Good Muslims,Bad Muslims,and the Nation: The “Ground Zero Mosque” and the Problem With Tolerance

The local controversy over Cordoba House or the “Ground Zero Mosque” peaked at a May 2010 Lower Manhattan Community Board meeting that was open to the public. Examining the tolerance rhetorics evoked both for and against Cordoba, this paper argues that both tolerance rhetorics function differently to re-center the white non-Muslim subject and to structure inclusion and belonging within the nation. Extending the literature of tolerance, which tends to focus on the discourse of normative subjects, I analyze the tolerance rhetorics of two Muslim-American rhetors whose testimonies reveal the tensions, contradictions, and complicities involved in claims of national belonging.     

“Masculine” vs. “feminine” strategies in political ADS: Implications for female candidates

This study explored several research questions concerning strategies typically said to be beneficial for female political candidates. Six 60‐second videotaped political commercials were produced featuring a female “candidate”, each containing either a “masculine” or a “feminine” strategy. The strategies were aggressive, nonaggressive, career, family, ambitious, and nonambitious. Each political commercial was inserted into a set of four locally produced, nonpolitical ads. Six groups of students were randomly assigned to each of the six treatment groups. After viewing the commercials, subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire to measure response to the candidate and to the ads through semantic differentials and Likert‐scale questions. Results from the study indicate that the “aggressive” strategy worked better in comparison with the “nonaggressive” strategy and the “career” strategy worked better in comparison with the “family” strategy. Few significant differences were found between the “ambitious” and the “nonambitious” strategies. Several implications for female candidates are discussed.     

A Review of: “Going Beyond Google: The Invisible Web in Learning and Teaching. Devine,Jane and Egger-Sider,Francine.”

As technology rapidly changes, libraries remain go-to points for education and technology skill development. In academic health sciences libraries, trends suggest librarians provide more training on technology topics than ever before. While education and training have always been roles for librarians, providing technology training on new mobile devices and emerging systems requires class creation and training capabilities that are new to many librarians. To appeal to their users, many health sciences librarians are interested in developing technology-based classes. This column explores the question: what skills are necessary for developing and teaching technology in an academic health sciences library setting?     

When We Was Red: Good Bye Lenin! and Nostalgia for the “Everyday GDR”

In former Eastern Bloc nations, nostalgia is often seen as a dangerous pining for days under totalitarian regimes in the face of rocky transitions to democratization. This paper questions these judgments and instead proposes that the complexities of waxing nostalgic in post-communism will help us understand these transitions better. East German culture, in particular, has been at the forefront of post-communist nostalgia through its ostalgie movement. Wolfgang Becker's film Good Bye Lenin! has been touted as the most representative example of ostalgie, and is used here as a text to examine the complex questions about looking back on everyday life during communism's fall. Through its use of nostalgic themes, the film simultaneously embraces and derides the Western values that became an indelible part of the post-1989 landscape, and thus serves as a reminder that a distinct East German identity may still exist.     

A Review of: “Health Informatics for Medical Librarians. Cleveland,Ana D. and Cleveland,Donald B.”

This article is a retrospective look at the changes in hospital libraries from 1970 to 2014 based on the author's experience and a survey of the literature related to hospital libraries indexed in PubMed from 1970 to the present. New roles for librarians and methods for conveying the value of libraries to administrators are described.     

A Review of: “The Medical Library Association Essential Guide to Becoming an Expert Searcher: Proven Techniques,Strategies, and Tips for Finding Health Information. Jankowski,Terry Ann.”

Abstract

The Center for Families Resource Library at St. Louis Children’s Hospital was integrated into the hospital’s new Epic electronic medical records system in June 2018. The new system enables clinicians to request consults from the Center for Families Resource Library. The librarian can participate more actively and collaboratively with patient education by providing reliable health information and charting it as part of the patient’s permanent record. The article reviews improvements over the former system and reveals an enhanced role for the health services librarian.