scholarly journals How a Global Pandemic and Racial Unrest Are Impacting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work in Research Libraries

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-42
Author(s):  
Mark A. Puente ◽  
Twanna Hodge ◽  
Maha Kumaran ◽  
Jeff Witt
Keyword(s):  
Research Libraries ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion ◽  
Racial Unrest

scholarly journals Uniting to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a Pandemic and Post-Pandemic World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Riches ◽  
Olivier Pourret ◽  
Susan Little
Keyword(s):  
European Association ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

This contribution examines the context for the newly-founded Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee of the European Association of Geochemistry. The report summarises the work to advance DEI undertaken during 2020 under conditions of the COVID-19 global pandemic, acknowledges the various impacts for community members, and takes a forward view to opportunities of a post-pandemic world.

scholarly journals The Coin of Love and Virtue: Academic Libraries and Value in a Global Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Maura Seale ◽  
Rafia Mirza
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Research Review ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Maintenance Work ◽  
Education Academic ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Library Value

In September 2010, the Association of College and Research Libraries released The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report. The spread of the novel coronavirus and the resulting global pandemic has raised questions about the concept of value in academic libraries. How is value attributed? How does value function? What does it mean to demonstrate or prove our value? We begin with an overview and analysis of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries Initiative. We then provide a description and timeline of the spread of COVID-19 and the reaction of both institutions of higher education, academic libraries, professional library organizations, and individual librarians. The pandemic has created a new category of workers - “essential workers” - who provide vital services, perform maintenance work, and labor to keep infrastructures intact. The role of carework and careworkers in the pandemic helps illuminate the situation of academic librarians within regimes of neoliberal austerity. Ultimately we argue that although the discourse of library value seeks to prove library value rationally and empirically, through a lot of quantitative data, capitalism, the economy, and value are fundamentally irrational. Academic library value must be claimed politically; misrecognizing the nature of the problem and relying on commonsense understandings of value and the economic, which is what the discourse of library value has done for the past decade, goes nowhere.

The art of touch: lending a hand to the sighted majority

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-451
Author(s):  
Georgina Kleege
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Blind Person ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

This article describes three collaborative projects designed to explore tactile and haptic encounters with visual art. As a blind person, the author takes advantage of touch tours offered in many of the world’s museums. As rewarding as these can be, she often leaves feeling that there is something missing. She is aware that people who witness a touch tour for blind people, both companions who might be with them and strangers who might observe it, are curious, even envious. It seems only right that she, and other blind people who enjoy this privilege, have a responsibility to share the experience as a way to expand cultural knowledge about art. The projects described here enable her to begin to establish a taxonomy and vocabulary of tactile and haptic aesthetics, and model tactile descriptions of art that can benefit anyone. She does this both to reciprocate for the privilege cultural institutions bestowed on her, as well as to show that touch is not merely a poor substitute for sight, but rather a different mode of inquiry and appreciation. She hopes this work will support challenges to the ocularcentrism of the museum sector by showing how art can engage the full human sensorium. These projects all took place in the years leading up to the Covid-19 global pandemic and were a small part of initiatives at arts institutions to promote equity and inclusion by drawing on the knowledge and expertise of members of marginalized communities. As these institutions reopen post-pandemic and restructure their staff and programming, it remains to be known if they will continue the progress toward greater inclusion or return to previous models designed to serve only normative audiences. In her conclusion, the author speculates on the kind of systematic changes that will need to happen to continue to diversify museum audiences and increase multisensory access to art.

scholarly journals Wicked2 : The Increasing Wickedness of Educational Developers as DEI Cultural Influencers

2022 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauri Dietz ◽  
China M. Jenkins ◽  
Laura Cruz ◽  
Amber Handy ◽  
Rita Kumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Wicked Problems ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Equity And Inclusion

The global pandemic that began in 2020 amplified the chasm between higher education’s stated goals to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the systemic realities that many students, instructors, and staff grapple with on a daily basis. We contend that attenuating the barriers to DEI outcomes means first acknowledging that DEI is a wicked problem, in that it is impossible to solve because of often competing, conflicting, and complex sociocultural forces from within and outside our institutions. We also contend that educational developers (EDs) are particularly well-situated within the higher education ecology to be key cultural influencers in how to mitigate DEI-related wicked problems by tapping into our deep commitment to lifelong learning as a means for honing and modeling an equity mindset.

Consortium of European Research Libraries 2008: New Challenges

2009 ◽  
pp. 80-84
Author(s):  
Nailya F. Verbina ◽  
Andrei C. Masevich
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
International Research ◽  
Book History ◽  
Bibliographic Database ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
International Research Institute ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
History Of Culture

On the activities of one of the most significant international organizations connected with research of book history - Consortium of European Research Libraries. The creation of a bibliographic database of the printed book from 1452 to 1830, which was supposed to collect materials from libraries of Europe, was the goal of Consortium since the beginning of its foundation. The authors of the article write that today the activities of the Consortium is much broader, it turns into international research institute on the history of culture.

Research Libraries to the Provincial Scientific Archival Commissions

2010 ◽  
pp. 99-105
Author(s):  
Emil N. Valeev
Keyword(s):  
Social Functions ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Library Collections

Research libraries of the provincial scientific archival commissions had been established at the first committee meetings. The collection was born from donated books of the first chairmen and honorary members of the commissions. Firstly conceived with the aim to assist staff in their research activities they partly increased demands of the provincial nobility and students. The identifiers of the library collections were in the availability of manuscripts, official publications of supreme and local authorities, works of the scientists of local lore, the regional press. Inadequate financing of the commissions and the problem of professionalization of personnel did not allow libraries to realize all social functions.

Is the Rigidity of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Receptor-Binding Motif the Hallmark for Its Enhanced Infectivity and Pathogenesis?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Spinello ◽  
Andrea Saltalamacchia ◽  
Alessandra Magistrato
Keyword(s):  
Health Economic ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Receptor Binding ◽  
Binding Motif ◽  
Spike Glycoprotein ◽  
High Affinity ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Medical Countermeasures ◽  
High Infectivity ◽  
Human Receptor

<p>The latest outbreak of a new pathogenic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is provoking a global health, economic and societal crisis. All-atom simulations enabled us to uncover the key molecular traits underlying the high affinity of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein towards its human receptor, providing a rationale to its high infectivity. Harnessing this knowledge can boost developing effective medical countermeasures to fight the current global pandemic.</p>

The Structural Landscape of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease: Hints for Inhibitor Search.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Leonardo Palese
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Binding Site ◽  
Causative Agent ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Substrate Binding Site ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Main Protease ◽  
Crystallographic Structures ◽  
Structural Aspects

In 2019, an outbreak occurred which resulted in a global pandemic. The causative agent of this serious global health threat was a coronavirus similar to the agent of SARS, referred to as SARS-CoV-2. In this work an analysis of the available structures of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease has been performed. From a data set of crystallographic structures the dynamics of the protease has been obtained. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the structures of SARS-CoV-2 with those of the main protease of the coronavirus responsible of SARS (SARS-CoV) was carried out. The results of these studies suggest that, although main proteases of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are similar at the backbone level, some plasticity at the substrate binding site can be observed. The consequences of these structural aspects on the search for effective inhibitors of these enzymes are discussed, with a focus on already known compounds. The results obtained show that compounds containing an oxirane ring could be considered as inhibitors of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2.

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