No. 547 - February 18, 2026

  • Coming Events:

    - Screening of The Librarians documentary
    - Pictures, both moving and still
    - Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence in Minneapolis and Beyond
    - Book Bans and Beyond: Navigating Intellectual Freedom in the Digital Age
    - In Conversation with: Sarah E.K. Smith
    - The Telenovela Archives: Tribute to Fernanda Montenegro

  • Important Dates:

    - Sunday, March 1, 2026 - ALA Reception
    - Sunday, March 1 - Tuesday, March 3, 2026 - ALA Accreditation Review for MLIS

  • News & Announcements:

    - CfP Deadline Extension - Hot Topics: Smouldering Scholarship at FIMS

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Aloa Alota
    - Melissa Cameron
    - Alissa Centivany
    - Amanda Grzyb
    - Joanna Redden
    - Sandy Smeltzer

  • Publications & Presentations:

    - John Kausch

  • In the Media:

    - Omar Pusey (MA'25, Media Studies)
    - Tiara Sukhan

  • Activities of Note:

    - Juan Andrés Bello
    - Sarah Smith

  • News from the FIMS Grad Library:

    - Reading Week Hours
    - Upcoming Events at the Library
    - Make of the Month

  • News from Western Libraries:

    - Upcoming Research Skills Workshops

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events

Screening of The Librarians documentary
Monday, February 23, 2026
6:30 p.m. - 8:45 p.m.
Wolf Performance Hall
Central Library - 251 Dundas St.
Join the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) and the London Public Library for a screening of the 2025 film The Librarians as part of Freedom to Read Week (February 23 - March 1). The film will be followed by a panel discussion about censorship. All are welcome (read more).

Pictures, both moving and still
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:20 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4110
Attend online: Register on Zoom
Presented by Assistant Professor Sally Kewayosh as part of the 2025/2026 FIMS Seminar Series.
Abstract: What makes a story compelling, and what makes it worth telling? In this presentation, filmmaker, photographer, and artist-researcher Sally Kewayosh shares about her creative process and the methods she uses to transform a topic into a narrative (read more).

Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence in Minneapolis and Beyond
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Spencer Engineering Building (SEB) 2022
Register now.
Presented by Dr. Maxamed Abumaye, Ohio State University, Department of African American and African Studies. Co-hosted by the FIMS Rogers Chair and the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies.
Abumaye is the author of the book Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence (University of California Press, 2025). This multisited project, the first of its kind, exposes the links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through a profound exploration of Somali refugee lives (read more).

Book Bans and Beyond: Navigating Intellectual Freedom in the Digital Age
Thursday, February 26, 2026
1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Scholars Lab, Weldon Library (ground floor)
Register now.
Featuring Alison Macrina (Founder, Library Freedom Project), Kristi Thompson (Research Data Management Librarian, Western Libraries), Michelle Arbuckle (Executive Director, OLA) and Geoffrey Robert Little (VP and Chief Librarian, Western Libraries). Co-hosted by Western Libraries and FIMS.
Description: This panel explores how intellectual freedom is being challenged across research, public discourse, and digital environments, and what academic communities and information professionals can do in response. The discussion connects freedom to read with freedom to research, data integrity, privacy, and democratic participation (read more).

In Conversation with... Sarah E.K. Smith
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Scholars Lab, Weldon Library (ground floor)
Everyone is welcome, no registration required. Hosted by Western Libraries.
Associate Professor Sarah Smith will feature first in this series of conversation with faculty discussing their latest books. Professor Smith will be discussing her most recent book, Trading on Art: Cultural Diplomacy and Free Trade in North America.

The Telenovela Archives: Tribute to Fernanda Montenegro
Saturday, March 7, 2026
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
FIMS & Nursing Building
Register now.
Tour of the Telenovela Archives Exhibition begins at 6:00 p.m. with the screening at 7:00 p.m.
Description: Please join us for a screening of 'Central Station', an award winning Brazilian film starring Fernanda Montenegro–she won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the LA Film Critics awards as Best Actress, the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and was the first ever Latin American actress to be nominated for the Oscars. The event is a tribute to Mrs. Montenegro's long artistic journey in theatre, cinema, and television–she was the protagonist of many teleplays and telenovelas, hers is the longest acting career in Latin American media.

The screening is presented as part of 'The Telenovela Archives', a travelling exhibition on the history of Latin American TV series that in currently on view at Western University.


Important Dates

- Sunday, March 1, 2026 - ALA Reception
- Sunday, March 1 - Tuesday, March 3, 2026 - ALA Accreditation Review for MLIS


News & Announcements

CfP Deadline Extension - Hot Topics: Smouldering Scholarship in FIMS
Submit your proposal by February 27! Our fields are awash in polarizing topics. Issues such as the rapid growth of generative AI, the spread of misinformation, and ever-increasing instances of censorship have led to hostility, mistrust, and exhaustion, both within our fields and in the world writ large. These matters reflect a range of cultural, social and technological challenges that require interrogation.

For the FIMS 2026 Graduate Conference, we invite students and faculty to propose papers on these subjects, which we designate as ‘hot topics:’ the simmering, smouldering, or downright scorching issues we face at the intersection of media studies, library and information science, and health information science. Conference date: March 27, 2026. We invite all FIMS graduate students to submit proposals—if there is a hot-button issue in your area of research, we want to hear about it. No topic is too niche!


