News from the Field

David Free

Respectful Conversation Website Launches

The recently launched Respectful Conversation is a collection of open access resources related to the interconnected concepts of free expression, constructive dialogue, and media literacy. Free expression has long been considered a basic human right in the United States, while constructive dialogue and media literacy are more recent initiatives that focus on the responsibility to engage in productive, informed interactions.

The online toolkit includes instructional resources such as books and articles, videos, and podcasts that can be adopted by educators, parents, library professionals, and community leaders across the country. The goal for this website is to promote a willingness and preparedness to engage in constructive dialogue with well-informed citizens. The site was created through a process for identifying useful resources related to freedom of expression, constructive dialogue, and media literacy, including monitoring relevant open access and authoritative journals, LibGuides, and listservs.

The resources shared in this toolkit are designed to facilitate meaningful and constructive dialogue and educate students and other community members about the related concepts of free expression, constructive dialogue, and media literacy. The content on this site will enable others to build their own collections of resources for their community members. The site was supported by an ALA Carnegie Whitney Grant and is available at https://respectfulconversation.charlotte.edu/.

Library of Congress Launches Digitized Collection of National AIDS Memorial Quilt Records

The Library of Congress has released a groundbreaking online collection of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt Records, making one of the most poignant symbols of the AIDS epidemic in the United States available to a global audience. As the largest communal art project in the world, the AIDS Memorial Quilt honors the lives of all Americans who have died of AIDS since 1981, when the disease was first identified.

Released to coincide with World AIDS Day commemorations, the newly digitized collection offers a unique window into the deeply personal stories behind the 55-ton quilt and its panels. Totaling more than 125,000 items, the collection includes letters, diaries, photographs, and other materials documenting the lives of those represented in the Quilt. The digitized archive is now reunited online with the communal folk art of the quilt panels. Together, these digitized collections will be a boon for researchers, families of AIDS victims, policymakers, and more. Learn more at https://www.loc.gov/collections/aids-memorial-quilt-records/about-this-collection/.

GPO Releases New Serial Set Volumes

The US Government Publishing Office (GPO) has added more than 3,000 volumes of the Congressional Serial Set containing more than 45,000 individual documents and reports to GPO’s GovInfo, the one-stop site for authentic, published information for all three branches of the Federal Government. This comes as part of a multi-year effort with the Library of Congress to digitize and make accessible the US Congressional Serial Set back to the first volume, which was published in 1817.

Highlights from the newly added volumes include annual reports of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum; reports from May and June of 1874 relating to Susan B. Anthony’s criminal trial for illegally voting in elections in Rochester, New York; hearings on the construction of the Panama Canal; and compilations of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War.

The US Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the Serial Set, is a compilation of all numbered House and Senate reports and documents, including executive reports and treaty documents, issued for each session of Congress. GPO is uploading volumes of the official Serial Set in phases for free public access on GovInfo. Thus far it makes available nearly 7,000 volumes, with nearly 11,000 remaining. The entire effort is expected to take at least a decade to complete.

New from ACRL—The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services

ACRL announces the publication of The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services, edited by Janet Pinkley and Kaela Casey. This book—the third in ACRL’s The Community College Library series, following Assessment and Reference & Instruction—offers models and strategies for collection development and technical services work.

Community colleges are a cornerstone of higher education and serve the unique needs of the communities in which they reside. Collections and technical services librarians at these institutions need expertise in their area of library work but also a deep understanding of their community to curate and make discoverable the resources their users need.

The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services highlights the various approaches to collection development and the technical services work being done by community college librarians around the United States. You’ll find strategies for developing equity-centered collections, data-driven acquisitions, cataloging, systems migrations, zero textbook cost degrees, and more. These programs can serve as a model, providing new and innovative ways to approach this work at your own institutions.

Community college librarians are engaged in meaningful work designing and delivering library programs and services that meet the needs of their diverse populations and support student learning. ACRL’s The Community College Library series is meant to lift the voices of community college librarians and highlight their creativity, tenacity, and commitment to students.

The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services 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 US or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

Springer Nature Launches Latin American Research Advisory Council

Springer Nature recently announced that it has founded a Latin American Research Advisory Council (LARAC) to better support and collaborate with researchers in the region. This joins the publisher’s existing research advisory councils in Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and the United States. These councils have been established to improve the publisher’s approach to serving researchers with the goal of advancing the trust, integrity, equity, and efficiency of research and the research ecosystem. The LARAC builds upon Springer Nature’s sustainable development work in the region. Most recently, the publisher held its third annual Summit on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, gathering 369 participants from 54 countries for two days of conferences on enhancing education, reducing inequalities, and the regional progression to a sustainable energy future.

ACRL Releases Data Culture in Academic Libraries: A Practical Guide to Building Communities, Partnerships, and Collaborations

ACRL announces the publication of Data Culture in Academic Libraries: A Practical Guide to Building Communities, Partnerships, and Collaborations, edited by Marcela Y. Isuster and Alisa B. Rod. The book features a collection of case studies, strategies, and examples that can help you foster an institutional culture that favors the curation, creation, and wider use of datasets.

Librarians and academic data specialists support the research data needs of faculty and students through conventional services such as consultations and workshops, but also increasingly by cultivating a data culture that supports the diverse data needs of their communities. The shift toward data-related research as a driver of social capital is a critical opportunity to reassess data literacy training and build a local scholarly culture around data.

Data Culture in Academic Libraries highlights the ways that library workers are developing novel and innovative models of relationship-building to improve data-related services while incorporating a lens of equity, diversity, anti-racism, and inclusion in programming events and partnerships. It is divided into five parts:

1. Data at All Levels
2. Data Services and Instruction
3. Data Outreach
4. Data Communities
5. Data Partnerships

Chapters include case studies, practical examples, and strategies from practitioners in North America, Asia, and Europe working in a wide range of academic contexts and fostering data partnerships and communities that often go beyond their libraries and institutions.

Data Culture in Academic Libraries: A Practical Guide to Building Communities, Partnerships, and Collaborations 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 US or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

Bloomsbury Digital Resources Launches Art, Race and Gender Collection

Bloomsbury has launched the Art, Race and Gender Collection on the Bloomsbury Visual Arts hub. The collection focuses on women artists, artists of color, art and feminism, masculinity, class, race, sexuality, ethnicity, and related topics. The Art, Race and Gender Collection actively supports the decolonizing and diversifying of art curricula and teaching. The collection’s authoritative and varied range of titles moves beyond the traditional canon of artists, aiding the exploration of concepts of identity in art. Learn more at https://www.bloomsburyvisualarts.com/art-race-and-gender-collection.

Biographers International Organization, Troy University Sponsor Black Biography Conference

The joys and challenges of producing biographies of Black subjects will be the focus of the Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography conference, to be held March 21–22, 2025, in Montgomery, Alabama. The conference is presented by Biographers International Organization in collaboration with Troy University. The conference is believed to be the first of its kind since the 1980s. Through talks, panel discussions, and opportunities to tour Montgomery’s major civil rights memorials, the conference is intended to appeal to writers and readers of biography and history along with teachers and students from throughout the Southeast region.

Telling Stories of Black Lives through Biography, to be held at Troy University’s Montgomery campus, is open to students, teachers, writers, and readers of biography and Black history. Panels will cover issues such as researching and writing about lesser-known figures, the general challenges of writing Black biography, how writing about women’s lives is revolutionizing biography, and the craft of biography. Learn more about the conference at https://biographersinternational.org/montgomery-biography-conference/.