area studies | The Journal of Creative Library Practice

By Charmaine Henriques
International Studies Librarian
Indiana University
Herman B Wells Library
Bloomington, Indiana

Introduction

Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) Libraries noticed a decrease in student (predominantly undergraduates) usage of its services and resources. This ongoing concern had been noted in the library literature and library panels/presentations. Administrators throughout the nation repeatedly surveyed students, put together focus groups and convened committees to discuss and find solutions to this phenomenon. These investigations unearthed recurring issues: students didn’t know how to navigate the
library or where and from who to get help. There was a segment of this population that either grew up without access to or did not make use of the library during primary and secondary school. For certain post secondary students, a college or university library will be the first library they ever encounter which can be an overwhelming experience, while to others that have already been enrolled for a few years the library is an unknown, unwelcoming place that they do not understand. Even so, where many saw a problem, a group of Area Studies librarians at IUB Libraries saw an opportunity.

Continue reading An Area Studies Pilot: Faculty Engagement, Public Space and Reference Service →

By Brinna Pam Anan, Metadata Management Librarian and Collection Development Coordinator
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
and
Sarah D. Calhoun, Reference & Instruction Librarian for Humanities & Digital Scholarship
Carleton College

Abstract

We, as academic librarians, have chosen to practice interdisciplinary collaboration in our work in service of introducing more outside perspectives into the field of librarianship. From Asian Humanities, we learned about the concepts of kalyāṇa-mittatā, an active practice of auspicious friendship, and paramparā, an active transmission of knowledge through a lineage. While working at very different institutions, we have found these two concepts useful in guiding our understanding of colonialist, predominantly white hostile systems within area studies and area studies librarianship; academia; and libraries writ large. Using our own background in Asian Humanities, informed by the work of scholars of critical librarianship and Relational-Cultural Theory, we offer another parallel solution: We seek to establish academic friendships that are mutually beneficial and based on an ethic of care, while also thinking critically about our specific place within the trajectory of librarianship. Continue reading In a lineage of friends: What Asian Humanities gives to critical librarianship →