The Annual Meeting will be held on Zoom on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at 7:00pm. Tess Tobin is the guest speaker for the Beta Phi Mu Omicron Chapter annual meeting and induction ceremony. Tess will speak on “Making Up for Lost Time,” highlighting experiences in the LIS profession and her passion for diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Register for the Annual Meeting using the Beta Phi Mu Membership Form 2022-2023

Jason Broughton is the speaker for the Beta Phi Mu Fall Lecture.

Jason Broughton is the Director, National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), where he is responsible for the oversight and administration of the NLS program of the Library of Congress, including the expansion of online and digital delivery of program services. Prior to joining the Library of Congress, Broughton became in 2019 the first African American to serve as Vermont State Librarian, where he engaged in strategic planning for the Department of Libraries and establishing a long-term vision for the State Library. For over a decade, Broughton held numerous library roles in South Carolina and Georgia, where he used his prior training as an educator to focus on such issues as workforce development and public outreach engagement.

Tess Tobin is the speaker for the Beta Phi Mu annual dinner and induction ceremony in Spring 2022.

Tess Tobin is a retired Associate Professor at New York City College of Technology, the City University of New York. She has served on the Executive Board of REFORMA Northeast Chapter and REFORMA National. She is Past-Chair of the Ethnic and Multicultural Exchange Round Table of ALA. She is also the Chair of the Library Services to Multicultural Populations Standing Committee section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Her research focuses on recruitment of underserved groups to the library profession and providing access to information and library services to all members of the global community.

Only one week to go, until we meet to initiate this year’s new members, award scholarships, and hear the latest in library and information science research.

As a brief preview of the meeting, we are delighted to be able to share with the abstracts that our speakers have provided.

Dr. Diana Floegel: Oppression and Marginalization in Queer Fandoms Online

Online spaces such as social media platforms have been lauded for their potential to be “great equalizers,” but in reality, they reify existing oppressions. Our understanding of how oppression manifests online is largely limited to how “Big Tech” platforms like Facebook and Twitter operate. However, many other types of platform exist on the internet, and some of these spaces explicitly try to be inclusive of people with traditionally marginalized identities. Dr. Floegel’s research explores queer people’s participation in online media fandoms as a context through which to examine how connections between people’s practices and platforms’ policies produce marginalization within seemingly inclusive digital environments. Their talk specifically focuses on how structural power dynamics including racism, homophobia, and colonialism relate to inequitable dimensions of a) creative practices, b) community formations, and c) platform governance structures. Dr. Floegel will highlight how their findings bolster our understanding of online environments writ large and help us consider ways to develop more just and liberatory social media platforms in the near future.

Dr. Isha Ghosh: Increasing Privacy Sensitivity Through Social Interventions.

Dr. Ghosh’s research is on the human factors of privacy and security, focusing on people as social actors whose privacy behaviors are influenced by their relationships, communities and life situations. Her work lies at the intersection of social computing, data-driven privacy, and ethical systems, focusing primarily on the use of social interventions to simplify privacy decision making for individuals.

Dr. Connie Pascal: Exploring the Information Practices of Cannabis Nurses

Exploring the Information Practices of Cannabis Nurses is an interdisciplinary study that incorporates theories from information science, communication, and knowledge management to study the phenomenon of cannabis nursing through the lens of their information practices (information practices theorize and emphasize the embodiment and sociological aspects of information seeking in everyday life). The objective of the study is to discern what information practices are being employed by nurses already practicing some form of cannabis care. Designed using qualitative methods, this study looks at a sample of 31 self-described cannabis nurses who participated in semi-structured interviews This analysis produced a rich description of how this set of early adopters are seeking and selecting trusted sources of information.

Mark Your Calendars!

This year’s annual meeting will be held online on Monday, April 19th, at 7pm.

You can register for the meeting—reports, initiation ceremony, and talks (but, alas, we can’t provide dinner!)—using this form: https://forms.gle/Rb2S2CZ8DWvYX2ba6. We will send you a Zoom link, nearer the meeting.

