Where we started
Five months ago, we launched LibParlor. Our goal of this website was to create a community librarians could turn to for advice, perspective, and resources. After spending many weeks brainstorming, debating names, reviewing website themes, and choosing color schemes, we came up with something we wanted to share. LibParlor was launched, and we crossed our fingers to see how you would respond.
You responded with open arms. You were encouraging, thoughtful, and critical of the work we put forward. We have learned a lot from what you have shared with us, over Twitter, emails, blog comments, and contributor posts. We love hearing about LibParlor in our day-to-day jobs from colleagues who have found our work. Even more, we are thrilled to see Twitter threads where you have discussed how, thanks to amazing fellow librarians and writers, our posts have resonated with you. We see a community growing and that pushes us to do even more.
Where we are now
That brings us to today. Since our initial post, we have made some changes. We hope these changes have improved our blog for our readers as well as for those of you who have written posts for LibParlor. After reviewing feedback and looking outward at other blogs we admire, we have made the following changes:
- A new website theme that better fits our style
- A new Editorial Policies & Guidelines page to clarify some things for writers
- An updated “How to Contribute” page, to encourage even more fantastic contributions and make the process as straightforward as possible
- A centralized Twitter account to help spread news about our posts, connect with readers, and share information about writing and publishing
Where we’re headed for 2018
We have so many plans for 2018! We’ve got some great posts brewing and some major brainstorming going on about how we can bring LibParlor to some conferences. We also have some new opportunities to get involved with the LibParlor community.
We are excited to introduce a new way to get involved with LibParlor: Contributing Editors. We would love to work with more of you on a regular basis to expand LibParlor’s scope and offer opportunities to get involved with relatively low time commitments. Most contributing editors will work on publishing content in an ongoing column every other month (unless otherwise stated) for a year, bringing their total contribution to 6 posts a year.
Contributing Editor Roles:
| Editor of “Listen in: Conversations in the field” | The role of the “Listen in: Discussions from/in the field” column is to highlight exceptional research being conducted and published in Library and Information ScienceLibrary and Information Science An interdisciplinary field that examines how physical and digital information is organized, accessed, collected, managed, disseminated and used, particularly in library settings.. The editor of this column will compile work worth highlighting at minimum frequency of every other month, but if they wish to compile works more frequently, we are open to that as well. We are specifically looking for someone who will mindfully seek to amplify diverse perspectives and voices. |
| Editor of “Featured Researchers”
Column |
The role of the “Featured Research Column” is to highlight a librarian doing research with a mini interview. This person will establish a set of 5 questions to use for all “Featured Researcher” interviews and cultivate a list of potential researching librarians to interview and contact them for interviews. |
| Editor of “Book Reviews” Column | The role of “Book Reviewer Column” is to identify, highlight, and review books relevant to research and publishing. These selections can either be specifically related to libraries or come from outside the field. |
| Resource Curator | The role of Resource Curator is to help develop a toolkit of resources for novice researchers. This toolkit will live as a static page on the blog and throughout your term as a Contributing Editor, will help craft a vision for this page along with create and maintain this space. |
If one of these roles sound interesting to you, please fill out this form. This form will be open until February 1st, and we will notify our four new Contributing Editors by early March. We are looking to involve everyone from MLIS students to expert researchers on our team, so please do reach out. If you have a great idea for a column or another way to get involved with LibParlor, always feel free to email us at libparlor@gmail.com.
In addition to our new ongoing roles, we are still looking for more writing from those of you that want to share your experiences with the rest of the field.
The Editors are so grateful for the support LibParlor has received so far. We are looking forward to growing this community in 2018!
Happy New Year!
- Hailley Fargo | Student Engagement Librarian | Penn State University
- Katlyn Griffin | Information Literacy Librarian | Southeast Missouri State University
- Chelsea Heinbach | Teaching and Learning Librarian | University of Nevada, Las Vegas
- Charissa Powell | Student Success Librarian for Information Literacy| University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Featured image [CC0], via Pexels.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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