The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 7 applications in the most recent cycle (November 2021). 4 applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Micro-grant Digital Micro-Documentaries for Digital Literacy: An AUP Pilot Project David Tresilian American University of Paris Project 3-month project: Oct - Dec 2021 Yes Complete revision of AUP Library Homepage Sarah Murray American University of Paris Project 1.5-hour online webinar, 9 Dec 2021 Yes Michigan State University GIS Certificate Program (January-June 2022) Amadeus DeKastle American University of Central Asia Professional development 4 online courses (Jan-June 2022) No Attending the DHSI 2022 Dalal Hakim Rahme American University of Beirut Professional development 2 weeklong in-person workshpos (6-17 June) No Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 28 February. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. We’ll be holding informal, half-hour Q&A sessions in January and February, but they haven’t been scheduled yet. When they are, we will announce dates on AMICAL Connect.

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 5 applications in the most recent cycle (September 2021). All the applications (some after revisions) were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Micro-grant ECIL 2021 Livia Piotto John Cabot University Professional development 4 day online conference: 20-23 Sep 2021 Yes Capturing a digital history of local Hausa narratives in a multilingual translation project across borders Kate Roy Franklin University Switzerland Project 9-month project: Nov 2021 - July 2022 No Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 29 November. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. To help folks better understand the program, and how to apply successfully, we’re holding informal, half-hour Q&A sessions. AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions and provide advice. If we end up with lots of participants (or questions), we’re happy to extend the sessions a bit longer. To attend any of the Q&As, sign up here: 18 October 2021, 15:00–15:30 (Paris time, local time) 17 November 2021, 15:00–15:30 (Paris time, local time)

The election is underway for the officers of the next Coordinating Committee. Their term will start on 18 October 2021 and conclude on 30 September 2023. The current Vice-Chair/Chair Elect – Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) – will be taking over as Chair. The three remaining officers (Vice-Chair, Secretary, Member-at-Large) will be elected by members of the consortium. More details about these roles and the overall work of the committee were provided in the call for nominations. AMICAL Representatives of Full Member institutions may cast a vote in the elections. They have already received detailed instructions by email, including a link that allows them to cast one ballot on behalf of their institution. As the consortium’s Operational Guidelines state: “The Local AMICAL Representative plays a pivotal role in advancing AMICAL’s mission, and promoting the consortium and its spirit of collaboration as a group, by representing the member institution’s stakeholders, be they librarians, technologists, faculty, or administrators.” Before casting their votes for up to three candidates, the representatives will discuss the merits of all candidates with local colleagues, especially those that have a stake in AMICAL’s activities. If you’re involved in AMICAL’s activities and belong to a Full Member institution, we encourage you to review the list of candidates and discuss them with your Representative. That list includes a link to each candidate’s AMICAL profile, as well as a statement by each candidate addressing their qualifications for joining the committee and potential contributions to its work. In considering the candidates, keep in mind that Coordinating Committee members should be capable of fulfilling the role, and match the desired characteristics, for officers described in the Call for nominations. In particular, they should: Have experience relevant to AMICAL’s mission and current grant goals Be able to evaluate and discuss issues from a consortial perspective, representing interests that go beyond their own institution and beyond their own professional roles and interests. As a group (including Maha Bali, a faculty developer from AUC, who will be taking over as committee chair) offer broad representation across the following areas, to the extent possible:professional roles (librarian, faculty, technologist, administrator) institution size geographic region Thanks to the Election Committee (Jeff Gima, Maha Bali and Evi Tramantza) for overseeing this process, and to all of the candidates for agreeing to stand. Representatives of Full Member institutions: start reaching out to your colleagues and make sure to submit your votes before the deadline of 13 October!

