News from the Field

David Free

Once Upon a Time in the Academic Library: Storytelling Skills for Librarians

ACRL recently published Once Upon a Time in the Academic Library: Storytelling Skills for Librarians, edited by Maria Barefoot, Sara Parme, and Elin Woods. This fun, eminently readable guide provides innovative ideas for incorporating storytelling into your teaching and communication, and can inspire you to invent new ways of using it in your work.

It could be argued that to tell stories is to be human. Storytelling evolved alongside us to provide entertainment via literature, plays, and visual arts. It helps shape society through parables, moral tales, and religion. Storytelling plays a role in business, law, medicine, and education in modern society. Academic librarians can apply storytelling in the same way that teachers, entertainers, lawyers, and businesspeople have done for centuries, as education within information literacy instruction and as communication in the areas of reference, outreach, management, assessment, and more.

A thorough introduction discusses the historical and theoretical roots of storytelling, as well as the mechanics and social justice applications. Chapter authors demonstrate using storytelling to share diverse viewpoints that connect with their users, and each chapter contains practical examples of how storytelling can be used within the library and cultural considerations for the audience.

Once Upon a Time in the Academic Library: Storytelling Skills for Librarians is available for purchase in print and as an ebook through the ALA Online Store, in print through amazon.com, and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

UT iSchool alumni create endowed scholarship for BIPOC students

Graduates of the University of Texas (UT)-Austin School of Information have started a grassroots fundraising campaign to create an endowed scholarship to help more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) scholars enter the profession. The grassroots fundraising campaign was formed in response to a 2020 petition by UT iSchool students, which stated “BIPOC students, who face additional obstacles to academic success and personal well-being, should have pathways for education at the iSchool through accessible and available funding,” among other demands for antiracist action. The call prompted UT iSchool alumni Alison Clemens and Michelle Keba Knecht to organize planning for an endowed scholarship to support BIPOC students. Meeting the initial goal of $50,000 will create a recurring yearly scholarship of $2,000. Fundraising began in October 2021 and raised $8,000 in the first month. The iSchool Alumni Scholarship for BIPOC Students will be administered by Texas Exes, the UT-Austin alumni association. Learn more at https://fundutischoolbipoc.wordpress.com/.

ACLS launches Commission on Fostering and Sustaining Diverse Digital Scholarship

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) recently announced the formation of the Commission on Fostering and Sustaining Diverse Digital Scholarship, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project builds on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research on the sustainability of digital humanities projects.

The commission will study questions of equitable access in the creation of and access to digital resources and projects related to social and racial justice. This assembly of leading scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers, and university leaders will also address challenges associated with the infrastructure and organizational models for the development of and public access to this work. The commission’s investigations should provide insights that advance approaches to access and sustainability for digital humanities resources more generally. Through a series of roundtables, working papers, and community feedback engagements, the commission will produce a report with sector-wide recommendations for strengthening the opportunity structure for digital humanities projects that support new directions in scholarship and improve public access to knowledge.

Learn more at www.acls.org/news/acls-launches-commission-on-fostering-and-sustaining-diverse-digital-scholarship/.

Apply now for IMLS Native American, Native Hawaiian Library Services grants

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is now accepting applications for Native Hawaiian Library Services and Native American Library Services Enhancement grants. The deadline for submitting applications for either grant is April 1, 2022.

Native Hawaiian Library Services grants are available to nonprofit organizations that primarily serve and represent Native Hawaiians. These grants, awarded in amounts of up to $150,000 for two years, are designed to improve core library services for their communities.

Native American Library Services Enhancement grants advance the programs and services of eligible Indian tribes, including Alaska Native villages, regional corporations, and village corporations. These competitive grants, awarded in amounts of up to $150,000 for two years, are designed to improve core library services for their communities. For more information about the changes to eligibility for the Native American Library Services Enhancement grant, please read the grant program update at www.imls.gov/blog/2022/01/grant-program-update-native-american-library-services-enhancement-grants.

Grant guidelines and descriptions of previously funded projects are available on the IMLS website at www.imls.gov/grants/awarded-grants.

