In this new series of blog posts, we highlight physical resources available for research and experimentation in the IS Lab . For our first blog post, we introduce The Library Quarterly and Library Trends, two longstanding journals of library and information research. Both journals and their editorial teams are composed of scholars with interdisciplinary backgrounds who explore topics within libraries and archives. MLIS students seeking their own threads of scholarly interest will benefit from the wide scope of discourse and range of approaches in The Library Quarterly and Library Trends.
The Library Quarterly celebrated 90 years of publication with their most recent issue, supported by the University of Chicago Press and current editorial team of diverse scholars, including Michelle Caswell, Emily Knox, and Ricardo L. Punzalan. The January 2020 issue presents articles about public and academic librarianship, including “Almost Like Freedom: Prison Libraries and Reading as Facilitators of Escape” by Jane Garner. In the article, Garner draws on phenomenology, the therapeutic values of escapism and imagining, and an interactive study of prisoners to propose that reading and learning are not simply leisurely, but also liberatory, actions that contribute to the well-being of incarcerated people.
Library Trends was first published in 1952 by Johns Hopkins University. Each issue is devoted to a theme within library and information sciences. The Fall 2019 issue, titled, “Labor in Academic Libraries,” centers critical discourse about professionalization, labor practices, and political organizing in academic institutions. In their article “Reconsidering Technical Labor in Information Institutions: The Case of Analog Video Digitization,” Zach Lischer-Katz discusses the “trained perceptual skills and epistemic techniques” of preservation professionals to advocate for improved public visibility, allocation of resources, and care for professionals.
Both of these journals are held for all IS Lab visitors on the shelves of Zone A. We encourage you to visit us in the IS Lab to explore these resources and join our hands-on workshops each month.