Hilles, Stefanie
hillessa
Recent Submissions
Item A geospatial analysis of the role of lead exposure in substance use disorders.
Thach, ChloeThis project investigates how the disproportionate exposure to lead (Pb), a hazardous neurotoxin, may result in the development of substance use disorders (SUDs) through a geospatial analysis of: 1. Discriminatory redlining strategies used by the Federal Housing Administration and Homeowners’ Loan Corporation from the 1930s-1960s; 2. Elevated Blood Lead Level (EBLL) maps developed by city and county health departments from 2000-2020; 3. Maps of drug overdose events developed by city and county health departments from 2000-2020. Publicly available data are currently being analyzed using ArcGIS Pro. The objective of this project is to apply the Bradford-Hill criteria for causation to determine whether Pb exposure may cause, or be a factor in, the development of SUDs. While some pre-clinical and population studies have been used to investigate this research question, geospatial analysis evidence considering these three variables are lacking in the literature. Results from this project may be used as evidence for action to hold governmental agencies accountable for providing safe and healthy environments to prevent the development of SUDs, instead of employing downstream combatants of policing efforts. While Pb exposure alone may not cause SUDs, preliminary data suggest that people with EBLLs may be more at risk for SUDs.Item Beyond the Land Acknowledgement: Indigenous Language Revitalization, Student Activism, and Critical Theory in STEM Librarianship
Hilles, Stefanie; Boehme, GinnyThroughout their history, libraries have participated in white supremacist power structures that privilege white knowledge over that of other cultures. While humanities and social science librarians are becoming more active in decolonization efforts, STEM librarians can often feel out of place in these projects. However, STEM librarians are vital to include in these conversations, as STEM disciplines are well known for perpetrating and sustaining white supremacist cultures, especially in the historical over-representation of white men in their professional ranks and publications. One way that STEM librarians can do social justice work and begin to dismantle white supremacist culture is through indigenous language revitalization, which seeks to restore and preserve the languages and cultures of indigenous peoples. Through the lens of critical theory, this presentation will examine one such initiative at Miami University: a case study involving a collaboration between the library, the natural history museum, and a class of first-year student researchers. This class involved the researching and writing of museum labels, and focused on the restoration of an existing botanical exhibit, the "Tree Walk". Aside from ensuring factual accuracy, the students were given wide latitude in the design and creation of the labels. As a group, they decided that the labels should incorporate, alongside the common and scientific names, the names of the trees as used by the Miami tribe, the indigenous peoples native to the lands upon which the university resides. The university has developed a strong relationship with the Miami tribe and together they have created an online dictionary of tribal words. While this dictionary was the project’s starting point, students quickly realized that many of the trees currently on campus are not native to the land and instead come from parts of North America that were home to other indigenous peoples. As this dictionary focuses on one tribal language, it is insufficient for highlighting the biodiversity of the trees on campus and the many different cultures that have traditionally relied upon them. Forced assimilation programs and the subsequent eradication of the languages and cultures of indigenous peoples have severely inhibited the creation of similar dictionaries, thus presenting significant challenges for the project and revealing the lasting effects of white supremacist culture. Using critical theory as a framework for this initiative not only illustrates the power structures that libraries must contend with today in order to be more socially just institutions, it also demonstrates how major gaps in the knowledge of other cultures are a serious impediment to comprehensive and effectual research. Moreover, critical theory, through its emphasis on power and power relationships, requires an acknowledgment of the forced assimilation of indigenous peoples and how language suppression was an effective genocidal tool. Indigenous language revitalization is one way that libraries can fight back. By creating programs, or supporting existing programs, that help revitalize indigenous languages and cultures, STEM librarians can lend their expertise to these vital and necessary undertakings.Item Creative Deconstruction: Using Zines to Teach the ACRL Framework
Hilles, StefanieZines not only record the narratives of counter-cultural movements and preserve the voices of marginalized people, their creation and history can also be used to implicitly teach students elements of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. This presentation investigates how one-shot zine-making workshops, where students have the opportunity to interact with the library’s zine archive and make their own zines, can support the ACRL concepts that Authority is Constructed and Controlled and Information Has Value by engaging students in creative processes. Attendees will learn why the history of zines makes them an excellent medium for examining these frames as well as specific zine-making assignments and activities they can use in their own libraries.Item Zine Scene: Engaging Students in Power and Resistance Narratives Through Zines
