Welcome to the SIRLS Podcast Page
SIRLS records educational events, guest speakers and other kinds of live presentations in order to share them with students, faculty, alumni, staff and others in the SIRLS community who are unable to attend. These recordings, which may include audio or audio and video combined with supplementary presentation material, enrich the educational experience for SIRLS virtual students who are unable to attend programs in person.
You can subscribe to the SIRLS Podcast Series in iTunes or your favorite podcatcher software by clicking the appropriate icon below. For full details on each podcast including available presentation files,and to play or download the podcasts, click the Play or Download link.
For podcasts from prior years, visit the podcast archive.
 |
 |
Note: Your browser must have the latest version of Quicktime to play the files on-line. An iPod or other MP3 player is not required. Accompanying presentations require Adobe Acrobat Reader.
2007-2008
2008 Spring Graduation Celebration (quicktime streaming video)
May 16, 2008, Eddie Lynch Pavillion
Play or Download
Program Description: SIRLS celebrates spring graduation, 2008. SIRLS professor and director Dr. Jana Bradley hosts, and American Library Association President and SIRLS alum Loriene Roy provides the address. This video podcast will require the Apple Quicktime Player and a broadband connection. There is also a Flickr photo set available here. [Note: the video will play after a short delay while the first part of the file loads].
Knowledge River Cohort 7 Welcome Luncheon and Reception (May 7, 2008 )
Play or Download
Program Description: SIRLS welcomes and introduces Knowledge River Cohort 7. Comments by Dean Ed Donnerstein, Library Dean Karla Stoffle, Arizona Health Sciences Library Director Gary Freiburger and others. This video podcast will require the Apple Quicktime Player and a broadband connection. There is also a Flickr photo set available here. [Note: the video will play after a short delay while the first part of the file loads].
2008 Samual Lazerow Memorial Lecture (quicktime streaming video)
Paul Duguid presents Open or Closed: A contemporary or a perennial debate? (March 6, 2008)
Play or Download
Program Description: Web 2.0 would seem to represent an emancipatory move to oppose the old closed or bounded system of technologies, forms, and institutions (the web page, the encyclopedia, the firm) with a more democratic open one (the wiki, wikipedia, wikinomics). Despite the hype, there is a great deal of truth and hope in such claims. A glance at the past suggests, however, that such struggles are not entirely new, nor, as some would have it, entirely the function of new technologies. By looking at earlier struggles over open or closed, we can not only understand the current trajectory better, but also understand why it sometimes happens that technologies, forms, and institutions that were once triumphantly forced open in hard-fought battles nonetheless closed again. [Note: the video will play after a short delay while the first part of the file loads]
April 16, 2008 LSO and SLA Workshop
Sandy Kramer (Arizona Health Sciences Library)presents Interview Workshop, sponsored by LSO and SLA (April 16, 2008)
Play or Download
Abstract: Sandy Kramer, librarian for the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library, presents Interviewing for Library Positions: Professional Tips & Techniques for Successful Interviews.
April 9, 2008 SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Suzanne Weisband (Arizona, Management Information Systems) - Challenges for Leading at a Distance
Play or Download
Abstract: Technological advances and changes in the global economy are motivating and enabling an increasing geographic distribution of work. Many leaders today communicate regularly with individuals, with their team members, and with larger organizational units at a distance. Distant leaders lead military missions from remote locations, use videoconferencing to learn about breaking news, resolve conflicts without compensation or authority to do so, manage local and remote teams, and oversee online communities. Leadership is no longer the sole responsibility of the CEO or vice president; it can be found at every level of an organization. It becomes a special challenge, then, to understand how shifts to distributed forms of work are changing the nature of leadership. When leaders have direct access to information and to the people with whom they collaborate, it will change the way they interact with others and what they talk about. When leaders come to rely on and use sophisticated computer technologies, there will be a greater reliance on the infrastructure supporting the work and the technology. When collaboration involves hundreds of researchers, engineers, programmers, and software developers, the world of work shifts to a very different perspective on how to lead and work together. For this talk, I offer a new perspective on leadership at a distance, with a focus on leadership emergence, technical expertise, and new authority structures in large-scale collaborations. The goal is to present new challenges facing leaders in this flatter, global, highly interconnected, world of work, and to suggest new ways of working at a distance.
