The AMICAL Consortium, including its staff and the many colleagues who form the network of peers spanning our 28 member institutions, mourn the loss of our colleague Elisabetta Morani, who passed away last Friday, 27 November. Elisabetta was Head Librarian at John Cabot University, an AMICAL member institution. Elisabetta was a central figure in the AMICAL Consortium on many levels. Present and highly engaged at AMICAL’s first meeting in Paris in 2004, and at nearly every annual meeting of the consortium since, Elisabetta helped to give both shape and life to our organization. Among the first to chair AMICAL’s Coordinating Committee as the consortium began developing basic structures as an organization, she was someone equally at ease helping us explore innovative cloud-based library systems and helping us think about meaningful library partnerships with faculty. Elisabetta helped us to see beyond the walls of our libraries, and beyond the walls of our institutions, while always keeping our vision grounded in the realities of what we actually might be able to accomplish, and of what actually may matter to our institutions, to our colleagues, and to our students. In giving her AMICAL’s 2018 “Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service by an AMICAL Colleague”, we recognized “in particular her foundational work as Chair of the E-Resources Committee, and her longstanding commitment to building a consortium that combines innovation with responsiveness to members’ current needs.” With her work with the E-Resources Committee on consortial purchasing, she undeniably helped the resources and budgets of a wide swath of AMICAL members. She also organized several key professional development opportunities for members, hosting AMICAL’s 2013 Annual Conference and organizing numerous workshops and other initiatives. Elisabetta, however, did so much more than that for our group. She had a formidable mix of intelligence, passion, and wisdom, and as the many messages that have been shared about her among colleagues over the past few days attest, her friendship and collegiality had an impact on peers across the consortium that was, quite impressively, as broad as it was deep. It’s difficult in fact to imagine AMICAL without her, she was such a visible, constructively critical, friendly, enthused, passionate, engaging and generous colleague, someone who so often and so naturally shifted her thinking beyond her own interests, beyond the interests of just her own institution, to think about the interests of others across the consortium. Elisabetta helped AMICAL feel like a family - and she was very much at the center of that family, loved dearly by her colleagues. Our sincerest condolences go out to her colleagues at John Cabot University, and above all to Elisabetta’s family and loved ones. She will be missed terribly by us all. In warm remembrance, AMICAL’s Administration and Coordinating Committee, on behalf of colleagues from our 28 member institutions AMICAL Administration: Jeff Gima (American University of Paris), AMICAL Director Alex Armstrong, AMICAL Program & Technology Officer Lily Servel (American University of Paris), AMICAL E-Resources Technical Coordinator AMICAL Coordinating Committee Officers: Evi Tramantza (American College of Thessaloniki), Chair Maha Bali (American University in Cairo), Vice-Chair Jyldyz Bekbalaeva (American University of Central Asia), Member-at-Large Omar Farhoud (Lebanese American University), Secretary AMICAL Coordinating Committee Members: Asma Al-Kanan (American University of Kuwait), Leadership & Assessment Committee Chair Najla Jarkas (American University of Beirut), Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee Chair Michael Stoepel (American University of Paris), Information Literacy Initiatives Chair Note: AMICAL members can find on AMICAL Connect several ways to share their own thoughts and memories of Elisabetta.

