No. 473 - October 6, 2021

  • Coming Events:

    - "The Right to Repair: Struggles Over Digital Tools and Consumer Rights"
    - "Selling 'Silence' in Contemporary Horror: Krasinski's Quiet Consumers"
    - "Studying the COVID-19 Infodemic at Scale"
    - Social Media Workshop: "Computational Approaches to Studying Anti-Social Behaviour in Social Media"
    - Open Access Policy Town Hall
    - FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition

  • Important Dates:

    - Monday, October 11, 2021 - Thanksgiving holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
    - Friday, October 15, 2021 - Meeting of the Senate (1:30 p.m., Zoom)

  • News & Announcements:

    - New FIMS Career Central Site
    - New Student CAPAL Membership Rates
    - Subscribe to the Graduate Research Blog

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Lynne McKechnie
    - Pam McKenzie
    - Paulette Rothbauer
    - Lucía Cedeira Serantes

  • In the Media:

    - Tim Blackmore
    - James Compton
    - Anabel Quan-Haase
    - Sam Trosow

  • News from the FIMS Graduate Library:

    - Zotero Workshops
    - Bookbinding for Inmates, with Regional Librarian Kelli Jerome
    - FIMS Graduate Library Fall Book Club
    - ELIP’s new Managing Editor for 2021-22

  • News from Western Libraries:

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events


"The Right to Repair: Struggles Over Digital Tools and Consumer Rights"
Thursday, October 7, 2021
7:00 p.m - 9:00 p.m.
Zoom (Register here)
Featuring Frank Pasquale (Brooklyn Law School), Steven J. Jackson (Cornell University) & Alissa Centivany (FIMS, Western University) as part of the Big Data at the Margins series.
Abstract: Why has it become so difficult to fix our things? What happens to our environment, economy, and culture when repairing our things becomes unappealing or impossible? What would robust and comprehensive provisions supporting repair look like, and how would such protections help our planet, our communities, our wallets, and our senses of self? The fourth event in our series examines the challenges and opportunities situated around the right to repair movement. Increasingly, technology design is guided by private interests that are incompatible with repair (continue reading).

"Selling 'Silence' in Contemporary Horror: Krasinski's Quiet Consumers"
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
12:00 p.m - 1:00 p.m.
Zoom (by registration)
Presented by Professor Selma Purac as part of the FIMS Seminar Series.
All are welcome to attend. Contact Karen Kueneman for the Zoom link at kueneman@uwo.ca.
Abstract: While John Krasinski's 2018 film A Quiet Place was celebrated by many for its unconventional silence, the film is in fact rooted in horror cinema’s long-standing experimentation with sound, stretching as far back as the silent era. The film’s initial script and its marketing, however, prove to be less traditional than the movie itself. Ultimately, these unique paratexts succeed in selling – first to producers and then to the public – what was otherwise a conventional, albeit intriguing film, and they do so through their own sonic experimentation (continue reading).

"Studying the COVID-19 Infodemic at Scale"
Thursday, October 28, 2021
3:30 p.m.
Zoom Link
Featuring Anatoliy Gruzd, CRC in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies and Director of Research at the Social Media Lab, Toronto, as part of the 2021/2022 FIMS Rogers Chair event series. Everyone is welcome.
Abstract: False narratives about COVID-19 have gone global and are spreading almost as fast as the virus itself. Since January 2020, there have been over 10,000 false and unproven COVID-19 related claims shared via social media and other channels. This presentation will discuss how researchers at Ryerson University's Social Media Lab, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), are spearheading an international effort to help stem the rise and counter COVID-19 misinformation via the COVID-19 Misinformation Portal. More event information available here.

Social Media Workshop: "Computational Approaches to Studying Anti-Social Behaviour in Social Media"
Friday, October 29, 2021
10:00 a.m - 12:00 p.m.
Zoom (Register here)
Featuring Anatoliy Gruzd, CRC in Privacy-Preserving Digital Technologies and Director of Research at the Social Media Lab, Toronto, as part of the 2021/2022 FIMS Rogers Chair event series. This workshop is open to FIMS graduate students.
Description: In less than a generation, social media has moved into the center of modern life. It has altered many aspects of our daily lives, from how we form and maintain social relationships to how we discover, access and share information online. However, the same platforms have also given way to troublesome anti-social behaviours such as online trolling, cyberbullying, and expressions of hate speech. In some online communities, what is commonly referred to as 'anti-social' may be a communal norm and a way to socialize. But, that is not the case in most online communities where such behaviour may negatively affect the overall group cohesion and may have psychological and emotional consequences for individual social media users.

