The IRDL Scholars Speaker Series is designed to shine a spotlight on voices and ideas that challenge traditional ways of conducting research. It surveys various topics, including specific research methods and critiques of processes associated with western social science approaches, with the intention of inspiring research explicitly rooted in social justice. As librarians, educators, and researchers, we welcome this opportunity to reflect and incorporate what we learn from these speakers into our own research efforts, so that our methodologies integrate anti-racist and anti-colonial practices.
The series is coordinated by a working group of IRDL Scholars. Each speaker session is free to attend via Zoom; anyone interested is welcome.
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services RE-250170-OLS-21.
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Information Literacy as Social Practice: A Theoretical and Methodological Discussion
Annemaree Lloyd
Annemaree is a social science researcher who conducts research into information literacies and contemporary information practices in formal and informal learning connected to workplaces, community settings, libraries and education. Her research program focuses on the intersection between information, learning, and the performance of information practice. Annemaree is interested in the connection between information literacies, social inclusion, and collaborative learning and the nature of embodiment in information literacy practice. Professor Lloyd pursues this research agenda working with a range of groups including refugees, emergency services personal, nurses and with patients suffering chronic illness, librarians and students.
In this presentation the practice of information literacy will be interrogated through a practical theoretical lens. The theory of Information literacy and information literacy landscapes will be explored and the methodological implications of this approach discussed.
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Learning from Students: How Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Research Can Change What We “Know”
Sara Goldrick-Rab
Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab is author of Paying the Price, College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, senior fellow at Education Northwest, sociology professor at the Community College of Philadelphia, and founder of Believe in Students, the #RealCollege movement, and the original Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice.
Nearly 1 in 2 college students starts college but does not finish. Colleges and universities are full of professionals with opinions about why. This session will share what happened when researchers engaged in longitudinal mixed-methods research to examine this challenge among a group of 3,000 low-income students. We’ll think together about how iterative and multi-facted data collection can facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge, test emerging hypotheses, and lead to new conclusions.
This session is moderated by Claire Nickerson and Ashley Wilson.
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The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
Alex Hanna
Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics and a BA in Sociology from Purdue University, and an MS and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything?
The answer to these questions, we respond: is “no,” “they wish,” “LOL,” and “definitely not.” This kind of thinking is a symptom of a phenomenon known as “AI hype.” Hype looks and smells fishy: It twists words and helps the rich get richer by justifying data theft, motivating surveillance capitalism, and devaluing human creativity in order to replace meaningful work with jobs that treat people like machines. In this talk, I discuss our book The AI Con, (coauthored with Dr. Emily M. Bender), which offers a sharp, witty, and wide-ranging take-down of AI hype across its many forms. We show you how to spot AI hype, how to deconstruct it, and how to expose the power grabs it aims to hide. Armed with these tools, you will be prepared to push back against AI hype at work, as a consumer in the marketplace, as a skeptical newsreader, and as a citizen holding policymakers to account. Together, we expose AI hype for what it is: a mask for Big Tech’s drive for profit, with little concern for who it affects. This session is moderated by Courtney Block and Frans Albarillo.
