InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

Using a social justice framework, we discuss our experiences as faculty members of color working in Library and Information Science (LIS).  We present our educational trajectories as well as our professional engagement with teaching, research, and service.  This piece contributes to the growing literature on diversity in LIS by articulating African American and Latina perspectives of academia, which are underrepresented demographics in LIS and more generally in higher education in the United States.

The recent restoration of The Daughter of Dawn, an American silent film made in 1920, is a significant example of both film preservation performed by a regional film archive and its implications for preserving diverse cultural heritage within rural communities. The film was shot in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Lawton, Oklahoma, and the cast is composed entirely of 300 members of the Kiowa Tribe and the Comanche Nation. Thought to be lost, the film was discovered by the Oklahoma Historical Society in 2007, and the restoration was completed and first exhibited in 2012. Since then, the film has also been digitized by Milestone Films and sold to Netflix. What is the significance of this restoration for the larger field of moving image archiving? What larger implications for the archival profession can be gleaned from the restoration of The Daughter of Dawn? How can archives better preserve the diverse cultural heritage of rural communities?

By examining the restoration and re-distribution of The Daughter of Dawn, I argue that regional film archives perform a critical function when they restore films within their communities of origin. I conclude that in order for cultural heritage on film to be truly preserved, the cultural expertise and geographical positioning of the regional film archive combined with participatory archival methods are key to film restoration. The priority should be to return the film, or the cultural and historical essence of the film rather than the actual film object, to its community of origin. Initial exhibitions of The Daughter of Dawn involved varying levels of participation of both Native and non-Native communities, which created powerful affective experiences for its audiences. Currently available for online streaming via Netflix, the restoration of this film reflects a continuing tension between restoring cultural heritage to its community(ies) of origin and providing access to the film that does not require an awareness of its cultural and historical context. This tension is intimately connected with the potential of film restoration projects to create experiences where all Oklahomans can engage with their unique, diverse and problematic history.

This critical synthesis re-evaluates a widely-cited sample of peer-reviewed empirical journal articles supporting electronic storybooks as a promising medium for literacy learning among preschoolers of low SES. From a critical re-assessment of these experimental studies across quality variables indicative of good research design (e.g., participant description, treatment detail, treatment fidelity, operationalized measures, measure reliability, internal and external validity, and clarity of causal inference), synthesis results indicate that all studies contained methodological weaknesses in one of more of these areas. The most serious flaws observed were failure to utilize proven instrumentation, inadequately described samples, small samples, and non-uniform treatment conditions. Evidence suggests that higher quality studies are needed before conclusive statements can be made on the efficacy of e-storybooks for vulnerable populations. Implications and recommendations for future e-storybook research are discussed.

Open government data answers cities' need for new capital resources in a post-recession context and addresses a self-conscious concern about the lagging technological modernization of public institutions. This understanding promotes data-centric management strategies and encourages a mechanistic understanding of how to solve city problems; it leads to new data hybrids born out of data-sharing partnerships between government and the private sector. This proceeding focuses specifically on how, through open data work, staff view their records as administrative and commercial assets and fonts of innovation that improve private and public sector services. Some employees see city records as a source of easy capital, whether cost-saving efficiencies internally or innovation by the private sector. Others see open data as a solution for managing outsized, complex city problems.

The 2015-2016 Undergraduate Research Partnership Initiative (URPI) study explored students’ use of social media to engage in discussion of racial/ethnic diversity and campus climate. The purpose of the study was to better understand how students utilize social media to talk about issues of racial/ethnic diversity and campus climate to inform how UCLA might capitalize on social media use to promote a safe, welcoming and empowering campus environment. Eighteen interviews and an in-depth content analysis of student Facebook pages were used to explore the following questions: 1) How do students describe their posting behaviors and engagement with issues of racial diversity and campus climate on social media? 2) How frequently do students use social media to discuss issues of racial diversity and campus climate in either positive or negative ways? and 3) What does participant posting behavior and engagement with issues of racial diversity and campus climate on social media say about the utility of social media in promoting a positive campus climate?

The author conducted a literature review pertaining to the use of organizational routines, organizational learning, and organizational diversity in an attempt to concisely depict the intersection of these research topics and further expand on these topics’ impact on increasing diversity within higher education institutions (HEIs).  A summary of organizational routines defines organizational routines, demonstrates how routines are used within HEIs, and describes how HEIs modify their routines over time in an attempt to improve outcomes.  Subsequently, a summary of organizational learning presents an overview of how HEIs learn from their current and past actions, defines single and double loop learning, and elaborates on barriers to learning that may, in fact, stem from attributes of chosen learning techniques.  Finally, a summary of organizational diversity elaborates on the myriad of characteristics that should be included within the term “diversity,” describes the dearth of research findings regarding diversity that do not fall within visually noticeable diversity (e.g., skin color, gender), and presents the benefits to productivity that stem from having increased diversity within a HEI.  After presenting summaries of the existing literature, the author concludes the review by presenting a list of practical implementations designed to assist HEIs in using routines as a means of improving diversity within HEIs.