Happy March, LibParlor readers! We the editorial team members are grateful that 2020 is behind us and we hope 2021 brings your communities good health, good rest, and justice as we move forward. We wanted to give you a few updates on where we are and where we hope to go.
In 2020, we published 32 posts, welcomed over 9,300 people to our site, and received over 20,000 views. Your continued support of our work means so much to us, whether it’s by reading and subscribing, discussing it with your colleagues, or sharing your own research experiences with our readers. It’s important to us to remove the barriers that prevent library workers from learning about the research process in order to add their voices to our profession’s scholarly conversation.
We want to thank our past contributing editors Symphony, Charlotte, Lorin, and Paige for all their amazing posts. We’re happy to have Matty continuing on with us as contributing editor for our Book Reviews. Last year, we welcomed our newest contributing editors Vivian Bynoe for our Featured Researcher column and Jordan Wrigley for our Listen In column.
We always wanted LibParlor to be a way for library researchers to connect with one another, share ideas, and collaborate. In 2020, we were able to make this happen with our Classifieds section! Community members are now able to put out a call to connect with researchers, to share open opportunities, and to build relationships with those interested in a similar research topic. We then post these listings on our website bimonthly. If you have an idea for a listing, please consider submitting with us!
We’re also thrilled to be awarded the ACRL ULS Outstanding Professional Development Award for this year! LibParlor is what it is because so many of you are willing to share your stories and expertise with others in an effort to demystify research in libraries. We are also so grateful to those who took the time to nominate us during a really challenging time, and to our contributing editors past and present who have helped to make LibParlor what it is today.
We are hoping to build on the goals we had from last year that may have been put on the back burner due to *gestures around at everything*. We will be seeking external funding to expand what LibParlor offers, conducting a needs assessment to find out what more you would like to learn from LibParlor, introduce new programming including webinars, and possibly explore a Patreon that would help us financially compensate folks for their time and expertise. And as always, we’d love to hear from you for the website — consider submitting a proposal with us! Most of all though, we will be taking care of and prioritizing ourselves and our loved ones and encourage you all to do the same. The past year has been overwhelming, heartbreaking, and exhausting. We are looking forward to calmer days ahead and can’t wait to hear all about the new things you will do.
Warmly,
The LibParlor Team
Chelsea Heinbach, Hailley Fargo, Charissa Powell, and Nimisha Bhat
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