2022 NC LIVE Annual Conference

For Tracie D. Hall, the first Black woman to be appointed Executive Director of the American Library Association, accepting that post had as much to do with confronting a familial history of low literacy as it did with a more legible desire to participate in the shaping of contemporary information institutions and systems.
Arguing that library services should not be limited to our traditional audiences: those that have the requisite capacities to use libraries. Hall notes that there are people who do not have the ability to read and people who do not have the access to read. Both groups deserve our attention and advocacy. Beginning with the Frederick Douglass quote, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free" and connecting the absence of that agency to the rise of mass-incarceration, underemployment, COVID-19 mortality and public health inequities, Hall mines the link between literacy and self-determination which she maintains is as true today as ever.

Have questions for Tracie Hall? Submit them in advance using this Google Form.

The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding initiative by the UNCG Libraries to bring public records related to enslavement together in one place.  Visitors to the web site can search through data on over 200,000 individuals.  This presentation will give a walkthrough of the project, highlighting technology and design choices made during the Covid-19 work environment. DLAS will continue to increase its document collection and advance its research data solutions. The project is located at: https://dlas.uncg.edu

As librarians, we are good at teaching students how to find resources, but are we asking them to think about who is being represented in their citations or the citations of the sources they cite? The ‘politics of citation’ asks us to really look at who is represented and who is excluded in our bibliographies and scholarly conversations and to make a conscious effort for change. In this presentation, attendees will learn what the politics of citation looks like, why it is important, and how they can incorporate it into their instruction sessions.

Many library users believe when they use a search engine, they are always getting factual, unbiased, and objective results. But search engines and the algorithms that power them are not neutral. In this session, we will explore some of the racial and gender biases found in search, and how these biases impact search results. By examining the idea of search neutrality, we’ll gain a better understanding of how human beings influence, for better or worse, the creation and ongoing maintenance of search algorithms. Through examining bias in search, we can help our patrons improve their search and online information literacy.