iSchool Research Day 2025

Eleanor Graham, “’To engage with pin and place’: Queering the map and the unsettled community archive

• Within this presentation, I consider Queering The Map (QTM) and the records it holds in the context of recent scholarship on community archival theory. QTM is a counter-mapping platform where individuals can link a created digital record of their queer experience in relation to physical space for exploration by other users, and in my work I explore how the site’s use of a queer methodology throughout disrupts and unsettles the inherited hetero-centric norms present in community archive. I discuss expanding concepts of what a (community) record is and what they represent, and how these can inherently reject institutional signifiers of authenticity. I then turn to examine who is included versus excluded from gaining self-recognition in community archives as sites rooted in colonial understandings of record keeping and of queerness. I next reflect upon how affect is linked to physicality in community archival theory, and how this impact is translated through records on QTM as simultaneously born-digital and physically ephemeral. I finish with my own changing perspectives on a specific record, situated in the ideas raised throughout the paper, and consider how by expanding our use of these queer methodologies in more mainstream archives, we can step off the path of traditional archival practices.

Zannelle Iwen, “The preservation of protest memory and the Occupy Wall Street Movement”

• This project explores the production and maintenance of collective protest memory through records created during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement. It is grounded in an understanding of protest actions as a form of contentious politics built on the enactment of multi-generational, activist knowledge transfer. This project contributes to existing archival protest literature by presenting two new examples of Occupy’s protest memory. The first is a visualization of the digital network connections between autonomous localized protest sites created by Occupy community librarians. The second is an analysis of the UC Berkeley Folklore Archives' record structure and description practices related to Occupy Cal and Occupy Oakland encampments. In doing so, it addresses two central challenges of a protest memory framework: the retention of a protest’s interconnective nature and spirit of creative dissent. As evidence of resistance taken against the state by its own population in response to experiences of civic trauma, the makeup of a protest movement’s archival body can offer insight into the relationship between archival institutions, communities, and achieving transitional justice.

Ashley Smith, “’Sacred to the memory’: Relicization and the cataloguing of Franklin Expedition Object in museums”

• Between 1818-1845, the British Navy sent expeditions to Inuit Nunangat (Canadian Arctic) in search of a passage from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific. In 1845, the Franklin Expedition, consisting of 129 officers, crew and marines, ended in disaster with all 129 lives lost. When the bodies could not be recovered, the expedition’s debris took on a near sacred role in British society. This collection is referred to as the Franklin Relics; akin to those of Christian saints. This process of ‘Relicization’ has resulted in a knowledge gap about the context, uses and repurposing of these objects that is detrimental to understandings of the expedition, all while enabling the colonial cult of Polar Heroism to persist through interpretations and ongoing colonial narratives embedded in museum records. This research examines the ways in which these objects have been collected and interpreted through a case study of a small collection of Franklin objects held in the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

Shirin Alamdari, “Reparative work in Iranian collections: Arthur Upham Pope and the documentation of Iranian cultural heritage”

• The relationship between politics and material culture is complex, with objects often serving as powerful tools for asserting sovereignty and identity. Throughout history, dominant powers have used objects and narratives to assert superiority, shaping both past and present political landscapes. The practices of archaeology, collecting, and museum curation have long been intertwined with these power dynamics, often reinforcing colonial, imperial, and nationalist ideologies. Through this research project, I aim to understand how these ideological presuppositions, alongside individuals’ interests, influence knowledge-making practices. As a case study, I will focus on how the Western-centric production of documents tracing the biography of objects has shaped narratives in Iran’s history of archaeology. I will also explore how these narratives can be reshaped by proposing reparative strategies for cataloging systems in archives and museums, aiming to provide more transparent and accurate information about objects, a central question in the field of archival and information studies today. To achieve this, I will narrow my case study further. I will examine the documentation of Iranian collections transferred from Iran to North American institutions by Arthur Upham Pope, an American art historian and dealer, and his network between the 1920s and 1960s.

