Editor’s Corner

Jennifer Castle

I want to take up only a little of your time, dear reader, because I am excited to share the student issue with you. We received some solid nominations from instructors this year, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I and the DttP reviewers have.

But before you move on, I want to discuss my experience as GODORT’s 2023 Emerging Leader briefly. My EL team members, Kelly Bilz (Thomas More University), Amanda He (New York University), Hale Polebaum-Freeman (Williams College), and Laura Tadena (Austin Public Library), were terrific and a joy to work with. Being sponsored by the Government Documents and Social Responsibilities Round Tables, we created an active, informative, and non-partisan campaign for libraries of all types (public, school, and academic in particular) to support community members in registering to vote and voting. We took the call further by creating a poster-making tool using Google API. A user entering a residential address into a Google form will auto-populate voting and election information into a customizable poster.

In the spring, we surveyed librarians (academic, public, school, etc.) to learn their needs and barriers regarding civic literacy and civic engagement. We used that information to inform what information should be accessed using the tool. We wrote a report and created a video, and GODORT has provided a LibGuide to host the project. Since we had six months to fulfill our assignment, the tool is only a prototype. We understand it needs refinement, but it has much potential. We envision it can be created with different languages—hopefully, all available for the Census. It can be simplified for those with lower literacy levels. It could potentially generate programming plans. We presented a poster of our work and findings at the ALA annual conference in Chicago, and recommended to the round tables the project continue with future Emerging Leaders cohorts.

Also, while at the conference, I attended the GODORT awards ceremony at the historic Glessner House. Between the ceremony and the mixer, I was able to meet with GODORT members I’d only interacted with online. Many thanks to Jim Church, Brett Cloyd, Ben Aldred, and Kian Flynn for their time and conversation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in such an excellent program that allowed me to work with like-minded colleagues to create something special—my immense gratitude to GODORT.

Jennifer Castle (jcastle@tnstate.edu), Instruction and Engagement Librarian, Tennessee State University