Anyone who has received healthcare in the United States can tell you how expensive it can be, even with insurance. Cost is a significant factor in decisions not to seek medical care, including medication. EpiPens can cost $700, insulin can cost $1000/month, and a 12-week course of hepatitis C medication can cost $95,000. West Health … Read more
96% of libraries provide reference service via email. 61% by chat. 29% via texting. 26% via Facebook. Some offer reference services over Zoom or Skype. These services are provided almost exclusively by third party vendors rather than by the library or patron. Most of the vendors do not allow audits of their technology or business … Read more
Hierarchy and bureaucracy are the terms that come to mind when we think of modern corporations. These structures concentrate authority and power in the hands of a few at the top, and utilize policy and procedure to constrain the actions of the powerless at the bottom. Moran and Morner (2018) describe this type of authority … Read more
Hi! If you’re new here, I’m SV and I’m an autistic librarian student. This semester I am taking a class titled Management of Libraries and Information Centers. At some point I will write a blog post about the many ways that libraries are not capitalist enterprises and shouldn’t be run like them. But for now, … Read more
An excerpt from my Information Ethics class discussion. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a significant shift in the use of technology in education. With many students studying from home, schools and universities scrambled to find effective ways to instill knowledge and ensure academic honesty. Some of these efforts, even before the pandemic, crossed the ethical line … Read more
An excerpt from my class discussion in Information Ethics. In October of last year, the MYA Network released photographs of embryonic tissue at various stages of early pregnancy. The stated goal for releasing these photos was “to counter misinformation with facts about what pregnancy tissue looks like in an early abortion or miscarriage.” (MYA Network, … Read more
An excerpt from my class discussion in Information Ethics. Georgia, like many other states and the federal government in the US, has a terrible track record for compliance with open records laws. State agencies wait too long, don’t turn over all required documents, and often must be forced to comply by lawsuits filed by information-seeking … Read more
An excerpt from a discussion in my Information Ethics class. I chose the article Ukrainian Libraries in Wartime (Gosart, 2023). It provides a glimpse into the world of a wartime librarian. I believe that the intentional destruction of cultural heritage collections such as libraries is unethical, and I don’t think that’s particularly controversial. The article … Read more
An excerpt from a class discussion on Information Ethics. Human consciousness is difficult to define. It can include things like personality, preferences, emotions, and memories. These things are encoded within the roughly 86 billion neurons of the brain. These neuron encodings are a type of information, and just like a book can be converted into … Read more
The library plays a crucial role in the production of an informed electorate and providing information access to the community, while occupying a precarious space within the legal landscape. As fraught as the existing complexity is, it is further complicated by regulations that continue to evolve, with constant changes to policies and laws and challenges … Read more
