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Dr. Rachel Harris

Scholarly Publishing Librarian, Concordia University Library


Dr. Rachel Harris

About me
I am a librarian, educator, and researcher. As a librarian, I lead our open educational resources services and collaborate on projects related to our institutional repository, ORCID, open access, and copyright, as well as diversity initiatives. Expanding from my doctoral thesis in art history, I remain interested in the intersections between art history and book history as a researcher. Finally, as an educator, I believe in increasing access to higher education

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Inter-University Program in Art History, Concordia University

Masters of Information Studies, McGill University

Masters of Arts in Art History, York University

Bachelors of Arts in Fine Arts with Honours in Art History, Minor Classical Studies, and Thomlinson Curatorial Internship, Bishop’s University


Creative Commons Certificate

Research interests

> Print culture: illustration, interpictoriality, advertisement, storyboards

> History of the book: text-image interactions, children’s books, artists’ books

> Fairy tales: images, narrative variation, characters, publishing history

> Issues of age, gender, race, as well as animality

> EDID: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decononlization in libraries and book studies

> Open Educational Resources


Research Groups: Global Emergent Media (as member)


Teaching activities

Courses taught

ARTH 396: Art and Culture: Artists’ Books, Art History Dep., Concordia University, Summer term 2019 

GPTK 704: Seminar in University Teaching for Graduate Students – Fine Arts Section, CTL, Concordia University, Winter terms 2016-2020

ARTH 388: Narration in Art: Visual Evolution of Fairy Tales, Art History Dep., Concordia University, Summer term 2015   

Select librarian-led workshops

General Workshops

GPLL266: Interdisciplinary Scholarship: Advanced Bibliographic Searching

GPLL263: Peer Review Roundtable

OER Workshops and Events

Copyright module within the Thesis Boost


Past Workshops 

I developed and offered subject-specific workshops across disciplines in Cinema, Music, Dance, Political Science, Government Information, Philosophy, Women's Studies. I have updated and offered general library workshops such as The Way of APA, Zotero, Researching in the Library.


Publications

Select Publications

"Imprints from Book Illustration and Advertisement: Eco-Sources in Walt Disney's Sleeping Heroine Films." Marvels & Tales 36, no. 2 (2022): 258-283. doi:10.1353/mat.2022.0006.

Image Browsing for Fairies, Saints and Other Book Illustrations: An Interview with Rachel Harris.” MOQDOC (blog), 2019. 


Discovering the Rare Books and Special Collections That Allie Built. Ottawa, ON: Saint Paul University, 2019.


White Snow in the Mirror: An Inversion of the Innocent Childhood Paradigm.” In Childhood through the Looking Glass, edited by Sharma Vibha and Ashlie Brink, 179–91. United Kingdom: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2016/2019.

Select Conference Papers

“Keynote Panel: Finding Another Country in the Stacks: Decentering Whiteness Within Special Collections, Bibliography and Book History.” Co-moderated with Philippe Mongeau featuring presentations and discussion with Hannah Claus, David Fernández, Désirée Rochat. Bibliographical Society of Canada, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Annual Congress,virtual, May 16, 2022.


“Together and Apart Over Time: Text and Image in the Coloured Fairy Books Series,”Bibliographical Society of Canada, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Annual Congress, virtual, May 17, 2022.


“Expanding Research Possibilities for Visual-Information Seekers with a Renewable Workaround.” Concordia Library Research Forum, Concordia University, Montreal,QC, April 26/7, 2022.


“Beyond the Textual: Visual Information Systems That Help and Hinder.” Round table with Joan E. Beaudoin. ARLIS/NA, Annual Conference, Chicago, United States, April 8, 2022.


“The Capitalist and The Forest: Imprints in Walt Disney's Fairy Tale Films.” Fairy Tales and Folk Narratives Division, IAFA (International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts). Annual Conference, Orlando, FL. Mar. 18-21, 2021.


“Book Illustrations and their Contextual Difficulties in the Era of Mass Digitization.” UAAC (Universities Art Association of Canada). Annual Conference, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Oct. 25-27, 2018.


“Minding the Gap for Online Book Illustrations.” ELO (Electronic Literature Organization), Annual Conference, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Aug. 13-17, 2018.


“Not so Black and White: Picturing Western Civilization’s Animality in Andrew Lang’s Coloured Fairy Books.” UAAC (Universities Art Association of Canada). Annual Conference, NSCAD U., Halifax, NS, Nov. 5-7, 2015.


“White Snow in the Mirror: An Inversion of the Innocent Childhood Paradigm.” Conference paper, Childhood: A Person’s Project, Inter-Disciplinary.net, 4th Global Conference, Mansfield College, Oxford, U.K., Jul. 17, 2014.


“A Story of Heroic Empathy Taken from the 19th-Century Bookshelf: An Art Historical Analysis of Orientalism in Walter Crane and Andrew Lang’s Fairy tale Picture Books.” Canadian Comparative Literature Association, Transnational Canons Conference, University of Alberta, AB, March 13, 2013.


“Of God, Guns and Government: Reforming the non-Inuit Subject Position in the work of Annie Pootoogook and the Kinngait Avant-Garde.” National Museum of the American Indian, Critical Aesthetics: Essentialism and Contemporary Native Art Symposium, New York, NY, May 5-6, 2011.

Select Guest Lectures

“Visual Crossovers: Victorian-era Children’s Picture Books and the Satirical Press,” Guest lecture for undergraduate course. Course led by Molly-Claire Gillett, Art History, Concordia University, QC, Nov. 11, 2019.


Out of Hiding: Discovering Rare Books and Special Collections at Saint Paul University,” an interactive guest lecture in collaboration with the School of Social Communication, Indigenous Initiative Services, and the Jean-Léon Allie Library and Archives, Saint Paul University, ON, Mar. 27, 2019.  


“Utopian Glimmers: Intersections in the Nineteenth-Century Publications by William Morris and Walter Crane,” Guest lecture for graduate seminar. Course led by Dr. Nicola Pezolet, Art History, Concordia University, QC, Oct. 13, 2017.


“Fairy Tales and Contemporary Art,” Guest lecture for undergraduate seminar. Course led by Dr. Loren Lerner, Art History, Concordia University, QC, Sept. 20, 2016.


Memberships and Service

Membership

Art Libraries Association of North America (ARLIS/NA)
ARLIS/NA Montreal Ottawa Quebec MOQ Chapter
C-ARLIS/NA Canada Chapter
Bibliographical Society of Canada (BSC)
Global Emergent Media Lab (GemLab)
International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA)

Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) 2015-2016, 2018-2019, 2022-2023
L'association des bibliothécaire du Québec Library Association 2017-2018

 

Editorial Service

Book Review Editor, Papers/Cahiers, BSC, 2020-present
Editor, MOQDOC, ARLIS/NA MOQ, 2016-2021

Profesional Associations Service

ARLIS/NA (Advocacy and Public Policy Committee member, 2021-2022)
C-ARLIS/NA (MOQ Representative, 2021-2022)
ARLIS/NA MOQ (VP and President, 2019-2021)
BSC (Conference planning member, 2022)
Special Collections Interest Group BSC (2021-present)

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