The Modern Scholar Podcast

In this engaging conversation, Chris DeCristofaro, co-host of The Library Pros Podcast and Assistant Director at the Half Hollow Hills Community Library, discusses the future of libraries as community hubs. He shares insights on integrating advanced technology and creating dynamic makerspaces to foster creativity. The dialogue also touches on the importance of effective communication with diverse community members, the challenges of library financing, and the way libraries can actively challenge stereotypes. Plus, Chris emphasizes the need for personal well-being amidst professional demands.

Enjoy this encore presentation of Becoming Veterans with Dr. Sarah Parry Myers!Dr. Sarah Parry Myers⁠ is an Associate Professor of History at Messiah University in central Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses on 20th century United States history, gender, public history, and military history. She is the recent recipient of a Dialogues on the Experience of War grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, focused on generating dialogue with female veterans. Sarah’s work has appeared in edited collections released by Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge, and her book ⁠Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and Their Fight for Veteran Recognition⁠, recently released from the University of North Carolina Press, explores the history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots—and this book is the subject of our conversation today!

Kieran Hixon has over 16 years of experience offering professional development, both in-person and online, for rural libraries throughout the United States. Kieran serves nationally on committees as a rural library expert and has broad experience working in rural public libraries, and serves as Senior Rural and Small Library Consultant for the Colorado State Library. Kieran is passionate about rural libraries and is known for his high energy, humorous stories, and insightful examples when providing instruction. Former Association for Rural & Small Libraries (ARSL) President, long-standing ARSL Board Member, and Rural Library Expert, Kieran is Co-lead of the Outstanding in Their Field Leadership Institute. Take a listen to my earlier conversation with Kieran and Dr. Sharon Morris from Season One!

Growing up to be a certified bookseller in Germany, and acquiring a European Master’s Degree in Literature and Publishing/Marketing, Simone Kirk never gave libraries much thought, since reading books, and having to give them back, seemed pretty cruel to this passionate reader. Her goal to work in the publishing industry in Germany was redirected with a move to Star City, Arkansas in 2004. After arriving in this very rural area of the States, she became the Branch Manager at the Star City Branch Library, which changed everything! Simone fell in love with libraries, and decided to put her knowledge of book selling, marketing, and customer service training to work. Simone is constantly trying to invent new ways to serve her community, developing programs, and spread her love for literacy in Southeast Arkansas. She has been a member of Arkansas Library Paraprofessionals (ALPS) since 2009, is still active as an ALPS Representative, and served as ALPS Chair in 2018.

Welcome to Season 7 of the show, and Happy New Year! If you are just joining the show, welcome! I'm glad you are here. Plans for this season include conversations with some of my favorite people in the library profession - exciting! Today's discussion focuses on how libraries are an expanding universe of opportunity. The studies referenced in today's episode: Making Cities Stronger Economic Vitality The Importance of Place Libraries and Workforce Check out my conversations with David Johnson and Shelby Fleming from the Fayetteville Public Library!

Dr. Stan Fisher is a captain in the U.S. Navy and an assistant professor of naval and American history at the United States Naval Academy.  Before transitioning to classroom, he accumulated over 2,500 flight hours as a Navy pilot, mainly in SH-60B & MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. He earned a commission through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1997 and has multiple deployments on frigates, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. Fisher has also served as a weapons and tactics instructor, squadron maintenance officer, and operational test director. Additionally, he has completed tours of duty in engineering and acquisitions at the Naval Air Systems Command.  He is a past recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Naval History Scholarship and earned his PhD from the University of Maryland.  Today we talk about all of those things, as well as his recent book, Sustaining the Carrier War: The Deployment of U.S. Naval Air Power to the Pacific, published in 2023 by Naval Institute Press.

Crystal Gates is the Executive Director of the North Little Rock Public Library in Arkansas. She has a proven track record of enhancing library services, having previously led the Jackson Parish Library in Louisiana to national recognition as a 3 Star Library in 2014 and 2015. Gates holds key positions in numerous professional organizations, including serving as President of the Southeastern Library Association, Arkansas’ ALA Chapter Councilor, Treasurer of Advocates for All Arkansas Libraries, in addition to serving on ALA’s Committee on Diversity and the Chapter Relations Committee.

Dr. Jason Lantzer serves as the Assistant Director of the Butler University Honors Program. An historian by training, his research and writing interests generally center on religion, politics, and law, with some work about Disney thrown in for good measure. He is the author of eight books, including Dwight Eisenhower & the Holocaust (DeGruyter, 2023), Mainline Christianity: The Past and Future of America’s Majority Faith (NYU 2012), Dis-History: Uses of the Past at Walt Disney’s Worlds (TPP, 2017), and Rebel Bulldog: The Story of One Family, Two States, and the Civil War (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2017), numerous book chapters and articles. He is a three-time graduate of Indiana University (BA, MA, PhD).

Cari Dubiel is the Assistant Director of the Twinsburg Public Library in Twinsburg, Ohio and is the author of the Author's Guide to Libraries, which is the subject of our conversation today. Enjoy!

Terrence G. Peterson is Assistant Professor of History at Florida International University. He researches and teaches on France, modern Europe, and their connections to the wider world, with a particular focus on war, empire, and migration. His first book, Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency, was just published with Cornell University Press. His current work focuses on the Rivesaltes Camp in Southern France, which the French government used to detain a wide array of migrant populations from 1939 to 2007.