CFP: Comics and Critical Librarianship for Academic Libraries

Call for chapter proposals

Note: This CFP has been updated, with a new deadline.
 
Working Title: Comics and Critical Librarianship for Academic Libraries
Editors: Olivia Miller & Stephanie Grimm
Submission Deadline: December 15, 2017
Publisher: Library Juice Press

Book description
This book will be a collection of chapters on ways comics have been used in the practice of critical librarianship. The intended audiences for this book are librarians and library workers that currently or hope to work with comics in academic libraries, people interested in critical librarianship, and comics scholars. The purpose of this book is to add to the conversation of critical librarianship within academic libraries by highlighting the use and focus of an already radical medium (comics) by librarians and library workers who practice critical librarianship.

For the purposes of this book, we use the term “comics” to mean any work in the medium of comics/sequential art. This can mean comic book issues, graphic novels, comic strips, webcomics, minicomics, etc.

We want both critical librarianship and comics to be approachable and accessible topics to our readers. One way we aim to do this is through approachable language much in the way that Maria T. Accardi did in Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction.
 
Possible topics
 
Possible topic areas include but are not limited to the following:
• Critical considerations of:
 o comics in academic library exhibitions or programming
 o comics in library instruction in higher education contexts
 o cataloging practices in relation to comics
 o acquisition or collection management/organization practices for comics and comics collections
 o comics or comics ephemera in special collections, archives, or manuscript collections
• Case studies on the critical use of comics in academic libraries and special collections
• Theoretical or research-based considerations of comics as a tool and site for critical librarianship
• Other relevant considerations of the topic 
Timeline
 
• Abstract submission deadline: December 15, 2017
• Notification/Feedback regarding submission: January 31, 2018
• First drafts due: June 15, 2018
• Final drafts due: October 15, 2018
• Final manuscript due to publisher: December 2018
 
Submissions
 
Please email abstracts of up to 500 words to critlibcomics (at) gmail (dot) com.
Abstracts should briefly describe your topic and how your chapter discusses using comics in critical librarianship. You are welcome to submit multiple abstracts about different possible topics. If your submission is tentatively accepted, the editors may request modifications. Material cannot be previously published.
 
Final chapters will be in the 2000-5000-word range. Abstracts that discuss comics being used in critical librarianship practices in tribal college libraries, HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, community colleges, archives, special libraries, and libraries outside the United States are especially welcome.
 
Please direct any questions to Olivia Miller and Stephanie Grimm, editors, at critlibcomics (at) gmail (dot) com.
 
 
About the Editors
 
Olivia Miller (she/her) is the Arts & Humanities Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her BA is in Art History and English from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and she attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for her MSLS. She built a strong graphic novel collection in her last position at Greensboro College and taught a for-credit course for two semesters on how to read and find comics with a feminist pedagogy.

Stephanie Grimm (she/her) is the Art and Art History Librarian at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She holds a BFA in Illustration and earned her MSI from the University of Michigan, where she developed a dedicated minicomics collection within the university libraries. She has worked with comics and illustration students at both art & design schools and research universities, and is a proponent of critical librarianship and literacy for artists and design students.