JMU Libraries Faculty Member Chairs ACRL Committee to “Create a More Inclusive Future”

Posted July 11, 2019 in JMU Libraries News

Yasmeen Shorish recently served as Chair of the ACRL Research and Scholarly Environment Committee responsible for the creation of a new research agenda, “Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future.”

The research agenda is designed to provide practical, actionable information for academic librarians; include the perspectives of historically underrepresented communities in order to expand the profession’s understanding of research environments and scholarly communication systems; and point librarians and other scholars toward important research questions to investigate.

As chair, Yasmeen was involved in the selection of consultants, providing feedback to them during the process, and contributing to the final document. She hopes that library personnel will read through this agenda and see themselves and their work reflected in the topics that are discussed. From this, they can see how their institutions might engage in various areas.

“I hope library leaders will engage their communities, internally and externally, in discourse around these topics and find ways to grow their understanding and engagement. A first step to creating effective and sustaining change is to recognize the collective nature of our work and to pursue shared goals in that collaborative spirit. I hope this report helps people find a framework to do that.”

Learn more about the research agenda “Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future” in a free ACRL Presents webcast on Monday, July 15, 2019, from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

An open access edition of the research agenda is also available here: http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/publications/booksanddigitalresources/digital/resec.pdf