AI Literacy
Emerging technologies should empower, not exclude. I teach AI Literacy and Prompt Engineering at a German university. My goal: understanding AI should not be reserved for technologists but available to researchers, students, and the public. At UVic, I helped shape the library’s early response to generative AI, documented in UVic Libraries, AI & Student Success.
Digital Preservation
Knowledge only remains a common good if it endures. I teach digitalization and long-term preservation at Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig), ensuring today’s scholarship remains accessible for future generations.
Future of Libraries
What will tomorrow’s libraries look like? At Kula: Library Futures Academy, I am part of a team building that future. A playful entry point: my 2015 contribution to Zeitreisen in die bibliothekarische Zukunft, a futurology imagining libraries in 2114 (German, print only).
Collaboration & Community
Libraries grow stronger through the networks around them. I teach at two German library schools from Canada, keeping a foot in the professional community that trained me. That connection lets me bridge conversations between European and North American librarianship — on open access policy, AI adoption, citizen science, and how different traditions approach the same problems. At a time when long-standing international partnerships are fracturing, building new ones matters more than ever.
Citizen Science & Digital Heritage
What happens when you give citizens the tools to document their own built environment? I am developing a proof-of-concept that explores this question — a web application where anyone can map mid-century modernist buildings and connect them to open knowledge bases like Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.
Open Scholarship
Open scholarship is a question of equity and inclusion. I managed acquisitions and collections at a university library to break down barriers to information. I co-chaired a state-wide library consortium that steered the digital turn through its funding and oversaw a university press and its shift towards open access publishing. As an instructor across university programs, I advocate for open practices in learning and teaching.
Professional Ethics
Librarianship is built on strong values: access, inclusion, intellectual freedom. But how well does the profession live up to them? My research keeps asking that question.
I examined library engagement with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and whether the profession’s commitment to social inclusion holds up in practice. My chapter on homeless people as library patrons (German) confronts the gap between professional ideals and institutional reality.
My master’s thesis investigated how librarians navigate tensions between professional ethics and the realities of academic self-publishing.
Scholarly Communication
My research examines how scholars publish and how libraries help them navigate a fragmented publishing landscape. My master’s thesis analyzed how the library profession engages with academic self-publishing (abstract in English, full text in German). It reveals tensions between professional ethics and market realities. I also published on how libraries help scholars resist predatory publishing (German).
Truth, Knowledge & Society
Libraries are the infrastructure of an informed society. My work explores how they serve diverse publics: from open knowledge platforms to feminist libraries, from services for the visually impaired to unconditional access for homeless populations. I explored these questions long before joining Kula. They now define my work there.