No. 459 - November 16, 2020

  • Coming Events:

    - FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
    - "Social Media and 'The House of Fame'"
    - "The Effect of COVID-19 on the Performing Arts in Canada: A Preliminary Study of Funding Models in the Wake of the Pandemic"
    - Master of Media in Journalism & Communication Open House
    - Save the Date: A Conversation with Writer-in-Residence, Alicia Elliott
    - Save the Date: 2020 Knowledge Exchange School

  • Important Dates:

    - Monday, November 16 - Friday, November 20, 2020 - Western International Week
    - Thursday, November 19, 2020 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (1PM)

  • News & Announcements:

    - In Memoriam: Judith Knelman tribute
    - Voting open for Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards
    - Living Well @ Western adds new online events
    - Hot Docs Podcast Career Accelerator

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Anton Ninkov
    - Martin Nord

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Nafiz Shuva
    - Vanja Stojanovic

  • In the Media:

    - Romayne Smith Fullerton

  • News from the FIMS Graduate Library:

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events

FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
Every Wednesday
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
Do you expect to have paper, story, article, report, thesis, or book deadlines coming up? Does having other people writing around you help keep you on-task? Then join FIMSWrites, an informal initiative to provide some solidarity in the sometimes-solitary writing process. All FIMS graduate students, staff and faculty are welcome to bring their favourite writing devices and join us to write and check in. If you're interested, contact Pam McKenzie.

"Social Media and the 'House of Fame'"
Thursday, November 19, 2020
4:30 p.m.
Via Zoom
Presented by Ellis Jones as part of the FIMS Mediations lecture series.

Abstract: In Geoffrey Chaucer’s unfinished poem The House of Fame (written c.1380), the extent to which a person is renowned does not correlate in any way with their actual talents, their moral character, or their desires. Fame is brutally contingent and capricious, and the basis for its decisions are unknowable. Although an allegory rather than a sociological theory, Chaucer’s presentation of fame has many notable connections with the ‘polity of fame’ put forward in Boltanski and Thevenot’s influential On Justification (2006). (continue reading)

"The Effect of COVID-19 on the Performing Arts in Canada: A Preliminary Study of Funding Models in the Wake of the Pandemic"
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Via Zoom
Presented by Grant Campbell, Kaitlyn Adam and Albi Nani as part of the FIMS Seminar Series.

Abstract: This presentation combines media theory, economic theory and information science in an initial effort to clarify the predicament of the performing arts in Canada in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a dual focus on arts organizations such as theatre festivals and on individual performers, such as musicians, actors and dancers. We explore two potential models of survival: a traditional model of appealing to government support on the grounds of the social and economic value of the performing arts, and an alternative model based on the economics of online gaming communities (continue reading).

Master of Media in Journalism & Communication Open House
Thursday, November 26, 2020
12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
The MMJC program will be holding its annual Open House for future students on November 26. Please pass along the open house information if you know any undergraduate students (from within or outside of FIMS) who might be interested in the program. Visit the Facebook event page.

Save the Date: A Conversation with Writer-in-Residence, Alicia Elliott
Thursday, November 26, 2020
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Via Zoom (open to faculty, staff and graduate students)
biindigen – Western's Indigenous Learning Circle.
Spend an afternoon with Haudenosaunee bestselling author and Western Writer-in-Residence, Alicia Elliott. Alicia will read essays from her bestseller, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, and lead a Q&A with the Zoom audience.

  • Listen to Alicia’s book for FREE via Spotify.
  • Five copies of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground will be available for reservation and loan at Weldon Library, starting the week of November 9th.
Mark your calendar for November 26th at 2:00pm and join us for a special conversation with one of Canada’s outstanding literary voices.

Save the Date: 2020 Knowledge Exchange School
Throughout December
Various times
Online
Open to faculty, staff, trainees, and postdoctoral scholars. Attendees will learn about knowledge exchange, developing innovative and robust knowledge exchange plans for grants, writing a compelling background section, engaging policy-makers in research, measuring scholarly impact and sharing research using GIS and The Conversation.



Important Dates


- Monday, November 16 - Friday, November 20, 2020 - Western International Week
- Thursday, November 19, 2020 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (1PM)



News & Announcements


In Memoriam: Judith Knelman tribute
As previously reported in the Graduate Bulletin, retired journalism Professor Emerita Judith Knelman recently passed away (October 9, 2020). The Globe and Mail has now published a tribute to Professor Knelman titled, "Journalist and scholar Judith Knelman studied 19th-century news coverage of murderesses." It ran under their Arts (Books) section on November 11, 2020.