April 4, 2008 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Xiaolong Zhang (Penn State, Information Sciences and Technology) - Multiscale Information Visualization to Support Information Retrieval and Knowledge Exploration
Play or Download
Abstract: The rapidly growing information world poses new problems for people to interact with information resources effectively. One of challenges is to understand, access, and manage information with structures. This challenge is partially related to the limited cognitive resources of human beings, in terms of memory and attention, and partially due to the lack of information structures to guide information retrieval and sense-making. To help people deal with this issue, I am interested in using advanced visualization tools to improve the understanding of information, associated structures, and visually-guided user navigation in large information space. In this talk, I will discuss my current research projects on multiscale visualization of complicated (e.g., multi-dimensional data, social network data, and geo-spatial
information) and sensemaking of research literature. I will also discuss a project on using process visualization to support common ground building in collaborative decision-making.
March 26, 2008 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Kathryn La Barre (Illinois, Library and Information Science) presents Bootstrapping facets by revisiting the heritage of early document retrieval systems.
Play or Download
Abstract: Facets and facet analysis are an increasingly common part of the contemporary discourse surrounding access and discovery systems. These intuitively adaptable structures are often integrated into browsing and searching tools for e-commerce sites, digital museum portals, and online library catalogs. References to the heritage of early document retrieval systems, like the Universal Decimal Classification, and the indexing systems that were tested as part of the Cranfield studies, are rarely part of this discussion. This omission obscures the fact that facets as an information retrieval construct necessarily arise from practice, from observation, and from use. Robust and fully faceted information infrastructures require clearly articulated principles that are anchored in lessons drawn from the success and failures of early implementations.
March 7, 2007 - Vendor Relations Workshop
Sandy Kramer (AHSL), Leslie Kent Kunkel (SIRLS), John Tagler (vice-president of Elsevier)
Play or Download
Abstract - SLA Special Event. Vendor Relations Workshop. Various aspects of maintaining good vendor relations are discussed.
February 28, 2008 - 21st LRC Graduate Student Colloquy
SIRLS Students Annie Smith, Janet Allen and Allison B. Krebs present at the 21st Annual LRC Graduate Student Colloquy
Play or Download
Abstract: Annie Smith & Janet Allen: "Tribal libraries: successes and challenges." Discusses examples of various tribal library programs and services. Also addresses issues confronted by tribal libraries.
Abstract: Allison B. Krebs: "Indigenous information ecology: vanishing Indians throwing off our invisibility cloaks as we rush into the 21st century." Discusses where Indigenous knowledge is coming from and what is being done with that knowledge.
February 13, 2008 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
David Cuillier (Arizona, Journalism) presents State of Secrecy: Access to Government Information in an Age of Terror (February 13, 2008)
Play or Download
Abstract: Citing national security and privacy invasion, government continues to constrict the flow of information to the public. Since 9/11, states have passed more than 600 laws closing government records. Even with open record laws, agencies often don't follow them -- law enforcement agencies illegally deny valid public records request three-quarters of the time. David Cuillier, an assistant professor of journalism and Freedom of Information Chairman for the Society of Professional Journalists, will talk about the increasing secrecy and the practical benefits of government documents for improving people's lives. He urges librarians to continue the fight for freedom of information, and to become records request specialists to educate citizens on acquiring documents that will make their lives better.
January 23, 1007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Tony Doyle (CUNY, Hunter College Library) presents Privacy and Perfect Voyeurism
Play or Download
Abstract: We rightly assume that our lives will be better if certain information about ourselves remains private. In libraries, for example, a strong case can be made for confidentiality regarding both circulation records and the websites visited by patrons on library computers. But not all violations of privacy are wrong, as when a public health emergency requires access to confidential medical records. Suppose, however, that someone came to know every fact about you: your medical history, your spending habits, your reading habits, and your bedroom activities. Would this person be acting wrongly if he never used this information to harm you? I argue that he would not and thus that there is nothing inherently wrong with spying or voyeurism.
December 15, 2007 - SIRLS Graduation
SIRLS celebrates graduation, 2007. SIRLS professor and director Dr. Jana Bradley hosts, and Pima Public Library Director Nancy Ledeboer talks about what they didn't teach you in library school. Winter 2007 graduates are introduced.
Watch or Download Video (broadband recommended).
Listen to or download audio-only podcast.
November 28, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
David Woodruff Smith (Irvine, Philosophy) presents Categories: How to Think In and About Them
Play or Download.
