Learn how to successfully develop diverse programming through reading books by African American authors and how to build strong partnerships among libraries, public organizations, and academic departments for multicultural outreach.
Promoting African American Writers is written for librarians and others who are committed to developing programming that promotes reading of books by African American authors and books with multicultural themes. It is an outreach guide to be used by librarians, other educators, and community service advocates to develop educational programming that helps young people find their voices. It supports creativity and teaching of critical thinking skills to youth through literature.
Grace Jackson-Brown is an academic librarian with more than 25 years of professional experience and a personal passion for developing educational cultural library programming. Over the years, her efforts forged mutual working bonds between institutions of higher learning with community organizations in the spirit of community engagement and for the goals of promoting diversity and reading to K-16 youth. In this book, she teaches readers how to duplicate her efforts and build fruitful partnerships of their own.
Features
- Readers will find information for developing K–16 youth programs around diversity and reading that are fun and educational
- Readers will discover outreach ideas that involve academic librarians' involvement in community engagement and service projects
- Readers will learn important elements for building successful collaborative partnerships from case study examples of community advocates, K-16 administrators, classroom instructors, and librarians working together in support of literacy and diversity programming
Grace M. Jackson-Brown is a professor for research and instruction at Missouri State University Libraries in Springfield, Missouri. She is chairperson of the Springfield African American Read-In and recipient of the 2014 Zora Neale Hurston Award for promoting African American literature and the Educational Partnership Award of the NAACP Springfield Chapter. Her career spans more than twenty-five years as an academic librarian, much of it devoted to library outreach diversity programming. She holds a master's degree in library and information management from Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and a PhD in mass communication from Indiana University–Bloomington.
Reviews
"Access to reading and literacy continue to be important factors in the development of our children. Access to libraries is vital, and it is important that the library remain a staple of our communities. Outreach is key, and Dr. Jackson-Brown does a great job of not only providing a framework, but enacting this framework. For those looking for tools or resources on how to enhance outreach efforts, look no further, because Dr. Jackson-Brown's book has the answers."—Yvania Garcia-Pusateri, Chief Equity and Diversity Officer, Springfield Public Schools R-12
"Dr. Grace Jackson-Brown's new book is an excellent guide for librarians and others to building partnerships and designing programming for promoting African American writers. I am happy to recommend it to everyone in the field."—Regina Greer Cooper, Executive Director, Springfield-Greene County Library District
"Such an excellent program and explanation for the need to empower young authors. The opportunity, described in the book, for African American youth to meet authors that look like them was priceless."—Cheryl Clay, Former President, Springfield, MO, NAACP
"This book highlights the importance of Black writers to the library’s ecosystem."
—Shauntee Burns-Simpson, 2020–2022 President, Black Caucus of the American Library Association
"Dr. Grace Jackson-Brown has written a smart, intelligent, and practitioner-oriented book with instructions and evidence of learning that communities at every level can use for intellectual and community-building purposes. This book is timely, needed, and should be regarded as a contribution to the breadth of librarian collaborations with communities across intellectual borders."—Valerie Grim, Professor, African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University-Bloomington
