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Mita Williams, Law Librarian

ORCID logo Mita Williams is the Law Librarian for the Don & Gail Rodzik Library.

Bio

After graduating from McMaster University with an Honours B.Sc in Geography and Environmental Science and acquiring a M.L.I.S. from McGill University, Mita was employed in a number of contract positions in public, corporate, non-profit, government, and academic libraries before joining the Leddy Library as Science Librarian in 1999. At the Leddy Library, she took on a number of roles including User Experience Librarian and Scholarly Communications Librarian and had held positions including the Head of the Information Services Department, Acting Head of Access Services, and Acting Head of Systems. From 2015-2018 and 2019-2020, she was a preceptor at the Windsor Campus of the Schulich School of Medicine. From September of 2022 to June 2024, Mita Williams was Acting Law Librarian for the Don & Gail Rodzik Library and in July, 2024 she was appointed as Law Librarian for a five-year term.

A selective portfolio of her community work can be found at AedileWorks.com. She writes about librarianship and technology at Librarian of Things and shares interesting things through her newsletter, the University of Winds. She regularly adds Canadian legal data to Wikidata. She can be found at https://social.coop/@copystar and instagram.

 

Peer-reviewed

Non-peer reviewed

 

Invited Presentations

  • Invited panelist, Artificial Intelligence: Apprehension and Anticipation with Dr. Maura Grossman and Michael Ridley, Scholars Portal Day, May 1st, 2024.
  • Invited panelist, Let's Talk About Chat-GPT & Generative AI: Forum Discussion, with Nick Baker, Pascale Chapelaine, and Brandon Beck. Windsor Law, November 22, 2023.
  • Invited panelist, Crucial Voices: The Importance of Representation in Public Institutional Leadership, University of Windsor, School of Creative Arts (SOCA), February 10, 2023, video
  • Invited panelist, "Open access and open access policies on campuses", 2019 Ontario Scholarly Communications Skillshare, Ryerson University Library, November 21, 2019
  • Invited panelist, "Space and Place" Panel, DIY Urbanism Symposium, October 5, 2019, University of Windsor, School of Creative Arts (SOCA) Armouries – Gallery
  • Invited panelist, "Real talk", New Librarians Symposium, Ryerson University, May 24, 2019
  • Invited speaker, "From the Vertical File to Wikipedia: Considering Community Information Services", Toronto Public Library, November 24, 2017, slides
  • Featured Speaker, "From the Vertical File to the Local Wiki: Considering Community Information Services", Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference, Wisconsin Dells, WI, October 18, 2017, slides
  • Panel: Bridging the data divide: Closing the "Open" gap: THINK: Orion Conference, May 24, 2017 - Toronto, Chestnut Conference Centre : panel with Kevin Tuer (ODX Canada's Open Data Exchange), Lewis Wynn-Jones (ThinkData Works), and Andrés L. Dorado (City of Edmonton's Analytics Centre of Excellence)
  • Monday Night Seminar: Open Cities, McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, Toronto, Ontario, November 14, 2016 : public seminar with Josh Akers, Geography and Urban & Regional Studies; Janine Marchessault, York University, Cinema and Media Studies, Patricio Davila, designer, artist, researcher and educator and moderator: Michael Darroch
  • Library Futures Speaking Series, York University Libraries, "The City as Classroom vs. The City as Advertising Platform", Toronto, Ontario, May 2nd, 2016, slides and text
  • Keynote : Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference, "The City As Classroom: How to embed the library into the community", Middleton, WI, November 3rd, 2015, slides and text
  • Keynote : ILEAD USA, "Libraries are for use (and by use, I mean copying), Springfield, IL, October 27, 2015, slides and text
  • Keynote : OnlineNW. "Teach for America. Code for America. Librarianing for America." Corvallis, February 13th, 2015, slides and text
  • ALA Masters Series, ALA Midwinter 2015. "Mechanic Institutes, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces, TechShops, Incubators, Accelerators, and Centers of Social Enterprise. Where do libraries fit in?", Chicago, IL, Feb 1, 2015, slides and text
  • Keynote : "From DIY to Working Together: Using a Hackerspace to build community". Scholars Portal Day,: Building Our Communities, Wednesday December 3, 2014, Snell Hall, St. James Cathedral, Toronto, slides and text
  • Keynote : "The Origin of the Future is in the Present", Library Technology Conference, March 19, 2014, slides and text
  • panelist, ALA Annual Conference's Top Tech Trends Panel, American Library Association Annual, June 29, 2014, text
  • "Organizing is what librarians do". TEDxLIbrariansTO, June 25, 2011 ; text ; video


