By Claire L. Holmes, MLS, Past President, ACRL-MD

Greetings from the Maryland chapter of ACRL! We’d love to share our chapter’s recent activities with the New Jersey academic library community. Because ACRL was held in Baltimore in March, 2017, the 2016-2017 academic year was a busy and exciting one for academic librarians in Maryland and the wider mid-Atlantic region.

Maryland’s chapter of ACRL is the academic division of the Maryland Library Association. Our executive board includes a President (currently Sara Arnold Garza from Towson University), a President Elect (currently Mike Kiel from University of Baltimore), a Secretary (currently Robert Miller from University of MD, University College), and a Past President (currently me, Claire Holmes, from Towson University). A typical programming year for our chapter includes daylong professional development programs in the fall and early summer, planned by committees of chapter leaders and members. In addition, ACRL-MD sponsors several offerings geared toward academic librarians at the annual Maryland Library Association conference, held in May each year in partnership with the Delaware Library Association.

Throughout the year, ACRL-MD provides several opportunities for members to engage in professional development and networking. Our monthly business meetings are held digitally through Blackboard Collaborate, and every other month we include an online journal club discussion. Discussion facilitators volunteer to lead an examination of two articles from the most recent issue of College & Research Libraries, for which ACRL-MD members vote on their article preference. Last year, we started inviting article authors to participate in the discussion, and that has been a well-received enhancement!

Last November, ACRL-MD hosted a daylong program entitled, “Considering #CritLib: Inclusion and Diversity in Libraries,” which featured a keynote presentation by Emily Drabinski, a prominent advocate in the critical librarianship movement. Eight excellent lightning talks by regional colleagues addressed various #critlib topics, including New Jersey ACRL chapter member, Zara Wilkinson’s talk, “A laborious issue: Part-time employment and the library workforce.”  

In January, 2017, we partnered with the Delaware Valley (PA) Chapter of ACRL to plan and host the Leaders’ Reception at the ACRL conference in March. Our planning committee, including ACRL-MD’s current President Sara Arnold Garza, and previous ACRL-MD executive board members Kimberly Miller, and Natalie Burclaff, worked closely with ACRL-DVC Chapter President Martha Stevenson to campaign for sponsorship contributions and create a welcoming and festive reception. The reception, held at the Inner Harbor Marriott in March, 2017, welcomed 100 academic library leaders and was a wonderful success thanks to many generous institutional and individual contributors.

ACRL-MD’s annual social event is held in the winter; for the past few years we have hosted a duckpin bowling night on a Friday in February. It’s a fun, casual, and family friendly event that has become a tradition!

In May, 2017, ACRL-MD sponsored four conference sessions, including a pre-conference workshop called, “Improving Communication through Improv.” Another session was conducted by current ACRL-MD Secretary Robert Miller and Sandie Friedman (Director of the University  Writing Program at George Washington University) entitled, “Research-to-Writing: Helping Students Integrate Sources into a Research Project.” All sessions were great collaborations that delivered valuable content while modeling best practices in active teaching and learning.

In lieu of a traditional summer program, ACRL-MD hosted a members’ forum in July, 2017 to facilitate networking among academic library professionals in the state, and to provide an opportunity for our regional colleagues to get more involved. Through structured thematic discussions, colleagues shared their priorities and concerns in the areas of professional development and engagement, and collectively brainstormed ways to better meet members’ needs. Our executive board is working through the many suggestions offered during the forum and devising ways that ACRL-MD’s organization and communication can be more effective.

We are excited about our Fall, 2017 program, entitled, “Shape Shifting: Academic Libraries and Change Agents,” to be held on Monday, November 6. Keynote speaker Lauren Pressley, ACRL’s Vice President/President Elect and Director of the University of Washington Tacoma Library and Associate Dean of University Libraries, will share her vision for leading the way toward growth and new ideas in academic libraries. Again this year, we will include lightning talks by colleagues from our region, as well as two deeper dive sessions, all related to the concept of change in academic libraries.

Several interesting and relevant sessions are in the works for ACRL-MD’s offerings at next spring’s MLA/DLA conference, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, Maryland, May 2-4, 2018.

For ongoing updates, check our ACRL-MD blog. We’d love to have our NJ colleagues join us!

Claire L. Holmes, MLS, is the Past President, ACRL-MD, and Assistant University Librarian for Research & Instruction at Towson University's Albert S. Cook Library.