Selected Publications

* Denotes collaborations with graduate students
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Sweeney, M.E. & Villa-Nicholas, M. (forthcoming March, 2022). Digitizing the ‘Ideal’ Latina Information Worker. American Quarterly. 

Sweeney, M.E. (2021). Digital Assistants. In Agostinho, D., D’Ignazio, C., Ring, A., Thylstrup, N.B., & Veel, K. (Eds.), Uncertain Archives. Baltimore, Maryland: MIT Press. (Pre-print available at ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/6348.)

Sweeney, M.E. & *Davis, E. (2020). Alexa, are you listening? An exploration of smart voice assistant use and privacy in libraries. Information Technology and Libraries, 39(4). https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v39i4.12363. (Pre-print available at http://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/6783)

Villa-Nicholas, M. & Sweeney, M.E. (2019). Designing the ‘good citizen’ through Latina identity in USCIS’s virtual assistant ‘Emma. Feminist Media Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2019.1644657. (Pre-print available at http://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/6219.)

Sweeney, M.E. & *Whaley, K. (2019). Technically white: Emoji skin-tone modifiers as American technoculture. First Monday 24(7), 0-0,  https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i7.10060. 
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*Wickham, M. & Sweeney, M.E. (2018). Are we still transmitting whiteness?: A case study of a Southern, rural library’s youth collections. Library Trends, 67(1), 89-106.

Sweeney, M.E. & Cooke, N. A. (2018). You’re so sensitive! How LIS professionals define and discuss microaggressions online. The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 88(4), 375-390.

Cooke, N.A. and Sweeney, M.E. Eds. (2017). Teaching for justice: Implementing social justice in the LIS classroom. Library Juice Press.
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Sweeney, M.E. & Rhinesmith, C. (2016). Creating caring institutions for community informatics. Information, Communication, and Society.

​Sweeney, M.E. (2016). “The Ms. Dewey ‘experience’: Technoculture, gender, and race.” In, Daniels, J., Gregory, K & and Cottom, T. (Eds.), Digital Sociologies (401–420). Policy Press, 2016.
 
Sweeney, M.E. (2016). The intersectional interface. In Noble, S.U., & Tynes, B. (Eds.),The Intersectional Internet (215-228). NY: Peter Lang.
 
Cooke, N.A., Sweeney, M.E. & Noble, S. U. (2016).  Social justice as topic and tool: An attempt to transform a LIS culture and curriculum. The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 86(1): 107-124.
 
Naidoo, J. C. and Sweeney, M.E. (2015) “Educating for social justice: Perspectives from library and information science and collaboration with K-12 social studies educators.” Journal of International Social Studies, 5(1): 196-207.
 
Sweeney, M. E., & Brock, A. (2014). Critical informatics: New methods and practices. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 51(1), 1–8.

Noble, S. U., Austin, J., Sweeney, M.E., McKeever, L., & Sullivan, E. (2014). Changing course: Collaborative reflections of teaching/taking “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Information Professions”.  Journal of Education in Library and Information Science, 55(3), 212-222.
 
Sweeney, M.E. (2012). Fugitive filing: Ready reference technologies as cultural artifacts. Reference Services Review 4(12).

Invited Talks

"Facing our computers" [Keynote], Library Research Seminar VII, Columbia, South Carolina. October 17th, 2019.

"The cultural affordances of "Emma", USCIS's Latina Virtual Assistant", Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. March 25, 2019.

“Encoding race, decoding culture: Emoji as technoculture”, Philosophy Dialogues, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. November 2, 2018.

"Towards action: An LIS perspective on the importance of OER and OAT initiatives". University Libraries panel on Open Access and Alternative Textbooks in the Classroom. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. February, 2016.

"Reading race, gender, and labor in anthropomorphized agents". Design:Use:Build, University of Washington. Seattle, WA. November, 2012.

Selected Conference Presentations/Papers

"Critical Data Approaches to the Interconnected Library." Panel. Association for Library and Information Science Education. Virtual Conference. October, 2020. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkw8Cq9eImY&feature=youtu.be

"Reclaiming the Human in Machine Cultures." Association of Internet Researchers. Panel. Virtual Conference. October, 2020

"Cultural Identity, Collective Action, and Critical Data: Future Directions at the Intersection of Media Studies and Digital Humanities." Roundtable discussion. American Studies Association. Honolulu, Hawai’i. November 10, 2019.

"The 'Good Female Spy': Virtual Assistants, Domesticity, and White Femininity." Paper. Society for Social Studies of Science. New Orleans, Louisiana. September, 2019.

"Segregated Libraries, Then and Now." Panel Response. Southern Historical Association, Birmingham, Alabama. November, 2018. Available at http://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/4952

"Digital Critical Race Mixtape." Experimental session. Association of Internet Researchers, Montreal, Canada. October, 2018.

"Teaching for Justice." Panel. Association of Library and Information Science Education, Westminster, Colorado. February, 2018.

"You’re so sensitive! How LIS professionals define and discuss microaggressions online." Refereed presentation. Association of Library and Information Science Education, Westminster, Colorado. February, 2018.

"Honey trapped: Gender, virtual agents, and information gathering". Works in Progress workshop. Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. October, 2017.

"Race, gender, and the perfect digital Latina worker". Presentation. Society for the Social Studies of Science, Boston, Massachusetts. September, 2017.

"Creating caring institutions for community informatics". Presentation. Association of Library and Information Science Education, Atlanta, Georgia. January, 2017.

"Emoji ethnicity update: De-coding the racial ideologies of ‘diverse’ emoji".  Refereed panel. Association of Internet Researchers, Berlin, Germany. October, 2016.

"Teaching critical digital technology in the online course environment". Workshop. Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Atlanta, Georgia. April, 2016.
 
"The Subversive Portrayal of Reading in ‘Orange is the New Black’". Presentation. National Communication Association, Las Vegas, Nevada. November, 2015.
 
"An “ethics of care” approach or community informatics". Refereed Paper. Community Informatics Research Network, Prato, Italy. November, 2015.

"THINKing and KNOWing: Reflections on teaching 'Race, Gender, Sexuality in Information Professions'". Presentation. Association for Library and Information Science Educators, Chicago, Illinois. January, 2015.

"Critical informatics: New methods and practices". Refereed paper. American Society for Information Science and Technology, Seattle, WA. October, 2014.

“'I am so versatile- I can be used for just about everything.”: Labor, gender, and the perfect digital laborer". Gender, Bodies, and Technology, Blacksburg, VA. May, 2014.

"Inclusion and exclusions: Reflections on a reading group". Refereed panel. iConference. Berlin, Germany. March, 2014.

"Critical cultural information studies: Research and teaching". 24th Annual Alumni Day, School of Library and Information Studies. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL. October, 2013.

"More than a pretty face". The Feminism Spoken Here Brown Bag Lecture Series. Co-sponsored by the Women’s Resource Center and Women’s Studies in the Department of Gender and Race, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL. September, 2013.

"At your service: Anthropomorphized virtual agents in the digital workforce". International Association of Media and Communications Research. Dublin, Ireland. June. 2013.

"Small data as slow food".  International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry Annual Conference, Urbana, IL. May, 2013.