Neither beltway traffic or malfunctioning router could keep Maurice Coleman, Paul Signorelli, Diane Huckabay, Tom Haymes and Jill Hurst-Wahl from a lively T is for Training. We talked about the award Jill is receiving from the Special Libraries Association on Aug. 3 for “lifetime of achievement as well as exceptional service to SLA and the library and information profession.” This lead to a conversation on the impact of volunteering on a person’s life and career. We told stories and gave tips. Take a listen!
Addendum (07/30/2021): In the episode, Jill mentioned Sylvia Piggott. While Sylvia spent many years of her life in Montreal, her last name was not French, so Jill should have pronounced the T’s. Sylvia and her husband were originally from Jamaica.
Maurice, Paul and Jill welcomed R. David Lankes, who is the author of the newly-released book Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society. The book is focused on data and media. We began our conversation by talking about how Dave was inspired to write this book, which goes back to when he joined University of South Carolina. He realized that his school contained two programs – journalism and library science – which merged data, media and society. The seeds of Forged in War began then.
The ah-ha moment for him – and what got him writing – was during COVID-19 and realization that we kept using war-related messaging. That got him thinking about the language we use and what is behind it. A lot of the information field was born during times of conflicts. That starting point drove him to dug into the history of information use, the development of technology, and the business models around them.
By telling an interesting historical story, Dave hoped to get people to think about the issues we are facing now. His view of history, information, data, and journalism led us on an intense, interesting, and educational conversation. Too much to note here (although you should know about epistemicide). You must listen to this episode!
Our next T is for Training will be in July 29 at 9 p.m. ET. Please join us!
Although there will be no recording of T is for Training this evening (brief holiday break to give Maurice Coleman, our Cat Herder in Chief a chance to spend time with family), there is quite a nice line-up for July/August 2021 on T is for Training:
Thursday, August 26, 20219 pm ET/6 pm PT–James Richardson, a Sacramento-based “writer, farmhand, Episcopal priest,” will join us for a conversation about getting from no to yes in training-teaching-learning. There is, of course, a backstory here: Jim and I worked together at The UCLA Daily Bruin a couple of lifetimes ago; we recently reconnected, and his story about how he moved from full-time work as a journalist to being a minister by learning to move “from no to yes” struck me as being a wonderful jumping off point for this episode of T is for Training. And yes, he continues to write: he has an amazing book (his second) coming out next year: “The Abolitionist’s Journal, due for release in fall 2022, is the story of his anti-slavery ancestor who used his house on the Underground Railroad, served as the white chaplain to a Black Union regiment in the Civil War, and then with his family founded a college for the freed slaves in Austin, Texas (Samuel Huston College).”
Neither beltway traffic or malfunctioning router could keep Maurice Coleman, Paul Signorelli, Diane Huckabay, Tom Haymes and Jill Hurst-Wahl from a lively T is for Training. We talked about the award Jill is receiving from the Special Libraries Association on Aug. 3 for “lifetime of achievement as well as exceptional service to SLA and the library and information profession.” This lead to a conversation on the impact of volunteering on a person’s life and career. We told stories and gave tips. Take a listen!
Maurice, Paul and Jill welcomed 
T is for Training 