The current period is a critical one for helping our students to avoid misinformation – and disinformation – but doing so is made more difficult by young people’s reliance on social media for news. AMICAL has partnered with DailyChatter to help meet this challenge, raising students’ awareness and critical understanding of global current affairs through free access to the DailyChatter news digest service. Students are more likely to get their news through social media - and have trouble gauging its quality Stanford’s 2016 “Civic Online Reasoning” study of students' information-evaluation competencies, along with its 2019 follow-up study, highlighted the difficulty young people have with gauging the quality of information they come across online. Recent Pew studies show meanwhile that college-age adults look to social media more than anywhere else for their news, and that those who do rely on social media for their news tend to be less critical, less engaged readers. Help our students explore more reliable news-gathering channels As people interested in cultivating our students’ critical use and sharing of information, what can AMICAL Consortium members do about this? One thing we can do is encourage our students to make regular use of news-gathering channels that are more reliable than social media. A great example of such a channel is DailyChatter, an email news digest focused solely on international news. DailyChatter is completely independent and non-partisan, and such a source can be particularly valuable in combination with an awareness of the bias of various news outlets (see Ad Fontes Media's Media Bias Chart). The daily newsletter arrives by email at around 6am US Eastern time, includes a brief and easily readable digest of selected international stories with links to further media coverage from a variety of outlets. Join other AMICAL institutions in facilitating students’ free subscription to DailyChatter DailyChatter is now providing free subscriptions to college and university students around the world, and I’m pleased to announce a consortial partnership to facilitate subscriptions to their daily newsletter for all students, as well as faculty and staff, at AMICAL member institutions via the sign-up form linked below. The free subscription program was launched to help expand college students’ knowledge and understanding of global issues, which is now more than ever an essential civic need. More than 9500 students from 155 leading US and international colleges and universities are now enrolled in the program. Nine AMICAL institutions have already arranged their own direct partnerships with DailyChatter, and anyone from those institutions will be redirected from the AMICAL form below with a link to their own institution-specific sign-up page. If you’re from any other AMICAL institution... ...and share this with your students and colleagues You can share the link above with students, but I encourage you in particular to share it with any colleagues who might be in a position to reach out to the student body as a whole with a message about critical news sourcing: library directors, provosts, or others such as deans or directors of student life/services. As examples: AUP’s President Celeste Schenck chose to announce DailyChatter with an email of her own to the AUP community, and one of Yale’s student service offices decided to promote DailyChatter on their homepage. Feel free to copy or adapt this example student-directed announcement to announce DailyChatter to your own community. Questions about DailyChatter? Please reach out directly to Elizabeth Bartle, Director, University Relations and Strategy, ebartle@dailychatter.com, if you have any questions. She can help you to launch the service on your own campus.

The call for applications to AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort program is now open! Do you have a faculty-staff team working on a digital liberal arts project or initiative? This program gives your team access to AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort, a learning community combining peer expertise with grant-supported training and resources. It’s the cornerstone of our efforts to raise the faculty and staff capacities of member institutions for localized, digital approaches to liberal arts education. Program overview A learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital liberal arts initiatives Applications for the program are invited from teams engaged in digital liberal arts projects or initiatives that are anchored in some way in local teaching and learning, and that involve a partnership of local faculty and staff. Teams may have as few as two members and can include faculty, librarians, technologists and academic administrators. The program will support 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. We use “digital liberal arts” as an umbrella term covering digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. Our use of this term includes digital humanities, digital literacies, and the use of technology to enable new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship or pedagogy. We are interested in supporting a wide range of initiatives: from individual digital projects, to course redesigns with elements of digital literacy or scholarship, to campus-wide curricular initiatives involving digital literacies, pedagogy or scholarship. This program is part of our 2018-2021 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Building Leadership and Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across AMICAL.” Our aims for it are: to support initiatives that will contribute to capacity-building at the institutional and consortial level; to solidify AMICAL’s role as a cross-institutional network; and to develop sustainable consortial models for supporting the digital liberal arts. (From the program website) How to apply Applications for the program are open from today until end of day on September 14. Each team need only submit a single application. Prospective applicants should read the “Cohort opportunities and support” page for more details and then follow the steps in “Applying to the cohort”. We will be holding an informal Q&A session on 3 September, 11:00 am Paris time (local time) with members of the Digital Liberal Arts Program Committee. Register for this session to clarify any questions you have about the program and to receive advice in preparing your application. If you have any questions about the program or your application, you may also reply to this email. We look forward to reading your applications! –Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee Najla Jarkas (American University of Beirut) Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) Jeff Gima (AMICAL / American University of Paris) Alex Armstrong (AMICAL)