AMICAL’s current grant from the Mellon Foundation aims to build capacity for digital pedagogy and scholarship anchored in our members' cultures and locations, reflecting and enhancing the international forms of liberal arts practiced at our institutions. At the center of these grant-funded initiatives is the Mellon Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) Fellow, who will provide training and consultation to AMICAL members while helping to further develop and implement our various DLA programs. Introducing AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Fellow: Najla Jarkas We would be hard pressed to find someone better suited to this role, and more deeply familiar with the nature and potential of the digital liberal arts at AMICAL institutions, than Dr. Najla Jarkas. Previously a faculty member in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut, Najla has extensive experience in integrating digital methods and tools in academic writing and literature courses in addition to integrating digital humanities projects into course design. Najla played a leading role in DH initiatives with regional and global reach at AUB, including the Digital Humanities Institute - Beirut, and she continues to serve on the International Advisory Board of the University of Victoria’s Digital Humanities Summer Institute. Najla has been involved with AMICAL’s consortial DH and DLA activities for over 5 years — most recently as chair of AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee, a role she’ll continue in going forward. See Najla’s profile for more information about her rich experience with digital humanities scholarship and pedagogy. DLA Consultations: get expert help on issues of digital pedagogy and scholarship Najla’s consulting role as DLA Fellow will cover the full range of possible questions related to the digital liberal arts: For questions within her own areas of expertise, she’ll offer direct consulting, on an extended basis if needed. For questions outside her expertise, she will facilitate consulting with another AMICAL colleague or external expert with relevant expertise. She’ll draw on her personal networks, on AMICAL’s connections with external experts, and on AMICAL’s own growing network of expertise in digital pedagogy and scholarship within the consortium. Any DLA-related questions are welcome, but some examples of projects you might ask for help with include: course-integrated projects or assignments library-based instructional initiatives and resources for scholarship campus-wide initiatives involving staff, faculty, or students Set up a consultation — or just drop in during office hours All colleagues from AMICAL member institutions are welcome to consult with the DLA Fellow. You can set up an appointment with the DLA Fellow, or simply drop in during her online office hours any weekday via Zoom. Find the request form, office hour links, and more information about the DLA Consultation program here: Jeff Gima, AMICAL Consortium Director and The AMICAL Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee

AMICAL is looking for colleagues from across the consortium to stand as candidates for the 3 open Coordinating Committee Officer positions. Officers play an active and critical role in representing member interests in AMICAL’s planning and decision making processes. We are calling on members to nominate themselves or others as candidates by 29 September. Nominations must be submitted through an AMICAL representative as explained below. Timeline for nominations & elections 8-29 September: Nominations open 30 September - 13 October: Candidate statements & profiles posted, and voting open 18 October: Results posted and new officers begin terms (through 30 September 2023) The Coordinating Committee’s role The Coordinating Committee works closely with AMICAL Administration (in particular the Director and Program & Technology Officer) to develop, steer and evaluate consortial programs and initiatives, ensuring progress toward objectives that align with the consortium’s mission, vision, values and strategic goals. As we are in a critical period of diversifying funding sources, developing new grant-funded goals and programs, and working with members to weather a particularly difficult period while sustaining highly valued consortial programs, the Coordinating Committee will be an essential partner in strategic planning processes over the next few years. More generally, the Coordinating Committee provides operational and financial oversight by approving policies and directions for the consortium’s activities. The Coordinating Committee plays an essential role in representing member interests, representing the variety of our institutions but also the variety of professional roles and interest areas that characterize AMICAL’s programs. Desired characteristics for candidates We’re therefore looking for nominees who are able to evaluate and discuss issues from a consortial perspective, and who can represent interests that go beyond their own institution and beyond their own professional roles and interests. Usually this means someone who has actively participated in and contributed to AMICAL events and programs over many years, and who has interacted in substantial and collaborative ways with a variety of colleagues from other AMICAL institutions and other professional roles that are active in AMICAL (from libraries, faculty development, instructional technology & design, disciplinary faculty, etc.). Though not required of candidates, substantial experience with fundraising and/or strategic planning could also be particularly useful for officers for the coming period. Since AMICAL’s programs tend to relate largely to libraries, faculty development, and instructional technology and design, we encourage nominations that will help all of these professional roles to be represented among Coordinating Committee officers. Expected time commitments for Officers Officers form the core of our Coordinating Committee and their active and reliable participation is critical for decision making as well as execution of certain programs. The amount of time required each month can vary greatly, but a typical year includes a minimum of 2-3 hours a month devoted to committee work on things such as: Participating in online meetingsPlanning meetings (1.5 hours once or twice a year) Regular “Strategy & Progress” meetings (30 minutes