Dr. Christopher J Levesque

During Library Week 2025, the UWF University Libraries will host a participatory transcription event of letters and ship’s logs that are part of its Digital Archives. While the National Archives’ Citizen Archivist model is well-established, this project will use the From the Page platform supplemented with Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) to engage students, faculty, and the larger UWF community. Providing transcripts of historical documents written in cursive is an example of universal design that allows their use by broader audiences who either cannot read cursive or who use screen readers. The use of collaborative transcription platforms reduces the time it takes staff to create transcripts by crowdsourcing transcription. This talk will discuss selection of materials, logistics, training, recruiting volunteers, and implementation of the project.

The Star Trek franchise’s premise, in which explorers “boldly go where no one has gone before” while keeping the peace among disparate peoples, speaks to a Kennedy-era idealism about the future. The United Federation of Planets is modeled on the United Nations, with governing bodies like the Supreme Assembly and the Federation Council; its charter defines its goal as the universal pursuit of peace.

Most of the focus on activism among American college students during the 1960s focuses on either the Civil Rights Movement, or anti-war activism at large universities in the west, mid-west, or north. More recent scholarship has shed light on the more limited activism of students at colleges and universities in the South, who often faced more immediate concerns of the consequences of protest. However, with the exceptions of student activities at Florida State University and the University of Florida, the activism of students at other Florida institutions of higher education are still understudied. Across the state, Florida students engaged in their own protests focused on dress codes, integration, dormitory visitation, free speech, the Vietnam War, culminating with marches and sit-ins after the Kent State Massacre. Students at small institutions like Florida Presbyterian often formed a vanguard of Florida student activism, a trend which eventually included protests at Miami-Dade Community College focused on the Iran-Hostage Crisis of 1979.

From the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado through the 1968 My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, Americans both condemned and praised soldiers for their participation in war crimes. This phenomenon continued into the 21^st century as the United States military struggled to punish servicemembers who tortured, murdered, or raped civilians and enemy combatants during the invasion of Iraq and the Global War on Terror. The conflict in the reactions of the American public and their political leadership is best typified by their responses to the My Lai Massacre and the cases of First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, Major Mathew Golsteyn, and Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher for murders committed during their tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the case of My Lai, reactions ranged from praise for Lt. William Calley for his service in Vietnam, which included the release of popular songs, including the “Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” which reached #37 of the popular music charts in the United States and solid out its pressing of singles. Calley’s conviction received criticism from supporters of the war and reinvigorated the American anti-war movement. Protests over Calley’s court-martial led President Richard Nixon to order his sentence be changed from imprisonment to house arrest. Lorance, Golsteyn, and Gallagher similarly received presidential support when Donald Trump pardoned them.

This paper explores the complex reactions of Americans when confronted by war crimes committed by U.S. troops against non-white, non-Christian civilians and prisoners, from 1864 – 2020 with a focus on the nexus of condemnation and support for their actions. This reveals deep conflicts between public perceptions of acceptable behavior in irregular warfare and the prosecution of these conflicts.

A systematic review of trends in academic hiring was conducted using literature from the library and information science and broader disciplines over the past twenty-two years in the United States. The review aimed to identify growth in interest in hiring practices and discuss the need for more academic research on hiring practices. While searches initially produced 1,142 results on academic hiring in library environments, the researchers could only find 49 results that addressed hiring practices in higher education related to their specific parameters.

Library staff developed a project to reclassify the Curriculum Materials Collection of a specialty library on the campus of a regional comprehensive university from its custom classification system derived from those developed during the 1960s and 1970s to Dewey Decimal Classification. While this system had the advantage of browsability for patrons who were familiar with previous use, its unusual nature made training patrons and staff challenging. The transition to Dewey is expected to ease training and use, enhance resource sharing, and allow student teachers to transfer their library skills to their new schools.

Excerpt - The old U.S. Army aphorism “If the army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one” is a common refrain in the chapters of this edited collection, but the contributors do not limit themselves to this traditional understanding of how the military regulated the sexual relations of service members. Managing Sex analyzes how the U.S. military regulates the sexual lives of service members and their families, from attempts to control venereal disease to women's service in the military and relaxation of prohibitions on service by members of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer plus) community. Chapters on sexual violence highlight the challenges of integrating women into the armed forces and managing relations with local communities.

A systematic review on diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic hiring was conducted using literature from the library and information science and broader disciplines over the past twenty-two years in the United States. The review aimed to identify a growth in interest in DEI hiring practices as well as to discuss the lack of academic research being conducted on hiring practices. While searches initially produced 1,142 results on academic hiring and diversity, equity and inclusion, the researchers could only find 49 results that addressed hiring practices in higher education as related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learning Outcomes: Define Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as it relates to recruitment, retention, and professional development in academic libraries. Identify and address gaps in the scholarly literature pertaining to hiring and retaining diverse hires in academic libraries. Critically examine the role of DEI initiatives in academic library personnel recruitment and development.

As American involvement in Vietnam intensified after the introduction of U.S. ground forces in March 1965, so did opposition to the war. Despite the efforts of the United States military to instill its corporate identity on new recruits, they remained representative of changes and opinions in American culture. One of the results was that as opposition to the war increased among other Americans, so did opposition to its prosecution by both active duty servicemembers and veterans of the conflict. As with other segments of American society, opposition to the war by the military community took on varying forms and was based on varying perceptions of the war. This paper argues that the types and venues of protest that servicemembers and veterans adopted reflected both their level of ideological commitment to the military and to their trust in American institutions, peaking with combat refusals, membership in antiwar organizations, and the development of the underground GI Press. One of the key elements to opposition to the war is illustrated in their decision to report war crimes in Vietnam and the venues they selected to express their desire to end the war, with service members who were committed to the American project in Vietnam relying on military or government channels, while those who no longer trusted the government to enact changes in war policy turning to the media and then to public antiwar activism.