Marcel LaFlamme

Repertoires: How Social Science Theory Gets Made and Remade — Association of Research Libraries In 2008, technologist Chris Anderson famously predicted the end of theory, as massively abundant data reduced the need for researchers to develop and test explanatory models. “Who knows why people...

The latest post in our #ARLRepertoires series by @marcellaflamme.bsky.social looks to Clay Spinuzzi’s book Triangles and Tribulations for insight on why social scientists continue to look to theory in an age of data-intensive scholarship. bit.ly/RepTheory
@mitpress.bsky.social @cossa.bsky.social

Very cool, I hadn't seen this! I'm thinking specifically about checks that happen prior to peer review (i.e., do we want this on our preprint server?), although in practice it may be hard to draw a bright line between those checks and review itself.

Do we need a server/publisher-agnostic taxonomy of these checks, so that authors and readers can see at a glance which services do what (and, potentially, how well)?

I can see research libraries having a stake in this: we're talking trust indicators at the @arl.org Fall Meeting the week after next.

LibQUAL to Become Open-Source Survey Application — Association of Research Libraries Since ARL’s decision to sunset the LibQUAL service-quality assessment tool at the end of 2025, the Association has explored several options for the future of the LibQUAL product. To allow...

LibQUAL for all! ARL is releasing a standalone application to run #LibQUAL locally in 2026. It will be open and free for all who wish to use it. Learn more here: arl.org/libqual-open #LibraryAssessment

Glimmer of insight: is one reason departments resist research assessment reform because faculty governance and researcher autonomy are being eroded on so many other fronts?

I hope you keep writing and researching and publishing, even if it’s about distant and abstruse topics. It’s not stupid, it’s beautiful, because it’s a testament to the curiosity and care they’re trying to eradicate.

The first time I heard the phrase "publish a dataset" I thought, "well, that doesn't apply to us. Why would an anthropologist publish their data?" It's been a minute, and now I understand why *sometimes* it's actually a great thing to do. And we did it!

New Resources Available from Machine Actionable Plans (MAP) Pilot — Association of Research Libraries The Machine Actionable Plans (MAP) Pilot project is in its final phase, providing institutions with resources to enable them to explore the potential uses of machine-actionable data-management plans (...

Five institutions explored how machine-actionable data management plans, supported by @caldiglib.bsky.social's DMPTool, could improve research support and streamline compliance. Here's what we learned.

www.arl.org/news/new-res...

The political economy of platformed silos: Theorizing data storage reconfigurations in the age of interoperability capitalism - Matthew Archer, Louis Ravn, Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, 2025 Interoperability has become a prominent topic in contemporary discourses around digital infrastructures in fields as diverse as security, finance, health, and c...

And to @matthewarcher.bsky.social and colleagues on keeping questions of political economy front and center in the face of interoperability imaginaries.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Social Interoperability in Research Support The report defines social interoperability and describes the network of campus units involved in major areas of university research support services. It concludes by offering recommendations for culti...

Finally working my way through this report, which has become a ubiquitous reference point for research libraries.

I can't help connecting it to @structureless.bsky.social's piece about porous social orders (doi.org/10.17613/y6e...).

www.oclc.org/research/pub...

Harvard’s Plant Collection Meets Space Science | Harvard Magazine Light-based analysis of botanical collections link plants to Earth’s changing climate.

I did a practicum at the Harvard Herbaria when I was in library school. Super cool to read about this use of their collections to complement remote sensing data.

www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/07/harv...

Opinion: Federal library funding cuts will hit rural areas the hardest Cuts are already limiting Mass. residents’ access to research and educational tools, but there is still time to oppose them.

With IMLS funding for 2026 uncertain, Massachusetts prepares to cut online newspaper access, databases for K-12 students.

theshoestring.org/2025/08/20/o...

Theory of Change Certification Course - Theory of Change Community

Sure thing! I'm hoping to wrap up the course (www.theoryofchange.org/theory-of-ch...) by the end of September, so let's find a time to chat around then.

The end of an era!

Very cool, I’d love to chat about this sometime! I’m brand-new to ToC but hoping to use it in our program planning at @arl.org.

Great that these issues are familiar! Are you seeing librarians being asked to support theory of change development, specifically?

Integration of evidence into Theory of Change frameworks in the healthcare sector: A rapid systematic review Background Theory of Change (ToC) has become an established approach to design and evaluate interventions. While ToC should—in line with the growing international focus on evidence-informed health dec...

