A team of IU faculty from the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, IU Libraries, and the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library have been chosen as one of twelve teams for the pilot cohort of the American Library Association's (ALA) Civic Imagination Stations. IU's team is led by Maria Hamilton Abegunde, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies; DeLoice Holliday, Multicultural Outreach Librarian and Head of NMBCC Library and Collection Manager for African American and African Diaspora Studies; and Willa Tavernier, Research Impact and Open Scholarship Librarian.
From the ALA announcement:
"The American Library Association announces twelve artists and library staff teams selected for the pilot cohort for ALA’s Civic Imagination Stations, supported by The Estée Lauder Companies WRITING CHANGE initiative. WRITING CHANGE is a three-year global, literacy initiative in partnership with Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, award-winning writer, and Estée Lauder Global Changemaker. Libraries will partner with local artists to implement arts programming that builds literacy and digital skills. Teams were selected from a national application process conducted in June and July 2022.
"From August 2022 to March 2023, the cohort will participate together in workshops and coaching led by Civic Imagination Stations Lead Artists: Willa J. Taylor, Goodman Theatre’s Walter Director of Education and Engagement; and Michael Rohd, founding Artistic Director of Sojourn Theatre and Co-founder of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice. Civic Imagination Station cohort teams will culminate their work with the development and implementation of short-term original arts-based projects. In addition, the Civic Imagination Stations program will model processes by which other librarian/artist partnerships can work together to create locally appropriate and meaningful civic imagination projects.
“'Libraries and artists are natural partners and have much to gain and learn from each other,' said ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall. 'I envision making library collections and services more visible to our communities as one of the key outcomes of this project. This initiative also seeks to direct the ingenuity of artists, librarians, and library staff on the issue of bridging the digital literacy divide which this current pandemic has starkly exposed.'”