ACRL is pleased to announce the first recipients of its Value of Academic Libraries Travel Scholarships in 2018. These scholarships of up to $2,000 each support librarians presenting on their work demonstrating the impact of academic libraries in the broader landscape of higher education.
The selection committee chose six proposals in this round of applications. They are:
- Sara Arnold-Garza (Towson University) for a presentation titled “Research as Inquiry, or, How to Win Librarian Friends and Influence Students” at the American Political Science Association Teaching & Learning Conference.
- Elisandro Cabada (University of Minnesota) for a poster presentation titled “A Survey of Information Professionals on the Preparedness of STEM Graduates Entering the Workforce” at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Britt Foster and Dave Tyckoson (California State University, Fresno) for a presentation titled “Taking a Deeper Dive: Using Capstone Papers for Richer Information Literacy Assessment” at the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission Academic Resource Conference.
- Kathleen Kasten (Stony Brook University) for a roundtable presentation titled “The Intellectual Landscape in the Library: Speaker Events as a Tool for Academic Engagement” at the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference.
- Sarivette Ortiz-Sanchez (Ana G. Mendez University) for a presentation titled “The Role of Academic Libraries in Support of Cultural Diversity and Inclusion in Education” at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association.
- Michelle Reed (University of Texas at Arlington) for a presentation titled “Beyond Open Connections: Leveraging Information Literacy to Increase Impact of Open Education” at the Open Education Global Conference.
“The committee was impressed by the strength of the applications we received,” says Value of Academic Libraries Committee chair Alan Carbery. “The selected recipients submitted proposals that closely align with the goals of the committee and scholarship program. They will present at a diverse set of conferences, on a breadth of topics. Their presentations will reach a wide audience as they showcase the impact and value of academic libraries.”
These travel scholarships take up a recommendation from the new ACRL report Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research (prepared by OCLC Research and released in September 2017 for download or purchase) that academic librarians effectively communicate their contributions both up to institutional stakeholders and out to other departments. Future rounds of scholarships are expected to be announced in summer 2018.
