Book Launch – Platform Power and Libraries
Free Event
August 12, 6pm Eastern
Register Here
About the Event
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Platform Power and Libraries.
Book editor Christine Smith will outlines the theory behind the work, and contributing authors will provide case studies contextualizing the topic in concrete examples.
About the Presenters
Christine F. Smith is an Associate Librarian and the Head of Acquisitions and Serials at Concordia University Library in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Passionate about the study and facilitation of connection to information, Smith takes an interdisciplinary approach in researching systems and structures—both technologically and socially constructed—that accelerate and impede the sharing of knowledge.
Elena Rowan is completing her Master of Arts in Sociology at Concordia University. Her current research explores library advocacy around ebook licensing. She is a research assistant at Concordia’s Data Justice Hub, looking at how activists gather and make sense of data.
Lisa Hooper is Head of Media Services at Tulane University. In this role, she works to provide equitable opportunities for interdisciplinary discovery, innovative scholarship, and skill development through creative play with multimedia collections and media tools. This work includes providing access through purchasing and licensing a wide array of film content for pedagogical and research purposes across the disciplines.
Dr. Kieran Hegarty is a librarian and sociologist. He is currently a Research Fellow in Media & Communication at RMIT University. Kieran’s work examines how public institutions, infrastructures and values are evolving in an era of digital and social media. His PhD research examined how online material is incorporated into major public library collections, and the effects that a changing information environment has on the public’s right to access and contribute to the shared cultural record. Kieran has published on critical histories of library standards, the impact of platform power on web archiving, and the history and politics of knowledge production about libraries in a range of media and information studies journals, including Information, Communication & Society, Internet Histories, New Media & Society and Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies.
Jordan S. Sly is a historian of early modern European intellectual and cultural history, instructor of library and information science, and serves as the Head of the Humanities and Social Science Librarians at the University of Maryland. His historical research focuses on the interplay between knowledge, information dissemination, and cultural development during the early modern period, often examining how libraries, archives, and other repositories of knowledge influenced society and intellectual life.This background informs his interdisciplinary approach, connecting historical insights with contemporary issues in information science and digital humanities such as the evolving roles of libraries, information ethics, and the digital transformation of research practices.
Joseph A. Koivisto the Head of Consortial Digital Initiatives for the USMAI Library Consortium, headquartered at the University of Maryland. His work centers on library system administration and support, development of custom software solutions for library platforms and data, and open access distribution of scholarly works. His research focuses on library software and data management, open library platforms, and controlled vocabularies.