once/month) Reviewing Small Grant applications (1-3 hours of asynchronous reviewing/discussion that may require daily attention and responsiveness over the 2 week review period, 4 times a year) Periodic asynchronous discussion of consortial program planning, policy and business issues (1 hour/month, throughout the year) Officers volunteer their time for the benefit of the consortium; this is greatly appreciated and we respect the need to give priority to local work responsibilities. Officers may for example need to excuse themselves occasionally from some of the more time-consuming duties (like Small Grant reviewing) because of their local work obligations. As long as this is the exception rather than the rule, and you let other officers know about your unavailability in advance, we’ll be able to advance our committee work in spite of such limits on volunteers’ availability. Coordinating Committee composition The full Coordinating Committee is composed of five voting officers, four of which are elected and the other being the Consortium Director, complemented by non-voting advisory members: the chairs of the Standing Committees and conveners of the Interest Groups. More details about the work of the committee are available on our site. Three of the four elected officer positions are currently open: Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, Secretary, and Member-at-Large. The current Vice-Chair will take over the Chair position in order to ensure continuity, as described in the Operational Guidelines that regulate the election process. In order to maintain a certain level of representation by librarians, 2 of the elected officer positions will be reserved for librarians, as the current Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect is a faculty/developer. How can I nominate myself or someone else? Any staff or faculty member from a FULL Member institution can be nominated. (The consortial status of all member institutions is available on our site.) If you would like to nominate someone, you must ask an AMICAL representative from any institution (not necessarily from your own institution) to submit a nomination for that person. Representatives have already received instructions about this. Before nominating someone, be sure to confirm with them that they are willing to stand as a candidate. The last day for representatives to submit nominations is 29 September. What candidates need to do Candidates should, in parallel with their nomination being submitted and also by 29 September: update their AMICAL profile send to contact@amicalnet.org your candidate’s statement of 100 words or less, which will be shared with all AMICAL members, addressing:why they are qualified to provide this form of leadership for AMICAL — in particular, how they fulfill the “essential characteristics” described above how they would contribute to the “Coordinating Committee’s role” described above When & how will the elections take place? We will post nominees’ profiles and statements shortly after 29 September at latest. The Election Committee will send out a voting link and instructions to all eligible representatives to begin the vote shortly thereafter. Voting will close by 13 October. In order to guarantee the representation of professional roles mentioned under “Composition” above: 2 of the officer positions will be taken by the librarian candidates with the 2 highest number of votes the remaining 3rd officer position will be taken by whichever other candidate (regardless of role) has the highest number of votes A single institution may only have one person among the Coordinating Committee officers; so while multiple nominees from one institution may run for election, only the top-voted candidate from that institution can become an officer i.e. a candidate may be passed over in order to retain this diversity of institutional representation among officers. Results will be announced, and new terms will begin, by 18 October. Questions? Any questions about nominations or elections may be sent to contact@amicalnet.org, to either of the Elections Committee members below, or to current Member-at-Large Jyldyz Bekbalaeva. The AMICAL 2021 Elections Committee Maha Bali (AMICAL Coordinating Committee Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, American University in Cairo) Jeff Gima (AMICAL Consortium Director, American University of Paris) Evi Tramantza (AMICAL Coordinating Committee Chair, American College of Thessaloniki)

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 7 applications in the most recent cycles (March and May 2021). All the applications (some after revisions) were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates LJA Library Leadership and Management Certificate Livia Piotto John Cabot University Professional development May - October 2021: 6 online courses 2021-2022 Institute on Open Educational Resources Dalal Hakim Rahme American University of Beirut Staff exchange/consultation Year-long institute Summer School Linked Data for Cultural Heritage 2021 Giovanna Contigiani John Cabot University Professional development 4-day online program: 7-10 June 2021 DuraSpace Workshops and Open Educational Resource Training at Al Akhawayn University (September 2021) Paul Love Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane Project Staff exchange a few days long: Sept 2021 (precise length unclear) Grant to support Professional Development Courses for American University of Beirut Library Staff- 2021 Sahar Ghandour American University of Beirut Professional development 7 month-long online courses attended during July 2021-Jan 2022 Ecomedia Literacy Research Website Antonio Lopez John Cabot University Project 2 month milestone of a larger project Participating in the Lede Program for Data Journalism, Columbia Journalism School Anastasia Valeeva American University of Central Asia Professional development 2.5 month long program: 7 June – 13 August 2021. Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 10 September. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. To help folks better understand the program, and how to apply successfully, we’re holding an informal half-hour Q&A session on 13 September 2021, 15:00–15:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions and provide advice. If we end up with lots of participants (or questions), we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.

