Presented at
HOPE 2020 Virtual Rescheduled,
July 26, 2020, 3 p.m.
(60 minutes)
On Thursday, March 19, 2020, Dr. Pierre Elias, a Columbia University cardiology fellow, reached out to Research and Learning Technologies librarian Madiha Choksi to utilize the Columbia University Libraries' 3D printers to produce supplemental face shields. Within a few days, she had optimized an existing design for face shields, taken two 3D printers from Butler Library to her apartment, and was printing parts and assembling shields. A few days later, she was joined by her fellow librarians, Alex Gil and Moacir P. de Sá Pereira. Two months later this team of librarians had organized one of the largest PPE grassroots efforts in the city, COVID Maker Response, which effectively produced and distributed more than 25,000 face shields to New York City hospitals and other front line institutions during the height of the city's pandemic crisis.
In this talk, the three librarians will share their experience building this volunteer collective: logistics, finances, project management, and communications. The team will also expand on their notion of "nimble tents" - a trans-institutional approach to rapid hacking in moments of crisis - and recent experiences and examples, including the #PRMapathon library response that effectively rebuilt the OpenStreetMap of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria to help the Red Cross, and the rapid response research of Torn Apart / Separados during the family separation crisis of 2018. At the core of the librarians' argument is the idea that library professionals already have the skills they need to make effective and impactful interventions in moments of crisis.
Presenters:
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Moacir P. de Sá Pereira
**Moacir P. de S Pereira** is the research data librarian at Columbia University Libraries. He helps researchers improve their use of data in their scholarly projects, including visualizing their data. Additionally, he is a scholar of literature and geography, where he uses spatial data to generate new literary research questions. Specifically, he focuses on American novels of the 20th and 21st centuries, tracking migration and geographical imagination. He has taught at New York University and the University of Chicago.
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Madiha Choksi
**Madiha Choksi** is the research and learning technologies librarian at Columbia University Libraries where she works closely with faculty across the humanities and social sciences to integrate computational research methods into their teaching and coursework. Her own research investigates the deep layers of sociopolitical implications of data-driven emerging technologies. Specifically, she focuses on the legal implications of changing expectations of privacy in an increasingly connected world. Madiha is a strong advocate of the open source community, and prioritizes access and use of free and open source tools and resources in her professional research and teaching capacity at Columbia University. She holds an MS from the University of Toronto and an MA from Columbia University.
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Alex Gil
**Alex Gil** is the digital scholarship librarian at Columbia University Libraries. He collaborates with faculty, students, and library professionals leveraging computational and network technologies in humanities research, pedagogy, and knowledge production. He is among the founders of several ongoing, warmly received initiatives where he currently plays leadership roles: co-director of the Studio@Butler at Columbia University, a tech-light library innovation space focused on digital scholarship and pedagogy; co-founder and moderator of Columbia's Group for Experimental Methods in the Humanities, a vibrant trans-disciplinary research cluster focused on experimental humanities; senior editor of sx archipelagos, a journal of Caribbean Digital Studies, and co-wrangler of The Caribbean Digital conference series.
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