Hilles, StefanieZines, from Punk and the Riot Grrrls to contemporary zines created by people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, are inherently intertwined with social action and countercultures seeking to subvert and resist authority. This session will begin by examining the history of zines and how the spirit driving their creation makes them an excellent tool for teaching and engaging students with social justice issues. Then, it will detail how the Arts and Humanities Librarian at an academic university has collaborated with faculty and other campus departments to facilitate dialogues about social justice, activism, power, and resistance on campus through zine workshops, held both in and outside the classroom. During these workshops, students interact with zines from the Art and Architecture Library’s newly established zine archive as well as create their own zines dedicated to social justice issues. Finally, this presentation will provide practical advice and best practices for those interested in starting social justice zine workshops at their own institutions.Item Deconstructing Neutrality: Hope Olson, Classification Bias, and the Library of Congress Fine Arts Range
Hilles, StefanieNeutrality is one of the founding principles of library classification; however, systems reflect the biases of the people and societies that created them. Library neutrality is, in fact, a myth. This presentation will discuss the poststructuralist work of radical cataloguer Hope Olson, who argues that systems like Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) are inherently prejudiced because of their use of universality, sameness and difference, and hierarchy based in Aristotelian logic. This is problematic because, according to Olson, DDC and LCC function as a third-space, a place where meaning is created. Once this foundation has been laid, this presentation links Olson’s work to bias present in the Fine Arts range of LCC. The Fine Arts range is divided primarily by medium. While each of the “fine” arts are given their own subdivisions the “craft” art mediums are all located under one subdivision, NK Decorative Arts, giving them a lesser than status. Art historians have argued that the higher status traditionally given to “fine” arts in comparison to “craft” or “decorative” arts in the West, something clearly seen in LCC, is a consequence of patriarchal and colonialist power systems.Item The Prejudices and Antipathies of Art: Teaching Students about Bias in the Library of Congress Fine Arts Classification During One-Shot Instruction
Hilles, StefanieFrom recent controversies surrounding the pejorative subject term “illegal aliens” to the former use of insulting terms like “yellow peril,” it is clear that the Library of Congress Classification System and its subject headings, one of the principal ways U.S. libraries organize information, is not neutral. Moreover, this is not a new realization, or conversation, within the library field. In 1971, Sanford Berman argued that Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) were deeply intrenched in white, male, Eurocentric power structures while advocating for change in his seminal text, Prejudices and Antipathies: A Track on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People. But how does this apply to art researchers? And how can art librarians with instruction responsibilities intercede so their patrons know they are dealing with a biased system? Especially if they only have a one-shot instruction session in which to do it and the professor also wants students to learn how to find resources for a research project? After a brief history detailing how traditional power structures are supported and perpetuated by the Library of Congress Classification System, this article will answer these questions by investigating how the Fine Arts (N) range privileges white, male, European art over art made by women and BIPOC peoples by favoring the so-called “fine” arts of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, and printmaking over the “craft” or “decorative” arts of textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork, and woodwork. The Fine Arts range is divided primarily by medium. While each of the “fine” arts are given their own subdivisions (NA for architecture, NB for sculpture, and so on) the “craft” art mediums are all located under one subdivision, NK Decorative Arts, giving them a lesser than status. In fact, these “craft” mediums are yet another step removed; they aren’t found until one looks at the Other Arts and Art Industries subdivision of the Decorative Arts range. “Craft” mediums are thus a subdivision of a subdivision, while the “fine” arts are treated as primary categories. Art historians have argued that the higher status traditionally given to “fine” arts in comparison to “craft” or “decorative” arts in the West, something clearly seen in the Library of Congress Classification System, is a consequence of patriarchal and white supremacist power systems. Once this foundation has been laid, the author will discuss how they teach art history students about these inherent biases and power structures during one-shot information literacy instruction sessions while still leaving enough time to introduce students to the library resources they need to complete their research assignments. This lesson, which can be scaled from 20-30 minutes, involves introducing students to the classifications of the N range, a short video that explains how the hierarchy of “fine” art over “craft” or “decorative” art is directly related to racist and sexist power structures, and a think-pair-share activity where students reflect on what they learned and how it might affect their research. Assessment of student learning and students’ reactions to the instruction is also discussed.Item (Re)Building Alliances: Advocating for art methodologies in digital collections collaborations
Hilles, Stefanie; Wegner, Alia LevarAdvocating for art disciplinary methodologies in collaborations with digital collections librarians, especially in academic libraries, is a vital skill. While art librarians have refined and transformed their relationship to art disciplines in practice and through professional organizations like ARLIS, communicating the importance of art methodologies to their generalist colleagues in digital collections, a much younger profession, can be challenging. This disciplinary disconnect can result in collaborations and digital projects that fail to meet the needs of the art community because they do not include the necessary information used by art researchers and, thus, thwart discoverability. However, successful collaborations are possible with compromise and negotiation. The Shields Trade Card Collection, housed at Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives at Miami University, serves as a case study, demonstrating both the need for art librarians to advocate for art specific methodologies throughout the lifecycle of a digital collections project while identifying specific areas of compromise key to sustaining future collaborations.Item Exhibiting STEAM: Engaging Art Librarianship in the STEM Narrative
