. 
• This is something we do here: as we help the student we go through the process so they can learn how we did it. We are not magicians (even if they think we are); there is no need to keep secrets of how we do things. "Similarly, the librarian should demonstrate exactly how they reach specific conclusions. For instance, the librarian could point to the clues that helped identify the source as relevant" (9). In this instance, this would be teaching students how to evaluate sources, an important information literacy skill.
  

 

 

 

Citation for the article: 

 

Meika E. Matook (2020): The Impactful Research Appointment: Combating Research Anxiety and Library Stereotypes, The Reference Librarian. 

Items from this article's bibliography I may want to read later: 

• Bennett, J. L. (2017). Virtual research consultations study. Internet Reference Services Quarterly,
  22(4), 193–200.
• Campbell, L., Matthews, D., & Lempinen-Leedy, N. (2015). Wake up information literacy
  instruction: Ideas for student engagement. Journal of Library Administration, 55(7),
  577–586.
• Grallo, J., Chalmers, M., & Baker, P. (2012). How do I get a campus ID? The other role of the
  academic library in student retention and success. Reference Librarian, 53(2), 182–193.
• McAfee, E. L. (2018). Shame: The emotional basis of library anxiety. College and Research
  Libraries, 79(2), 237–256.
• Rogers, E., & Carrier, H. S. (2017). A qualitative investigation of patrons’ experiences with
  academic library research consultations. Reference Services Review, 45(1), 18–37.

 

 

Article Note: On 2020 Top Trends in Academic Libraries

This article is a summary of what the ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee considered to be "top trends" for 2020 for academic libraries. It was looking at the two previous years. Keep in mind this was written before COVID-19 hit. Still some things still apply in the COVID-19 era. This article can be a refresher or an update tool for librarians who may not have kept up on these topics. 

Some things I took away from the article: 

• Change management was a trend. At the time they emphasized a "need for preparing a workforce for uncertainty and ambiguity." Given the COVID-19 era, that is quite an understatement now. Library administrators need to be working on this and doing their best to help their workforce function and be trained to work in these uncertain times. 
• Learning analytics was a trend, and it has become yet another buzzword in academic libraries. The idea is to collect student learning data related to library use in order to understand students better. The idea, supposedly, is to then learn from that date to serve students better and of course, the ever popular making sure the stakeholders know our value. However, "many academic librarians are growing every more skeptical of the value of LA, especially as their use relates to student privacy, student agency, library ethics, and student trust in libraries as institutions." To be honest, when it comes to LA, student privacy and other concerns are rarely if ever considered nor mentioned as we send out yet another survey or assessment tool to collect yet more data. 
• Something to add to information literacy instruction: ". . .libraries should 'consider using information literacy instruction as a vector to introduce algorithmic concept and their ethical implications." 
• Social justice, critical librarianship, and critical digital pedagogy were identified as a trend. These are just a continuation as these have been around for more than two years now. 
• Definition of critical librarianship: "'Critical librarianship acknowledges then interrogates the structures that produce us as librarians, our spaces as libraries, our patrons as students, faculty, and the public.' It is grounded in 'a librarianship that. . . disrupt[s] the status quo, that center[s] a commitment to social justice and social change, . . . and that grapple[s] directly with the problems of power concentrated in the hands of only a few.'"
• As often the case, things like this have good ideals can often become too much theory and not enough practice. The movement as been criticized "for being inaccessible, exclusionary, elitist, and disconnected from the practice of librarianship." Criticizing critical librarianship is certainly not something popular nor something seen very often. 
• Streaming media was a trend, and it has become a bigger trend in the COVID-19 era as professors scramble to put as much of it as they can in their courses, which for the libraries often means scrambling to find content, help the faculty put it up in their online classes, and making sure copyrights are not violated, something that faculty rarely care about when they do things like streaming stuff they get off Netflix. "With increasing support for online and hybrid courses, as well as flipped classroom pedagogy, the appeal and desirability of streaming content is clear." More so in the COVID-19 era. 
• Student wellbeing is identified as a trend. Like what? We did not care about students before? Anyhow, stories about students struggling in the COVID-19 era have been on the rise, so naturally colleges and libraries doing stuff, or at least giving good lip service, on student wellbeing has been on the rise as well. Wellbeing is one of those keywords you hear when concerns arise about things like retention and success. 
• Again, keep in mind, this was written before COVID-19: "As a result, institutions are increasingly looking at supporting students holistically and promoting student wellbeing as possible contributors to their success and retention. Libraries are well-positioned to help, due to their central locations, longer operating hours, and perception as a safe space, with some stressing the importance of collaborating with campus partners, social service agencies, and professionals." 
• Things like longer operating hours are not the case in many libraries, including hours. During an academic term, we went down from opening until midnight to closing at 9p. Decreased traffic in the library meant we could not justify later hours. Much of our services also went virtual, and so have other campus services.
  

 

Citation for the article: ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee, "2020 Top Trends in Academic Libraries: a Review of the Trends and Issues Affecting Academic Libraries in Higher Education." College & Research Libraries, 81.6 (2020). (Link to article: https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/24478/32315). 

Some items from the Notes I would like to look over later: 

• Mary Lee Kennedy, “Research Libraries as Catalytic Leaders in a Society in Constant Flux: A Report of the ARL-CNI Fall Forum 2019” (Association of Research Libraries and Coalition for Networked Information, January 2020): 18, https://doi.org/10.29242/report.fallforum2019.
• Gwen Evans and Roger C. Shonfeld, “It’s Not What Libraries Hold; It’s Who Libraries Serve: Seeking a User-Centered Future for Academic Libraries,” January 23, 2020, https://sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/OhioLINK_ILSUserCenteredFuture_1.23.20.pdf.
• April Hathcock, “Learning Agency, Not Analytics,” At The Intersection, January 24, 2018, https://aprilhathcock.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/learning-agency-not-analytics/.
• Kyle M. L. Jones, “‘Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should’: Practitioner Perceptions of Learning Analytics Ethics,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 19, no. 3 (July 2019): 408, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2019.0025.
• Emily Drabinski, “What Is Critical about Critical Librarianship?” Art Libraries Journal 44, no. 2 (April 2019): 49.
• Davin Helkenberg et al., “Education for the Common Good: A Student Perspective on Including Social Justice in LIS Education,” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 59, no. 4 (October 1, 2018): 270.
  
•  Nicole A. Branch, “Illuminating Social Justice in the Framework: Transformative Methodology, Concept Mapping, and Learning Outcomes Development for Critical Information Literacy,” Communications in Information Literacy 13, no. 1 (March 2019): 4–22.
• Karen P. Nicholson and Maura Seale, eds., The Politics of Theory and the Practice of Critical Librarianship (Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2018).
• Mary J. Wise, “Naps and Sleep Deprivation: Why Academic Libraries Should Consider Adding Nap Stations to Their Services for Students,” New Review of Academic Librarianship 24, no. 2 (April 3, 2018).
• Ian Godfrey et al., “Supporting Student Retention and Success: Including Family Areas in an Academic Library,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 17, no. 2 (2017).
• Samantha G Hines, “Connecting Individuals with Social Services: The Academic Library’s Role,” Collaborative Librarianship 9, no. 2 (2017).
• Elizabeth Ramsey and Mary C. Aagard, “Academic Libraries as Active Contributors to Student Wellness,” College & Undergraduate Libraries 25, no. 4 (October 2, 2018): 328–34.