News from the Field

David Free

Harvard University Houghton Library renovation completed

The renovation of the Houghton Library, Harvard University’s principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, was recently completed. In addition to significant changes to the building’s interior, the project included a redesign of the exterior entrance forecourt, enhancing the library’s presence in Harvard Yard and creating an accessible environment for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. A broad, welcoming staircase leads directly to the main entrance, flanked by a pair of graded walkways offering a universally accessible approach to the building.

The design by Ann Beha Architects modified the library’s oval lobby, unaltered since its completion in 1942, to create a new display setting for the library’s unparalleled special collections. Two openings, aligned with exterior windows, were created in the lobby, connecting the interior to the new forecourt and introducing natural but modulated light to the lobby.

A reconfigured, modernized reading room on the first floor supports both individual and collaborative research. Changes include a consultation room for reader check-in and materials requests and an adjacent group study room. These spaces are visually connected to each other and to the main reading room by full-height glazed partitions, which also provide acoustic separation between the three spaces. A new cork floor and acoustically treated ceiling contribute to the quieting of the rooms. Improved lighting, new adjustable-height chairs, and custom-designed tables make research comfortable and accessible for all. The renovated building pairs heritage spaces with design interventions that meet contemporary needs, creating an inclusive setting that supports diverse approaches to research, learning, and teaching.

ACRL Consulting Services launches Facilitative Support for Library Leaders

Are you effectively preparing your library to meet the challenges of navigating an ever-shifting higher education landscape? Do you wish you had an external sounding board? Do you wonder if the decisions you’re making are the right ones? Are you seeking to increase support of your library’s staff and faculty? Does your leadership team show signs of stress and strain? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, ACRL’s Facilitative Support for Library Leaders is designed for you.

ACRL’s experienced consultants/coaches are available to work with you or you and your leadership team one-on-one or in a small group, and in the short-, medium-, or long-term. This service is highly customizable and can be scoped to meet your needs. Sessions will be virtual. Each package includes an initial assessment, followed by facilitated discussions, exercises, recommendations for relevant tools and activities, and a curated package based on your specific needs of three-to-five ebooks or other professional literature published by ACRL. Learn more on the ACRL website at https://www.ala.org/acrl/protools/consulting/projects/facilitative.

MIT Press releases open monographs whitepaper

The Chain Bridge Group and the MIT Press have released “The MIT Press Open Monograph Model: Direct to Open,” a new white paper describing a collective model for supporting the open dissemination of scholarly monographs. The report examines the context for designing the framework and explains the logic behind the model’s design. The MIT Press, supported by a grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, has developed and implemented a business model capable of disseminating the Press’s scholarly monographs open access. The framework, christened Direct to Open (D2O), is designed to induce support by balancing the dual motivations of academic research libraries: the value of private benefits, exclusive to contributing institutions, and mission-aligned support for open business models.

Researched and written by Raym Crow, managing partner at the Chain Bridge Group, the report describes the success criteria and strategic objectives that drove D2O’s design. It explores the economic logic and organizational issues that affect the funding of open resources. The report goes on to describe a D2O prototype model that addresses the Press’s specific design requirements. It concludes with a consideration of D2O in the context of other open monograph models. The paper is available at https://direct.mit.edu/books/pages/direct-to-open-report.

EvenUP initiative launches

EvenUP, a new initiative by 17 university presses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, recently launched. EvenUP will provide a geographically specific forum for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) information collection, benchmarking, and training, with the goal of developing and sharing best practices for the recruitment and retention of university press publishers and authors from under-represented groups.

Among the project’s aims are sharing best practice for EDI across presses; committing to using either the Association of University Presses survey tool to collect demographic data, or other surveys of comparable quality, in order to assess and understand areas in which we can improve, benchmarking across presses where appropriate; and promoting and demonstrating transparency and equal opportunity in recruitment and career progression processes in university presses. Learn more about the initiative at https://evenup.hcommons.org/.

Curated Futures Project imagines possibility of a “Third Library”

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has released the Curated Futures Project, a guide for professionals in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums to navigate beyond discussions of decolonizing collecting institutions to begin taking practical steps to enact change. Organized and edited by CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows and alumni Faithe Day, Synatra Smith, Jodi Reeves Eyre, John MacLachlan, and Christa Williford, the project is the first in a series of collaborations that respond to the theme, “A Third Library is Possible.”

The theme draws from the possibilities of the “third university,” a notion developed by la paperson in the book A Third University is Possible. Contributors to five collaborative projects use a variety of mediums, including podcasts, gaming, and mapping visualizations, to speculate about aligning academic libraries with social impact. Learn more at https://futures.clir.org.

Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Handbook for Academic Libraries

ACRL announces the publication of Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Handbook for Academic Libraries, edited by Corliss Lee and Brian Lym with Tatiana Bryant, Jonathan Cain, and Kenneth Schlesinger. This thorough book captures emerging practices that academic libraries and librarians can use to create more equitable and representative institutions.

Academic library workers often make use of systemic, bureaucratic, political, collegial, and symbolic dimensions of organizational behavior to achieve their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, but many are also doing the crucial work of pushing back at the structures surrounding them in ways small and large. Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion covers this work in six sections:

• Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion
• Professional Development
• Leveraging Collegial Networks
• Reinforcing the Message
• Organizational Change
• Assessment

Chapters cover topics including active diversity recruitment strategies; inclusive hiring; gendered ageism; librarians with disabilities; diversity and inclusion with student workers; residencies and retention; creating and implementing a diversity strategic plan; cultural competency training; libraries’ responses to Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action; and accountability and assessment. Authors provide practical guiding principles, effective practices, and sample programs and training.

Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Handbook for Academic Libraries explores how academic libraries have leveraged and deployed their institutions’ resources to effect DEI improvements while working toward implementing systemic solutions and 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.

Gale, British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies partner for ECCO access

Gale recently announced a partnership with the British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS) to provide free access to Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) for all non-affiliated members of the society who are residents of the United Kingdom. Starting in February 2022, any member of BSECS without an existing affiliation to a U.K. or Ireland higher education institution can apply for access to this seminal resource at no cost. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is a crucial collection for the study of this significant period. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), this collection was originally conceived as a microfilm collection titled “The Eighteenth Century.” When created in 2003, ECCO was the most ambitious archive digitization project ever attempted, featuring more than 180,000 titles comprising around 33 million pages. Learn more at https://review.gale.com/2022/01/05/bsecs-partnership.

Penn State Libraries announce short story awards

The Penn State University Libraries Short Stories’ “Through the Woods” fall 2021 contest winners have been announced. Representing five Penn State campuses, the latest writing contest encouraged students, faculty, and staff across the commonwealth to submit their best woodland-themed original short stories or poetry.

Each of the four Libraries Short Stories Editorial Board winners and the People’s Choice winner will receive a $100 Visa gift card. All winning entries, including nine honorable mentions, will be added to the Libraries’ Short Edition short-story dispensers, located around the University Park campus and six campus libraries, and at Schlow Centre Region Library in State College. Learn more about the recipients at www.psu.edu/news/academics/story/libraries-announces-through-woods-short-stories-fall-contest-winners/.