Hilles, Stefanie; Boehme, GinnyArt and science are often thought of as separate and unrelated disciplines. However, art has frequently been influenced by scientific discoveries, and science has used artistic techniques to expand knowledge. Since STEM remains prominent in academic discourse, it’s important for art librarians to advocate for the inclusion of the arts in this narrative to make STEAM. Research shows that the creative process used by artists is important for scientific discovery. This presentation will discuss how an art librarian and a science librarian at an academic library successfully collaborated with a variety of stakeholders to curate two exhibitions based on the interrelationship of art and science: From Micro to Macro and A Symbiotic Affair.Item Libraries Are Not Neutral: Implementing Social Justice and Critical Information Literacy into One-Shot Instruction
Hilles, StefanieThe United States is finally listening to the Black Lives Matter Movement. After the tragic murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far too many others at the hands of police, white Americans are recognizing the systemic racism inherent in our culture and systems. However, it’s not enough to merely acknowledge systemic racism, we need to work to dismantle racist power narratives. How can we as librarians, an overwhelming white profession, begin to do this necessary work in the classroom? This poster will serve two main functions. First, it will discuss how social justice relates to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, notably in the frames Authority is Constructed and Contextual, Information has Value, and Scholarship as Conversation. It will also detail the arguments of librarians who have criticized the frames for not taking a strong enough stance on social justice issues. Next, this poster will explore various ways social justice can be integrated into one-shot library instruction through critical information literacy. The ideas presented will be applicable to social justice as it pertains to race, gender, or sexual orientation. Attendees will have concrete ideas for how they can implement social justice work into their one-shots after viewing the poster.Item When You're Forced to Go Digital: Zinemaking Online
Hilles, StefanieIn spring 2020, universities found themselves navigating an unprecedented and sudden shift to online learning. Librarians have played a crucial role in connecting students and faculty with digital tools and resources during this challenging time. However, it can be difficult to envision how hands-on, object-based, or maker workshops can be transitioned to online formats. This poster will detail how an art librarian translated her in-person zine workshops, usually a tactile, object-based experience, into the online world where students no longer have the benefit of interacting with physical zines as part of the workshop. Three different approaches will be discussed: a purely asynchronous creative writing class that took place soon after colleges closed their campuses, a synchronous graphic design class that was part of a larger month-long zine assignment, and a synchronous maker event put on in collaboration with the university’s Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion. Each of these examples required different solutions and tools to effectively move their content online and still meet learning outcomes.Item Building Alliances and Allies: Advocating for Art Methodologies in Digital Collections Collaborations
Hilles, Stefanie; Wegner, Alia LevarThis presentation addresses the art of advocating for disciplinary methodologies in collaborations with digital collections and special collections. While art librarians speak from a well-articulated methodological position based on the long history of their profession, digital collection librarians in academic librarians often rely on digital standards, discovery platforms, or institutional practices designed for generalist collections. This disciplinary disconnect can result in collaborations and digital projects that fail to meet the needs of the art community because they do not include the necessary information used by art researchers and, thus, thwart discoverability. Two recent collaborations between the art librarian and the digital collections librarian at Miami University serve as examples of successful communication: the creation of more robust art historical metadata for the Victorian Trading Card Digital Collection, comprising 1,600 chromolithographic advertisement cards from the late nineteenth century housed at the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and the implementation of a dual-purpose zine archive, which includes a finding aid, a preservation collection located in Special Collections, and a teaching collection for instructional use housed at the Wertz Art and Architecture Library.Item Metadata Obscura: Refocusing digital collections through the lens of art history
Wegner, Alia, Levar; Hilles, StefanieArt librarians often rely on generalists in metadata and digital collections departments to accurately describe visual collections. When these partnerships are successful, students and researchers in art disciplines can easily use their subject training to discover and contextualize visual resources. However, art history students may experience disruption and disconnection in their research when they encounter visual collections that were digitized without proper attention to disciplinary expectations and uses. This presentation discusses the decisions and workflows implemented to revise The Shields Trade Card Collection, a popular digital collection housed at the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University. By aligning collection metadata with the methodologies of art history, librarians improved the accessibility and discoverability of these visual materials for art users.Item Sliding Into the Future: An Exhibition of Deaccessioned Slides
Stefanie, HillesItem Sparking Change: Zines and Social Activism
Hilles, StefanieItem ARLIS/NA Technology Review: Haunt Journal of Art
Hilles, StefanieItem To Use or Not to Use? The Credibility of Wikipedia
Hilles, Stefanie