food for thought: post-marathon edition

It was a long weekend here in Massachusetts, in observance of Patriots’ Day, and secondarily the 119th Boston Marathon. The marathon felt weird this year, falling as it did between the two halves of the trial of Dzhokar Tsarnaev for the 2013 bombing of the marathon finish line. My wife and I were in Allston the week of the bombings and lived through the eerie lockdown that led up to the arrest of Mr. Tsarnaev. Like 58% of our fellow Bostonians, we oppose the death penalty (in this, and all other, cases). Killing is not the way to demonstrate that killing is wrong.

A few links from this week on the Internet…

Writing about others’ trauma can cause secondary trauma.

Consider fighting inequality by talking openly about how much you make.

Adults on welfare are overwhelmingly people who work.

“In spite of the pride many libraries take in their neutrality, libraries have never been neutral repositories of knowledge.”

How do you feel about where your 2014 tax dollars went?

Perhaps  Internet help us achieve some modicum of work-life balance.

… and on that note, I’m going to be testing out my own work-life balance over the next two months by not doing work-related things after 5pm or on weekends, as much as possible. This may, or may not, cause the “food for thought” round-up to be a less than weekly affair.

At the end of June, I’ll be reassessing the whole balance situation and deciding where to go from here.

food for thought: sticky keyboard edition

This weekend, while I was working on a review of Galileo’s Middle Finger for The Daily Dose (going up next Monday), one of our cats – Geraldine – jumped up on the kitchen table and knocked my milk stout over with her tail. Beer all over the keyboard! Luckily, my computer still works. It’s just the left-hand SHIFT and CTRL keys that seem to be a little reluctant to perform. Last night, while I was trying to beta a piece of writing for my wife the CTRL key kept trying to make me cut and paste things superfluously. Such is life with cats and computers.

The gender wage gap for women of color.

Salon member P.G. forwarded me this piece from The Guardian on the cruelty of believing life is fair.

This past week Boston was talking about economic inequality in college.

25% of adjunct faculty are on some form of government assistance. (Don’t read the comments)

Policing the consumer choices of people on government assistance is incredibly petty – yet widely accepted.

Are workplace wellness programs useful … or not so much?

The American Library Association’s GLBT Roundtable has posted a new nonbinary bibliography.

What do we mean when we say a queer character (or actual co-human) “just happens to be gay!”?

Are you an author of color? Your work is more likely to be banned or challenged.

ICYMI in earlier incarnations, Tressie McMillan Cottom’s “Who Do You Think You Are?”: When Marginality Meets Academic Microcelebrity is now available at ADA: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.

Working on feminist-related research and writing? May 1st is the deadline to sign up for the 2015 Feminist Scholars Digital Workshop, “an online, asynchronous, interdisciplinary, participant-driven workshop for individuals working on feminist-oriented research projects.”

What have you been reading this past week?

food for thought: it might be spring edition

Sleet is in the forecast here in Boston, but the tulips are breaking ground and this Saturday is our community garden orientation … so spring must be here! How do the rhythms of your library change as we move from winter into summer? Here at the MHS, we’re seeing a slow-down of academically-affiliated researchers as the final weeks of the semester pull people back to their campuses. In May and June, they will return at a trickle and gradually turn to a flood as summer research fellows and other travelers make their way through our doors. We are also gearing up to launch our electronic patron registration and request processing system, AEON, which goes live on May 21st. It’s been several years in development and we’re excited to finally be going live!

This week in the world of labor and libraries …

The first CFP for the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies is out! Does it have your name on it?

What are the economic barriers to seeking mental health care? It’s not just affordable providers!

“There is, if you can believe it, a hierarchy of humanities Schadenfreude.”

Is there the little-studied sub genre: a hierarchy of historians?

“Haha, that guy thought you were the receptionist!” Did he? My, what a hilarious turn of events.

Elizabeth Warren (MA-D) has added student loan debt to the financial issues she’s rabble-rousing about.

She’s also making social security cool.

The bottom-up power of labor organizing.

There’s been a lot of comment around the Columbia School of Journalism’s audit of the Rolling Stone campus rape story. I particularly appreciated Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig’s analysis.

Fair Use Week apparently happened back in February. Know your creative rights & responsibilities!

What have you been reading and learning from this past week?

food for thought: not a prank edition

I’m pulling this list together on March 31, so you’re fool-proofed against, well, April Fool’s Day shenanigans (although not protected from my use of the word “shenanigans” which I try to circulate as liberally as possible). Instead, now that I’m back from my head cold, conferencing, and family-vacationing, here are the stories that have crossed my feeds in the past three weeks.

Last week, it was announced that the #teamharpy lawsuit has been settled out of court.

John Jackson documented a week in his life as an academic librarian.

A thoughtful reflection on the downside of call-out culture.

Is the best response to online bullying rigorous moderation and more online speech?

In early March, ProPublica and National Public Radio did a powerful series of reports on the gutting of workers’ compensation nationwide.

The impact of Boston’s winter on our most vulnerable workers made Al Jazeera America.

Invisible disabilities in the workplace (and in life).

Are high-powered female leaders in the business world putting feminist gains for the 99% at risk?

Race absolutely still matters when it comes to education leading to employment.

Check out the storify of Tweets about “The Politics of Inclusion: Equity and Inequity (and Intersectionality) in Digital Spaces” hosted by Temple University.

Is academic credit for an internship better or worse than strictly volunteer opportunities?

The people who put food on our table are being denied the social security payments they earned.

Thanks for nothin’ 21st century?

If the 21st century’s New Gilded Age has been so harsh for the majority, why has there been so little labor activism?