Likely Passage

Well, I guess this is the end! It’s been a wonderful, inspiring experience. Please see below for my 3-2-1 report. 3-2-1 Virtual Symposium

This is report was inspired by project I am currently working on for the Braille Institute Library. It is written as a general report, to be distributed to library and institute staff, highlighting peer-reviewed research into the cognitive and health benefits of reading and lifelong learning. Though it includes several proposals for library programming, it […]

Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this in a class blog, but I have always been a distracted student. Of course, here, a new father, near 40, in a grad program my priorities and focus are different than my undergrad years. And I’m certainly much more invested in my education now than during the bog-standard small […]

In its ideal, pure form, the value of storytelling and promoting marginalized voices is self-evident. Diverse representation in media, the arts, politics, and social life not only makes the world feel more hospitable and welcoming, but it also makes life more vibrant and interesting. Colorful, instead of black and white. But over the past eight […]

In this time of compounding crises, the future is a hazy thing. Inevitable because of time but conceptually shapeless. Change has occurred and will continue to occur, but it’s very difficult at times to believe things are moving forward and improving. And now, with the re-election of Donald Trump, time seems to have stopped altogether. […]

For this project I initially planned on creating a innovation strategy and roadmap proposing a library television station for the Los Angeles Public Library, based on the station run by the Memphis Public Library. This quickly moved into a pure fantasy zone, as I found myself getting lost looking up the various ways legal avenues […]

The two articles on past IFLA Library of the Year award winners (Helsinki Central Library Oodi in 2019, and Deichman Bjørvika in 2021) made me curious about this year’s winner: the Beijing Library. Described as “75,000 square meters multifunctional community hub” featuring the “he world’s largest climatized reading space”, the library is presented as an […]

danah boyd’s[1] What World Are We Building is mostly about the ways man-made tools reflect man-made biases. Big Data is her primary concern, looking at the ways our digital worlds remain rooted in the physical, or maybe it’d be more accurate to say the ways the digital landscape reflects our social, psychological landscape. As a […]

I seem to have an unfortunate allergy to anything that hints at tech boosterism, so I found myself groaning here we go again when I encountered the first line in Shannon Mattern’s Library as Infrastructure —”Melvil Dewey was a one-man Silicon Valley born a century before Steve Jobs”. Thankfully, this quickly proved to be a […]

Hi! My name is Louis. This is (hopefully) my second to last semester in this program. So, I am getting near the end. I live in Hollywood with my wife, two dogs, and our one month (!) old daughter. Prior to starting my MLIS journey, I had been working in health care, specifically ophthalmology, as […]