Grace J. Park & Lily Liu, “Within the gaps exhibition: tracing narrative in Chinese Canadian and Korean Canadian records”

• The proposed talk will discuss an exhibition project titled “Within the Gaps: Intracommunity Voices in Chinese Canadian and Korean Canadian Records.” This exhibition runs from December 2024 to February 2025 at the UBC Asian Centre; it features Asian Canadian records from UBC Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) and from other community organizations and archives in the BC Lower Mainland. The Chinese Canadian section considers the Janet Smith murder, a cold case from the 1920s in which Wong Foon Sing, a Chinese houseboy, was charged. The Korean Canadian section focuses on records from the Pacific Mountain Regional Council Archives of the United Church of Canada to highlight community voices and are linked back to stories found in the University of British Columbia Archives and RBSC (specifically, the Korean Canadian Heritage Archive and Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection). The talk will discuss the motivations behind the project and reflections that came up throughout. It will also discuss learning experiences from a project between the library and archive spaces. Some guiding questions will include: How do we understand the categories “Asian Canadian,” “Chinese Canadian” and “Korean Canadian”? Where do gaps exist in the voices of those communities, as well as records about and by them? When does something become a record, and who determines their value? Overall, this talk will hope to address conversations that dispel the notion of communities as simple monoliths and instead highlight the complex range of voices within a given community.

Cath Ayres, “’Making space for me doesn’t mean you have to give up your seat”: nonbinary activists in middle grade fiction”

• Child activists like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg have inspired children across the world to stand up for their beliefs and fight for their rights. Their determination, defiance and the international impact of their works have been chronicled for readers of all ages. Through reading about authentic examples of activism, children develop an understanding of how they can use their voices and actions to make changes in their own communities (Fletcher & Holyoke, 2023, p. 714). Similarly, child activists in fictional texts can empower young readers to advocate for their rights closer to home, suggesting the possibility of a brighter future for themselves and their community (Mickenberg & Nel, 2011). With near constant threats to revoke rights, remove access to gender affirming care and invalidate trans identities, young trans and gender diverse children are constantly forced to advocate for the right to exist as themselves. There are several examples in recent middle grade fiction of trans and gender diverse activists advocating for the right to be seen. Through a lens of “everyday resistance” (Johansson & Vinthagen, 2016), I will explore how these characters work to improve life for themselves and their communities.

Andrea Kampen, “’Can this part count?: a sticky exploration of arts-based auto-ethnography"

• This presentation delves into a complex and sticky aspect of research: determining what “counts” as “valid” knowledge or approaches. As part of my doctoral study, Understanding the Information-Sharing Practices of Artist-Researchers, I investigate how artist-researchers practicing research-creation—a methodological approach blending creative and academic processes—share, with whom, and in which contexts (Pilerot, 2012). Examining research-creation provides an opportunity to probe the knotted process of “legitimizing” institutional recognition of methods, approaches, and practices—such as information-sharing—in academic settings. There is an ongoing debate around who should be able to attempt research-creation: Is it exclusively for artists to draw on arts-based methods throughout the research process or artistic outputs of research? The study takes a qualitative, exploratory approach that combines methods of semi-structured interviews, photography, and arts-based autoethnography—the method which is the focus of the proposed presentation. Autoethnography is a method that is meant to critically examine personal experiences, connect them to broader social phenomena, and, in this study, attune to artistic methods. This “genre of doubt” (Brochner, 2017) serves as both a process and a product, and involves systematic analyzing (graphy) of personal experience (auto) to deepen understanding of cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis, 2004). The presentation will highlight several arts-based approaches integrated into the research, including soundscapes, creative writing, and collage. By engaging with autoethnography, I aim to demonstrate how it not only enriches the research process but also challenges conventional boundaries of knowledge production. This doctoral research has potential to inform, and be informed by, creative practice, and contribute to ongoing discussion of whether arts-based methods exist exclusively for artists.