The Call for Proposals for AMICAL 2021 (June 21–24) is now open, with a deadline of 30 May. We’ve made it through a year and a half of disruption of our teaching and working environments, sometimes through reinvention of our methods, and sometimes simply by weathering the challenges with bravery and care. We’re all in a moment of flux, preparing for the coming academic year in the midst of a transition out of remote teaching and services. We’ve learned many lessons, in particular related to online pedagogy and library services, but we have many continuing challenges. We’re wondering things like: How can we improve student engagement in hybrid and blended environments, which we’ll increasingly be working with even after the pandemic? What role can we play in contributing to well being – our own and that of students – in this more digitally intermediated world? What are the dimensions and measures of digital literacy in our rapidly changing digital universe – and how can we design our courses, and our learning resources, to make meaningful progress along those dimensions? How can we gather – or create! – free and open course materials that reflect our own unique curricula and learning environments? How can we develop library resources and learning technologies that build both on what we know from the scholarship of teaching, learning and libraries, and on data about our own students’ and faculty’s experiences with our resources? What roles can libraries, technology or digital pedagogy and scholarship play in ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion in our teaching, learning and working environments? We invite you to propose presentations of practical help and inspiration for AMICAL colleagues on these questions, and on many other topics relevant to our American-international liberal arts institutions. The call, like the conference itself, is open to all interested staff and faculty from AMICAL member institutions. We especially encourage participation from librarians, faculty, faculty developers, instructional designers and academic technologists. AMICAL events are built using highly participatory session formats. For this call, you can propose Community Idea Exchange sessions: brief presentations combined with active audience participation. So come share what you’ve learned with an engaged audience of peers, and gain new insights from them in the process! See the full Call for Proposals for more guidance on the format, framing and topics of sessions that we’re hoping to include in the AMICAL 2021 program. Read the “Call for Proposals” –The AMICAL 2021 Program Committee

To honor the memory of Elisabetta Morani, former John Cabot University Head Librarian who died suddenly in November of last year, Karen M. Bohrer and Susan L. Perry have founded a program in Elisabetta’s name to support library staff development across the AMICAL Consortium. The Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants program is being launched today, on April 13, in honor of Elisabetta’s birthday. Present and highly engaged with the AMICAL Consortium ever since its inaugural meeting in 2004, Elisabetta helped to give both shape and life to our organization. Elisabetta was ever present as a constructively critical, friendly, enthused, passionate, engaging and generous colleague, someone who often and easily shifted her thinking beyond her own interests, to thinking about the interests of others and the collective interests of the consortium. A fund supporting this program has been established by generous seed donations from Karen and Susan, former AMICAL colleagues and close friends of Elisabetta. In their founding proposal for this program, Karen and Susan write: Throughout her career, Elisabetta Morani was ever seeking to improve her own practical library skills, and she valued highly what she learned from her AMICAL colleagues. It is the aim of the Fund to give library staff within the consortium the opportunity to develop skills that will help them better do their work in their own libraries. Overview of the program The program offers a limited number of micro grants, 2-3 times a year, to support event registration, training fees or other direct costs of practically-focused professional development activities for library staff. Requests should not exceed €500. Applications for funding may be submitted by any library staff member from any AMICAL member institution (of any member category: Full, Affiliate, or Network). They should be working in a library role, but there is no requirement to have a masters or professional degree in library and information sciences. This program aims to support activities that are: focused, pragmatic staff development, such as targeted workshops and courses targeting skill areas that relate to any aspect of library professional practice Find out more and apply The program is now open for applications through May 2. Find out more about the program, and how to apply, here: Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants Future calls for applications will be announced on AMICAL Connect two to three times a year, according to the remaining availability of funds for a given year: near the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters, and in early Summer. Contribute to the sustainability of the Fund In addition to the founding donations from Karen and Susan, additional donations to the fund have been made by other colleagues and friends. New contributions are warmly welcomed and would help to sustain this valuable opportunity for AMICAL library staff, and preserve Elisabetta’s memory, into the future. If you would like to contribute to the fund, email contact@amicalnet.org and we’ll send you instructions for how to do so. Thanks The Consortium extends its thanks to Karen and Susan for proposing and enabling this initiative, to the other colleagues and friends who have contributed to the Fund, and to the Elisabetta Morani Fund Committee members, who are helping to set up and administer this program: Jyldyz Bekbalaeva (Library Director, American University of Central Asia) Fatmeh Charafeddine (Associate University Librarian, Research and Academic Collaboration Services, American University of Beirut) Jeff Gima (AMICAL Consortium Director, American University of Paris) Livia Piotto (Interim Head Librarian, John Cabot University) Evi Tramantza (Director of Libraries, American College of Thessaloniki)

