Data visualization—making sense of the world through images that tell a story—has a history that parallels human existence. The strength of visualization lies in its ability to reveal truth out of information that may remain hidden in lines of text, large data sets, or complex ideas. The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education presents complex threshold concepts, developed intentionally without prescriptive lists of skills and with flexible options for implementation, which can be explored and understood through visualization.

Envisioning the Framework offers a visual opportunity for thought, discovery, and sense-making of the Framework and its concepts. Seventeen chapters packed with full-color illustrations and tables explore topics including:

• LibGuides creation through conceptual integration with the Framework
• fostering interdisciplinary transference
• the convergence of metaliteracy with the Framework
• teaching multimodalities and data visualization
• mapping a culturally responsive information literacy journal for international students

Chapters include content for credit-bearing information courses, one-shots, and teaching first-year students.

Twenty-first-century information literacy involves the metaliterate learner, reflects seismic changes in the duties and roles of teaching librarians, requires new partnerships with faculty and instructional designers, and emphasizes continuous assessment practices. Envisioning the Framework can help you use symbols and visuals for deeper understanding of the Framework, to map the Framework with teaching and learning objectives, and to tell a coherent story to students featuring the frames and the Framework. 

Comic book properties continue to dominate popular culture, and there has been continued growth in the academic field of Comics Studies. Graphic novels and comic trade paperbacks populate the shelves of many academic libraries. Single issue collections of “floppy” comic books, however, tend to find their home in special collections libraries because their flimsy construction, highly acidic paper, and, occasionally, the scarcity of certain specific issues warrants special storage and handling. Thoughtful consideration must go into any decision to begin or sustain these collections.
 
Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library collects best practices for the acquisition, preservation, storage, and cataloging of comics, particularly single-issue (or floppy) comics, within the special collections units of academic library collections. Four sections answer:

• Why Should Your Institution Collect Comics?
• Your Library Collects or Wants to Collect Comics. Now What?
• How Do You Engage in Library Instruction and Outreach with Your Comics Collection?
• How Can Comics Be Used as Primary and Secondary Source Material by Students and Faculty? 

Chapters address challenges specific to comic book collections in academic libraries, such as finding space and funds to build a collection, making diverse and inclusive collections, leading innovative library instruction sessions with comics, and working with undergraduate and graduate students on comics research. Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library can help you develop, cultivate, grow, catalog, and make use of comic book collections.