Travis L. Wagner and Archie Crowley
The purpose of this paper is to deploy a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to consider exclusionary practices enacted by academic libraries as evidenced through resource…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deploy a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to consider exclusionary practices enacted by academic libraries as evidenced through resource provision. Specifically, this paper looks at the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals in library guides, TGNC naming practices in abstracts and the physical shelving of transgender studies texts. This paper concludes with a discussion of methods to overcome such exclusionary practices in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper deploys CDA as informed by queer theory, affording a lens to consider how language and information are structured such that particular power dynamics emerge placing symbolic value on discursively normal identities. CDA helps illuminate when, how and why TGNC individuals remain excluded within academic librarianship practices.
Findings
Findings show continued investments in heteronormative and cisnormative structures concerning information provision and access for TGNC patrons. TGNC patrons using library guides consistently fail to see any mentioned made of their respective identities aside from research about their identities. Patrons seeking information of personal value (i.e. coming out resources) find few resources. Further, library stacks and databases enact consistent microaggressions such as fetishizing, deadnaming and misgendering.
Research limitations/implications
This project contains considerable social implications, as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries to invest in neutrality by showing its failures regarding TGNC persons.
Practical implications
This study possesses a considerable set of practical implications and highlights tangible problems that could be addressed with relative ease by academic librarians through either systemic reorganization of information or TGNC patrons. Alternatively, this work also suggests that if such reformations are not possible, academic librarians can take it upon themselves to call attention to such issues and purposefully mark these failings, thus making it clear that it is a current limitation of how libraries function and invite patrons (both cisgender and transgender) to challenge and change these representations through research and advocacy.
Social implications
This project contains considerable social implications as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries (and librarianship more broadly) to invest in neutrality. This study contests the idea that while possessing neutrality academic libraries also posit themselves as inherently good and inclusive. By showing the violence that remains enacted upon transgender and gender nonconforming folks through multiple venues within the academic library, this study makes clear that statements of negativity are thrust onto TGNC patrons and they remain excluded from an institution that purports to have their well-being as one of its core values.
Originality/value
The deployment of CDA within information science is still a relatively new one. While linguists have long understood the multiplicity of discourse beyond language, the application of this method to the academic library as a discursive institution proves generative. Furthermore, the relationship between academic libraries and their LGBTQ+ populations is both underrepresented and undervalued, a problem exacerbated when focusing on how transgender and gender nonconforming patrons see themselves and their relationships to the academic library. This paper shows the dire state of representation for these particular patrons and provides groundwork for positively changing such representations.
Details
Keywords
THE process of setting up the new Polytechnics initiated by the White Paper of May, 1966 entitled “A Plan for Polytechnics and other Colleges” is now approaching completion. Of…
Abstract
THE process of setting up the new Polytechnics initiated by the White Paper of May, 1966 entitled “A Plan for Polytechnics and other Colleges” is now approaching completion. Of the 30 Polytechnics proposed 14 have now been established and practically all the others should be in operation by next September. All of them embrace one or more Colleges of Technology. Colleges of Art, Building and Commerce are also involved and, in two cases, Colleges of Education.
Robert W. Service and Archie Lockamy
The purposes of this paper are to address the following research questions: what are the factors that result in promotions? A preliminary formula for promotion with testable…
Abstract
Purpose
The purposes of this paper are to address the following research questions: what are the factors that result in promotions? A preliminary formula for promotion with testable hypotheses will be presented. What would be a “popular press” list of the formula? A list will be presented to address practitioners concerns. What elements would a human resources management (HRM) model that supports “open‐book strategic partnering” contain? An ideal HRM model, which will be linked to the promotional formula, is presented.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach to addressing these questions begins by examining and categorizing thousands of promotional decisions. The approach continues with an analysis of the popular press writings and academic literature related to HRM models and managerial promotions.
Findings
The findings and writings displayed in the formula and model are blended with the authors' experience to produce a soundly‐based theoretical and practically useful paper.
Originality/value
The uniqueness of this paper is the combination of the results of years of data from professionals and hundreds of working MBA students with popular press guidelines and research oriented literature to produces a testable individual promotional formula and a supporting organizational HRM model. The paper's incremental value lies in the introduction of comprehensive sets of facts and suppositions useful as foundations for empirical testing and further research as well as in providing practical implications for those seeking promotions or desiring to improve the way organizations' human resources are led.
Details
Keywords
The study of the diffusion of innovations into libraries has become a cottage industry of sorts, as libraries have always provided a fascinating test-bed of nonprofit institutions…
Abstract
The study of the diffusion of innovations into libraries has become a cottage industry of sorts, as libraries have always provided a fascinating test-bed of nonprofit institutions attempting improvement through the use of new policies, practices, and assorted apparatus (Malinconico, 1997). For example, Paul Sturges (1996) has focused on the evolution of public library services over the course of 70 years across England, while Verna Pungitore (1995) presented the development of standardization of library planning policies in contemporary America. For the past several decades, however, the study of diffusion in libraries has tended to focus on the implementation of information technologies (e.g., Clayton, 1997; Tran, 2005; White, 2001) and their associated competencies (e.g., Marshall, 1990; Wildemuth, 1992), the improvements in performance associated with their use (e.g., Damanpour, 1985, 1988; Damanpour & Evan, 1984), and ways to manage resistance to technological changes within the library environment (e.g., Weiner, 2003).