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This paper reports on preliminary findings from an action research project partnering health sciences librarians with community health workers (CHWs) who are LGBTQIA+ to create information resources for the CHW's community. Findings report on twelve virtual semistructured interviews with CHWs from South Carolina and eleven virtual brainstorming meetings between CHWs and health sciences librarians. The authors analyzed verbatim interview and meeting transcripts using a combination of deductive and inductive qualitative coding. Findings demonstrate 1) external barriers constrain and motivate information creation; 2) the presence of preexisting information, knowledge, and resources within the CHWs' communities; 3) that CHW‐librarian pairs brainstormed how to codify and iterate what already exists; 4) that librarians adopted a reference role when brainstorming and suggested resource ideas within and outside of the CHWs' communities. Implications include strategies that researchers and practitioners can adopt to leverage existing experiential and embodied knowledge within LGBTQIA+ communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As use of arts‐involved and data visualization methods increases in information science, it is important to reflect on strengths and weaknesses of various methods. In this 90‐minute panel, an international lineup of information researchers will share their experiences using the participatory, visual elicitation technique information world mapping (IWM) in their work. Panelists will discuss ways to adapt the technique to different contexts, share their thoughts on what is next for IWM, and raise questions regarding challenges and new uses of IWM in information research. Presentations will be followed by an interactive discussion among panelists and Q&A period with the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how discursive power shapes LGBTQ+ community health information practices. Informed by analysis of 10 information world maps drawn by SC LGBTQ+ community leaders, our findings indicate that while community can be a valuable construct to reject mainstream discourses of regulation and correction, it inevitably is fraught and not representative of all LGBTQ+ individuals. Findings can inform strategies for community leaders to facilitate more equitable information flow among members by identifying key structural elements impeding this flow at the community level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports preliminary qualitative findings from a survey of public library staff who work at libraries that have and have not hosted drag queen storytimes (DQS), a popular but contested children's program. Three constructs—values, risks, and power—are developed to describe how individual, library, and institutional forces combine to determine whether DQS occur. Findings contribute to limited scholarly work on DQS by including locations that have not hosted DQS and by engaging critically with how institutional forces shape library staffs' decision‐making around DQS. It is critical to understand factors contributing to this decision‐making to inform contextually appropriate strategies for encouraging dialogue about DQS as well as LGBTQ+ visibility and justice in children's programming. Moreover, DQS constitute a salient context through which to critically explore broader issues of power and inclusion in public libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by 30 semi‐structured interviews with faculty, Ph.D. students, and academic librarians, this exploratory research examines how individuals create, cultivate, and manage their scholarly identity (SI) using online platforms. SI is defined as efforts by academics in promoting their personal "brand," regarding their intellectual work (Brigham,). Results indicate that online platforms, including social networking sites (SNS), offer avenues for academics to connect with other scholars and disseminate their research. However, some sites were found to promote practices participants considered problematic, which forms the focus of this paper. Respondents noted that SI work performed on academic SNS (e.g., ResearchGate, Academia.edu) can present moral and ethical quandaries. For‐profit business models pose a serious concern, and several interviewees advocated for open access materials and platforms (e.g., ORCID). Participants also reported a number of logistical problems with online SI work, including time constraints and context collapse (Marwick & boyd, 2011). Data were analyzed using a theoretical framework grounded in Goffman's (1959, 1967) concepts of impression management and face threats. Findings raise awareness of the need for academics and librarians to adopt strategies for creating/sustaining an ethical and sustainable online presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study examines the strategies of social bots on Twitter that were retweeted following a mass shooting event. Using a case study method to frame our work, we collected over seven million tweets during a one‐month period following a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. From this dataset, we selected retweets of content generated by over 400 social bot accounts to determine what strategies these bots were using and the effectiveness of these strategies as indicated by the number of retweets. We employed qualitative and quantitative methods to capture both macro‐ and micro‐level perspectives. Our findings suggest that bots engage in more diverse strategies than solely waging disinformation campaigns, including baiting and sharing information. Further, we found that while bots amplify conversation about mass shootings, humans were primarily responsible for disseminating bot‐generated content. These findings add depth to the current understanding of bot strategies and their effectiveness. Understanding these strategies can inform efforts to combat dubious information as well as more insidious disinformation campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are millions of transgender people in the world, a lack of information exists about their health issues. This issue has consequences for the medical field, which only has a nascent understanding of how to identify and meet this population's health‐related needs. Social media sites like Twitter provide new opportunities for transgender people to overcome these barriers by sharing their personal health experiences. Our research employs a computational framework to collect tweets from self‐identified transgender users, detect those that are health‐related, and identify their information needs. This framework is significant because it provides a macro‐scale perspective on an issue that lacks investigation at national or demographic levels. Our findings identified 54 distinct health‐related topics that we grouped into 7 broader categories. Further, we found both linguistic and topical differences in the health‐related information shared by transgender men (TM) as compared to transgender women (TW). These findings can help inform medical and policy‐based strategies for health interventions within transgender