Eira Tansey @archivist@scholar.social

I have a reading list a million miles long, but I'm a slow reader and I have a long roadtrip coming up :)

Can anyone recommend any podcast series (or multiple episodes) that are deep dives into aspects of the US Great Depression/FDR's New Deal? I already have a pretty basic understanding of the New Deal era, so I am looking for more specific coverage. Something like "a 5 episode series on how the FDIC came into being" would scratch this particular itch.

I am totally fascinated/weirded out by how marketing/public relations has been rebranded as "storytelling" in many job ads. Is anyone writing about this?

Hard to believe I've been on scholar.social for nearly 5 years (!!!!!!!!!) but seems like a good time for a re #introduction. I'm an archivist working in an academic library in the US midwest. I study the impact of climate change on archives, and also the intersections of environmental policy and recordkeeping. Excited to see so many new folks on mastodon!

does anyone know about any mastodon instances that primarily revolve around environmental issues/climate change? thanks!

i find the politics of accreditation totally fascinating because a good accreditation will force a university to put in resources where it may have otherwise neglected things. But if accreditation criteria is so vague, then it kinda loses all of its teeth? See also https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-accreditation-system-is-broken

Comparing ABA requirements for law school libraries versus stuff like the Higher Learning Commission requirements for libraries (virtually nothing) is WILD. Why isn't insisting on more stringent accreditation standards for academic libraries in the major university accrediting bodies more of a thing?

I've filled out the COACH survey before for MPOW. Considering what's going on at Harvard and their reckless disregard with information handling at such high levels, I'm pretty loathe to participate in this even though I know how important surveys like this can be. Anyone have thoughts?

this thread resonates a lot... as someone in a major faculty leadership role at MPOW, I am intensely concerned about our dwindling pool of people we can tap for leadership roles that are key to shared governance. Much of the concern is because we have fewer people due to attrition, but it's also because people are DONE and I worry not being able to fill these roles will cede even more of higher ed governance to managerialism https://twitter.com/kevinrmcclure/status/1481014672811773954

Coming at this as an academic librarian who is concerned that what has happened with K-12 librarians is eventually going to happen to us (uh, we disappear). But I'm interested in any facet of US education policy connections between K-12 and higher ed, not just librarianship.

Who should I be reading in education policy that draws connections between austerity politics/neoliberalism prevalent within K-12 and the same forces within higher ed?

example: people who keep telling me to apply for library-land grants. except we no longer have a dedicated person who can assist with grants and i know how overworked the people are who do handle the limited grants we already have.

*staff AND students for that matter

i am not a huge fan of the phrase "institutional privilege" but i have yet to find a better substitute for it - anyone have ideas? (basically the idea that elite institutions have more resources available for their staff that staff at other institutions don't have access to. obviously there are still hierarchies within elite institutions, but this is very much A Thing I encounter frequently being a public non-flagship person who collaborates with people from wealthy private universities)

i swear a few years ago I found some kind of website that had podcast reviews of academic books in the social sciences and humanities. All my googling is failing me. Was this a fever dream?

Hands down one of the best things I've done for myself is building out a booking calendar for all the external "picking your brain" requests I get. People can select an appointment time from a carefully selected block of a few hours a month I dedicate for these requests. It automatically emails people a meeting link. This cuts down on so much back and forth and automatically filters out all the people worth talking to from the people who don't respect boundaries around scheduling.

OK this is now the second time I've heard of a California higher ed archivist living in university housing. Is this a particularly California thing? I always feel like university housing for staff is a relic of the high water mark of 1960s/70s higher ed, not still a current thing. Would love to learn more!