Even before three books arrived on shelves this year, UGA librarians were a part of the production. Three faculty members have been credited as author or editor in books published in 2025.
“Librarians do the essential work of acquiring, preserving, and sharing knowledge,” said university librarian Toby Graham, “but our librarians also are university faculty who contribute new scholarship, themselves, as we see from the recent publications by Ruta Abolins, Melody Rood, and Sara Wright.”
Most recently, Abolins added a chapter to the UGA Press book The Archivability of Television: Essays on Preservation and Perseverance. Edited by Lauren Bratslavsky and Elizabeth Peterson, the book was published June 1.
Abolins, director of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, added a chapter on the history of the special collections unit that was originally created to preserve submissions to the prestigious media award, administered by UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
“Since I have worked with the Peabody Awards Collection for a long time, I thought I knew the history,” Abolins said of the chapter, entitled “How an Awards Created an Archives: Broadcasting History Unfolds in the Peabody Awards Collection.”
“There was much more to tell than I initially realized,” she added. “I also thought it was important to write down the history of this unique collection.”
Earlier this year, two UGA librarians added their expertise to books published through the American Library Association (ALA).
Rood, director of the Miller Learning Center and student success, co-edited the book Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession, which was published by the Association of College and Research Libraries Press (ACRL is a division of ALA).
Rood is now leading a team of student success librarians at UGA, dedicated to enhancing academic activities and teaching information literacy and other skills to undergraduate students.
In addition, Wright, associate university librarian for learning services and academic engagement, contributed a chapter to the ALA-published book Well-being in the Library Workplace: A Handbook for Managers, edited by Bobbi Newman.
Wright’s chapter is entitled “That Extra Layer of Stress: Strategies Managers Can Use to Help Mitigate the Emotional and Invisible Labor Within Their Teams.”
“I thought the topic was timely and an important one to contribute to as libraries and higher ed continue to navigate change,” Wright said.