NCID-1486
Amanda L. Folk
Head of Teaching & Learning in University Libraries
Ohio State University
Education/Degree:
1 Education Education (the University of Pittsburgh)
About
Dr. Amanda L. Folk is an associate professor and head of Teaching & Learning in the University Libraries at The Ohio State University. Folk's scholarship combines her professional interests in teaching, learning, and information literacy with her desire to support student populations that have traditionally been marginalized in Higher Education. Her recent article "Reframing Information Literacy as Academic Cultural Capital: A Critical and Equity-Based Foundation for Practice, Assessment, and scholarship" won the 2020 Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year Award from the Association of College & Research Libraries' Instruction Section. Folk has applied this scholarship to her practice, developing and implementing the Meaningful Inquiry workshop with colleagues at Ohio State. In addition to being active in the American Library Association and the Association of College & Research Libraries, Folk is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.
Current Work
Folk's scholarship explores the intersection of race and social class with libraries. She explores first-generation students' experiences with research assignments throughout college. Many collegiate instructors expect that students have already developed their critical thinking and research skills, though this is often not the case. Research assignments often comprise a significant portion of a students' course grade, though no one has explored their potential contribution to persistent equity gaps. This research seeks to understand how instructors and academic support staff can change their practice to ensure the success of all students. Folk seeks to understand how Black/African-American communities experience libraries by centering the voices and lived experiences of Black/African-American library users to identify ways in which librarians, a predominantly White profession, can change their practices to meet the needs of this community in equitable and inclusive ways.
Research Area Keyword(s)
equity mindedness, first-generation students, information literacy, libraries, undergraduate students