Joan M. Schwartz
Queen’s University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020
5:30pm
Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
6100 University Ave

Abstract: Institutions, under pressure from administrators, from funding sources, and from the user-public, make photographs available online as searchable single items. In the process, meaningful information about the physical and intellectual contexts of creation, circulation, and viewing is sacrificed at the altar of speed, quantity, convenience, and the almighty dollar. In this lecture, I am concerned with troubling changes, subtle and otherwise, brought about by “[presti]digit[iz]ation” —  scanning for ease of access, whereby materiality, context, and meaning are lost. Drawing on professional experience as a photo-archivist and scholarly interests as a photographic historian, I critique examples of digitization and description initiatives, with a view to highlighting those instances for which institutions can justly be accused of “iCrimes and Misdemeanours” and encouraging best practices grounded in a deeper understanding of the nature and power of photographs as a form of visual communication, and in a broader appreciation of the critical differences between search and research, content and meaning underpinning access to and use of online images.

Bio: A former specialist in photography acquisition and research at the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa (1977-2003), Joan M. Schwartz is Professor, Art History and Art Conservation (cross-appointed to Geography) at Queen’s University, Kingston. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the Society of American Archivists, she is co-editor of Picturing Place (with James R. Ryan) and of Archives, Records, and Power (with the late Terry Cook), and has published widely on photography and the geographical imagination, and on archives as spaces of power.  Her current SSHRCC-funded research, entitled “Picturing ‘Canada’: Photographic Images and Geographical Imaginings in British North America, 1839-1889”, focuses on the role of photography in the making of early modern Canada.  She will be delivering the McKay Lecture in the Department of History on March 5^th, 2020 based on her research into the life and legacy of pioneer British Columbia photographer, Frederick Dally.

Cheryl Stenström
Dalhousie University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, February 25th, 2020
5:30pm
Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
6100 University Ave

Abstract: Dr. Stenström will be speaking about the unique value framework offered by public libraries. Working in conjunction with the California State Library, her most recent project brings together existing research and recent work in California and the UK that relate empirical findings to a proposed value framework. She’ll conclude by looking how public libraries in Nova Scotia have been engaged in this work over the past several years.

Bio: Cheryl Stenström began her career in public libraries in 1993, and has since worked as a reference librarian in a large urban library, a talking book producer, a public library consultant and public library CEO. After graduating from Queensland University of Technology’s PhD program in 2012, she began teaching full time at San Jose State University’s iSchool. She also continues to work as a Library Consultant, primarily in the area of organizational management, working with organizations such as the University of British Columbia, the Saskatoon Public Library, the Downey Unified School District, and the Surry Public Library. Dr. Stenström’s research interests are focused on social influence and decision making in the political arena, particularly as it affects funding for libraries. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s iSchool and lives in Mahone Bay, NS.