Steve chats with David Lankes, author of Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society, about his new position at the University of Texas at Austin, whether or not libraries are neutral (spoiler: they’re not), knowledge infrastructure, and how the wars of the 20th century shaped propaganda, how data is collected and used, and the development of our information society, from telegraphs to the internet.

R. David Lankes is the director of the University of South Carolina’s School of Information Science, soon-to-be Full Professor and Virginia & Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship at the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin, a Visiting Researcher at the French National Library School ENSSIB,  and recipient of the American Library Association’s 2021 Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for distinguished contribution to reference librarianship and the 2016 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship. His book, The Atlas of New Librarianship won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. Lankes is a passionate advocate for librarians and their essential role in today’s society.

Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Unbound-Blog.html">Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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