This workshop will demonstrate how to use automated content analysis to detect and study anti-social behaviours present in social media. The presentation will introduce and discuss advantages and disadvantages of two common approaches often used to detect instances of 'anti-social' behaviour in online discourse: lexicon-based and machine learning approaches. The presentation will conclude with the introduction of Communalytic, a new online research tool for studying online communities. More workshop information available here.

Open Access Policy Town Hall
Thursday, October 14, 2021
9:00 a.m - 10:00 a.m
Zoom Webinar (Register here)
As the Provost's Task Force on Open Access and Scholarly Communication continues with consultations for the development of a university-wide open access policy, you're now invited to respond to a draft of Western's Open Access Policy. At these one-hour Zoom sessions, you'll learn about how the draft policy came to be and will be given an opportunity to voice questions and perceptions about open access policies. You'll also be given time to share specific feedback about Open Access Policy draft. Your input will help shape the future of open access across our university community. After registering for the Town Hall at the link provided, you will be sent connection details. More event details available here.

FIMSwrites - Virtual Edition
Every Thursday
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 at pmckenzi@uwo.ca.


Important Dates


- Monday, October 11, 2021 - Thanksgiving holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
- Friday, October 15, 2021 - Meeting of the Senate (1:30 p.m., Zoom)


News & Announcements


New FIMS Career Central Site
Formerly known as the LIS JobWeb, the FIMS Career Central site was redesigned to help current students and alumni of all FIMS graduate programs with the job search. Alumni and industry employers are encouraged to submit their postings using the Post An Opportunity tool.

New Student CAPAL Membership Rates
Are you a library school student interested in academic librarianship? Or do you know some current students who might be? Student membership rates for the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) are currently discounted to $10 from now until October 22, 2021. As a student member of CAPAL, you'll gain access to a network of academic librarians as well as academic library-focused programming: webinars, mentorship opportunities, communities of practice, an annual conference, and more!

CAPAL is a national membership association representing the interests of professional academic librarians in relation to the areas of education, standards, professional practice, ethics, and core principles. CAPAL works collaboratively with local, provincial and national organizations currently working on behalf of librarians and libraries. Become a member today: https://membership.capalibrarians.org/join_us. 

Subscribe to the Graduate Research Blog
Graduate Students are invited to subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog. The blog provides research information for graduate students - scholarship, fellowship, internship and other funding announcements, tips on writing scholarship/funding applications, and other research-related tidbits.


Publications & Presentations


Faculty members Lynne McKechnie, Paulette Rothbauer, Lucía Cedeira Serantes, and Pam McKenzie authored the tribute, "Remembering our mentor and friend, Dr. Catherine Sheldrick Ross," celebrating the legacy of Catherine Ross, former Dean of FIMS, who passed away on September 11, 2021. 

Associate Professor Paulette Rothbauer and FIMS instructor Lucía Cedeira Serantes published the article, "Reading time: exploring the temporal experiences of reading," in the Journal of Documentation on September 30, 2021. 


In the Media


Professor Tim Blackmore's research on the mindset of perfection by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan was featured in a Researcher Spotlight article, "The mindset of perfection in the 'forever wars'," published to the FIMS website on September 29, 2021.

Associate Professor James Compton was quoted in the London Free Press article, "Western University plans independent probe into OWeek allegations," published on September 23, 2021.

Professor and Rogers Chair Anabel Quan-Haase, jointly appointed in FIMS and the Department of Sociology, was interviewed about YouTube's latest move to ban anti-vaccine information on October 4, 2021 for CBC London Morning with Rebecca Zandbergen and Global News' CHED Mid-Morning with Shaye Ganam.

Associate Professor Sam Trosow, who holds a joint appointment with the Faculty of Law, was interviewed by CTV News about the creed exception to the city of London’s vaccination requirement on September 29, 2021. 


