Alex Deeke, Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Librarian, and María Emerson, Assistant Professor and Student Success Librarian, have been awarded a 2025 Instructional Innovation Mini Grant through the Teaching Advancement Board at the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. These grants support efforts to pursue innovation in education and seek to create a diverse and vibrant community focused on instructional innovation.

Their project, titled “Teaching, Sharing, and Celebrating First-Year Student Creators Through Zine Instruction,” aims to build a program at the University Library that elevates zine instruction to students in Rhetoric 101 and showcases students as creators of zines. Grant funds will be used to develop zine teaching materials, train Rhetoric instructors on incorporating zines into their curriculum, and create instructional services, including course-integrated workshops and a consultation service, to support Rhetoric students creating zines.

“We are excited about this grant since it will communicate the value and power of zines in an academic setting, empower first-year students in the Rhetoric program to view themselves as creators of knowledge, and help them develop their academic identities via an emerging medium,” said Deeke and Emerson. They also hope to digitize student-created zines to be part of a digital zine collection and host a Zine Celebration Event at the library to showcase the zines created by Rhetoric 101 students.

Congratulations to Deeke and Emerson on receiving support for their innovative instruction project!

Stephanie Luke, Metadata Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University Library has been awarded a $5,000 Strategic Growth Grant from the Society of American Archivists. Strategic Growth grants support projects that meet the mission and goals of the Foundation, as well as the strategic planning priorities of the Society of American Archivists. These include building resilient archival communities, fostering collaborative relationships, and supporting the full diversity of archivists, archives, and communities, and fostering collaborative relationships.

Earlier this year, the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) announced the availability of Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants through the Secretary of State and Illinois State Library. This is an opportunity for libraries to coordinate the development of OER. This grant provides funding for the development of textbooks and ancillaries as open educational resources to ultimately reduce students’ costs and encourage student success. The open license allows faculty to adapt the materials to meet local needs. A $150,000 grant was awarded to the University Library to support many faculty with funds to create OER, an effort that was coordinated by the Scholarly Communication and Publishing unit.