Chair’s Report from the Fall 2021 EBSS Newsletter from Rachael Elrod, EBSS Chair for 2021-2022

As we begin the 2021–2022 academic year, I hope this message finds you, your families, and loved ones safe, healthy, and well. I appreciate your role in EBSS as we continue to work during the immense uncertainty of a global pandemic. Whether you are a new member, a long-time member, or somewhere in between, we are excited to have you as a part of our team.

Our committees continue to engage in new and existing projects, trainings, websites, and more. The Communications Studies Committee, Instruction for Educators Committee, and Psychology Committee are all working on drafting companion documents to the ACRL Framework. The Curriculum Materials Committee will be updating the ever-popular Directory of Curriculum Materials Centers and Collections. The Research Committee hosted the EBSS Virtual Research Forum in May. Please read below for a full account of all the wonderful work and devotion of our committees.

In this issue of our newsletter, Samantha Godbey, EBSS Vice-Chair & Chair of the EBSS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Task Force, provides an update on the work of the task force and invites you to participate in a survey as they wrap up their work to help promote best practices and advocate for EDI issues in academic librarianship, and more specifically, within EBSS. 

At this time, ALA is planning to host our Annual Conference face-to-face in Washington, D.C. next summer. The Conference Program Planning Committee recently submitted a proposal for ALA Annual in collaboration with the Digital Scholarship Section on the topic of algorithmic bias, pedagogy, and social justice. We will be notified by November if our proposal is accepted. If we indeed have an in-person Conference, I hope to see many of you there and learn more about the exciting work taking place within our section.

 

Rachael Elrod, Chair 2021-2022