Research Projects and Grants


Open Educational Resources


Papers, Presentations, Workshops

  • "What is Wikidata and Why You Should Do Data Entry for the Greater Good", CALL ACBD 2023, Hamilton, ON, May 31 2023. slides
  • "The Metagame: The Libraryland Expansion", Access Library Conference 2022, October 13, 2022, slides
     
  • "Data Cleaning with OpenRefine", Research Skills 101 Series, Leddy Library Collaboratory, November 18, 2019
  • "The Life changing magic of cleaning up your research using Zotero", Research Skills 101 Series, Leddy Library Collaboratory, November 4, 2019, slides
  • "Why ORCiD is the best frame for your scholarly profile picture", Research Skills 101 Series, Leddy Library Collaboratory, October 21, 2019, slides
  • OpenRefine for Librarians, Leddy Library, September 26, 2019
     
  • Data Carpentry R Workshop, Harrow Research and Development Centre, Agriculture Canada, June 27-28, 2019
  • w/ Meris James. "The Faculty of Law Digital Repository (Scholarship at UWindsor)", Faculty of Law Research Workshop: Raising Your Profile: Open Access Options at UWindsor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, April 15, 2019
  • "Research as Activism: A Wikipedia and Research Primer", University of Windsor SOCA, March 19, 2019.
     
  • "Open Refine for Librarians: How a power tool for Google is now being used by librarians to clean up data and connect it to the world", That Cutting Edge: Technology’s Impact on Scholarly Research Processes in the Library, a NISO Virtual Conference, October 24th, 2018. slides
  • A Field Guide to Scholarly Communications Ecosystems, Leddy Lecture Series: Open Access Week 2018, University of Windsor, October 22nd, 2018. slides
  • OpenRefine for Librarians, Library Carpentry Workshop, Brock University Digital Scholarship Lab, August 14, 2018
     
  • "The Open world and Academic Libraries: building partnerships to Open Information", with Dave Johnson and Scott Cowan, Open Education Summit 2018, Windsor, Ontario, May 7, 2018, slides
  • "Research as Activism: A Wikipedia and Research Primer", SOCA University of Windsor, March 8, 2018, slides
  • "Wikipedia Wikimedia Wikidata Wikicite Wikisource #1Lib1Ref", Leddy Library, January 15, 2018, slides
     
  • guest lecturer, "Law and Ethics in the Digital Age", St Clair College, March 28, 2017, slides
  • "Will university students borrow a wooden box...", OLITA Tech Talks, OLA Superconference, February 3rd, 2017, slides
     
  • "The City as Classroom vs. The City as Advertising Platform", Leddy Library Research Series, November 18, 2016
  • "The life-changing magic of tidying up your research using Zotero", Leddy Library Open Access Week, October 27, 2016
  • "Why Libraries Should Maintain the Open Data of Their Communities", Ontario Library Superconference 2016, January 27, 2016, slides
     
  • "Library of Cards", Access YYZ 2015, Toronto Reference Library, September 10th, 2015, slides and text
  • "Hackforge and Open Data Windsor Essex (ODWE)", OUCEL Summer Institute, University of Windsor, August 13, 2015, slides
  • "Consuming and Transforming Open Data", OLITA Digital Odyssey, George Brown College, Waterfront Campus, Toronto, June 12, 2015, materials
  • "Being Open", Windsor-Western Research Day, March 13, 2015, University of Windsor, slides
     
