ACTAL

Who We Are

The Association of Creative Technologies in Academic Libraries (ACTAL) is a new professional organization that seeks to bring together people working in creative technologies – media labs, makerspaces, equipment loan, visualization spaces, and beyond – in academic libraries.

Creative technology spaces within libraries are now somewhat common, especially within large academic libraries. Our collective experience has been shaped by running, and in some cases, starting, five unique creative technology spaces located in university libraries in the southeastern United States.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of directors from southeastern libraries with these types of multimedia spaces began an informal community of practice to share experiences and shifting procedures; this was developed into the Southeastern Multimedia Librarians group (SEML). Interest in our group grew quickly, and we would eventually decide to create a national organization to expand support to a greater number of people. ACTAL is the name for the nationally expanded group that started as SEML.

We are currently working towards building ACTAL to be an organization that will support the staff of these unique library spaces and in turn, assist those implementing these types of services, and in turn improve and expand services for each of our institutions.

ACTAL Founder’s Spaces:

FOUNDERS

Jason Evans Groth
Digital Media Librarian
North Carolina State University
jevansg@ncsu.edu

Eric D M Johnson
Head of Innovative Media
Virginia Commonwealth University
edmjohnson@vcu.edu

Oscar Keyes
Multimedia Teaching & Learning Librarian
Virginia Commonwealth University
keyesok@vcu.edu

Vanessa Rodriguez
Head, Creative Studio
Librarian Associate Professor
University of Miami
vrodrigu@miami.edu

Kelsey Sheaffer
Creative Technologies Librarian
Clemson University
ksheaff@clemson.edu

Emily Thompson
Director of the Studio
Associate Professor
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
emily-thompson02@utc.edu