MLC Quarterly Webinar
March 6, 2023 at 6 pm Eastern Time
Clio in Combat: The Role of the Military Historian
Speaker: Dr. Michael E. Lynch
Webinar recording: https://www.pathlms.com/sla/courses/40708/video_presentations/254744
“What do you actually DO, Doc?” That's a valid question often posed to military historians by friends, colleagues … and sometimes their supervisors. Why does the military need historians? What do they do? The tasks of a military historian can be many and varied, and they include going into combat zones. In this presentation, Dr. Michael Lynch will describe the role of historians in combat with some examples from previous conflicts as well as his own experiences doing historical data collection in Iraq.
Dr. Michael E. Lynch is Research Associate Professor of the Institutional Army at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His research specialties include the Arctic; Futures; Security Cooperation; Humanitarian, Medical, and Sustainment Operations. He deployed to Iraq in 2017 to collect historical data during Operation Inherent Resolve, and currently serves on the US Army War College Ukraine Study team. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Temple University, a Graduate Certificate in Public History from Shippensburg University, a Master of Arts in History from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from East Tennessee State University. Dr. Lynch is also a retired U.S. Army officer.
His book, Edward M. Almond and the US Army: From the 92nd Infantry Division to X Corps (University Press of Kentucky, 2019), was awarded the 2019 Distinguished Writing Award for Biography from the Army Historical Foundation. Dr. Lynch also contributed chapters to Drawdown: The Liberty Dilemma ed. Jason Warren (NYU Press, 2016) and Black History of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1860-1936 ed. Steven Burg (Shippensburg, PA: Shippensburg University Press, 2005). He has authored 16, co-authored 3, and supervised 19 special analytical studies for senior Army leadership. His current projects include an edited volume of conference papers focusing on the Arctic; two monographs on the relevant history and a study of the security assistance during the first of the war in Ukraine; and chapter on the Inchon Landing for a book on amphibious operations.
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MLC Quarterly Webinar
Thursday, 10 November at 12:00 PM EST
Slides of the event are available to MLC members on the MLC Members Only SLA Connect page at the following: https://connect.sla.org/discussion/slides-from-the-latest-mlc-quarterly-webinar#bmdda63ad0-b026-440a-937a-8a4fa0834308

This post on the MLC Members Only SLA Connect page has the slides for the latest MLC Quarterly Webinar. It was co-sponsored by the SLA Data Community.
A description of the event follows:
"Enabling Staff Skill Building - Lessons Learned from 10 years of Delivering the British Library Digital Scholarship Training Programme," Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 12:00 PM EST.
This year the British Library's Digital Research Team is celebrating a decade of delivering their bespoke digital scholarship and data skills training programme to staff. Covering topics such as cleaning up data, wikidata and machine learning in cultural heritage, the training programme provides opportunities for staff to build knowledge and gain hands-on experience with emerging technologies relevant to library work. Join Nora as she reflects on how it came to be, some of the highlights and wonderful staff achievements that have arisen from it, and useful insights the team has gleaned over the decade on how staff digital transformations can be sustainably supported for the long term. Her talk will cover topics such as:
- Rethinking how we define skills needs and acquisition for sustainable digital transformation
- Looking at different ways of learning, and sharing some of our favourite go-to learning resources for beginners
- Getting the right support and buy-in from leadership to make space for skills development
- Building and sustaining learning communities in an organisation
Nora McGregor is the British Library's Digital Curator in the Digital Research Team. She holds a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science and has extensive experience in design and delivery of digital skill training at a national cultural heritage institution scale, management of major digital/digitization projects, and exhibition curation.
As part of the Library's Digital Scholarship team, her work centres on digital scholarship skill development for staff. Since its inception in 2012, she has managed the design and delivery of the Library's unique and ground-breaking Digital Scholarship Training Programme which prepares staff for the computational turn in humanities research.
Thank you to Nora McGregor for presenting.
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MLC Quarterly Webinar
Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 6:00 PM ET
Recording of the event is available now: https://www.pathlms.com/sla/courses/40708/webinars/28453

The SLA Military Libraries Community (MLC) held our second installment of the MLC Quarterly Webinar Series via Zoom Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 6:00 pm ET.
Our topic was the libraries of the United States Naval Academy and of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Our guest list follows:
- Larry Clemens, Dean for Information Services and Director of Nimitz Library, United States Naval Academy,
- Christopher Barth, Associate Dean and Director of Libraries and Archives at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and
- Lauren B. Dodd, Associate Director for Information Services at the United States Military Academy at West Point
Our guests discussed the work and roles of their libraries.
Time for questions after their presentations was provided.
Thank you to our speakers for presenting.
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MLC Quarterly Webinar
Tuesday, 19 October 2021 at 7:00 PM EST
Recording of the event is no longer available.

The first SLA Military Libraries Community Quarterly Webinar was held Tuesday, 19 October 2021 at 7:00 PM EST.
R. David Lankes was kind enough to join us and discuss his book "Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society.”
“Many of what we think of as Information Age tools and media --- computers, cell phones, the internet, encryption, and more --- evolved directly out of modern warfare. These tools started with World War I (which began not with arms, but with England cutting off underwater cables to Germany and isolating it), accelerated through World War II and the Cold War, and now play a center role in both declared and non-declared conflicts like election interference and cyberbattle.”
“Author David Lankes’s work has been funded by organizations such as The MacArthur Foundation, The Institute for Library and Museum Services, NASA, The U.S. Department of Education, The U.S. Department of Defense, The National Science Foundation, and The U.S. State Department. This, his latest book will help all of us learn how war has shaped our world and how to begin to create an agenda to stand down weaponized data and a media that seeks to own our personal, even intimate data like one owns a gold mine.”