The Authority File

As the pandemic exacerbated inequities in housing, technology access, health care, and more, higher education faced a reckoning of its own. In today’s virtual learning and work environments, many called for a reevaluation of the academy’s purpose. What do students receive from their postsecondary education? More specifically, should universities teach students how to learn, or how to get a job? In...

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s widespread Black Lives Matter protests, a slew of organizations released statements that promised new initiatives to address inequities within the workplace. Many announced new chief diversity officers, established DEI departments, or pledged to examine and report on hiring practices. But what’s the difference between effective trans...

Starting in March 2020, widespread changes to work life prompted declarations of a “new normal.” The implementation of remote work, reliance on video conferencing, and shift in balance between home and work life appeared to signal a “transformed workplace.” But will these adaptions remain permanent? A year and a half later, have our work lives really transformed, or are we headed toward a pre-pand...

We’ve launched satellites into orbit. Sent a rover to Mars. Landed on the moon. What’s next for the space industry? Which near-term goals are possible in this decade? Well, organizations will first need to address the accumulating mass of debris congesting the near-Earth space environment. Also known as space junk, these thousands of pieces of abandoned satellites and rockets pose serious risks. A...

How has space exploration’s shift from a government-dominated industry to an increasingly privatized environment influenced the market? Are the major players still in the US and Russia? Which investments attract the most competition and innovation? In this third episode, Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets , walks through toda...

In recent decades, which has experienced the most significant change: space technology or its business model? Dr. Stella Tkatchova, a project manager in the European Space Industry and author of Emerging Space Markets , has observed a striking shift in space commerce. Once a federally-funded race to plant a flag on Earth’s moon, space exploration has transformed into a private, money-making...

On July 20th, 2021, Blue Origin—the aerospace company founded by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos—launched a space flight with four passengers, including the founder himself. This 10-minute flight to the borders of outer space sparked new discussions surrounding commercial investments in the space economy. How has space exploration evolved from a government-sanctioned space race to an industry rife wi...

Emailing a former professor about research breakthroughs. Downloading copyrighted papers off the internet. Sharing login credentials. Aren’t these all harmless characteristics of academia? Everyday tricks of the scholarly trade? Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at  Kroll , warns that seemingly harmless actions or good intentions may lead to serious consequences—can t...

Simon Rolston, in his new book  Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System , separated the history of American prisons into two categories: the “rehabilitative” Treatment Era of the mid-1940s to mid-1970s, and the contemporary state of mass incarceration. Though the conversion narrative has remained constant throughout these two periods, prison life writers’ c...

“They try to put guilt on you. They try to make you think it’s your professional responsibility to help them. But the key is: security procedures only work if we use them consistently, and if we’re trained to know that bad actors are going to play on those emotions.” Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at  Kroll , understands the ploys hackers use during a cyberattack—a...

“As an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated person, you don’t have a lot of room to move. You don’t have a lot of choice in terms of narratives that are available to you.” Simon Rolston, author of Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System , found a pattern in prison life writing. Of the many books he read by incarcerated authors, the vast majority followed a...

In recent years, universities have become target-rich environments for cyberattacks. But why? What do hackers want from academic institutions? According to Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice at Kroll , information. Because of universities’ breadth of non-public data and extensive interconnectivity across campus and state networks, institutions have become a hot bed of...

When researching for his new book,  Prison Life Writing: Conversion and the Literary Roots of the U.S. Prison System , Simon Rolston found an intriguing pattern: conversion. If entering the prison system as apolitical, uneducated, or violent, incarcerated writers would craft their stories to emerge as a revolutionary, poet, or believer. So why the need for conversion? How does this pattern work in...

What steps do you take to safeguard your digital information? Maybe you change your passwords every other month. Turn on two-factor authentication. Keep your Netflix log-in under lock and key. But what about at your workplace? How does your campus protect its information, and what role do you play in successful cybersecurity implementation? Alan Brill, Senior Managing Director in the Cyber Risk pr...

The autobiographical genre of life writing takes many forms: personal essays, memoirs, diary entries, letters—all forms that the currently and formerly incarcerated write in. But what are the characteristics and complexities of prison life writing? How does it mirror the history of incarceration? What’s its relationship with resistance literature? While studying for his master’s degree, Simo...

Throughout this four-part series, our guests have drilled down into how to support diverse students on their academic journeys. In this final episode, they zoom out to examine longstanding incentive structures built into the scholarly ecosystem. How can faculty, librarians, and publishers dismantle patterns in academia that disadvantage students from diverse backgrounds? Dr. Pamela Queen of Morgan...

For many libraries, tracking user data isn’t simply an effective way to keep tabs on patron habits. Instead, it’s a tool used to justify purchases and champion resources for students and faculty. How can librarians make the most out of their library’s metrics? In this final episode, Steven Rosato of OverDrive Professional explains the significance of detailed user data in the face of t...

It’s no secret that the publishing industry is an homogenous field. Issues range from barriers of entry to recruitment strategies to workplace culture. What can scholarly publishers and university presses do to retool outdated, exclusionary practices? In this third episode, Todd Baldwin and Miranda Nunhofer of SAGE Publishing discuss how to break down the barriers that publishers face in implement...

In March of 2021, the United States Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill included an expansion of health care access, unemployment benefits, and rental assistance—not to mention direct stimulus payments to many Americans. But how has the bill impacted higher education? Can university libraries reap any ben...

The “leaky pipeline” in academia—researchers forgoing a traditional, tenure-track future for corporate, government, or other non-academic jobs—is often regarded as a fundamental problem in higher education, especially when those leaving are academics of color or women. But is this move to outside the academy all that bad? In this second episode, our guests explore the “problem” of the leaky pipeli...

Provide highly-focused content for researchers. Expand course reserves to ensure equity and accessibility. Grow the digital collection to include ebooks, audio content, and streaming video. These tasks all fall under the academic librarian’s list of collection development goals—goals the pandemic only made more urgent. When university library budgets fall short, how can librarians do more with les...

Supporting diverse students doesn’t end when they leave the classroom. In fact, our guests on this four-part series demonstrate that meaningful, valuable, and equitable support should begin before a student steps on campus and extend past graduation—even if they make their way outside of academia. This month, two academics and two publishers join us on the Authority File to discuss their unique pe...

It’s no secret that diversity in reading mediums—print, ebook, audio—make for a more robust, accessible, and patron-friendly collection. But how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected circulation trends? As we inch closer to in-person learning, will audio and ebooks lose their appeal? Steven Rosato, Manager of the Sales Team at OverDrive Professional, found himself asking the same questions. He decide...

This week Bill talks with Will Davis, head of the OECD’s Washington office about what, exactly, the OECD is, how it got started, and how it works. He details how the organization operates by consensus, rather than through voting, and how it differs from other international organizations like the U.N. They also discuss the OECD’s research and how it’s used by a wide variety of sec...

Paula Krebs, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, is sick of having to defend the Humanities. Though Paula agrees that a public relations issue exists, she argues that the existing culture—whether in the form of political attacks, budget cuts, or even parents urging students to pursue other majors—needs to transform. “I get really tired of the rhetoric of crisis around the Humani...