The Association of Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research LIbraries (ACRL) jointly sponsor the Institute on Scholarly Communication. Developed to encourage and support libraries’ development of campus outreach programs, the Institute’s cornerstone activity is its immersive learning experience that prepare participants as local experts within their libraries and equip them with tools for developing campus outreach strategies.
The Institute Program now includes other events and resources, such as web casts and outreach tools, and continues to grow.
The dynamic institute program is developed and managed jointly by ARL and ACRL. The institute has hundreds of alumni forming a community that provides peer support and professional sharing of information relating to campus outreach. A growing institute faculty delivers events, develops resources, and advises ARL and ACRL.
The institute’s signature event is an immersive learning experience that prepares participants as local experts within their libraries and provides a structure for developing a program plan for scholarly communication outreach that is customized for each participant’s institution. To achieve this goal, participant teams conduct an environmental scan before the institute, engage in a series of active learning experiences during the event, and create elements for a program plan for implementation at their home institution. Originally a national event, regional offerings of the institute are being developed.
A variety of other resources are also being developed as part of the institute initiative. Institute resources already include freely available Web tools and webcasts, with other kinds of resources being planned.
Frances Malloy (ARL: A Bimonthly Report Oct. 2006)
Terri Fishel ( C&RL News Jan. 2007)