Introduction to Bridging Fields Issue 3

By Claire Charvet and Alex Sniatkowski with Mac Murray and Meadow Netardus

Bridging Fields aims to platform the research of emerging scholars in library and information science and create a site for community within the field. While Bridging Fields began to support the publication of work from students of the NYU/LIU Dual Degree MA/MSLIS program, the journal’s inherently interdisciplinary nature and focus on emergent scholarship has naturally extended outside of the program in our third issue.

Issue 3 builds on the work of prior issues to expand the scope of research in library and archive work. The journal is a result of a 2023-2024 collaboration between NYU/LIU Dual Degree alum Harris Bauer (MA, Archives and Public History and MSLIS, 2024) and then Dual Degree faculty and administrators (Roxane Pickens, Alexandra Provo, Laurie Murphy, and Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz), and it has continued collaborations between staff and students in its editorial board. We seek to continue providing readers and writers edifying engagement with libraries and archives in this issue while broadening the scope of contributors to early career librarians and related professionals.

We are happy to welcome scholars from across the New York area to share their unique perspectives in Issue 3, discussing critical approaches to library and information science. Emma Graff reflects on her experience digitizing archival material. She underpins the importance of historical material in understanding our histories and reflects on what can be learned from the physical object and its digital surrogate. Alexa Frankelis offers a review of Simone Natalie’s Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test, placing the increasingly relevant subject of AI and the frameworks it challenges within the field of Library and Information Science. We are also grateful to welcome back former editor and graduate of the Dual Degree program, Mark Lindenburg, who shares a report on his work to update and safeguard the archives of the American Irish Historical Society, highlighting the tension between newer standards and older infrastructure.

This issue shares critical approaches to library and archives work across a variety of methods. As Bridging Fields is managed by a collective of student editors in the Dual Degree program, we value collaboration both with our writers and across the publishing process. Alexander Sniatkowski (MA, English and MSLIS 2026) and Claire Charvet (MA – Art History and MSLIS 2026) were joined by Meadow Netardus (MA, English and MSLIS 2028) and Mac Murray (MA, English and MSLIS 2028) to create, edit, and publish our third issue, and the first to welcome voices beyond the Dual Degree program. We hope you find inspiration, questions, and connection within!