It's Academic

Haunted Libraries: Mark Podvia

Monday, October 30, 1 pm

Ready for something spooky?

Because I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

Andrew Bane Memorial Library

Several Pennsylvania libraries, including public, school, academic, and special libraries, are reportedly haunted.  A number of these libraries are located in the City of Pittsburgh, including several of the City’s Carnegie Libraries.  Some of these libraries were built on former graveyards or other disturbed sites, other library buildings previously served another purpose (private home, inn, etc.).  In some cases an individual died in the library or the library is haunted by former employees or former patrons.  In others, the items in the collection are responsible for the hauntings.  This presentation will look at approximately 25 haunted Pennsylvania libraries located throughout the Commonwealth–most of which have been visited by the speaker–as well as a few haunted libraries in surrounding states.  A detailed bibliography will be provided to attendees.

Mark Podvia

Associate University Librarian Mark Podvia is Interim Co-Director, Head of Faculty Services, Curator of Rare Books and Archivist at the West Virginia University College of Law George B. Farmer, Jr. Law Library. In addition, he is a member of the emeritus faculty of the Pennsylvania State University. Mark has published more than 80 articles, dedications, book and program reviews and indices and bibliographies in various publications including Law Library Journal, Penn State Law Review, UCC Law Journal, Unbound: A Review of Legal History and Rare Books, Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing, The Green Bag, Penn State International Law Review and Penn State Environmental Law Review. In addition, he has authored portions of four books, including A Citizens’ Guide to a Modern Constitutional Convention in Pennsylvania, and has written two entries for The Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution. Mark is a member of the American Association of Law Libraries and the Bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He is a past chair of the American Association of Law Libraries Legal History and Rare Books Special Interest Section, the AALL Council of Newsletter Editors, the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Committee, and the Pennsylvania Library Association Preservation Round Table. He is also a past president of the Interlibrary Delivery Service of Pennsylvania. A former member of the Pennsylvania Library Association, he is now a member of the West Virginia Library Association and the Western Pennsylvania/West Virginia Chapter of ACRL. He has spoken at local, state and national meetings and conferences on a wide range of topics including beer and the law, wine and the law, Bourbon and the law, Tequila and the law, American witchcraft trials, researching and writing institutional history, legal citation, the ghosts of Penn State, Pennsylvania law resources on the web, and state constitutional conventions. For the past seventeen years he has offered yearly ghost tours of Carlisle, Pennsylvania to benefit the Dickinson School of Law’s Public Interest Law Fund. For the record, he has never seen a ghost.

Remember, only the first 50 people will be guaranteed a spot for this session online through Zoom, so register ASAP here using this link.

The “Fake” news discussion panel held last week is now available for viewing. I want to thank all our speakers, Jeff Knapp, Emily Rimland, Jose Guerrero, Hailley Fargo and Joel Burkholder for holding this discussion.

You can access the panel discussion by clicking here: Fake News Panel Discussion (removed on Oct 31, 2017).

You should not need to log in, the session was recorded by Zoom. The session will be available until September 30, 2017.

If you participated, please fill out the evaluation form, located here: Evaluation Form.

Thanks!

“Fake” News Panel Discussion

August 24, 2017, 1 pm

Register here!

Panel will be led by Jeff Knapp, Emily Rimland, Hailley Fargo, Jose Guerrero, and Joel Bulkholder.

Based on an earlier discussion at Penn State, this panel will deliberate the “Fake News” term/phenomenon. It is a hot term in the aftermath of the most recent elections. But what does it mean? Is it really a binary of Fake/Non-Fake, or is there more to it than that? Jeff Knapp, the Foster Communications Librarian will attempt to deconstruct the term, and use some old-fashioned library classification skills to better understand it. He will then lead a discussion with the audience on ways we can better address this in our teaching, and Jose will discuss the “marketplace of ideas” that information literacy presumes. This conception disciplines individuals, normalizes fake news, and forecloses on the possibility of imagining alternatives to our current crises of legitimacy and authority.

Registration will be open to the first 50 participants. Zoom link will be sent 48 hours before the presentation is to begin.

Bios of our presenters:

Hailley Fargo is the Student Engagement Librarian at the Penn State Libraries. She spends a lot of time working with undergraduate students and trying to figure out how they use and think about information. In her free time, Hailley likes to roam Twitter and develop her own information seeking habits.  

Jose Guerrero is a Resident Librarian at the Pennsylvania State University. He received his B.A. in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and M.L.I.S. from Wayne State University, where he was a Project IDoL Fellow. Guerrero was also a 2016 IMLS-Rare Book School Fellow.”

Joel Burkholder is the Reference and Instruction Librarian at Penn State York. His primary research interest is the intersection between rhetoric and information literacy.

Emily Rimland is an Information Literacy Librarian and the Learning Technologies Coordinator at Penn State  University Park, where she enjoys providing instruction, reference, and outreach services to undergraduate students. Her research interests include pedagogical innovation and effective learning methodologies, the application of emerging technologies to library services, and instructional technologies.

Jeff Knapp is the Larry & Ellen Foster Communications Librarian, serving Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications, the largest accredited mass communications program in the United States. In addition to library and information science, his academic background includes international politics and history, with professional experience in marketing communications. Jeff believes it is his professional responsibility to be interested in everything. His research interests involve the role of academic librarianship and potential futures for the profession in an ever-changing information environment.

Register here!