  • "OpenStreetMaps: Trust the map that anyone can change" : part of the ALA LITA Webinar series, The Re-Drawing the Map, Tuesday December 9, 2014
  • "Web Mapping: moving from maps on the web to maps of the web" :  part of the ALA LITA Webinar series, The Re-Drawing the Map, Tuesday Nov. 18, 2014
  • "Intro to Open Data", HackWE 3.0 Science Hackathon (WETech Alliance, Hackforge, University of Windsor, St. Clair College), Friday, October 17, 2014, slides
  • Freedom to Read Forum: Science & Public Understanding, Science City (BookFest Windsor) , panelist, March 14, 2014, slides and text
     
  • "A field guide to reading and writing ecosystems", Leddy Library Open Access Week, October 25, 2013, slides
  • "Zotero: Your research a click away", University of Windsor GATAcademy, September 4, 2013, slides
  • "The Future of the Library (and How to Stop It) : Conference on Teaching and Learning, University of Windsor, May 1-2, 2013, slides and talk
  • "Grinding the Gears: Academic Librarians and Civic Responsibility" with Lisa Sloniowski (York University) and Patti Ryan (York University), The 2013 LACUNY Institute: Libraries, Information, and the Right to the City, April 5, 2013, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, New York. 
     
  • "Zotero: Your research a click away", University of Windsor GATAcademy, September 5, 2012, slides
  • "Title and Statement of Responsibility", code4lib North, May 25, 2012, slides and text
  • "My god! It's filled with stars lists!", code4lib North, May 24, 2012, slides and text
  • "Scholarly Communications and Digital Technologies", panelist, Campus Technology Day, May 17, 2012, slides and text
  • "The Library as Interface between Public Space and Public Self", Leddy Library Research Series, April 13, 2012, slides and text
     
  • "Making eBooks from Wordpress to EPUB". University of Windsor Digital Humanities Summer Series (Leddy Library and the Humanities Research Group), June 15, 2011: slides
  • "The popularity of eBook readers and the Implications for Canadian Libraries" (panelist), OLITA Digital Odyssey, June 10, 2011
  • "Build your own library with Zotero", University of Windsor's Campus Technology Day 2011, May 25th, 2011 : slides
  • "We're Jamun and We Hope You Like Jamun Too", Code4Lib North 2011, McMaster University, May 6, 2011 : slides
     
  • "Not library games. Libraries *in* games", WILU 2010, McMaster University, May 14, 2010 : slides and speakers notes
     
  • "Games Without Frontiers: using games to discover new geographies and generate new futures", University of Windsor's UWin Week, October 14, 2009 : slides
     
  • "OK. Sure. But what does all of this have to do with OLPC?", "One Laptop Per Child: Open Source, Open Access, and Open Library", January 28th, 2008
     
  • "Scholr 2.0" (with Stacy Allison-Cassin), OCUL Scholars Portal @ Five, December 14, 2007 : slides • video stream (37 min)
  • "Inside Out Library" (with Peter Zimmerman), University of Windsor's Campus Technology Day, May 22, 2007: ppt
     
  • "Promoting and Positioning RefWorks At Your University", OCUL RefWorks Forum, University of Toronto, August 15, 2005 • ppt
  • "The Great Debate: Be it Resolved that we Teach them Nothing - Library Instruction Doesn't Work", Canadian Library Association, Calgary AB, Thursday, June 16, 2005
  • "Making Links with SFX"; NAAUG-SMUG 2005 Annual Conference, University of Maryland, College Park, June 10, 2005 • ppt
     
  • "RefWorks and GetIt - Making Links"; OCUL Forum; Guelph-Humber, December 8th, 2004 • ppt
  • "Weapons of Mass Instruction" w/Lisa Sloniowski ; Ontario Library Association Superconference ; January 29, 2004
  • "Blogging and The Reference Librarian", (panelist) ; Ontario Library Association Superconference ; January 30, 2004 • ppt
     
  • "The use of the Internet to reach beyond mainstream sources and to connect activist communities." w/Lisa Sloniowski ; Zap Your Pram, October 24-26, 2003
  • "Blogapalooza" ; Ontario Library Association Superconference ; February 1, 2003 • ppt
     
  • "Classifying Web Resources" w/ Wayne Daniels, Jeanne Enright, and Scott Mackenzie; Ontario Library Association Superconference; February 6, 1997

Professional Leadership

Conference and Event Organizing

Web Portfolio

Community Work

Creative Work

Interviews