communities. Also, our proposed approach can inform the development of computational strategies to identify the health‐related information needs of other marginalized populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This research examines how social networking sites (SNS) and search engines (SE) afford and constrain practices related to the development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) identities. Semi-structured interviews were performed with 30 LGBTQ+ individuals from the United States between the ages of 18 and 38. Data analysis identified these key affordances: a) identity expression, b) connecting to similar others, c) information access, and d) information control. Key constraints are: a) identity expression, b) information control, c) curation, and d) information access. Whether SNS and SE provide affordances or constraints is influenced by how participants ascribe meaning to these technologies within their everyday lives. Therefore, SNS and SE do not yield deterministically good or bad outcomes. Instead outcomes are shaped by sociocultural context and material properties of the technologies. Findings reveal implications of everyday technology use for LGBTQ+ individuals and suggest how they can leverage affordances and mitigate constraints of SNS and SE to manage identity work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This interactive panel demonstrates how critical, interdisciplinary theoretical and philosophical approaches outside the field of library and information science (LIS) can foster new ways of thinking about the concept of social justice. The panel consists of four researchers whose scholarship connects to these approaches. The following areas will be discussed: extending the philosophy of justice-as-fairness using the work of Amartya Sen, employing Umberto Eco's theoretical approach of semiotics to critique contemporary LIS practices and ideologies and adopting an information practices approach to highlight the importance of sociocultural context, embodiment and unsanctioned resources among those with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) identities. The panel will consist of a brief introduction followed by panelist presentations and time for questions and answers from the audience. To build on the potential implications for research and practice, panelists will engage the audience in a paired activity to discuss a set of relevant questions. This activity informs a full audience discussion that concludes the panel. Attendees will leave the panel with an understanding of the current issues related to applying social justice-centric approaches within LIS that can be implemented into future research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On December 3, 2014, after a grand jury decided not to indict the white police officer in the death of Eric Garner, the social networking platform Twitter was flooded with tweets sharing stances on racial profiling and police brutality. To examine how issues concerning race were communicated and exchanged during this time, this study compares differences between tweets using two trending hashtags #CrimingWhileWhite (#cww) and #AliveWhileBlack (#awb) from December 3 through December 11, 2014. To this end, network and content analysis are used on a large dataset of tweets containing the hashtags #awb and #cww. Findings indicate that there are clear differences, both structurally and in linguistic style, between how individuals express themselves based on which hashtag they used. Specifically, we found that #cww users disproportionately shared informational content, which may have led to the hashtag gaining more network volume and attention as a trending topic than #awb. In contrast, #awb tweets tended to be more subjective, expressing a sense of community and strong negative sentiment toward persistent structural racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social question answering (SQA) services are a popular way for people to exchange information. Unfortunately, the quality of information exchanged can be variable and few studies focus on the quality of questions asked. To address this, we explored the influence of textual features on question quality based on 126 questions taken from five different categories of Yahoo! Answers labeled as "Bad" by human assessors and then revised to be "Good" by them. Findings indicate significant differences between the means of each feature before and after revision, suggesting the potential for an automated system that could flag questions of poor quality. In addition, by exploring the relationship between features contributing to good quality questions, we suggest a simple set of strategies askers can take when writing a question in order to improve its chances of receiving a satisfactory answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online question answering (Q&A) provides a popular platform for people to interact with information online, both by asking and answering questions. Although previous studies have focused on factors that motivate answerers, these studies have not considered that questions offering potential rewards to answerers might provide extrinsic motivation to answer it. In the current study, we collected 25,878 resolved (i.e. one of the answers received a "Best Answer" rating from the asker) questions from Yahoo! Answers. Half contained an explicit offer to reward points, (i.e. "10 points for the best answer!") in the question subject and/or content (n=12,939) and half did not (n=12,939). Findings indicate that although questions without explicit offers received more answers on average, questions with explicit offers to reward points received a "Best Answer" rating by the asker approximately five times faster than the ones without an expression. This suggests that an explicit offer to reward ten points within a question affects the resultant on the quality of the answers provided within online Q&A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT When developing one's own research agenda, early and mid-career researchers continually negotiate how best to meet ethical standards and resolve ethical constraints using methodologically sound approaches. Often such struggles occur behind closed doors, their outcomes reflected in the institutional language of an ethical review board. This panel seeks to bring these struggles to the forefront by having panelists who study various populations discuss how they approach ethical challenges in their research. Due to the nature of the groups these panelists study, the panel provides a context where the site of ethical struggles, challenges, and tensions are exacerbated. Key issues to be discussed are: informed consent, risks to participants, and research design and dissemination. Discussion of these issues will be oriented around each participant's metatheoretical orientation to research in library and information science (LIS). Adopting such an approach will highlight some of the main challenges when engaging in ethical practices that may not align with institutional standards, as well as denote possible strategies for addressing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]