Awards & Accomplishments

Aloa Alota (PhD'25, Media Studies) has been awarded the 2025 Press Freedom Hero Award by the Gambia Press Union. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to promoting press freedom, freedom of expression, and media development. "Through pioneering initiatives such as the establishment of the first-ever school of journalism in The Gambia, Alota has strengthened the professional capacity of countless journalists. His leadership in organizing workshops on investigative journalism, court reporting, cyber security, responsible reporting on children, and gender-sensitive reporting - including the project Women's Depiction in the Mass Media funded by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives - has equipped journalists with the tools to report ethically, fearlessly, and accurately (read more).

MLIS student Melissa Cameron was awarded a grant by the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation to complete an archival project titled "Lost landscapes: Using dynamic online maps to enhance search and discoverability of the Centre for Canadian Landscape Architecture Archives." Read the project description online.

A number of faculty promotions for 2026 were announced by FIMS Acting Dean Susan Knabe. Alissa Centivany has been promoted to Associate Professor, while Joanna Redden and Sandy Smeltzer have been promoted to Professor. The new appointments will begin on July 1, 2026.

Professor Amanda Grzyb has been named to the Order of Ontario for 2025. Professor Grzyb was named alongside 29 other people in a February 17 press release from the Government of Ontario. The announcement states that Professor Grzyb "spearheaded projects that preserve histories of state violence and foster reconciliation, including Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador. She also worked closely with Holocaust survivor Max Eisen to support the writing of his memoir, ensuring his testimony reaches future generations. Beyond scholarly contributions, Professor Grzyb advances social justice through education, homelessness initiatives and mentorship in ethical, community-based research."


Publications & Presentations

John Kausch, LIS PhD candidate, is moderating a webinar titled "ImageSnippets: Experiences with a Linked Data Image Annotation System" with ASIS&T SIG CMR on March 12. The event will feature Margaret Warren discussing her work annotating image metadata over the past 20 years. Through her experiences with ImageSnippets, a native linked data annotation system, she will discuss topics such as: precision in triple based descriptions, best practices for entity resolution across multiple datasets, and AI/LLM augmentation (read more).


In the Media

Omar Pusey (MA'25, Media Studies) is featured in an article titled "Graduate students are digitizing Black history as Canadian history," published by the Gazette on February 12, 2026.

Assistant Professor Tiara Sukhan is quoted in an article titled "Why reality TV makes us horny," published by the Gazette on February 13, 2026.


Activities of Note

Colin Field, Director, and Felipe Graj-Levra, Executive Producer, of 'We Lend a Hand: The Forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes’ visited FIMS to share a screening and Q&A for students in CA 3010B: Archives and Creative Production. Assistant Professor Juan Andrés Bello, instructor of the course, was the Archival Producer of the film, which has had 125 sold-out screenings across the province.

Associate Professor Sarah Smith has co-organized the workshop dis:connected histories: performance, representation and display, which will take place February 26-27, 2026 at the Katë Hamburger Research Center global dis:connect and Habibi Kiosk in Munich, Germany. Free and open to the public.


News from the FIMS Grad Library

Reading Week Hours

The Grad Library will be closed from Saturday, February 14th, to Friday, February 20th. If you would like access to the library during this time, please feel free to email fimslib@uwo.ca to discuss arrangements.

  • Regular hours will resume Saturday, February 21st at 12:00pm.

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/)

Freedom to Read: A Screening of The Librarians

Join us during Freedom to Read week for a screening of The Librarians, a documentary about book banning. Two hours of free parking at Citi Plaza is available. Pick up a parking voucher from the main desk at Central Library.

https://www.uwo.ca/events/2026/02/the-librarians.html 

Monday, February 23, 2026
6:30 pm – 8:45 pm
The Wolf Performance Hall
251 Dundas St, London, ON N6A 6H9

Book Bans and Beyond: Navigating Intellectual Freedom in the Digital Age

This panel explores how intellectual freedom is being challenged across research, public discourse, and digital environments, and what academic communities and information professionals can do in response. The discussion connects freedom to read with freedom to research, data integrity, privacy, and democratic participation.

Thursday, February 26, 2026
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Scholars Lab, The D. B. Weldon Library (ground floor)

Register here: https://forms.office.com/r/0RJnHH333i 

More information here: https://www.uwo.ca/events/2026/02/navigating-intellectual-freedom-panel.html 

Board Game Night at the Library

Graduate students, faculty and staff are invited to unwind and connect over an evening of board games at the library. Enjoy a variety of classic and modern games, along with pizza and refreshments. Please RSVP by email fimslib@uwo.ca.

Thursday, March 5, 2026
5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
FIMS Graduate Library 

Make of the Month – February – Spring Festival/Lunar New Year Word Decor

The Mandarin Chinese character for spring is 春, pronounced chūn, and it visually combines the sun (日) and sprouting plants (艸), symbolizing new life and growth after winter. This character is often found in decorations celebrating Chinese/Lunar New Year (February 17, 2026) and Spring Festival (February 17 – March 3, 2026).

This month, in the library, we’re making 3D paper word decor featuring this special character. Spring might seem like an eternity away, but Spring Festival is right around the corner. So, brighten up your space with this cute design which you can place on any surface or hang with string. Takes only a few minutes, and all materials are provided. Drop in anytime in February and ask at the service desk for supplies.


News from Western Libraries

Upcoming Research Skills Workshops hosted by Western Libraries. From data collection to publishing, get expert help at all stages of the research cycle with free workshops.


To find more upcoming Western Library events and workshops visit the Western Libraries Events page. Western Libraries has also launched a new newsletter which brings you timely updates on services, programs, and resources at Western libraries—designed to support your academic work, if you'd like to subscribe, please visit: Western Libraries Newsletter. If you have questions about workshops, please email rsclib@uwo.ca.



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.

The next issue of the FIMS Bulletin will be published on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. Please submit any items by noon on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.