AMICAL members, the primary audience for this report, can access a slightly more detailed, members-only version of this document. Through collaboration, the AMICAL Consortium raises the quality of libraries, technology and learning across the 28 international liberal arts institutions that form our membership. AMICAL’s programs build and leverage the connections between libraries, technology and the classroom as spaces where information is used and created in study and scholarship. Our programs aim for outcomes in the following strategic focus areas: Cost-saving on library and information resources Innovative, adaptive and effective library and technology leadership Innovative liberal arts pedagogy and scholarship – with a particular focus on:information & digital literacies digital liberal arts: digital pedagogy and scholarship anchored in the liberal arts curricular environments, and in the local resources or geo-cultural contexts, of AMICAL institutions Our work has been supported since 2004 by a series of grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, including our current multi-year grant of $1.1M for “Building Leadership & Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across the AMICAL Consortium.” AMICAL member institutions themselves also contribute essential financial support for AMICAL’s operations. AMICAL’s core programs and resources include: Consortial price negotiation on licensed library databases and other library/academic resources Staff and faculty development: events, cohort training programs, and consultation services Small Grants: for training, staff exchanges and project support An online community network and collaboration tools In the face of this past year’s many challenges, AMICAL’s programs and peer network have been an increasingly important source of support for member institutions. Below is an overview of this consortial support and collaborative activity for the period of August 2019 – July 2020, along with highlights of more recent activity through January 2021. Consortially Leveraged Access to Library & Academic Resources AMICAL’s E-Resources Committee leverages our collective bargaining power to negotiate with vendors (Project Muse, Springshare, and others) for discounts on ebook collections, article databases and other library and academic resources. 17 member institutions benefited from discounts through AMICAL. We continue to work with OCLC to bring latest-generation library management technologies to members while keeping the costs as broadly accessible to members as possible. Members participated in a Knowledge Unlatched initiative to enable open access to 7 academic journals in the humanities and social sciences. The AMICAL Conference The annual AMICAL Conference brings together our librarians, instructional designers and technologists, and faculty developers – as well as disciplinary faculty interested in collaborating with them – for workshops, discussions and showcases of local projects and initiatives. The AMICAL 2020 Conference was held January 15-18 at the American University of Kuwait. The conference program – under the theme “Digital Transformation at International Liberal Arts Institutions: Innovation, Collaboration & Sustainability” – included the following highlights: Keynote by Siva Vaidhyanathan on “The operating system of our lives: How we misunderstood the digital transformations” (recording) Pre-conference workshop on “Strategic approaches to the development of digital literacies” (Doug Belshaw, Co-founder, We Are Open Co-op) Pre-conference workshop on “Library leadership in the global context” (Donna Scheeder, President, Library Strategies International; co-facilitated by members of AMICAL’s Leadership & Assessment Committee) Glass Room exhibit exploring society’s dependence on data and technology – and the normalization of monitoring and surveillance 43 sessions presented by AMICAL members on libraries, technology, learning and digital transformation Post-conference meeting of AMICAL Representatives (mostly library directors), organized using Liberating Structures techniques to identify opportunities for future collaborative actions Attendance figures for AMICAL 2020: 97 attendees from 25 member institutions 82% of member attendees received funding for accommodation or airfare to attend, and all members’ registration fees were covered by AMICAL The following roles were represented:48% Libraries/Archives 31% Faculty or faculty developers 10% IT managers/staff 6% Instructional designers or technologists 3% Administrators and other roles Online Events Since the onset of COVID-19, AMICAL’s events have been organized entirely online, and these virtual professional development opportunities have become both more frequent and more substantial. Many events have aimed at supporting member institutions’ own responses to the pandemic, for example helping faculty and librarians to adapt to teaching online. Over time, we’ve also been learning how to work effectively