Library Research Notes #29
It's March
Hello lovely readers!
It’s March and the 2 year anniversary of COVID. I cannot believe that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic and it feels like there is no end in sight. Back on March 15th, 2021, I wrote issue #8 of this newsletter and I certainly didn’t think that when I got to issue #29, we would still be dealing with this. But here we are. So, let’s look at some stats, shall we?
Looking at the Vaccination Progress Map of the U.S. on the COVID Act Now site we can see that the majority of the citizens have made the effort to get at least 1 dose of a vaccine. 77% country-wide, in fact, has done their due diligence and got vaccinated. On a state-by-state basis, we can see that 14 states, plus Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, have percentages of 80% or higher, with Rhode Island leading the way at 95% vaccinated.
Only 2 states clock in at less than 60% vaccinated, we are ALL looking at you Mississippi (59%) and Wyoming (58%), while the majority fall within the 60-79% range. The state I live in, Tennessee, is sadly at 62%, tied with my former state of Alabama, but the state I grew up in, New York, is holding strong at 89%. Tennessee is also at the top of the list for positive test rates, at 8.6%, which is why I have recommitted to wearing a mask in public, even though the mask mandates across the country have been lifted and my local Publix has dispensed with requiring workers to wear masks. Honestly, I don’t love wearing a mask, but I would rather be safe than wind up with COVID.
All of this to say, yet again, if you haven’t already been vaccinated, and you can be vaccinated, please take a moment to make that appointment and get that done. You can still get COVID with the vaccination, but the likelihood that you will be hospitalized or die from the pandemic is GREATLY reduced with the shot.
All COVID stats above were taken from the COVID Act Now site on 10 March 2022. These are dynamic statistics, so my hope is that by the time you are reading this, each state has gone up in vaccination percentages and that hospitalizations and deaths have decreased.
March Topic
This month I am going to take a deep dive into Identity, from personal and political perspectives. “Cancel culture” and “Identity politics” have been prevalent buzz phrases recently and I would like to discuss them in more detail. Full transparency: my view on these ideas is that they are more propaganda than truth, but I would still like to take a longer look at how they are affecting us individually and on the national and political levels.
March Resources
Before I list out some of the resources I will be using for this month’s topic, I wanted to let you know that I am still working on pulling together the book list that I mentioned in the January issue, based on the banned books list in Texas. There is a lot to go through on the list, but I hope to have it ready by next month so we can support the authors!
For March I will once again be using books, articles, websites, youtube videos, and podcasts to gather data. Identity is a vast topic, so I may break it down into smaller sections and write multiple issues. I’m not sure if this will be necessary, but I do love a series.
A few resources, if you would like to follow along:
Gee. (2016). Discourse analysis matters: bridging frameworks. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 11(4), 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2016.1226316
de Vries. (2012). Intersectional Identities and Conceptions of the Self: The Experience of Transgender People. Symbolic Interaction, 35(1), 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.2
Buck-Morss, S. (1989). The dialectics of seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. (ACLS Humanities E-Book.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Good news from the stacks
Librarians are organizing! This is an exciting trend that I hope continues forward into public and school librarianship across the United States. Librarians deserve the benefits of a union, just like educators do!
While the unionization process varies depending on the unionizing body and institution, worker demands remain consistent across the board: They want equity—monetary, social, and cultural—and the ability for frontline workers to participate in decision making. (americanlibrariesmagazine.org)
Thank you for reading the Library Research Notes Newsletter. If you enjoyed this issue, please be sure to pass it along!