NBL Librarian Toolkit

The Brown Bag Article Club is a voluntary group in which librarians may select an article to discuss with their peers over lunch. Any librarian in NBL, SCUA or RBHS New Brunswick may participate. This is an in-person activity.

The discussion leader chooses an article with relevance to academic libraries to discuss and circulates it to the group beforehand. Potential topics include the impact of ChatGPT on library work, DEIA and librarianship, disinformation and critical library pedagogy, and so on. The article club meets at noon in the second or third week of the month (any day except Friday) to discuss. The discussion leader introduces the article in their own words and provides some discussion questions or comments to get the conversation rolling.

Places for discussion may include any library space where food is allowed, or an on campus location. For example, the Alex admin suite, LSM conference room, Harvest on Cook, etc. If you would like us to book the space, please let us know!

Thanks to Julia Maxwell for proposing the idea!

Date: August 17, 2023, 12:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Julia Maxwell
Place: Pane Room, Alexander Library
Article: Hoffmann, Kristin, Selinda Adelle Berg, Kristine R. Brancolini, and Marie R. Kennedy. 2023. “Complex and Varied: Factors Related to the Research Productivity of Academic Librarians in the United States.” College & Research Libraries 84 (3): n.p. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.3.392.

Date: September 13, 2023, 1:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Ryan Womack
Place: JetStream (rm 404), Alexander Library
Article: Couldry, Nick, and Ulises Ali Mejias. 2023. “The Decolonial Turn in Data and Technology Research: What Is at Stake and Where Is It Heading?” Information, Communication & Society 26 (4): 786–802. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1986102.

Date: October 17, 2023, 12:00 PM Updated to October 23, 12:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Bret McCandless
Place: Suzanne Wieme Whitlock  Conference Room
Article: Katelyn Quirin Manwiller, Amelia Anderson, Heather Crozier, and Samantha Peter. 2023. “Hidden Barriers: The Experience of Academic Librarians and Archivists with Invisible Illnesses and/or Disabilities.” College & Research Libraries 84 (5): 645–77. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.5.645.

Date: December 5, 2023, 1:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Francesca Giannetti
Place: Pane Room, Alexander Library
Article: Shah, Chirag, and Emily M. Bender. 2022. “Situating Search.” In Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, 221–32. CHIIR ’22. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3498366.3505816.

Date: April 11, 2024, 12:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Ryan Womack
Place: JetStream, Alexander Library
Article: Nataraj, Lalitha, Holly Hampton, Talitha R. Matlin, and Yvonne Nalani Meulemans. 2020. “‘Nice White Meetings’: Unpacking Absurd Library Bureaucracy through a Critical Race Theory Lens.” Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship 6 (December): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.33137/cjal-rcbu.v6.34340.

Date: May 21, 2024, 12:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Laura Mullen
Place: JetStream, Alexander Library
Article: Butler, Leigh-Ann, Lisa Matthias, Marc-André Simard, Philippe Mongeon, and Stefanie Haustein. “The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access: How the Big Five Academic Publishers Profit from Article Processing Charges.” Quantitative Science Studies 4, no. 4 (November 1, 2023): 778–99. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00272.

Date: June 19, 2024, 12:00 PM
Discussion Leader: Julia Maxwell
Place: TBD
Article: Rutledge, Lorelei, Erika Church, and Devan Church. 2024. “Addressing Weight Stigma in Libraries to Promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” In the Library with the Lead Pipe. January 24, 2024. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2024/weight-stigma-in-libraries/.

Add your name, a date, and and a tentative article choice and place to this Google Doc: https://go.rutgers.edu/7ie71um