News from the Field
Penn State Launches Digital Project Highlighting 1899 Alaska Expedition Materials
A new digital project, “Harriman Recollected: New Views of an 1899 Expedition to Alaska,” makes accessible a handwritten diary and Indigenous artworks housed at Penn State’s Eberly Family Special Collections Library. The project presents research that sheds new light on the materials and their provenance and offers innovative pathways for thinking about, and teaching with, primary and historical sources and art within the larger framework of ethical collecting and stewardship within archives, libraries, and museums.
In 1989, the Special Collections library at Penn State University Libraries received a generous donation from an alum: a diary, two photograph albums, and seven Indigenous artworks acquired by the donor’s great-uncle George Nelson, the chaplain on board the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. The expedition traveled over the lands and waters of the Tsimshian, Tlingit, dAXunhyuu or Eyak, Alutiiq and Sugpiaq, Dena’ina, Unangax, Inupiaq, and Siberian Yupik.
“Harriman Recollected” narrates the story of the collection’s reinterpretation and redescription, contributing to an ongoing conversation about the opportunities and challenges of reparative description and curation practices. As guiding principles, the project aims to emphasize Indigenous territorial ownership, refuse harmful terminology, and question assumptions of consent regarding the photographs taken during the expedition. The collection is available at https://harrimanrecollected.psu.edu/.
Wayne State School of Information Sciences’ MLIS degree Receives Continued ALA Accreditation
The Wayne State University School of Information Sciences (SIS) has been granted renewed accreditation from ALA’s Committee on Accreditation. The school’s master of library and information science (MLIS) degree has been accredited continuously by the ALA since 1967, with the most recent continuing accreditation granted in 2017.
“The MLIS degree plays an important role in providing professional librarians for all types of libraries,” said Paul Bracke, dean of the School of Information Sciences and University Libraries. “Our online program offers students the flexibility to choose from multiple paths and concentrations while pursuing their master’s degree at their own pace.
“I can’t stress how important it is to receive the continued accreditation. It guarantees students in the program an education that meets the standards set by the American Library Association, while allowing us to remain accessible to students globally. This is important for graduates who seek employment because the ALA-accredited MLIS degree provides recognition to employers about the caliber of the graduates of accredited programs.”
Wayne State’s School of Information Sciences is one of two library and information science programs in Michigan and the only one that provides a completely online program. It is also the major provider of the school media specialist credentialing to prepare students for full state endorsement as school librarians.
Black Canvases Zine Accepting Submissions
The Creative CoLab invites submissions by artists, writers, scholar-practitioners, graduate students, and community leaders to Black Canvases, a new zine that will explore data and community relations of Black cultural heritage across disciplines, lived experiences, and sectors. Black Canvasses is meant to share all things Black fashion, culture, data science, digital humanities, digital projects, archival work, art, and BGLAM (Black Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums). It is intended to showcase unpublished work that might be considered unconventional, creative, edgy, or unpublishable, especially by academia standards. Black Canvases builds off The CoLab work done during The Relational Possibilities Project (2023–2024). Submissions are due June 11, 2025, and complete details are available at https://thecreativecolab.substack.com/p/black-canvases.
Subscribe to Open Reaches 2025 Sustainability Goal
Project MUSE has announced a major achievement in its quest to advance open access. Thanks to the support of libraries and institutions worldwide, MUSE’s Subscribe to Open (S2O) initiative has reached its sustainability goal for 2025. This remarkable accomplishment will make more than one hundred journals’ 2025 volumes, from twenty-seven publishers, openly accessible on the MUSE platform.
ACRL Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders 2025 Cohort Registration
Registration is open for the virtual, nine-week 2025 Fostering Change for Academic Library Leaders cohort. The cohort aims to build a community of change agents in academic libraries. Library workers often recognize the need to initiate a change in their organizations but may have no idea where to start. In this cohort experience, participants will gain the tools to spark, lead, and sustain change, no matter their organizational position. They will also gain a network of peers to lean on as they lead change. The cohort runs from Monday, May 26, through Friday, July 25, 2025.
The cohort is for you if:
- You are in or want to move into formal leadership or management roles.
- You want to grow professionally and expand your leadership capacity.
- You are or work for interim leaders.
- You are a library worker seeking effective strategies for and community in meeting the evolving needs of our campuses.
Participants will leave the cohort with a toolkit of change leadership practices that will help them take their library from where it is today to a new imagined future. Through a mix of facilitator-led presentations and candid cohort conversations, participants will examine their organization’s cultural readiness for change, create inclusive change processes, and develop their skills to lead effective change. The registration deadline is May 23, 2025, and complete details are available at https://www.ala.org/acrl/fosteringchangecohort.
Portico to Preserve Clarivate’s Ebook Central
Portico has signed an agreement with Clarivate to preserve books available to academic libraries through Ebook Central. This agreement ensures the long-term preservation of this expansive collection. Portico will also receive new books added to Ebook Central in the future. Portico began preserving ebooks in 2009 and is currently responsible for more than 2.4 million books from 420 publishers and ebook platforms. In addition to the long tail of backlist titles, Portico preserves approximately 200,000 new books annually through these agreements. Learn more about Portico ebook preservation at https://www.portico.org/join/.
Yale Becomes GPO Preservation Steward
Yale University’s Lillian Goldman Law Library signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the US Government Publishing Office (GPO) to become a Preservation Steward. To help libraries meet the needs of efficient government document stewardship in the digital era, GPO has established Preservation Stewards to support continued public access to US government documents in print format. These libraries contribute significantly to the effort to preserve printed documents. Through the agreement, many libraries also serve as digital access partners, providing digital access to government information. There are currently more than sixty libraries serving as Preservation Stewards across the United States. The Yale University Lillian Goldman Law Library is preserving current and historic publications of Statutes at Large along with current and historic US Tax Court Reports. To learn more about GPO, visit https://www.gpo.gov/.
Springshare Launches LibMaps
Springshare recently launched LibMaps, a new interactive mapping platform. This multipurpose wayfinding tool helps patrons navigate library spaces, find precise locations of holdings and books, and locate any space or facility in the library. LibMaps offers flexible features to help users find what they need in the library, including stack-level mapping that helps users pinpoint the exact location of any book in the library, space and study rooms reservations, event locations and registration, and clickable, interactive hotspots on library maps that allow libraries to call out helpful information, such as facility locations or service desk hours. Learn more about LibMaps at https://www.springshare.com/libmaps.
Bloomsbury Launches Paulist Press Collections on Theology and Religion Online
Three new collections—Ancient Christian Writers, Classics of Western Spiritualty Pre-1500, and Classics of Western Spirituality Post-1500—from renowned publisher Paulist Press are now available on Bloomsbury’s Theology and Religion Online. The collections provide scholars with an authoritative resource of major spiritual writings and the most important seminal works of the earliest Christian theologians, many of which are the definitive, and in some cases, the only, English translations. The collections also offer multiple genres of spiritual writings and include a diverse offering of historical texts, all selected with the needs of students and researchers in mind. Learn more at https://www.theologyandreligiononline.com/. 
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