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An Assessment of Sustainable Recruitment Practices at Canadian Research Libraries
(2024-07) Ly, Valentina
Despite an awareness that the library profession is lacking in racial diversity, the representation in libraries has mostly remained the same throughout the past three decades, with many citing the lack of diverse candidates applying for librarian roles. Potential barriers that have been identified to explain the lack of diverse librarian candidates are recruitment efforts and hiring practices. To address this, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) formed their equity, diversity, and inclusion wording group (EDIWG) in 2019 with the intent to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in research libraries. As part of their work, in December 2020, EDIWG released a document called “Strategies and Practices for Hiring and Retaining Diverse Talent”, which outlined broad recruitment strategies, along with suggested practices to implement these strategies. Three years after the document was released, this assessment of CARL member librarian postings will determine whether basic and feasible recruitment practices are being implemented, such as broadening the eligibility of required education, promoting the institution as inclusive, and posting the job advertisements to targeted networks.
The Afterworld: Long COVID and International Relations
(2024-04-30) Mérand, Frédéric; Welsh, Jennifer; Frédéric; Jennifer
COVID-19 sparked the largest global crisis of the 21st century, extending well beyond public health. For some, the impact was swift and dramatic, with the pandemic pushing tens of millions into poverty and creating extreme food insecurity; for others, the transformations are still bubbling under the surface. Efforts to arrest the spread of COVID-19 entailed far-reaching forms of government intervention and the extensive use of new technologies. Questions thus remain as to whether the societal changes brought about by COVID-19 will endure in the post-pandemic period. The return of geopolitics, along with the war in Ukraine and tensions in Asia, have further complexified an already complex global situation.
Since March 2020, there has been an explosion of analyses about the short-term impacts and future global consequences of COVID-19. Parallels to the 1930s collapse of Europe have been made, as recounted by Stefan Zweig in his famous memoir, The World of Yesterday. While most commentators are pessimistic, some are looking for positive change. Faced with this unprecedented crisis, we have been propelled to think about how, in the “next world,” we can strengthen economic prosperity, social justice, the environment, gender relations, public health, and political institutions—or at least ensure that these features of our world do not continue to deteriorate.
In The Afterworld, 50 professors from four Montreal universities, among the foremost experts in their fields, propose progressive, pragmatic, and social science-based ideas with the potential to improve international cooperation, security, human rights, and sustainable prosperity beyond the pandemic.
Haïti: Le sous-développement durable
(2023-12-06) Lovinski, Vladimir Pierre Antoine
Les stratégies de développement priorisées correspondent-elles à la réalité et aux besoins locaux dans la société haïtienne ? Les acteurs locaux participent-ils au processus de développement économique ? Quelle place occupe le local dans la fabrication des décisions collectives ? La classe dirigeante et les décideurs publics éprouvent-ils une certaine volonté pour que le processus du développement local et la décentralisation soient une réalité effective en Haïti ?
Les fondements des deux notions tout juste évoquées voudraient que les acteurs, les citoyens et les pouvoirs locaux prennent part au processus décisionnel devant aboutir à la formulation des politiques de développement. Or, dans les faits, la planification locale du développement est une réalité difficile à institutionnaliser.
Basée essentiellement sur une interprétation multidimensionnelle du développement et sur une approche institutionnelle de l’analyse des politiques publiques, la réflexion que propose Lovinski incite à interroger les politiques de développement priorisées par les décideurs publics. L’auteur examine les démarches entreprises dans la conduite des politiques de développement et montre à quoi elles ont abouti tout comme il saisit les dynamiques en marche et en appréhende les ambiguïtés.
Killer Cell Immunoglobulin-Like Receptors Delineate Distinct Phenotypes and Functions in Human γδ T Cells
(Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa, 2024-07-09) Razmi, Mahya; Djaoud, Zakia
Human circulating γδ T cells are broadly classified into three subsets: Vδ1, Vδ2, and Vδ1/2neg populations, with the Vδ2 subset being the most abundant. In this research, I focus on the contribution and interplay of Natural Killer (NK) receptors to the γδ T cell phenotype and function, with emphasis on Killer-cell Immunoglobulin-like Receptors (KIRs), which are poorly studied in the field of γδ T cell biology. Because cytomegalovirus (CMV) is known to shape the αβ T cell and NK cell repertoires, I studied peripheral blood (PB) γδ T cells from both CMV-seronegative (CMV-) and CMV-seropositive (CMV+) healthy adult humans, using spectral flow cytometry. I found that CMV leaves a stable imprint in the γδ T cell repertoire and phenotype. CMV+ individuals have increased proportions of Vδ1 T cells within the total γδ T cell population. Moreover, γδ T cells from these individuals display increased proportions of cells expressing KIRs, which constitute a highly polymorphic family of receptors for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) class I. These KIRs delineate a dichotomy in the phenotype and function of γδ T cells. KIR+γδ T cells exhibit characteristics akin to memory like T cells, displaying heightened effector potential, whereas KIR-γδ T cells resemble naïve T cells with comparatively weaker immune responses. Leveraging the assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing (ATACseq) technology, I show that KIR+γδ T cells have more open loci associated with effector functions than KIR-γδ T cells, which is consistent with the above results. These findings underscore a critical role for KIRs in γδ T cell immunity and hold implications for both our understanding of immune responses influenced by CMV and the potential of γδ T cells in cellular immunotherapy.
We paid how much? A case study of APC expenditure at the University of Ottawa
(2024-06-05) Hare, Maddie; Butler, Leigh-Ann
The open access (OA) movement has catalyzed change in the scholarly publishing landscape; most notably, new publishing models, such as transformative agreements (and/or Read-and-Publish deals) have emerged alongside traditional subscription models that are funded by libraries in higher education institutions. It has proven challenging for libraries to assess the cost effectiveness of these emerging agreements due to the complexity of estimating article processing charge (APC) spend. As a result, institutions have begun to create and employ a wide range of methods in support of estimating their total expenditures on APCs. For this presentation, researchers from the University of Ottawa introduce a dataset of APC price lists for six large commercial academic publishers (Elsevier, SpringerNature, Wiley, PLOS, MDPI, Frontiers) of OA content and elaborate on its use to support a bibliometric analysis of the publication outputs of the University of Ottawa in 2022. They also present results on estimated overall spend, by OA model, publisher, and by Ottawa faculty.