Nov 15
WiLS member, Fox Valley Technical College, was recently profiled by vendor partner Infobase. Librarian Val Magno was interviewed for the piece in which she shared all sorts of information about their library and how they work with and for their patrons. Check out Val’s excellent interview today!
And if you’re interested in learning more about Infobase resources, don’t hesitate to contact Jeff Brunner ().
Nov 14
One of our greatest joys at WiLS is hearing our members tell the stories of the big and important work they are doing – interesting new projects or initiatives, or even interesting and new approaches to old projects. And, in addition to hearing about it, it makes us even happier when we can share those stories with other members. Each month, WiLS is proud to feature an interview with one of our library members. This month, we interview Julie Gores, Dean, Libraries & Academic Support at Madison College.
Nov 14
At WiLS, we want to bring valuable information to our library partners, including information about the missions and big ideas of the vendors they may already do business with. Each month, WiLS interviews a vendor partner in order to bridge the gap and open the door to valuable collaborations. This month, we are delighted to share insights from Fani D. Koutsovitis, Sales Director – Midwest/West Coast at Morningstar, Inc.
Nov 9
Our members have been telling us they want to learn more about user experience and we have listened. To that end, WiLS is proud to feature the work of vendor partner, The Team W! Read more
Oct 26
On December 11th at 1:00 pm, please join us in our next edition of WiLSWorld Shorts. This free webinar features Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction. Drawing on conversations sparked by WiLSWorld 2017 keynote speaker Dr. Safiya Noble, this WiLSWorld Short dives deeper with Ms. O’Neil into understanding how unquestioned algorithms perpetuate inequitable systems in our communities and in our libraries.
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.
But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in her book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.
Cathy O’Neil earned a Ph.D. in math from Harvard, was a postdoc at the MIT math department, and a professor at Barnard College where she published a number of research papers in arithmetic algebraic geometry. She then switched over to the private sector, working as a quant for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the middle of the credit crisis, and then for RiskMetrics, a risk software company that assesses risk for the holdings of hedge funds and banks. She left finance in 2011 and started working as a data scientist in the New York start-up scene, building models that predicted people’s purchases and clicks. She wrote Doing Data Science in 2013 and launched the Lede Program in Data Journalism at Columbia in 2014. She is a regular contributor to Bloomberg View and wrote the book Weapons of Math Destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. She recently founded ORCAA, an algorithmic auditing company.
Buy Cathy O’Neil’s book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or borrow it from Wisconsin’s Digital Library.
This webinar will not be recorded.
Oct 24
At WiLS, we want to bring valuable information to our library partners, including information about the missions and big ideas of the vendors they may already do business with. Each month, WiLS interviews a vendor partner in order to bridge the gap and open the door to valuable collaborations. This month, we are delighted to share insights from Gina Primmer, Senior Account Executive at AtoZdatabases.
Read more
Oct 23
One of our greatest joys at WiLS is hearing our members tell the stories of the big and important work they are doing – interesting new projects or initiatives, or even interesting and new approaches to old projects. And, in addition to hearing about it, it makes us even happier when we can share those stories with other members. Each month, WiLS is proud to feature an interview with one of our library members. This month, we interview Larry Oathout, Director of the Portage County Public Library.
Oct 23
Mergent (formally known as Moody’s Investment Services) has been providing company data to public libraries since the early 1900’s. In recent years, they have partnered with Dunn and Bradstreet to expand the level and reach of data that they incorporate into their products creating the most comprehensive business database offering on the market today. Mergent Intellect is made up of 7 primary functions geared to hit a wide range of patrons. Each section is detailed below. Read more
Oct 23
We are so excited to share our new partnership with AVPreserve!
AVPreserve is a data management consulting and software development firm focused on leveraging a deep understanding of technology, information, business, and people to advance the ways in which data is used for the benefit of individuals, organizations, and causes. AVPreserve’s mission is to free people from the burdens of information management. From helping organizations gain physical and intellectual control of their collections to developing the perfect custom application to suit their workflows needs, AVPreserve helps clients in Academia, Government, Corporations, Museums, and more.
Some AVPreserve clients include: University of Wisconsin, Library of Congress, Wisconsin Veterans Museum, New York Public Library, Berea College, Wildlife Conservation Society, Harvard University, Independence Community College, Indiana University, Smithsonian Institution, and Yale University.
WiLS members will get a 10% discount on the following AVPreserve products:
To order or for more information, contact AVPreserve at or 917.475.9630. Be sure to mention you are a WiLS member to receive your discount!
Sep 22
Our patrons and our students are wonderfully curious and it’s our job is to show them how to ask good questions and get good answers. In a world that is a tangle of unreliable or unsupported or outdated information, “alternative facts,” fake news, and fake news about real news, how do we do this?
Through spreading information literacy, the skills that people need throughout their lives to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use information. It’s an important topic right now for all types of libraries. So important, in fact, that we’re dedicating the 2017 WiLS Regional Community Meetings to it.
If you want to do more to help your patrons navigate the increasingly complex information landscape, please attend! Whether you have a full information literacy program implemented, you’re just starting to create or rethink your information literacy program, or you aren’t doing anything yet but want to get started, all are welcome to attend.
Here are the locations and dates of this year’s Regional Community Meetings. There is no cost to attend and refreshments will be provided!
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