Danielle Allard and Tami Oliphant, professors in the School of Library and Information Studies, characterize patron-perpetrated sexual harassment of library workers as an invisible problem—so invisible that when they conducted an environmental scan of research on the topic, they found almost no research about it in their field.

School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) alumna and former faculty member Heidi Julien says that a library and information studies degree is a passport. Looking at her CV, it would be easy to take Julien’s assertion literally.

On June 30, her last day as Chair of the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS), Toni Samek received a final piece of good news related to the role.

I began my master’s of library and information studies (MLIS) journey with all the invigorating excitement of a new semester but without the crisp fall air of Edmonton’s River Valley or the clusters of bustling students. Rather, in September 2017, I sat down at my desk in my quiet home office with a mug of tea and popped open my laptop.

Ali Shiri and his research team spent four years getting to know the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) of the far northwestern Arctic in order to help create a digital library platform that reflected residents’ information needs and respected the cultural heritage information the library was intended to preserve.

Tami Oliphant, a professor in the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies, is finding her research interests are not only timely, but as topical as the day’s headlines.

Stories have been part of human culture since humans were, well, human. It goes back as far as cave people scratching images of their lives onto stone, probably further. With storytelling, we recall the past and anticipate the future by weaving events into juicy narratives.

Traditionally, storytelling was a spoken-word or written affair. But with access to computers new ways of sharing stories have emerged — from podcasts and online learning to digital storytelling.

Once thought of as a niche medium appreciated mostly by stereotypical middle-aged comic book collectors like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, the graphic novel has been steadily moving from the fringes to the mainstream since the late 1980s.

When Linda Cook (‘74 BA, ‘75 BLS, ‘87 MLS) started as the Edmonton Public Library’s CEO in 1997, no new libraries had been built in 14 years. Libraries were considered old and tired—full of outdated, dusty books that were quickly being replaced by digital technology.

But Cook saw an opportunity. She saw EPL’s branches as community meeting places that could benefit from new technology rather than be threatened by it. That vision led to five new libraries, three rebuilt branches, countless new programs, and a complete overhaul of the EPL brand.

When you live 400 km from the nearest library, getting information can be a real challenge. Faculty of Education professor Ali Shiri of the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) is leading a project to address this issue. Together with co-investigator Dinesh Rathi, also of SLIS, Shiri and a team of collaborators have begun to bridge the information gap for some of Canada’s most isolated people with a project called Digital Library North.