through online gatherings on nearly all of our strategic focus areas, from library leadership to digital liberal arts. Just for the period August 2019 through July 2020, we organized 19 online events, focused on: Information/digital literacies (10 events) Library/technology leadership (4 events) Online teaching/learning (4 events) Library systems/technologies (1 event) Many of AMICAL’s events address several such focus areas, drawing connections between them. In addition to these events from last year, a full list including more recent events can be found on our Past events page. AMICAL’s first-ever Mid-Year Virtual Forum, held 13-14 January 2021, drew 162 registrants, with up to 80 simultaneous participants observed in some sessions. The Forum’s program addressed challenges for teaching, technology and libraries in the current pandemic context of online and hybrid learning, reflecting on experiences from the Fall semester and workshopping together to apply those lessons to plans for the Spring and coming year. Collaboration, as always for AMICAL, was center stage, and much of the workshops' content was participant-driven in small groups. The 2021 AMICAL Conference, meanwhile, will also be held online, in late Spring or early Summer 2021. AMICAL Coordinated Participation in Training & Workshops In April 2020, we funded leaders of AMICAL committees and groups to attend a full-day online immersion workshop on high-engagement group facilitation methods for inclusiveness and meaningful participation, organized by Liberating Structures London (10 registrants from 4 AMICAL institutions). During Summer 2020, AMICAL partnered with organizers of two major online events related to digital pedagogy and online learning, enabling participation at no cost to interested AMICAL members: Digital Pedagogy Lab (10 registrants from 4 AMICAL institutions) OLC Innovate 2020 Virtual Conference (145 registrants from 22 AMICAL institutions) In October 2020, we partnered with Library Juice Academy, a leading provider of “online professional development workshops for librarians and other library staff,” to offer all members a 20% discount on course registration fees. Digital Liberal Arts Cohort Program: Team Training & Project Support The latest iteration of AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) Cohort Program was launched in Summer 2020. The DLA Cohort Program aims to build a learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. The program supports these teams with access to third-party training and expertise, a peer community of practice, and a series of AMICAL-facilitated project showcase and peer consultation events. The most recent project supported through the Program is: “Development of Digital Literacies at AUC: Professional Development and Toolkit for Faculty.” The DLA Programs Committee will be working in the coming months on building out support for the community of DLA cohort participants from recent years, as well as making plans for course-integrated DLA collaborations and the grant-funded hiring of a DLA Fellow for consultation and training on digital scholarship and pedagogy. Small Grants for Libraries, Tech & Learning: Training & Project Support Our Small Grants program funds training, peer exchange/consultation and projects that support AMICAL’s mission, in particular in the following priority areas: library and technology leadership, information and digital literacies, and digital liberal arts. Last year, we awarded Small Grants to colleagues at 8 member institutions. Examples: Professional development Open Education Global 2019 Conference NYU Abu Dhabi Winter Institute in Digital Humanities Development of digital storytelling and filmmaking skills for teaching and research Peer exchange/consultation Educational technology and digital literacy: group workshops and individual consultations Training and consultation for creating an oral history project Projects International learning collaboration: Culture, gender and psychology Library-faculty capacity building in 3D modeling AMICAL as a Peer Network: Community & Infrastructure AMICAL Connect member forum: AMICAL serves as a collaboration network for over 500 librarians, faculty and technologists at our member institutions. AMICAL Connect, the consortium’s forum, serves as the online hub for sharing information with peers and seeking help from them, coordinating action on consortial programs, and finding collaborators across institutions. Last year members shared over 1600 posts, and 84 new colleagues joined our forum. Content management for AMICAL groups: Alex Armstrong (AMICAL Program & Technology Officer) recently developed “AMICAL Guides,” a sub-system within AMICAL’s content management system allowing member groups to publish web content for their groups, and for AMICAL members generally. Our OCLC Working Group has been developing a guide supporting AMICAL members’ use of OCLC services, and we expect other groups may begin developing such AMICAL Guides as well. Curricular collaboration: Small but promising steps are being made in technology-enabled curricular collaboration: Following conversations at the AMICAL 2020 Conference, faculty at AU Central Asia and AU Nigeria launched a series of inter-university virtual class discussions over the Spring 2020 semester, on topics ranging from sociology to comparative literature. The planning and execution is described here, and an AUCA student describes the experience here. Faculty at AU Central Asia, American College of Greece, and AU Cairo led a Small Grant-funded initiative in Spring 2020 linking groups of students from each institution for collaborative research, academic writing and digital showcases