Archambault and McLean win 2017 ACRL IS Innovation Award

For Immediate Release
Wed, 02/15/2017

Contact:

Chase Ollis

Program Coordinator

ACRL

collis@ala.org

CHICAGO— Susan Gardner Archambault and Lindsey McLean have been selected to receive the 2017 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section (IS) Innovation award for their work on Project CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments, an open access resource for faculty and librarians looking for a collaborative space to share and adapt research assignments, as well as build a virtual community of practice for educators interested in teaching concepts related to information literacy. Archambault is the head of reference and instruction at the Loyola Marymount University, and McLean is clinical training associate III – instructional designer at AbbVie, Inc.

The annual award recognizes a project that demonstrates creative, innovative or unique approaches to information literacy instruction or programming. The plaque and $3,000 award, donated by EBSCO, will be presented to the group during the 2017 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

“Project CORA successfully addresses the difficult problem of maintaining a usable online repository of information literacy assignments from diverse and multi-institutional contributors,” said award committee chair Maoria J. Kirker of George Mason University. “Not only does CORA contain learning materials from library instructors, but it also incorporates outside instructional voices, pushing information literacy instruction beyond the confines of the library. The organization of assignments and usability of CORA allows users to easily access and sift through information literacy assignments to implement their own instruction.”

Project CORA was developed from a Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium Project Initiatives Fund grant. The grant proposed to expand upon an internal information literacy assignment collection at Loyola Marymount University by using the “recipe” metaphor to envision the assignments as recipes that could be tweaked or adapted to fit into any information literacy curriculum. Input from two faculty focus groups was incorporated into the original prototype design. The Cherry Hill Company in Los Angeles was contracted to build and host a live prototype of CORA, which launched in January 2016. A CORA Development Group was formed with 14 librarians from different institutions to continue improving the CORA interface.

For more information regarding the ACRL IS Innovation Award, or a complete list of past recipients, please visit the awards section of the ACRL website.

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About ACRL
The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) is the higher education association for librarians. Representing nearly 11,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals, ACRL (a division of the American Library Association) develops programs, products and services to help academic and research librarians learn, innovate and lead within the academic community. Founded in 1940, ACRL is committed to advancing learning and transforming scholarship. ACRL is on the web at acrl.org, Facebook at facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 10,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 800,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.