Academic libraries and museums foster many outstanding collaborations supporting teaching, learning, and research within their respective institutions. These collaborations, like other progressive activities, require significant invisible labor, caretaking, and resources that have not always been documented.

Cultural Heritage and the Campus Community collects examples of successful academic library-museum collaborations and serves as critical knowledge for the cultural heritage sector. Authors from libraries and museums across the United States demonstrate how to develop and execute partnerships and bring forth new dimensions of transdisciplinary objects-based pedagogy, research, and learning centered on inclusive educational practices. Chapters explore visual thinking strategies and the Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education in the undergraduate classroom; restoring Indigenous heritage through tribal partnerships; using object-based teaching to motivate student research; and much more.

The collaborative approaches highlighted here demonstrate the power of possibility when two collections-centric entities unite to enrich our collective understanding of materiality, instructional approaches, and the importance of provenance. Cultural Heritage and the Campus Community also illustrates why interrogating past practices and value assignments within academic library and museum collections is essential to advancing culturally relevant approaches to knowledge sharing in physical and digital spaces.
About the Author: Alexia Hudson-Ward is Associate Director of Research & Learning of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries. Her past roles include the Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries for Oberlin College, Penn State University tenured librarian, award-winning entertainment editor, public radio promotions coordinator, and Coca-Cola Company marketing manager. She contributes service to the cultural heritage & higher education communities as a trustee of the Corning Museum of Glass & on the Board of Directors for The Center for Research Libraries, LYRASIS, and The Conversation U.S. Edition.

Alexia is a member of the American Antiquarian Society, the MIT Press Editorial Board, and an Advisory Board member of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. She is also Editor-in-Chief of Toward Inclusive Excellence, a popular multimedia blog dedicated to illuminating diversity-centered research. She holds an MLIS degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in English Literature and African American Studies from Temple University. Alexia is currently a Simmons University doctoral candidate in the Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions program and holds several professional certificates.

Julie Rodrigues Widholm is the Executive Director of UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), where she leads the strategic and artistic vision to promote community building, new scholarship, equity, and interdisciplinary learning in exhibitions, collections, and programs. Prior to BAMPFA, Rodrigues Widholm was director and chief curator at DePaul Art Museum, where she launched a multiyear Latinx Art Initiative, and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago specializing in global contemporary art and artists from Latin America. Her curatorial projects have been presented at museums across the United States, such as Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Nasher Museum at Duke University, MIT List Visual Arts Center, among others. She holds a BA in Art History and Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and MA in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Scott Walter is Dean of the University Library at San Diego State University. Prior to coming to SDSU, he served in senior library leadership positions at Illinois Wesleyan University, DePaul University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At DePaul, he provided leadership for strategic collaboration with the DePaul Art Museum, as well as with libraries, archives, and museums throughout the City of Chicago as part of the Chicago Collections Consortium. At SDSU, he continues to champion collaboration among academic libraries, public libraries, and museum collections, including the San Diego History Center and the Comic-Con Museum. Dr. Walter received his MLS and MS in History and Philosophy of Education from Indiana University Bloomington, and his PhD in Higher Education Administration from Washington State University.