Repost:
We invite you to submit chapter proposals for the forthcoming book, Impact and Connection: The Importance of Mentorship in Librarianship (working title), to be published by ACRL Press.
Scope
Editors: Candace C. Jacobs and Joanie D. Chavis
There aren't nearly enough Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) working as librarians compared to the diverse communities they serve. While libraries are trying hard to hire a more diverse workforce, the bigger challenges are keeping those employees from leaving and helping them move into leadership roles.
This edited book seeks to examine how formal and informal mentoring affects the job preparedness, career success, retention, and wellness of BIPOC librarians. It will do so by finding the gaps in current mentoring programs and highlighting what works. This book aims to provide practical ways to make the library profession more inclusive and fairer by identifying barriers and ways to overcome them. This book also seeks to showcase how issues that pertain to individual BIPOC groups affect mentorship and experiences in librarianship, how to foster a sense of belonging and competence among BIPOC librarians, what successful mentorship looks like and how it can be supported in different types of associations, while providing a framework or toolkit to help professionals build meaningful and responsive mentorship connections.
Proposal Guidelines
We invite proposals from BIPOC librarians who can offer both personal insight and research into the topics (with a practical takeaway at the end of the proposal), but not limited to:
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African American/Black Librarian Mentorship (Ex: African American, West Indian/Caribbean, African, Other countries from the African Diaspora, etc.)
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Asian Librarian Mentorship (Ex: East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Central Asian, West Asian, Siberian and Far Eastern Asian)
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Hispanic or Latino Librarian Mentorship
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Middle Eastern or North African Librarian Mentorship
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Native American/Indigenous Librarian Mentorship
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Two or more/Multiracial Librarian Mentorship
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Peer Mentorship
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Mentorship as a Former Library Fellow
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Mentorship as an Academic Librarian
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Mentorship as a Public Librarian
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Mentorship as a School Librarian
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Mentorship as a Special Librarian
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Mentorship as a BIPOC Archivist
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Mentorship as a STEM Librarian
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Mentorship as a Library Leader
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Mentorship as a Library Worker (Non-Librarian Title)
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Librarianship and Parenthood
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Second Career Librarians
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Mentorship as a BIPOC Female Librarian
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Mentorship as a BIPOC Male Librarian
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Mentorship as a BIPOC Librarian with a Disability
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How mentorship varies across groups
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Practical Takeaways
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Additional topics related to mentorship not listed here
*Note on ALL demographic questions: The purpose of these demographic questions is to help ensure the ethos of the author(s) who are potentially writing each chapter.
Proposals should include the following information:
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Name of the author(s)
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Proposed Chapter Title
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Email Address
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Chapter Description (500 words MAX, not including references)
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Author bios for each chapter contributor (maximum 200 words per bio)
Important Dates:
Deadline for proposals due: August 28, 2026
Tentative notification of acceptance: October 5th, 2026
Tentative due date for first draft: January 22, 2027
Final chapters should be 2,500 Words (5 pages single-spaced/10 pages double-spaced) to
3,500 Words (7 pages single-spaced/4 pages double-spaced) long.
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Beatrice Downey
User Experience Librarian
NC State University
She/Her/Hers
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