University of Arkansas joins ASERL

In December 2021, members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) voted unanimously to admit the University of Arkansas (UA) as the newest member of the association. UA is the first new member to join ASERL since 2011, for a total of 38 institutional members in 12 states. ASERL is one of the largest of regional research library consortia in the United States. ASERL focuses much attention on professional development—including diversity, equity, and inclusion issues—and building large-scale shared print library collections, as well as a very active resource-sharing community. The UA Libraries provide access to more than 3.7 million volumes and more than 232,000 journals. The libraries offer research assistance, study spaces, computer labs with printing and scanning, interlibrary loan and delivery services, and cultural exhibits and events. Founded in 1956, ASERL is recognized as a national leader in cooperative research library programming. Learn more about ASERL at http://www.aserl.org/.

How to Be a Peer Research Consultant: A Guide for Librarians and Students

ACRL announces the publication of How to Be a Peer Research Consultant: A Guide for Librarians and Students by Maglen Epstein and Bridget Draxler, a concise guide for librarians and students on developing and teaching research skills and fostering these peer-to-peer relationships. Every student brings their own individual set of educational and personal experiences to a research project, and peer research consultants are uniquely able to reveal this “hidden curriculum” to the researchers they assist. In seven highly readable chapters, How to Be a Peer Research Consultant provides focused support for anyone preparing undergraduate students to serve as peer research consultants, whether you refer to these student workers as research tutors, reference assistants, or research helpers.

Inside you’ll find valuable training material to help student researchers develop metacognitive, transferable research skills and habits, as well as foundational topics like what research looks like in different disciplines, professionalism and privacy, ethics, the research process, inclusive research consultations, and common research assignments. It concludes with an appendix containing 30 activities, discussion questions, and written reflection prompts to complement the content covered in each chapter, designed to be easily printed or copied from the book.

How to Be a Peer Research Consultant can be read in its entirety to gather ideas and activities, or it can be distributed to each student as a training manual. It pays particular attention to the peer research consultant-student relationship and offers guidance on flexible approaches for supporting a wide range of research needs. The book is intended to be useful in a variety of higher education settings and is designed to be applicable to each institution’s unique library resources and holdings. Through mentoring and coaching, undergraduate students can feel confident in their ability to help their peers with research and may be inspired to continue this work as professional librarians in the future.

How to Be a Peer Research Consultant: A Guide for Librarians and Students is available for purchase in print and as an ebook through the ALA Online Store, in print through amazon.com, and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

Bloomsbury acquires ABC-CLIO

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC recently announced that it has completed the purchase of ABC-CLIO LLC. ABC-CLIO is an established academic publisher of reference, nonfiction, online curriculum, and professional development materials in both print and digital formats for schools, academic libraries, and public libraries, primarily in the United States. Founded in 1955, ABC-CLIO is based in Santa Barbara, California, and has four imprints and 32 databases, 16 school databases that provide curriculum-aligned content and lesson plans, professional development support and student activities to schools, and 16 academic scholarly research tools to academic institutions. It has more than 23,000 titles in its portfolio. The business will operate within Bloomsbury’s Academic and Professional division and run as part of Bloomsbury USA. ABC-CLIO’s 32 databases will enhance the Bloomsbury Digital Resources portfolio, enabling it to significantly scale the digital offering globally. It will also enable the company to expand its presence in the higher education market with an increased content set.

CLIR announces new publication awards

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) announced award recipients for its new “Pocket Burgundy” publication series in late December 2021. The series, which derives its name from the deep red covers of CLIR’s traditional research reports, will focus on shorter pieces—20 to 50 pages—addressing current topics in the information and cultural heritage community. A review committee selected five proposals out of twenty-seven received for the award. Each project will receive a $2,500 subvention. Reports will be completed by December 2022 and will be published in the second and third quarters of 2023. Publications will be made available free of charge on CLIR’s website.

More information, including award recipients, is available at www.clir.org/2021/12/clir-announces-awards-for-new-publication-series/.