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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.

Engineering students, designers, studio artists, and other student creators have unique research needs that libraries are well-positioned to meet. They use academic literature to inspire and ground creation, but also seek information from trade literature, patents, technical standards, and how-to manuals. They apply tacit knowledge and need to learn not only how to write within academic discourse but also create objects, designs, and experiences.
 
In four parts, Creators in the Academic Library: Collections and Spaces explores how academic libraries can build collections, spaces, and communities that serve creators.

• Tailoring Collections for Creators
• Making in the Academic Library
• Creating Experiences in the Library
• Cultivating Creator Communities 

Chapters identify innovative ways the academic library can support creators by building new kinds of collections, resources, and experiences, including the use of rare books and archives; building a comprehensive technology and research equipment lending collection; performing in library spaces; supporting sustainability across disciplines; and creating equitable access to creator spaces, tools, and resources. Creators in the Academic Library documents spaces and collections that strive for equity and authenticity, for playfulness and joy, and offers strategies for creating a library open to all comers seeking a place to create in a liberating environment.
 

Engineering students, designers, studio artists, and other student creators have unique research needs that libraries are well-positioned to meet. They use academic literature to inspire and ground creation, but also seek information from trade literature, patents, technical standards, and how-to manuals. They apply tacit knowledge and need to learn not only how to write within academic discourse but also create objects, designs, and experiences.
 
In four parts, Creators in the Academic Library: Instruction and Outreach explores how to teach specifically for creator research, motivate learning, and deepen students’ understanding of their own practice.

• Technology, Tools, and Techniques for Creation
• Inspiring Creativity through Research
• Creator’s Unique Information Needs
• Grounding Creation in Research 

Chapters are grouped by learning objectives rather than discipline to highlight the throughlines that unite creators regardless of their field. They include methods for researching creative technology, tools, and techniques in different settings and disciplines; how to research for inspiration; adapting our tools and teaching to the unique information-seeking behaviors of creator disciplines; and how these skills can be transferred to students’ future careers. Creators in the Academic Library offers learning strategies and objectives that can help you teach all manner of creators.
 

When faced with difficult decisions, how do academic library decision makers, at any level of positional authority, make choices that satisfy the values of their profession, their institution, and themselves? How do you decide which values to privilege when priorities compete or even conflict? How can you ensure decisions are thoughtful and rooted in core values, rather than reflective only of the most immediate conditions and priorities?
 
Making Values-Based Decisions in the Academic Library explores the decision-making process of librarians in both formal and informal leadership roles. Rather than trying to identify a singular “correct” answer, authors offer an exploration of their own processes and the tools they used to arrive at conclusions that fit their contexts and institutions. Their examples show how values can be central considerations in assessment, inform collection development, shape our spaces and services, influence policy, and be foundational for seeking a better way forward.
 
We have more power than we think to create change, and our values can be a touchstone for the decisions we make at every level. The strategies in Making Values-Based Decisions in the Academic Library can help you holistically consider available options and make choices that consider your personal, institutional, and professional values amid challenging and changing circumstances.

When a crisis occurs, it is the employees who determine an organization’s resiliency and effectiveness. It is their response, ability to plan for contingencies, and capacity for creating solutions that means the difference between organizational success and failure.

In 29 chapters from authors in all institution types and sizes, Managing Crises in the Academic Library can help library workers learn from the crises of the past and prepare for the next unexpected event. Chapters cover lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, perpetual budget uncertainty, dealing with downsizing, merging departments, mold mitigation, and mental health issues, but also offer strategies applicable during any crisis, including:

• Responsive decision-making in academic library collections
• Managing stakeholder expectations
• Effective communication strategies
• Continuity of operations planning
• Utilizing library storage facilities
• Documentation and cross-training
• Mediating student technology needs
• Setting boundaries 

Chapters include workflow charts, bibliographies, and concrete strategies that can be easily adopted into your crisis planning. 
Libraries and library workers are deeply sustaining lifelines for many students and faculty. Managing Crises in the Academic Library collects stories that demonstrate the tenacity, creativity, and ingenuity of academic library workers as they maintain this vital community lifeline and offers actionable ideas and approaches for planning for and sustaining the resources, services, and people in the library during difficult times.

It could be argued that to tell stories is to be human. Storytelling evolved alongside us to provide entertainment via literature, plays, and visual arts. It helps shape society through parables, moral tales, and religion. Storytelling plays a role in business, law, medicine, and education in modern society.
 
Academic librarians can apply storytelling in the same way that teachers, entertainers, lawyers, and businesspeople have done for centuries, as education within information literacy instruction and as communication in the areas of reference, outreach, management, assessment, and more. Once Upon a Time in the Academic Library explores applications of storytelling across academic librarianship in three sections:

• The Information Literacy Classroom
• The Stacks
• Physical and Virtual Library Spaces 

A thorough introduction discusses the historical and theoretical roots of storytelling, as well as the mechanics and social justice applications. Chapter authors demonstrate using storytelling to share diverse viewpoints that connect with their users, and each chapter contains practical examples of how storytelling can be used within the library and cultural considerations for the audience. The first section focuses on storytelling as a pedagogical tool; the others include examples of how storytelling has been used as a communication method in sharing and developing collections, at service points, and in online spaces. Once Upon a Time in the Academic Library can provide ideas and inspiration for incorporating storytelling into your teaching and communication, and inspire you to invent new ways of using it in your work.

Student parents are a socioeconomically, racially, and financially diverse group. What they have in common is the drive to work hard to overcome steep barriers in obtaining a college education.
 
Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library: Designing Spaces, Policies, and Services is part toolkit, part treatise, and part call to action. In four parts:

• The Higher Education Landscape
• The Role of Academic Libraries
• Looking Outward to Community, For-Profit, and International Organizations
• Evaluating Needs and Measuring Success 

It includes templates, sample policy language, budgets, survey instruments, and other immediately useful tools and examples. There are field notes from academic librarians from institutions of varying sizes and resources demonstrating different ways of supporting these students, and the voices of students themselves.
 
Student parents can feel unwelcome and invisible in their institutions. And for every student parent who is struggling to complete an education despite these hurdles, there are many others who have not been able to find a way. Supporting Student Parents is a guide to engaging with and aiding the student parents in your libraries and leading the charge in making your institutions more family friendly.