New Books in Library Science

Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success (2025, ACRL) provides a holistic approach to exhibiting community college library value through historical context, practical applications, and future thinking. Through case studies, editorials from administrators, and practical approaches, it addresses why community college libraries exist and should exist, and the nuanced approaches to how library workers situate themselves at their institutions. Community college libraries need to provide access to content, people, space, and technology and offer instruction, but can also serve as an outreach arm in advancing the mission of open enrollment and affordable access to higher education. Valuing the Community College Library can help you be an advocate for your library on campus and in your community. Guests: Terra B. Jacobson (Chicago, IL) has been the dean of the Learning Resource Center at Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills, IL) since 2016 and has worked in community college libraries since 2009. She has a M.S. in Information Science (Indiana University, Bloomington) as well as a M.S. in Library Science (Indiana University, Bloomington). Terra received her Ph.D. in Information Studies (Dominican University, IL). Her dissertation title is: The Value of Community College Libraires: Executive Leadership Team Perceptions of the Community College Library. Terra is the 2021 recipient of the Illinois Library Association’s Valerie J. Wilford Scholarship Grant for Library Education. She also received the ALA College Libraries Section Innovation in College Librarianship award in 2014. Terra participates locally as a board member for the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries and works extensively with the Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges (NILRC). She recently published the book Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success (2025) with ACRL. She currently teaches online at the State University of New York and at Dominican University in the School of Information Studies. Spencer Brayton is director of Library Services at Waubonsee Community College (northeastern Illinois, USA). His research and publication interests include media and information literacy, community college libraries, coaching and leadership. Spencer received his Master of Arts in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Science in Management from the University of St. Francis (Joliet, IL), and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education from the University of Southern Mississippi. Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property (MIT Press, 2023) provides a framework for knowledge ownership that challenges the mechanisms of inequality in modern society. Scholars of science, technology, medicine, and law have all tended to emphasize knowledge as the sum of human understanding, and its ownership as possession by law. Breaking with traditional discourse on knowledge property as something that concerns mainly words and intellectual history, or science and law, Dagmar Schäfer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning propose technology as a central heuristic for studying the many implications of knowledge ownership. Toward this end, they focus on the notions of knowledge and ownership in courtrooms, workshops, policy, and research practices, while also shedding light on scholarship itself as a powerful tool for making explicit the politics inherent in knowledge practices and social order. The book presents case studies showing how diverse knowledge economies are created and how inequalities arise from them. Unlike scholars who have fragmented this discourse across the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and history, the editors highlight recent developments in the emerging field of the global history of knowledge—as science, as economy, and as culture. The case studies reveal how notions of knowing and owning emerge because they reciprocally produce and determine each other's limits and possibilities; that is, how we know inevitably affects how we can own what we know; and how we own always impacts how and what we are able to know. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Editor Abigail Bainbridge and contributing author Sonja Schwoll join this discussion of Conservation of Books (Routledge 2023), the highly anticipated reference work on global book structures and their conservation. Offering the first modern, comprehensive overview on this subject, this volume takes an international approach. Written by over 70 specialists in conservation and conservation science based in 19 countries, its 26 chapters cover traditional book structures from around the world, the materials from which they are made and how they degrade, and how to preserve and conserve them. It also examines the theoretical underpinnings of conservation: what and how to treat, and the ethical, cultural, and economic implications of treatment. Technical drawings and photographs illustrate the structures and treatments examined throughout the book. Ultimately, readers gain an in-depth understanding of the materiality of books in numerous global contexts and reflect on the practical considerations involved in their analysis and treatment. Our conversations in this episode discuss how this book is a key reference text for the field, how it fuels important conversations about decision-making and ethics, and what approaches it encourages to learning the practicalities of book conservation. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We increasingly encounter medieval books as digital facsimiles—zooming in on high-resolution images, clicking through virtual pages, or engaging with interactive displays. But what actually happens when a parchment manuscript is translated into a digital object? How does this change affect our understanding of cultural heritage? In The Digital Medieval Manuscript: Material Approaches to Digital Codicology (Brill, 2025), Suzette van Haaren explores the digital medieval manuscript as a unique cultural artifact, not just a copy of its physical counterpart. Through three case studies, van Haaren reveals how digital manuscripts function in libraries, museums, and scholarship today. Blending manuscript studies with digital humanities, this book offers a fresh materialist approach to the discourse surrounding the digitisation of cultural heritage and provides a nuanced view of how it shapes the way we perceive, handle, and preserve medieval manuscripts in an increasingly digital world. This episode makes reference to other scholars in the field of digital codicology, several of whom have spoken about this work on New Books Network. Listen to Bridget Whearty speak about Digital Codicology: Medieval Books and Modern Labor; Michelle R. Warren speak about Holy Digital Grail: A Medieval Book on the Internet; and Astrid J. Smith speak about Transmediation and the Archive: Decoding Objects in the Digital Age. Van Haaren also mentions the work of composer Mark Dyer, specifically the Scribe project. Digitised manuscripts discussed in this interview include the Bury Bible, Der naturen bloeme, and the prayer book of Mary of Guelders. Images from Der naturen bloeme are also available on Wikimedia Commons. Suzette van Haaren is a postdoc in the CRC Virtuelle Lebenswelten at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Her research reflects on the impact of the increasing digitisation (and virtualisation) of historical heritage. She is interested in the Middle Ages in contemporary media contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Higher education is about transformation: research shows that the most well-prepared graduates are those who have experienced changes in how they think about and experience the world around them. Combined with flexible information-seeking and evaluation skills, learning ways to break information bubbles is essential for dealing with today's challenging, complex information environment. Jack Mezirow's transformative learning theory, which frames how adults think about and interact with the world around them, offers a way forward. In Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: Using Perspective Transformation to Break Information Bubbles (2025, ALA) Amanda Nichols Hess invites academic librarians to consider critical librarianship, pedagogy, and information literacy instruction in tandem with transformative learning theory, demonstrating tangible ways to integrate these concepts into their practice. Readers will discover an overview of critical library pedagogy and transformative learning theory, showing how reflection and action lie at the core of both ideas; in-depth exploration of the ten phases of the perspective transformation process and how they relate to key facets of critical librarianship, critical pedagogy, and critical information literacy; important theoretical and research viewpoints that elucidate perspective transformation; real-world scenarios modelling how one's own praxis can support learners; and a myriad of ideas, reflection questions, opportunities for action, and additional resources to spur readers to look beyond their own information bubbles and facilitate environments where learners can do the same. Guest: Amanda Nichols Hess, PhD, is the coordinator of instruction and research help at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She holds a PhD in educational leadership, an education specialist certificate in instructional technology, and a Master of Science in information. Amanda’s research focuses on information literacy, instructional design, online learning, and the intersections of these topics—particularly in library-centric professional learning. Her work has been published in College & Research Libraries, Communications in Information Literacy, Journal of Academic Librarianship, and portal: Libraries and the Academy, among other venues. In addition to editing and authoring books for ACRL and ALA Editions, Amanda also authored Transforming Academic Library Instruction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices