No. 537 - July 9, 2025

  • Coming Events:

    - FIMSWrites - Summer Edition
    - Western Farmers Market
    - Western Free Store Donation Day
    - Workshop: Navigating Forms & Requesting References
    - Celebrate Trading on Art at Museum London!
    - Save the Date - LIS 9004 Research Methods Poster Showcase

  • Important Dates:

    - Monday, August 4, 2025 - Civic Holiday (Offices closed, no classes)
    - Friday, August 8, 2025 - Final day of FIMS graduate classes

  • News & Announcements:

    - Susan Knabe steps into 1-year Acting Dean position

    Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Erin Bourgard
    - Maria Flores Barba
    - Logan van Roessel

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - Melissa Adler
    - Revna Altiok
    - Mark Ambrogio
    - Roger Chabot
    - Yimin Chen (PhD'25, LIS)
    - Sarah Cornwell (PhD'25, LIS)
    - Anastazia Csegeny
    - Nicole Delellis
    - Dominique Kelly (PhD'25, Media Studies)
    - Yifan Liu
    - Santasil Mallik
    - JP Mann
    - Alex Mayhew (PhD'25, LIS)
    - Myrna Moretti
    - Sodiq Onaolapo
    - Selma Purac
    - Victoria Rubin
    - Effie Sapuridis (with Charlotte Nau and Brittany Melton)
    - Sina Torabi

  • In the Media:

    - Maia Aqui
    - Nick Dyer-Witheford
    - Anabel Quan-Haase
    - Meghan Voll

  • News from the FIMS Grad Library:

    - Summer Hours at the Library
    - Upcoming Events at the Library

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events

FIMSWrites - Summer Term Edition
Wednesdays
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Attend in-person: FNB 4110
Attend online: Check your Western email for the Zoom link (or contact Pam McKenzie)
Do you expect to have assignment, story, article, report, thesis, and/or book writing deadlines coming up in the Fall term? Does having other people writing around you help keep you on-task? Then join us for FIMSWrites, an informal initiative to provide some solidarity in the sometimes-solitary writing process. What it is: a group of people sitting silently together working on their individual writing projects, a mid-morning coffee, snack, and socializing break. What it's not: a writing tutorial or workshop. Open to FIMS faculty, librarians, postdocs and grad students who have writing to work on.

Western Farmers Market
Wednesdays
10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Open space in front of McIntosh Gallery
The Western Farmers Market returns! Pick up fresh produce, flowers, baked goods and other local treats or grab lunch from the on-site food truck.

Western Free Store Donation Day
Wednesdays
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Arts & Humanities Building 1B09
Donate your unwanted items (only clean items that are in good condition, please) every Wednesday over the summer months. Visit their website to see a list of accepted and not accepted items. Hosted by Western's Sustainability Office.

Workshop - Navigating Forms & Requesting References
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4110
Attend online: Check your Western email for a Zoom link
Presented by FIMS Research Officer Chantal Lemire. Pizza and refreshments will be provided.
Short Summary: This workshop provides a detailed overview of the application process for Tri-Agency scholarships, including the CGS-M, CGS-D, and OGS. Topics include navigating the online systems and portals used for application submission, understanding eligibility requirements, and breaking down the components of both Master’s and Doctoral-level applications (read more).

Celebrate Trading on Art at Museum London!
Thursday, July 24, 2025
6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Attend in person: Museum London (421 Ridout St) - Register now.
Attend online: Register now
A book launch by Associate Professor Sarah Smith, and co-hosted by Museum London and Words: The Literary and Creative Arts Festival.
Abstract: The 1989 Canada–US Free Trade Agreement and 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement reinvented the concept of North America as a cohesive whole, united by free trade. But within the bold concept of continental unity lay a paradox. While art was mobilized to frame the new narrative, culture itself was explicitly excluded from the agreements that implemented this vision (read more).

Save the Date - LIS 9004 Research Methods Poster Showcase
Friday, August 8, 2025
9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
FIMS Graduate Library (FNB 3020)
MLIS students enrolled in LIS 9004 will showcase their posters. Please join us in welcoming them to the FIMS research community!
 


Important Dates

- Monday, August 4, 2025 - Civic Holiday (Offices closed, no classes)
- Friday, August 8, 2025 - Final day of FIMS graduate classes


News & Announcements

Susan Knabe steps into 1-year Acting Dean position
With the conclusion of Professor Lisa Henderson's term as Dean on June 30, Associate Professor Susan Knabe has now stepped in as Acting Dean for FIMS. Professor Knabe will occupy the Acting Dean role until June 30,  2026.


Awards & Accomplishments

Erin Bourgard, Acting Director of the FIMS Graduate Library, was promoted to Associate Librarian, effective July 1, 2025.

Dr. Maria Flores Barba, recent graduate of the PhD in Hispanic Studies at Western, has been awarded a Western Postdoctoral position at FIMS and will be working with Professor Amanda Grzyb. Flores Barba has been working on the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project as a Research Assistant since 2018. She has made many significant contributions to the project's massacre map, testimonies, video editing, historical memory workshops, and digital reconstructions of destroyed villages.

Logan van Roessel, MHIS candidate, successfully defended his thesis titled, The Co-Design of a Trauma- and Violence-Informed Care E-Learning Module for the Gender-Based Violence Sector: The Unique Service Needs of 2SLGBTQI+ Survivors on July 3.

Publications & Presentations

Associate Professor Melissa Adler has a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Information History titled "'There Must be Something Vicious in the Data': Thomas Jefferson's Techniques of Racialisation in the Production of Data, Facts, and Information." The handbook is edited by Toni Weller, Alistair Black, Bonnie Mak, and Laura Skouvig.

Media Studies PhD candidate Revna Altiok presented a talk titled "Designing an Anime Studies Syllabus: Teaching Monstrosity and Tolerance" at Anime Expo, the largest celebration of Japanese pop culture in North American, on July 4 in Los Angeles. The symposium is a collaboration between Anime Expo and the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, and Revna's presentation discussed the syllabus she has developed which positions anime as a medium for exploring themes of otherness, monstrosity, and cultural tolerance.

LIS PhD candidate Mark Ambrogio and Rev. Dr. Michael Prieur (retired professor of theology at Kings College/St. Peter's Seminary) gave a presentation at London's Central Library on May 21 about their co-authored book titled Panes of Courage. The book discusses the history of history, art, and architecture of the chapel in Ursuline Hall at the former Brescia University College. Part of the talk focused on researching local history in GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) spaces.

On June 19, Assistant Professor Roger Chabot presented a talk entitled “Fat Accessibility Concerns in Academic Libraries: A Primer” at the Ontario Council of University Libraries Accessibility Symposium 2.0.

Assistant Professor Sarah Cornwell (PhD'25, LIS), Nicole Delellis (LIS PhD candidate), Dominique Kelly (PhD'25, Media Studies), Yifan Liu (LIS PhD candidate), Alex Mayhew (PhD'25, LIS), Yimin Chen (PhD'22, LIS) and Professor Victoria Rubin co-authored a paper titled "Theorizing Improved NLP Features for Promoting Behavior that Supports CMC Users' Subjective Well-Being," in the Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS Actes Du congrès Annuel De l’ACSI, published on May 23.

Anastazia Csegeny, PhD student in Media Studies, presented "Reading Motherhood in the Gothic Graphic Novel: E.M. Carroll's A Guest in the House," at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association annual Summer Salon conference on June 26.

Media Studies PhD candidate Santasil Mallik will present a paper titled "Sights and Sites of Protest in Gauri Gills The Villages on the Highway" at the 6th research colloquium Study Days for Photography 2025 at the German Documentation Centre for Art History (Image Archive Foto Marburg), Philipps-University Marburg, from July 29 to August 2.

JP Mann (LIS PhD candidate) and Sina Torabi (Media Studies PhD candidate) presented a paper titled “Becoming, Not Being: Rethinking Mental Illness at the Crossroads of Videogame Representation” at the DiGRA 2025 conference.

Myrna Moretti, FIMS Postdoctoral Associate, presented a paper titled "Expect the Best: Computing Dating on 1980s Television" at Console-ing Passions in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27-29.

Sodiq Onaolapo (PhD'25, LIS) co-authored the following papers.

Onaolapo, S.A., & Rubin, V.L. (2025). Library SCEB Model: Advocating Positive Psychology Interventions in Library Settings. Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Conference of Canadian Association of Information Science, Halifax, Nova Scotia. May 27-29, 2025. Library SCEB Model: Advocating Positive Psychology Interventions in Library Settings

Onaolapo, S.A, Ayeni, P., & Mncube, S. (2025). Open access publishing in an African context: Notable improvements and recurring challenges. IFLA Journal, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352251351113
Also included below is the citation of my presentation at the CAPAL Conference 2025 for your use.

Onaolapo, S.A., Rothbauer, P., & Hill, H. (2025). EDID Initiatives in the Collection Management Practices of Canadian University Libraries. Proceedings of the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) 2025 Conference - “The Fabric of Librarianship: A Patchwork of Experience” - George Brown College Toronto, Ontario on June 2nd-3rd, 2025.


Assistant Professor Selma Purac was invited to present a paper called "Rooted in Realism and Sound: The Witch and Hagazussa" at the Interdisciplinary Witch Conference: Witches in Culture, History, and Society at York St. John University in the UK on June 20. 

