The Authority File

Engaging students in global issues demands teaching tools that situate young scholars within often unfamiliar environments. Documentary filmmaking—a medium that traditionally places the viewer right beside the subject and inside their domain—has the potential to meet that need. The Global Environmental Justice (GEJ) Documentaries project aims to demonstrate the educational possibilities of film by offering a curated selection of documentaries and teacher’s guides on interdisciplinary topics of environmental justice.

This four-part series explores the curation and development of GEJ and how documentaries can be used to shape and expand curricula. Featuring Jason Carbine, Professor of Religious Studies at Whittier College, Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, Professor of Sociology at Whittier College, and Gary Marcuse, filmmaker and Project Director for GEJ, these four episodes offer guidance on how GEJ documentaries are used in the classroom and why documentary films make particularly robust instructional sources.

In this first episode, our guests chat about the background of GEJ and their involvement in the project. Jake and Rebecca outline the process of applying for grants, selecting the films, and writing and editing the teaching guides. Further, Gary explains how his previous roles contributed to his current one, acting as a bridge between filmmakers and educators to create collections and guides that aid student learning. Finally, our guests highlight the important step in GEJ’s development of recruiting faculty and fielding feedback from librarians on accessible pricing.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, chat about the impact and future of First Folios Compared, an open access project that brings together more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Claudine describes plans to add more Folios before the end of the year from the US, Canada, and farther abroad. Next, she discusses the addition of new lesson plans to supplement the ancillary materials on the platform, and how First Folios Compared advances Shakespearean studies by having multiple copies in one place for deeper analyzation and comparison. Last, Ana spotlights projects hosted on the Quartex platform, including Shakespeare’s Globe’s Read Not Dead and Baylor University’s Black Gospel Music Preservation Program (BGMPP). Coincidentally, in 2022 we interviewed Baylor’s Darryl Stuhr, who explained the development of BGMPP.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, discuss new topics APA Style has addressed in recent years. Our guests highlight inclusive and bias free language, journal article reporting standards, and citing new social media platforms like TikTok. They also provide an overview of how APA Style collects questions and feedback from the academic community, and how that translates into changes in upcoming style guides or new blog posts. Last, Chelsea and Tim underscore APA Style’s goal to listen to its users—students, faculty, librarians, and more—to provide writing and citation guidance that works for and supports everyone.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, our guests take us behind the technology that supports First Folios Compared, an open access collection of more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist of AM, explains the features of the Quartex platform, such as the full-text search, digital exhibit option, and comparison tool. In addition, Ana and Claudine Nightingale, Publisher of AM, discuss the development of the metadata for the Folios, which helps spotlight the unique differences between the copies. Last, our guests explore how the collection includes metadata-only records and implements the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) to compare AM’s First Folios with other institution sites.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, discuss how APA Style goes beyond referencing. First, Chelsea reviews the bias-free language chapter in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual, and how it has expanded to include guidance on socioeconomic status and intersectionality. Next, she provides an overview of recommendations for visuals like graphs, charts, and figures, and underscores the need to properly label all graphics. She also explores the key elements of accessible design and highlights APA Style’s goal to make its products “born accessible.” Last, Tim debunks one longstanding myth—yes, you can use first person in academic writing!

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, offer a closer look at AM’s First Folios Compared, an open access collection of more than 40 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Our guests explain the logistics behind the project’s digitization requirement and highlight the time and effort the digitization process demands. They also describe the variation between the institutions’ copies, from practically pristine to missing several comedies, and how that disparity offers exciting insights for research. Last, our guests chat about how the Folios are accessed on the platform, strategies for searching the site—by metadata, static content, and full text recognition—and the platform’s unique way of denoting the pages by signature marks.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, talk references. They provide an overview of the principles of references, underlining the key goal to identify your source and show others where to find it. They also dispel some popular myths of referencing, such as avoiding sources older than five years old or encyclopedic references like Wikipedia. Our guests also chat about standard specifications for unique sources and the process of creating a citation for ChatGPT. Last, Chelsea and Tim explain the role of APA Style’s advisory task forces, and how the groups of journal editors, professors, students, and librarians offer consulting and feedback on updated citation guidelines.

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Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, or the First Folio, collects 36 of the playwright’s works, including his most celebrated plays like Macbeth, The Tempest, and Hamlet. Published seven years after his death, the First Folio is considered an authoritative and highly significant collection in scholarship on Shakespeare’s life, plays, and literature writ large.

This past spring, AM released First Folios Compared, an open access project that brings together more than 40 copies of the First Folio—of which only 233 still survive today. In this series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, discuss the editorial scope and technological features of the project. They dig into how researchers can use the platform to compare the First Folio copies side-by-side, studying unique differences in the annotative marks, ink color, and overall quality. Further, Ana walks through how the Quartex platform supports the detailed metadata and comparison tools, while Claudine chats about the range of institutions included in the project, supplementary materials like a beginner’s guide, and additional Folios that will be added later this year.

In the first episode of this four-part series, Claudine and Ana share their roles at AM and in the First Folios project. They explain the import of the First Folio to Shakespearean studies, and provide some background on First Folios Compared’s intended audience, technical groundwork, and the process of recruiting institutions to participate.

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APA Style originated in the early 20th century as a way to instruct American Psychological Association authors on proper paper formatting. Since then, APA Style has expanded to inform students and researchers on how to write clearly and concisely. Through tutorials, blog posts, and open feedback, APA Style works with the academic community to keep guidance up-to-date, inclusive, and coherent.

In this four-part series, Chelsea Lee, instructional lead, and Timothy McAdoo, manager, both of APA Style, address major referencing questions—the principles of references, popular myths, and guidance on citing unique sources like ChatGPT. They also discuss expanded guidelines on bias-free language and accessibility standards, such as headings, font type and sizing, and figures. Last, they cover popular questions in the last couple years—how do you cite TikTok anyway?—and how the APA Style team collects and sorts through the hundreds of questions submitted per month.

In this first episode, Tim and Chelsea introduce themselves and their roles at APA Style. They provide an overview of the style guide’s origins and major updates to the seventh edition of the Publication Manual. Last, they explain frequently asked questions from readers, and how the nature of the questions has evolved since the seventh edition’s release in 2019.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Ronald Williamson, founder and Senior Associate of Archaeological Services Inc. and co-editor of The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord, chats about the artifacts and Indigenous art from the sites of the Iroquois du Nord, a 17th-century series of Haudenosaunee settlements on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Ron explains how these materials—decorated antler combs, ceramic pottery and pipes, metal articles—provide key insight into Haudenosaunee cultures, movements, and interactions with other Indigenous groups and Europeans during this time period. Ron also discusses the idea of borderlands and border theory in relation to these settlements, and looks ahead to future research both in the library and on the field.

Editor’s Note: “Iroquois du Nord” refers to a series of Haudenosaunee settlements in the 1660s-70s on the north shore of Lake Ontario. As Ron explains in episode 332, “Iroquois” was a European term assigned to Haudenosaunee peoples, which are comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. To learn more, Richard Hill, a Tuscarora and a contributor to the book, discusses Haudenosaunee territory and archives in an interview with The Canadian Encyclopedia.

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