Lauris Olson
Librarian & Coordinator, Social Sciences Collections
As the Penn Libraries' social sciences bibliographer - now coordinator for social sciences collections - since 1998, Lauris is responsible for selecting books, journals, electronic resources, and other media supporting Penn research and instruction in sociology, economics, linguistics, criminology, communication, and related fields. Lauris is Penn's Official Representative to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research and the contact person for the Penn Libraries' Pennsylvania State Data Center affiliate membership. Lauris coordinates collection development and management activities of subject librarians for anthropology & archaeology, business, education, gender, women's studies & sexuality, political science & international relations, psychology, and social policy & practice/social work. Lauris is also the Penn Libraries' African studies bibliographer. Lauris started at the Penn Libraries in 1991 as a Van Pelt Library reference librarian, but Lauris's presence at Penn began in 1975 as an undergraduate, earning BA and MA degrees in Anthropology here, alongside a Drexel library degree.
FERN's Ag Insider news service provides daily reporting and analysis on US federal and state food and agriculture policy. The new Penn Libraries online subscription to FERN's Ag Insider brings daily email blasts and website news item searching on the US-China trade war affecting agriculture, climate change's effect on farm production, food stamps and SNAP, genetically modified organisms, US Congressional agriculture committee activity, and many other food and agriculture topics.
FERN, the Food & Environment Reporting Network - called by the Washington Post (9/10/2014), "a nonprofit group that produces the kind of deep investigative reporting that many newspapers can't afford anymore" - is a news organization that funds investigative journalism on food, agriculture, and environmental health. Its stories on antibiotic and pharmaceutical use in agriculture, climate change and drought, farm labor, food access, ocean and freshwater pollution from agricultural practices are examples of FERN's impact on US and international food policy.