Additionally Professor Purac presented a paper called "Class and the Mid-Century American Consumer in the Fiction of Shirley Jackson" at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Associations's 2025 virtual conference on June 26.

Effie Sapuridis, Media Studies PhD candidate, presented a paper titled "#Tradwife Trends: How Influencers Reproduce Gender Roles on Tik Tok" at Console-ing Passions on June 29 in Atlanta, Georgia. Co-authors of the paper include Charlotte Nau and Brittany Melton (Media Studies PhD candidates), along with Meaghan Furlano, Kaitlynn Mendes and Sophia Attema (Sociology) and William Hollingshead (TMU).


In the Media

Fourth year MACS student Maia Aqui's debut novel called The Manor in the Forest was included in Western News' Summer Reads article published on June  24. Read about Maia's novel and others in "Summer reads from the Western community."

Recently retired Professor Nick Dyer-Witheford was quoted in an article titled "AI data-center boom could destroy Big Tech's net-zero plans," originally published by Reuters on June 27.

Professor Anabel Quan-Haase was quoted in an article titled "Is it rude to call or facetime without warning? Here's why some say you should think twice before clicking the phone icon," published by the Toronto Star on July 6.

Meghan Voll, PhD in Media Studies candidate, was interviewed for an episode of Columnists from CBC Radio titled "The United Kingdom just fined genetic testing company 23andme millions of dollars for a global data breach," that first aired on June 25.

News from the FIMS Grad Library

Summer Hours at the Library

Mondays to Thursdays: 10am-7pm
Fridays: 10am-4pm
(Closed Saturdays, Sundays and University Holidays)

Upcoming Events at the Library

The FGL hosts workshops, lectures, and community events each term to support graduate teaching, learning, and research. Events are posted to our website (https://lib.fims.uwo.ca/events/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/fimsgradlib/)

Board Game Night at the Library, Hosted by Matt Ward

Take a break and stop by the library for July’s Game Night—a relaxed evening with board games, retro video games, snacks, and good company.

Refreshments and Barakat Falafels and Shawarma will be provided, but we need to know how many guests to expect!

Please email fimslib@uwo.ca to RSVP with your order of Falafel, Chicken Shawarma, or Beef Shawarma wrap.

Grab your friends, bring your best game face, and join us for an evening of friendly competition and good vibes.

Thursday, July 17, 2025
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
FIMS Graduate Library

Card Sorting Workshop

Help the FIMS graduate Library redesign our website! The FIMS Grad Library is in the process of redesigning our website to improve accessibility and usability – and we need your input. Join us for a card sorting workshop to share your ideas to make our website more user-friendly. Card sorting is a quick, hands-on, and collaborative way for UX librarians to gather input on what users need and expect from a website.

Your feedback will directly share how we structure and label content on the new site.

Why Participate?

Raffle – All in-person participants will be entered to win a gift basket

Snacks and refreshments provided

Unable to make it in person? Participate in our online open card sort instead. The online activity can be found here.

Register for the in-person session by emailing fimslib@uwo.ca.

Monday, July 14, 2025
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
FIMS Graduate Library

Wikimedia Photo Challenge Upload-a-thon

The FIMS Graduate Library presents… Wikimedia Commons Photo Challenge – July 2025

It’s easy to take part!

Capture the scenes of your summer adventures, or take part in one of our weekly photo challenges in July

Create a Wikimedia account and join the Dashboard to enter your photos in the challenge

Join us for an upload-a-thon to openly share your photography with Wikimedia Commons

Why participate?

In sharing your images with Wikimedia Commons, you are actively supporting open access to images for reuse and to enhance Wikipedia articles

Learn how to upload and describe images for Wikimedia Commons

Prizes for most uploads + best quality (Peer-voting in early August)

Need technical support? Join us for an In-Person Upload-a-thon Event

Stephen Spong (Copyright Officer, Western Libraries) will share information about copyright for images in Canada and the U.S.

Erin Bourgard (Acting Director, FIMS Graduate Library) will share tips on privacy and stripping identifying information from images

Emily Carrasco-Acosta (MLIS Candidate) will provide demonstrations in uploading images to Wikimedia and adding descriptions (metadata) to your images.

Hands-on help in uploading your images

Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Email fimslib@uwo.ca for in-person registration and to let us know your dietary needs.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
FIMS Graduate Library

Can’t make it in person? No problem!
Join the Dashboard before uploading your images, and they will be entered to win prizes.

For more information, click here.


Next Issue


The FIMS Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to fims-communications@uwo.ca.

This is the third of four summer issues of the FIMS Bulletin. The final issue of the summer Bulletin will be published on August 6.