News from the FIMS Graduate Library


Your FIMS Graduate Library presents...
Take advantage of your chance to learn beyond your classes.
Please RSVP by emailing us at fimslib@uwo.ca.
Workshop and presentation suggestions are always welcome!

Zotero Workshops
Feeling overwhelmed by citation management? Now is the time to get it under control and learn how to manage all your citations. Join Sara Clarke for an introduction to the basics of how to use Zotero to easily create reference lists and organize your research. We will be offering two sessions to reach all our students working on campus or at home.
Face-to-face session, FNB 3010: Thursday, October 14 - 1:30-2:30pm.
Zoom session: Monday, October 18th - 2:00-3:00pm.

Bookbinding for Inmates, with Regional Librarian Kelli Jerome
This hands-on event is the beginning of a regular event to support literacy in Institutional Libraries. As Kelli Jerome introduces her role as a Regional Librarian for inmates institutionalized in the Western Region of Ontario, we will learn how to remove hardcovers from donated books and rebind for distribution.
Meet in the library (FNB 3020) on Wednesday, October 27th at 12:00 noon.

FIMS Graduate Library Fall Book Club
As part of our effort to highlight the selections from this year’s First Nation Communities Read (FNCR) Awards, we’ve chosen Michelle Good’s Five Little Indians as the focus of our Fall Book Club. Good’s novel tells the stories of Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie, five friends who have been released from a church-run residential school and "chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward" (from the book jacket). In addition to being shortlisted in the YA/Adult category of FNCR, Good’s novel has become a National Bestseller and has won numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.

Copies of Five Little Indians will be available for loan in the FIMS Graduate Library and are widely available in many public and academic libraries. A book club discussion date for early November will be announced in the next edition of the FIMS Bulletin.

Announcing ELIP’s new Managing Editor for the 2021-22 Edition
The FIMS Graduate Library is pleased to announce that Lisa Bowker is our new Managing Editor for Emerging Library and Information Perspectives (ELIP), the academic journal for MLIS students. ELIP offers you the opportunity to build a robust intellectual community.

Lisa graduated from the University of Windsor with a BA in Communications Studies and was the Editorial Assistant for the National Resource Council Publication, The Canadian Journal of Forest Research, and looks forward to bringing that experience to ELIP.

Please feel free to reach out to Lisa during her office hours 10-12 pm on Thursdays via Zoom, starting on October 14, (Meeting ID: 930 9266 6670, Passcode: rVmyg2) or by appointment if she can answer any questions about the journal, or the publishing process.

Do you have questions about using library resources?
Don't hesitate to stop by the service desk in the library. Our full time staff, along with student library assistants Mandy, Paul, and Patricia are there to help you out! They won't do your assignments for you, but they'll certainly get you going in the right direction.

Looking for a room? We have three rooms with projectors for your meetings (FNB 3020B, 3020D, 3020E)
These meeting rooms are for all FIMS graduate students across all of our programs to use for group work and meetings. There is a double authentication to book a room. Go to our meeting rooms page, sign-in with your FIMS username and password first, then sign-in with username fims and password library. You can also stop by the service desk or email us directly and we'll book a room for you!


News from Western Libraries


Western Libraries has obtained a license for use of The Path: Your Journey Through Indigenous Canada by NVision, to build capacity within staff, students, leadership and faculty in understanding Indigenous histories and contemporary realities.

This five module series gives brief overviews on general topics to build cultural humility and understand the impacts of colonization on Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

This series covers the following topics:
  • The cultural and historical differences between First Nations, Inuit, and Métis;
  • The evolution of the relationship between Canada and Indigenous people from pre-contact to yesterday's headlines;
  • Stories of social and economic success, reconciliation and resilience;
  • Understanding intercultural communication in the workplace; and much more.

Ways you can use The Path at Western:
Individual: Personal professional development
Leadership: Engaging your faculty, unit, team, committee or community of practice
Instructors: Embed one, or all five modules,into your course
Students: Groups, sports teams, committees

The Path: Your Journey Through Indigenous Canada is now listed on our main Databases webpage as 'NEW,' and it also appears in Databases by Title under 'T'. 


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 fims-communications@uwo.ca.

The next issue will be published on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. The deadline for submissions is noon on Tuesday, October 19, 2021.