Abstract: Library and information scientists typically organize information for retrieval by putting information objects into categories (e.g., all these books are about dogs and all those books are about cats). In this talk, Professor Smith will compare various systems of "basic" categories (see his recent book, Mind World: Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology. Cambridge University Press, 2004). In addition, he will discuss how such systems can be applied in library and information science. In particular, he will describe his experiences developing ontologies for Ontek Corporation.
November 7, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Martin Frické (Arizona) presents DIKW: The Knowledge Pyramid
Play or Download.
Abstract: Many theoreticians, in Computer Science, Management Information Systems and in Librarianship, see information in terms of a data-information-knowledge–wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy or pyramid. The questions of the paper are whether the DIKW pyramid is a useful and intellectually desirable construct to introduce, whether the views expressed about DIKW are true and have evidence in favor of them, and whether there are good reasons offered or sound assumptions made about DIKW. In brief, is DIKW an intellectually attractive prospect?
October 31, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Don Fallis (Arizona) presents The Epistemology of Wikipedia. Play or Download.
Abstract:Wikipedia is having a huge impact on how a great many people gather information about the world. This talk will look at whether it is a good idea for people to use Wikipedia to try to acquire knowledge. While there are legitimate concerns about its reliability (since anyone can edit it), the empirical evidence suggests that Wikipedia is fairly reliable (especially compared to those information sources that are as easily accessible). In addition, I will argue that Wikipedia has a number of other virtues that outweigh any deficiency in terms of reliability. Even so, we should still be trying to identify changes (or alternatives) to Wikipedia that will yield even better consequences. And, toward that end, we still need a better understanding of why Wikipedia works as well as it does.
October 10, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Leslie Francis (Utah, Alfred C. Emery Professor of Law) and John G. Francis (Utah, Political Science) present Group Rights and Cultural Property: When Group Members Disagree. Play or Download
Abstract: NAGPRA and other efforts at repatriation of cultural property concentrate on returning objects of sacred and cultural significance to identified groups. NAGPRA anticipates the possibility that more than one group will assert claims to cultural objects. NAGPRA does not, however, anticipate the likely possibility of intra-group disagreement.
In our talk, we address this question. We argue while intra-group disagreement is largely a matter to be resolved within the group, considerations of fair group procedures also need to be addressed.
September 19, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture
Kevin Kemper (Arizona, Journalism) - Garcetti v. Ceballos and Morse v. Frederick : How Refined Government Speech Doctrine Could Impact Academic Freedom at Public Colleges and Universities. Play or Download
Abstract: IIn the 21st century, we need to reexamine the legal parameters for academic freedom at public universities and colleges, especially in light of two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. These are Garcetti v. Ceballos, which discusses how far an employee can take First Amendment rights in an goverment employment context, and Morse v. Frederick, which raises troubling questions about the extent of free speech rights for students and teachers in public schools. These come as some in Arizona want to limit the extent of what teachers can say in public classrooms. Also, this talk will look at John Stuart Mill's On Liberty to see if the cases and political efforts match long-standing notions of free expression in democracy.
August 29, 2007 - SIRLS Brown Bag Research Lecture.
Kay Mathiesen - Group Rights to Control Information versus Individual Rights to Access Information. Play or Download
Abstract: Intellectual Freedom is the core value of the Library and Information Profession. As the American Library Association puts it, "In a free society individuals are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read." Recently, the Draft Protocols for Native American Archival Materials put forward a number of principles for Archives and Libraries that would restrict such access. According to the Protocols, "Native American and other Indigenous communities' knowledge can be collectively owned and access to some knowledge may be restricted as a privilege rather than a right." More broadly, Article 31 of the Draft Declaration the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that, "Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain [and] control their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions." The intellectual freedom of individuals to access "what they wish to read" appears to be challenged by such claims to limit access to information based on group rights. This talk explores these possible value conflicts between indigenous people's rights to control their cultural information and the individual's rights to freely access information. Arguments for and against such group rights to control access to cultural information will be discussed and evaluated..
SIRLS students, faculty and staff may check out a digital audio recorder and a video camera to record live events for later podcast. For further information or to arrange to check out the recorder, contact the SIRLS main office or email sirls@email.arizona.edu.
Before SIRLS can disseminate recordings, we require this signed release from presenters.