Candice Taylor, “You have to quit your life: mapping the information worlds of thru-hikers"

• Thru-hiking, or long-distance backpacking, serves as a reminder that many serious outdoor pursuits demand not only passion, but also rigorous preparation and information gathering before ever setting foot outside. This research examines the information worlds of thru-hikers in the context of everyday life information seeking, situated in the context of serious leisure. It analyzes a mixed-methods interview with an experienced thru-hiker who has completed several long-distance trails. The interview consisted of two parts, (1) a portion in which the participant was asked to hand-draw their information world and (2) a semi-structured interview about the participant’s information world map and other information seeking behavior regarding thru-hiking. The study identifies four main themes present in hikers’ world maps including: envisioning the trail prior to starting, individual hiking experiences, social connections in the trail community, and technology use on the trail. These narratives contribute to a small body of literature concerning thru-hiking as a form of serious leisure where hikers seek, search, browse, save, organize, share, and use information. A better understanding of how thru-hikers gather their information can inform land managers, trail organizations, search and rescue, and National Park services to better source and provide information to hikers, encouraging safety on long trails.

V. Rahbar & Dr. Eric Meyers, “Manga literacy for librarians: pedagogical approaches to teaching manga at the UBC iSchool”

• Manga, comics with origins in Japan, are frequently present at North American libraries; yet, few if any librarians receive specific training on their value as part of a comprehensive approach to youth literacy. Manga has a set of textual properties distinct from other forms of graphica. Specifically, manga chapters feature a unique visual language, are oriented right-to-left, and serialized in manga magazines. The ability to decode manga’s material format and visual language has been coined ”manga” Manga literacy is not an inherent skill set, even for readers with Japanese language literacy (Ingulsrud and Allen, 2), but rather something which must be taught with attention to iconography and Japanese visual language proficiency. Pedological approaches to teaching manga literacy in postsecondary education are not well-established, and so a question remains as to how this skill might be incorporated in youth services curriculum. In this paper, we present recent data on a manga literacy instruction intervention piloted in LIBR 526 (Literature and Materials for Young Adults). A key component of this instruction is the collaborative annotation of carefully selected poster-sized manga scenes and page spreads. Ultimately, this pedagogy may be scaled and disseminated as an open curriculum for LIS instructors and professionals.

Kyla McCallum, “Framing the nation: how countries craft identity through Instagram”

• This paper is the result of an exploratory content and thematic analysis of two nation branding accounts on Instagram, with the purpose of understanding how interactivity—operationalized by post format—is correlated to user engagement metrics and theme. I will compare the official tourism presence of Canada and the United States through the accounts @ExploreCanada and @VisitTheUSA respectively. How do these accounts use Instagram’s format options, and does their usage differ? Do more interactive formats on @ExploreCanada and @VisitTheUSA receive greater audience engagement? How do the themes of @ExploreCanada and @VisitTheUSA posts reveal each brand's attempt to build a national identity and reputation? To what extent are these brand identities similar and different? Two hundred Instagram posts will be randomly collected from each account for a total of 400 posts. I will collect format, user engagement metrics (number of likes and comments), and caption text. Format is used to operationalize interactivity; single image posts are low interactivity, image-based carousel posts are medium interactivity, and video reels are high interactivity. A deductive, quantitative analysis will be used to answer research questions related to interactivity, and an inductive, qualitative analysis will answer questions related to theme. Inspired by the Dual Process Model’s integration of interactivity, persuasion, and brand attitude, I anticipate that posts operationalized as more interactive will receive more likes and comments. Moreover, informed by scholarship on nation branding, I anticipate that the Canada account will represent itself as open-minded and equitable, whereas the United States will emphasize its dedication to freedom.