Also, I'd love to see librarians and #EvidenceSynthesis folks discussing this rapid review: how do we incorporate and sequence evidence from both the research literature and stakeholders themselves?

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Grateful for the opportunity to be trained on #TheoryofChange as a tool for linking program planning to societal impact.

Our actions always have unintended consequences, but I see value in at least getting clear on the intended ones.

A speech bubble containing the following quotation from the article: "However, when the US Administration issued the May 2025 Executive Order titled ‘Restoring Gold Standard Science’, it suggested that the failure of individual studies to achieve a list of transparency and rigor-related practices is a justification for disqualification of the evidence, and could even potentially be considered misconduct. This reframed science’s commitment to identifying limitations as a weakness and has set a standard that is rarely achieved by any individual study. The fall-out from the Executive Order has prompted some difficult questions. Are scientists undermining trust by acknowledging flaws? And how should scientists respond when the tools of accountability are misappropriated?"

What happens when science's greatest strengths (openness, humility, self-criticism, self-correction) are exploited for political gain? @briannosek.bsky.social calls on scientists to affirm the application of those strengths as the source of its trustworthiness @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4l8rNuE

Collecting #Quaker resources like this one as I prepare to clerk a committee at my monthly meeting for the first time. Any other favorites?

web.archive.org/web/20041210...

Trump fires labor statistics boss hours after weak jobs report The president implied that the BLS commissioner, longtime federal employee Erika McEntarfer, manipulated the data "for political purposes."

"The politicization of economic data and potential interference with it by political appointees is something that's typically seen in non-democratic countries like Russia, Venezuela or China."

www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...

Canada's Tri-Agencies have removed the mandatory requirement to disclose use of AI in grant proposals, calling it "an unnecessary administrative burden."

science.gc.ca/site/science...

Interesting menu of options for publishing cost containment being considered by NIH. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Kate Zwaard Courtesy: Shawn Miller and the Library of Congress

We look forward to welcoming Kate Zwaard as the next Executive Director of CNI, effective September 15, 2025. She will join CNI from the Library of Congress, where she presided over the Library’s digital transformation.

Full announcement: www.cni.org/news/kate-zw... @arl.org @educause.bsky.social

The Society for the Anthropology of Work and the Anthropology of Work Review invite applications to join the SAW Community of Writing Fellows, a new 8-month writing mentorship program running from September 2025 to April 2026. We seek six early-career scholars and graduate students working on topics related to labor and work from anthropological perspectives and who seek to develop submissions for the Anthropology of Work Review. Our initiative is designed to especially support those who may not have robust mentorship supports in their home institutions, and we strongly welcome applicants from equity-deserving groups. You’ll engage in… • Monthly writing group meetings and peer feedback • A developmental editing workshop with Ideas on Fire [ideasonfire.net] • The opportunity to meet and learn from the AWR editorial collective • A community of practice (CoP) approach to writing focused on collaborative, supportive, and rigorous writing development Eligibility: • Current graduate student or early-career scholar (within five years of PhD) • Working on an article-length research manuscript related to the anthropology of work • Committed to attending monthly meetings and engaging in one peer review between meetings To apply, please submit a short application of max 500 words describing (1) your project and its fit with the anthropology of work, (2) your goals for writing and publishing, and (3) a brief note about your writing and mentoring needs. Applications due August 15, 2025 to Jennifer Shaw, SAW Mentorship Coordinator, at jeshaw@tru.ca. Questions are also welcome!

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS!

Society for the Anthropology of Work and Anthropology of Work Review invite applications to the SAW Community of Writing Fellows, a 8-month writing mentorship program running September 2025 to April 2026. Applications due August 15, 2025 to Jennifer Shaw at jeshaw@tru.ca.

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

Exclusive: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication.

My latest.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Roundups like this are so valuable! And, like Ryan, I'm not quite sure where to look for them these days.

Big zine cover in the lower-right of my #DH2025 poster is the free "DIY Web Archiving" zine by me + @quinnanya.me @bitarchivist.net @akijas.bsky.social @ilya.webrecorder.net Friendly tutorial how anyone can help preserve what you ❤️ on the web. Read online+print copies: zinebakery.com/homemade-zin...

"The greater the pressure on the scientific enterprise, the more one hears about FDR’s science advisor." 😂

issues.org/innovation-h...

An automatically generated LLM prompt/output log archived and attached to the written work would be a cool innovation to try. Then we could categorize the types of interaction empirically