A newsletter to learn about practical ways to decolonize your research and data work-lives with byte-sized drabbles about the daily life of a data professional.

Behind-the-Scenes: Submit to Black Canvases (ISSN: 3066-8484)

Is your work unconventional, creative, edgy, or unpublishable by academic standards?

My research collaborator Dr. kYmberly Keeton and I invite submissions by any ethnicity of artists, writers, scholar-practitioners, graduate students, and community leaders to a new Black cultural (heritage) zine titled Black Canvases. The zine will explore data and community relations of Black cultural heritage across disciplines, lived experiences, and sectors. The theme is express your politics.

Submit digital art, poetry, academic scholarship, short stories, photographs, and vignettes by June 11, 2025.

Behind-the-Scenes: ART | library deco Won the 2025 TDL Award for Excellence

I offer grant and award writing services as part of my freelance data work. I’m ecstatic to announce that ART | library deco won the 2025 Texas Digital Library Award for Excellence! The Creative CoLab—the collaborative personas of myself and Dr. kYmberly Keeton—focuses on creating avant-garde immersive and interactive BGLAM design at ART | library deco.

Behind-the-Scenes: Publication Date Announced for my IFLA Book Chapter

Sometimes publishing in the data field takes a long time. Like five years. My long-time collaborator, Kristen J. Nyitray, and I write about transliteracy skills behind an online tutorial in the Special Collections and University Archives at Stony Brook University in the upcoming IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Publications book. The book Libraries Empowering Society through Digital Literacy is expected to be published October 14, 2025.