on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Sharing knowledge about information literacy practices: AMICAL’s Information Literacy Initiatives Committee led several major peer-contributed research and writing projects: Administered a Fall 2019 survey on “Information literacy practices at AMICAL institutions,” reported on at AMICAL 2020 Published the book Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into Disciplinary Courses (more information below) Collaborative responses to COVID-19: In March 2020, AMICAL colleagues began contributing to Resources for member institutions during COVID-19, to support faculty, technologists and librarians dealing with the shift to online/hybrid learning and other challenges of the pandemic. Resources included: A “Continuity during COVID-19” live online forum series A curated list of web resources supporting continuity of instruction and libraries An AMICAL-specific clearinghouse of library databases available for free Opening your own workshops to AMICAL peers: We’re particularly excited to report that some member institutions have recently begun welcoming AMICAL-wide participation in teaching and technology workshops organized originally for their own faculty and staff. The American University in Cairo, Forman Christian College, and Habib University have led this trend, which has enormous promise for multiplying the value of AMICAL as a network for sharing peer expertise. AMICAL Member-Authored Books on Library-Faculty Collaborations In December 2020, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) published Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into Disciplinary Courses, co-edited by Michael Stöpel (AU Paris), Livia Piotto (John Cabot U), together with Xan Goodman and Samantha Godbey (both from University of Nevada, Las Vegas). Chapters were contributed by librarians and faculty from 9 AMICAL member institutions. The book’s chapters grew out of work begun as librarian-faculty teams in the AMICAL workshop “Co-design: Integrating Information Literacy into Your Disciplinary Course” held in 2017, along with subsequent design work, assessment, and a survey of participants. More information about the book project will be shared soon on AMICAL’s Books & articles page – where you can also learn about Library Partnerships in International Liberal Arts Education, another AMICAL member-authored book, published by ACRL in April 2020. Surveys to Understand Member Needs and Priorities: Actions Being Taken Survey of AMICAL Representatives Your institution's AMICAL Representative plays a pivotal role in advancing AMICAL’s mission, and promoting the consortium and its spirit of collaboration as a group, by representing the member institution’s stakeholders, be they librarians, technologists, faculty, or administrators. AMICAL's Coordinating Committee organized last year a “Survey of AMICAL Representatives” to better understand what they need in order to fulfill their role as liaisons between your institution and the consortium as a whole. Since then, we've acted on a number of needs identified by the survey: Provide better guidance for Reps: We're publishing a "Guide for AMICAL Representatives" shortly. Make cross-consortium member communications easierMember groups can now build and share web content as "AMICAL Guides" on our website (discussed further under "AMICAL as a Peer Network") Reps now have their own Representatives’ Discussion Space on AMICAL Connect Consortium-wide announcements are now drafted in a way to make them easily forwardable to colleagues at your institution Keep Reps more regularly involved (in planning processes, in AMICAL Admin communications to colleagues, in discussion with each other)“Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders” administered September 2020 (see below) Since November 2020, AMICAL has been organizing regular meetings among Reps (monthly, with alternating focus on their roles either as library directors or as AMICAL Representatives) We’re more consistently keeping Reps informed about participation in AMICAL programs by colleagues at their institution Communicate clearly and regularly to members the channels available to them for voicing concerns, suggestions for improvement, etc.: We’ve updated our contact page to provide multiple avenues through which members can make their voice heard.. Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders In September 2020, we ran a “Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders” (AMICAL Reps, library directors, academic leadership, faculty development centers, and academic IT directors) asking them to identify the biggest environmental or institutional issues in front of your institutions for the coming years. Responses for the “Biggest challenges/opportunities for next 1–2 years” were dominated by the themes of online teaching and cost savings. Other recurring themes included library professional development and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. "Biggest challenges/opportunities for next 3-5 years" were quite similar, with a clear call for consortial collaboration on finding ways to do more with less, and on helping our institutions to create rich, innovative and adaptive learning environments – in the library, in the classroom, and online. Looking Forward Drawing on member feedback, including the surveys above, AMICAL is currently giving focus to supporting and facilitating staff and faculty development related to teaching, technologies and library services in online or hybrid learning environments. Our E-Resources Committee is working assiduously to identify new opportunities for cost savings, and a working group is investigating how AMICAL members might be able to work on