Category: technology

State of the Kiyomi, Sabbatical, DEI, and More

Happy Fall! It seems like each year my annual update gets a little later in the year. I’ve finally unburied my email a little and have time to take a little break and provide an update. The lovely graphic on this post is for our newest SciPop Talk and was created by our fabulous graphic designer Erin Colonna.

For the first 6 months of 2019, I was on sabbatical, I highly recommend it!  I spent my time working on finishing up old manuscripts and working with Mark Puente, Director of Diversity and Leadership, Association of Research Libraries. I was named Visiting Program Officer for Diversity and Leadership and continue to work with Mark now that I am back at UNL.

Puente, M.A., Deards, K.D. (2019). Moving from talk to action: What does successful institutional change related to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) look like? IDEAL’19: Advancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Libraries & Archives. [Presenter]. [Refereed].
Click here for a PDF of our slides

You can read about some of the work that I do as I science librarian and outreach/event planner in the following works:

Lai, R., Deards, K. Harry Potter x Science: Pop Culture as a Strategy for Science Engagement. CAISE (Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education) Newsletter. September. [Edited.]
https://www.informalscience.org/news-views/harry-potter-x-science-pop-culture-strategy-science-engagement

Harrington, E.G. (2019). Academic Libraries and Public Engagement with Science and Technology, Cambridge, MA: Chandos Publishing [Interview].

You can also read my most recent collaboration with Leo Lo for free:

Deards, K. D., Lo, L. S. (2019). Establishing Your Professional Identity. In Hodge, M. (Ed.), The Future Academic Librarian’s Toolkit: Finding Success on the Job Hunt and in Your First Job, Chicago, IL: ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries). [Refereed].
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/377/

In 2020 you will find me at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philidelphia:

[Forthcomming]. Deards, K. (2020). Communicating science with little (or no) budget: Design rules and tricks for the non-artist. American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition, Division of Chemical Information, Scientific Visualizations & Creative Presentations. [Presenter]. Date: TBD

Currently, I am productive and covering Chemistry, Biochemistry, Forensic Science, Physics and Astronomy and Water. I continue to coordinate outreach for our SciPop talks and interactive events, and for the Nebraska Local Section of the American Chemical Society. In addition, I was elected the 2019-2020 Secretary of the Libraries Faculty, and serve on several other committees related to work, STEM, and mentoring. I have one formal and one informal draft in review by peers before last looks and journal submission/passing the document off to a committee. I have one incomplete manuscript that I hope to complete before the end of the year, I managed to recode several hundred responses while on sabbatical and have kept my lit review up to date so we shall see what December brings.

SciPop Talks! Meet us at the Intersection of Science and Pop Culture

#SciPopTalks

SciPop Talks Schedule of Events Image
SciPop Talks Schedule of Events

One of my favorite reasons for not having time to post here is our new SciPop Talks! series hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries in collaboration with the UNL Department of Chemistry and Doane College.

Check out this great Storify of Dr. Raychelle Burks’ talk on how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Video coming soon by popular demand! In the meantime fight smarter not harder and check out the webpage for her talk for related books, movies, links, and more!

Below is a quick video ACS Reactions made with Raychelle based on her talk.

The Mark Griep’s talk on Alien Biochemistry in the Movies even includes an interview with an attendee. Check out the webpage for related materials including Dr. Griep’s book ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies.

There are two questions everyone seems to want to know the answer to. Are the talks successful and how did they come about? So far we’ve have four talks and 200+ attendees! (Note I did not count library staff and student workers, or journalists, in this number.)

The talks came about mainly because we finally had the right group of people at the right time. Rebecca Lai and Raychelle Burks organize the speakers, Joanie Barnes organizes the space, library support, and publicity. I primarily organize the webpage, books for checkout display. We all brainstorm what to do next, how we can tie other outreach events into future outreach activities, what’s working and what’s not. All of us are well connected but with very different networks. Interestingly I am the only person who knew all the individuals before this project started.

In many ways this is a prime example of what I do, connecting people with the same interests and passions, this time is unique in that for once I stayed involved. Usually the people I connect are working on projects outside my scope and/or areas of interest. You never really know what the future will bring, but you put together four very driven people and that odds are in your favor. We’re already planning on who else we need to collaborate with on campus, Office of Research and Economic Development for one, to capitalize on our momentum to do some serious science outreach and education.