Peter Sullivan, “Outside boundaries: continuum-based dialectal ASR"

• Dialects often lie along a language continuum, however, a variety of factors often lead to making categorizations that are based on politics or convenience rather than linguistic factors. For instance language spoken in cross-border villages may be more similar than varieties spoken in cities. This research project aims to implement and test a continuum approach to training dialect automatic speech recognition (ASR) tools for low-resource dialectal Arabic, but should be applicable to other language continuums. By adopting a continuum approach I aim to avoid the negative consequences inherent in reifying dialect and language boundaries, such as linguistic discrimination and exclusion. I aim to evaluate whether a particular ASR architecture, conditioned hypernetwork low-rank adaptation (HyperLoRA) can improve on existing approaches to dialectal Arabic ASR, without the need to use dialectal classifications. Hypernetworks, which generate primary model weights conditioned on a secondary input, have been shown to perform well under low-resource conditions, including in textual dialect adaptation and customization of ASR models to disfluent speech. My specific contribution aims to examine whether conditioning hypernetwork generation on language-agnostic speech embeddings enables an improvement over pooling dialects for fine-tuning or creating dialect-aware fine-tuned models.

Bryn Shaffer, “A novel exquisite corpse approach for designing information serious games”

• Through my thesis work developing a sexual health information game, a unique method of design emerged. This method utilizes the User Engagement (UE) scale operationalized into game mechanics and game space elements, combined with identified target user needs and knowledge gaps. I term this "the exquisite corpse approach," referencing its use of community-sourced UE data guiding the selection of disjointed game elements. Rather than designer first decision making, the proposed method produces a game made entirely by a target population using information seeking behaviour and UE insights aligned with interchangeable game elements. This approach differs from typical game design methods, which prioritize selecting game mechanics based on literature or creator preferences, followed by UE research to refine the experience post-creation. Instead, the proposed method, drawing on participatory design thinking, demonstrates how a UE first approach can operationalize design mechanics as learning mechanisms, and apply needs-based and interaction preference assessments to let go of the design reigns and allow a large disconnected target population to combine the mechanics most suited to addressing their knowledge gaps and e-learning preferences. Further, this approach challenges rigidities within video game genres that serious games developers often stay within. In breaking down the elements of play as combinable 'monstrous body parts', this method demonstrates latent potential in the design process when historically enshrined gaming genres are ignored. This talk will discuss the method's emergence through my research, its potential applicability in serious game development and future research avenues to refine this unique exquisite corpse approach.

Sloane Madden, “Mapping and integrating GenAI in project workflows: what we know so far”

• In the worlds of Star Trek, Blade Runner, and, even more recently, Wallace and Gromit, Artificial Intelligence is something that is consistently linked to humanity's survival, downfall, and existence. AI, however, is no longer something only found in science fiction or fantasy. With the rise of ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DALL-E, figuring out how to ethically implement AI has become more important than ever, especially within education. It is this issue of educational implementation that this project studies. Done in collaboration with MDIA 470: Developing Emerging Technologies, this directed study aims to explore how students interact with, use, and select AI tools, as student teams will be provided with a list of AI tools tailored to their project’s needs, which they will be able to implement or discard as they wish. This project will build upon the works of Justin Reich and Ruiqi Deng, using observational and survey data to analyze how students use AI tools and how they factor into their learning or assessment experience, thereby offering a first-hand insight into potential uses for ethical AI in education. The study is expected to be completed by the end of April, with data collection being finalized in late March.

Spencer Izen, “Organizational autographs of access regimes”

• This research project uses over 300 freedom of information (FOI) requests to understand the implementation of FOI and records management statutes in over 50 public bodies in British Columbia. Taking up Richard Freeman and Jo Maybin's challenge to policy scientists that "We cannot understand government without understanding documents," this part-interpretive-empirical political science and part-science and technology studies project uses an original archival sciences-based method of constructing the requests and generated a dataset of manuals, policies, job descriptions, and similar records. Each public institution thus produced an organizational autograph of policy—data which uniquely speaks to unifying relationships that disrupt the two dichotomous poles of implementation research in the field of public administration: 'top-down' global, deterministic perspectives and 'street-level' local constructivist perspectives. I begin my analysis from the latter, working to offer a thick description of how documents' form and content mobilize or diffuse legal and administrative knowledge; intertextually operate in concert with other documents, software, and things; produce truths about secrecy and disclosure; coordinate or demit sequences of bureaucratic action; and architect the exercise of statutory discretion. This work is intended to contribute to several literatures, including actor-network studies of public bureaucracies, political and organizational ethnography, and interpretive social science with documents and FOI.