diversity/equity/inclusion together. Our Standing Committees, some guided and funded by our Mellon Foundation grant, continue their mission-focused work as well, using the survey feedback from member institutions as a compass to ensure that AMICAL's programs and initiatives have as much beneficial impact as possible in the areas most important to our members. For Spring and Summer 2021, we aim to increase the number and scale of online events we organize, with a goal of significantly increasing participation levels, including: More frequent and regular online events and workshop-style participatory meetings A virtual AMICAL 2021 Conference (late Spring or early Summer) The following committees and interest groups, meanwhile, have identified goals specific to their focus: Leadership & Assessment Regular meetings for library directors Expand work on AMICAL library benchmarking using ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics survey Update and share AMICAL’s collection of consortium-funded research reports Collect and share examples of member institutions’ satisfaction surveys Information Literacy Initiatives Organize information literacy teaching observations with AMICAL peers Expand scope of “Journal Club” series and other events to include intersections with digital literacies and digital humanities Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) Programs Develop online communication resources, events and consulting to support AMICAL’s growing DLA cohort community Reevaluate profile of the DLA Fellow, to consider partially adapting this role to support institutions’ urgent needs for instructional design support in online/hybrid teaching environments Reevaluate plans for course-integrated DLA collaborations in current environment E-Resources Clarify and communicate expectations from and for vendors Improve workload distribution for negotiations Teaching Writing Outreach to bring into group more writing teachers across AMICAL Events and online discussions to develop the peer network Organize shared resources (e.g. assignments) and collaborations (e.g peer review) For academic year 2021-2022, our Standing Committees and Interest Groups will continue their mission-focused work, and we are also seeking to extend our current grant from the Mellon Foundation for this additional year. This would extend AMICAL's grant-funded programs such as our Small Grants and Digital Liberal Arts Cohort programs, and it would allow us to more fully develop a number of projects that had to be put on hold during the onset of COVID-19: hiring a Digital Liberal Arts Fellow to provide training and consultation to members on digital pedagogy and scholarship, and supporting course-integrated digital project collaborations. We're excited to extend and expand these initiatives, and we hope to have more news to share with you this Spring. Informed – and Get Involved! Interested in learning more or getting involved in initiatives described above, suggesting an idea, or reaching out to peers across the consortium? Here are a few ways: Browse or post messages on AMICAL Connect (our member forum); create an AMICAL Account if you don’t have one already, to get access to Connect and receive major announcements Reach out to a committee or interest group to find out more about what they’re doing and how you can help Contact your AMICAL Representative to learn more about how AMICAL might be valuable for you Attend an AMICAL event - new events are on their way and announced on AMICAL Connect Contact AMICAL staff with any questions or ideas, or set up a call with one of us

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 11 applications in the most recent cycles (September 2020, November 2020 and January 2021). The following 8 applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Introduction to Learning Design in Online/Hybrid Teaching and Learning Rebekah Rast American University of Paris Professional development 2 week-long online workshop series (July-Sep) Registration fees for The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) Nadine Aboulmagd American University in Cairo Professional development Online institute (12-23 Oct 2020, with pre- and post- immersion programming) Educause 2020 Online Conference Evi Tramantza American College of Thessaloniki Professional development 27–29 October 2020 Introduction to Cataloging; LSSC Elective Competencies: Cataloging and Classification Maria Pencheva American University in Bulgaria Professional development 2 courses: 4 weeks starting 1 Feb 2020, and 6 weeks starting 1 March 2021 Data Stories: An Introduction to Data Visualization April 12, 2021 - May 9, 2021 Ghenwa Wehbeh Lebanese American University Professional development 12 April - 9 May 2021: 4 week online course Participation in the NICAR conference for Professor and 6 students Anastasia Valeeva American University of Central Asia Professional development 3-5 March 2021: 3-day online conference Registration for full virtual Pass to attend OLC Accelerate 2020 Rukhsana Zia Forman Christian College Professional development 9-18 November 2020 Enhance a Digital Cultures course Anguelina Popova American University of Central Asia Staff exchange/consultation 6-hour consultation during March Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 29 March. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. If you’ve read the guidelines but still have questions, we’ll be holding an informal half-hour Q&A session on 11 March 2021, 11:00–11:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions, listen to your feedback and provide advice. If we end up with lots of participants (or questions), we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.