We are extremely fortunate that the three speakers we asked to present for us last year have agreed to present at this year’s meeting. However, this year is especially exciting for us, as they are now recent graduates of RU SCI’s PhD program! We hope you will join us to see Dr. Diana Floegel, Dr. Isha Ghosh, and Dr. Connie Pascal present their research.

The Beta Phi Mu Omicron Chapter and the Library and Information Science Department at SC&I present …

WHAT MAKES IT LEGIT?
Teaching digital verification to spark news literacy learning
MI COLLOQUIUM
Thursday, Nov. 19, 20207:00 p.m – 8:30 p.m. ET

Using recent examples of social media rumors and misinformation, John Silva and Miriam Romais from the News Literacy Project will dive into the tools and skills LIS professionals need to verify the authenticity of information and ideas.

• How do we develop critical observation skills to determine the original context of information and ideas?
• How do we create engaging fact-checked activities that empower students to investigate and debunk viral content?

Learn how to use:

• Reverse image searches to determine authenticity of photos and video
• Archivers to explore deleted or changed content
• Google Street View to confirm locations

Sponsored by Beta Phi Mu / LIS Department / RU Libraries /New Jersey Center for the Book / SC&I Alumni Association.

Register to receive the Zoom Link by following this link.

We regret to inform you that we have had to postpone this year’s annual dinner and initiation ceremony, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As soon as we have a new date for the dinner—most likely in fall 2020—we will let you know.

In the meantime, you can still send checks for membership dues and for scholarship donations. It is also okay to wait until the rescheduled event to submit your membership dues.

If you have already mailed us a check which includes money for the annual dinner, we will be in touch with you about how to proceed.

As ever, please don’t hesitate to contact the BPMO board through email, through the blog, or through the Facebook group.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Mark your calendars! This year’s dinner and annual meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 9, 2020—at the Rutger’s Club.

We’ll be sending out more information about the venue in the Annual Newsletter.

The Omicron Chapter of Beta Phi Mu is holding a special election to fill the position of Vice President. The term for the position is effective February 1, 2020 through the annual Spring chapter meeting (date TBD), at which time the Vice President will take over the position and duties of President for one year.

Duties of the Vice President include:

• Assist in maintaining the website
• Assist in writing annual newsletter and updating membership/scholarship forms
• Electronically receives scholarship applications; distributes applications to Board Members; organizes the voting/selection of recipients
• Attend in-person and web-based Board Meetings to prepare for Spring meeting and annual newsletter

Nominations for the position should be emailed to chapter President Meaghan Darling by Friday, January 24. Members can self-nominate. Nominees and those voting must be members in good standing.

Special Election Timeline:

• January 13 – Election Announcement and Nomination Period open
• January 24 – Nomination Period closes
• January 27 – Ballot sent to membership and electronic election begins
• January 31 at 5pm – Election closes and results announced

Please consider volunteering for this service opportunity! Contact chapter President Meaghan Darling at meaghandarling AT gmail DOT com with any questions and/or to indicate your interest in having your name included on the ballot.

… with Rebekkah Smith Aldrich MLS, LEED AP.

Sustainability is now a core value of the library profession but what does that actually mean? Get in on the ground floor of one of the most important issues facing our local and global communities. From getting a better understanding of basic concepts such as “sustainable thinking” and the “triple bottom line” of sustainability to practical, applicable ideas currently happening in the field, this session will help prepare you to become a leader on the topic of sustainability in your career. If not you, then who?

December 5, 2019
7:15 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. (event will be live-streamed and videotaped)

Scholarly Communication Center (SCC) – Alexander Library
169 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Reception sponsored by RU Libraries 6:15 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.

LiveStream: https://tinyurl.com/ColloquiumRebakkahSmithAldrich

Access Code: 791 898 839
Password: XVNHzZ2p

Questions? Contact Connie Pascal: cpascal@comminfo.rutgers.edu

Open to the public – no RSVP required

Save the Date! The 2019 Fall Colloquium Speaker will be Rebekkah Smith Aldrich on Thursday, December 5. The working title of the Fall Talk is “Sustainable Thinking for the Future of Libraries.”

You can find more information about her work on her blog, Sustainable Libraries, in this American Libraries Magazine post, and in interview with Steve Thomas on the Circulating Ideas podcast.