Voting open for Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards
The MLISSC has opened voting for their Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards. Nominees include: Caity Austin, Rebecca Bieman, Jacqueline Gratton, Ashlynn Heinrich, Kate McCandless, Kevin Oswald, Brittany Robinson (Spirit of Librarianship) and Toluwase Asubiaro, Davin Helkenberg, Pam McKenzie, Martin Nord and Angela Pollak (Fantastic FIMS). Check your Western email for details about the nominees. Voting is open until November 22, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3BJF8YW

Living Well @ Western adds new online events
The Living Well @ Western initiative has launched some new online events that may be of interest to some faculty and staff. November 17 with feature an Art After Dark event with guided instruction on painting landscapes. A Western Coffeehouse on November 25 will feature indie-folk artist Darty. For more wellness activities, visit the Living Well @ Western website.

Hot Docs Podcast Career Accelerator
For the second year, the Hot Docs Podcast Career Accelerator will welcome a cohort of 70 emerging Canadian audio creators between the ages of 18 and 34 to the virtual edition of the Hot Docs Podcast Festival from January 27-29, 2021. The Hot Docs Podcast Career Accelerator is open to Canadian emerging audio creators who are 18-34 years old and wish to learn more about establishing a career in the podcast industry. Full information.



Awards & Accomplishments


Anton Ninkov, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended his thesis titled Making Sense of Online Public Health Debates with Visual Analytics Systems on November 10, 2020.

Martin Nord, LIS PhD candidate, won the 2020 Student to CAIS/ACSI Award for his paper titled, "The United Church of Canada's Reconciliation Documents and the Indexing of Collective Memory," presented CAIS 2020. The award is given annually to the best scholarly paper submitted and presented by a student at the Canadian Association for Information Science's annual conference



Publications & Presentations


Nafiz Shuva (PhD'20, LIS) published the following article:

Shuva, N.Z. (2020), "Information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants in Canada", Journal of Documentation, https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2020-0137

Vanja Stojanovic, MLIS student, will co-presenting a talk at the Open Education Global Conference entitled "The 'Summer of Open' Policy & Metadata: Mutually-informed Initiatives to Facilitate Sustained OER Collection Development." This presentation explores some of the initiatives that Vanja was part of during an internship with eCampusOntario this past summer.



In the Media

Associate Professor Romayne Smith Fullerton is quoted in The Globe and Mail's recent tribute to journalism Professor Emerita Judith Knelman, who passed away in October. The article, "Journalist and scholar Judith Knelman studied 19th-century news coverage of murderesses," was published on November 11, 2020.



News from the FIMS Graduate Library


Open: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11am - 3pm

Policies for socially-distanced use of the library:

  • follow the signs on doors and floors for traffic flow
  • masks are mandatory in the library
  • show your FIMS library card upon entry (you will be provided with a card on your first visit)
  • you must book a study or computer space before or upon arrival (we can help you with that at the service desk)
  • food and drinks are not permitted
  • wipe down your space before and after use
For health and safety reasons, access to the print collections are closed throughout campus. We can retrieve items from our collection for you to use in the library. After use, these items will be quarantined for 72 hours before they are available for others to use.


Email us with any questions - this email will be monitored 9am-4pm, Monday to Friday: fimslib@uwo.ca
Visit our website for access to FIMS resources, including the booking page for reserving a space to work in the library: https://lib.fims.uwo.ca 

Emerging Library & Information Perspectives (ELIP):
We are now accepting submissions for the Summer 2021 issue of ELIP! If you were enrolled in the MLIS program during or after the winter 2020 term, you’re eligible to submit. We accept five main types of submissions: articles (3000-6000 words), “For the Field” summaries (2000 words), “In the Field” reflections, interviews, and reviews (750 words). You can browse current and previous ELIP editions for examples of the works we publish; past editions have included an article about epistemic justice in the archives, an interview about mentorship in libraries, and a review of Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu.

Our deadline for submissions is December 15, 2020.

Submissions should be made by creating an Open Journal Systems (OJS) account. For more information, you can visit ELIP’s website or contact us at elip@uwo.ca. Aarushi Mohan, this year’s Managing Editor, also has zoom office hours 12-2 pm on Fridays starting today, and she’d love to answer any questions about the publishing process.


Next Issue


The Grad Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to bblue@uwo.ca.

The next issue of the FIMS Graduate Bulletin will be the final issue for the Fall 2020 term. It will be published on Monday, November 30. The deadline for submissions is noon on Friday, November 27, 2020.