We’re excited to announce the newest iteration of AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort program! This program is the cornerstone of our efforts to raise the faculty and staff capacities of member institutions for localized, digital approaches to liberal arts education. Previous iterations focused around coordinated attendance of onsite events. Given global events, the program has been overhauled to take advantage of online opportunities. About the program A learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital liberal arts initiatives Applications for the program are invited from teams engaged in digital liberal arts projects or initiatives that are anchored in some way in local teaching and learning, and that involve a partnership of local faculty and staff. Teams may have as few as two members and can include faculty, librarians, technologists and academic administrators. The program will support 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. We use “digital liberal arts” as an umbrella term covering digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. Our use of this term includes digital humanities, digital literacies, and the use of technology to enable new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship or pedagogy. We are interested in supporting a wide range of initiatives: from individual digital projects, to course redesigns with elements of digital literacy or scholarship, to campus-wide curricular initiatives involving digital literacies, pedagogy or scholarship. This program is part of our 2018-2021 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Building Leadership and Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across AMICAL.” Our aims for it are: to support initiatives that will contribute to capacity-building at the institutional and consortial level; to solidify AMICAL’s role as a cross-institutional network; and to develop sustainable consortial models for supporting the digital liberal arts. (From the program website) How to apply as a team Applications for the program are open from today until end of day on July 5. If your team isn’t able to submit an application during this period – don’t worry! There will be another call in September with a longer submission window. Prospective applicants should read the “Cohort opportunities and support” for more details and then follow the steps in “Applying to the cohort”. July 2020 event of possible interest to cohort teams: Digital Pedagogy Lab For teams that are interested in applying to the cohort, we’d like to highlight an upcoming event: Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020 will be held 26 July – 2 August. Only the following courses are currently open (and have very few seats remaining): Intro Critical Digital Pedagogy Information Literacy Data, Code, Ethics Digital Identity Blended Maker Faire PreK-20 Recess: Play in the Time of the Pandemic If you would like to receive funding to participate in any of the above courses, send us an email by 30 June (even if you haven’t submitted your application yet). In your email, list your team members’ names, the courses that they would like to participate in, and a sentence for each describing how the training relates to the project you have in mind. Do note that funding for training through this program is subject to certain requirements, and associated with certain expectations, as outlined on the cohort website. Your team will still need to submit a cohort application by July 5. Remember that there will be opportunities for teams to apply for the cohort at the start of each semester for at least the coming year. For teams interested in attending Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020, we realize that time is short for teams to organize themselves, so don’t hesitate to reply to this email and ask us any questions you may have about your prospective application. –Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee Najla Jarkas (American University of Beirut) Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) Jeff Gima (AMICAL / American University of Paris) Alex Armstrong (AMICAL)

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 6 applications for the May 2020 cycle. The following 4 applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Online Instructional Design and Delivery June 1 - July 12, 2020 Joyce Draiby Lebanese American University Professional development 1-month online course: 1 June - 12 July 2020 Bissell Library Staff Training for Upgrading and Operating an Institutional Repository and handling images and also technology hardware request Efthymia Kompouri American College of Thessaloniki Professional development Online classes over a 4-month period (Sept - Dec 2020), plus equipment AUCA Library-Faculty Capacity Building in 3D Modeling Aida Abdykanova American University of Central Asia Project Open-ended request for equipment Ethnographic Documentary: Returning to Homeland Mukaram Toktogulova American University of Central Asia Project 11-month project: July 2020 - May 2021 An additional application from Anguelina Popova for a team of AUCA colleagues to attend OLC was cancelled, since they were able to register through the AMICAL-sponsored attendance to OLC Innovate 2020 initiative. Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle During the summer period (June – August), only applications for micro-grants will be reviewed. Micro-grants are reviewed on a rolling basis but, due to summer holidays, responses may be delayed. Applications for regular grants will re-open in the fall with a tentative deadline of 14 September. The deadline will be confirmed in late summer or early fall and announced on AMICAL Connect. In the weeks before the deadline, we’ll be also holding an informal half-hour Q&A session to answer questions and listen to feedback. Check the Small Grant guidelines for full information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications.

I'm excited to share the news that ACRL has officially launched a book that AMICAL has been collaborating with them to develop over the past few years: Library Partnerships in International Liberal Arts Education: Building Relationships Across Cultural and Institutional Lines. The book reports on innovative library partnerships that cut across lines of cultural and institutional boundaries, but also across professional boundaries, at AMICAL’s international liberal arts institutions. Its 10 chapters are authored by 16 librarians, faculty members and instructional technologists from 6 AMICAL member institutions in as many different countries. It's an engaging collection of challenges, inspired initiatives, and hard-won insights about library partnerships in our unique and changing institutional contexts. I know it'll be of interest to colleagues in many countries around the world, and I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to work with co-editor Kara Malenfant (Senior Strategist for Special Initiatives at ACRL) and the 15 other authors from AMICAL member institutions who contributed to this project. Although I wish this came at another time, rather than a moment when we are all struggling with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s gratifying and encouraging to see AMICAL colleagues’ experiences and wisdom being shared beyond the boundaries of our own consortium and its forums and conferences. The book is available for purchase in the ALA Store, and you can check our book launch page to find out more about the book, the AMICAL authors and their contributed chapters, and the AMICAL-ACRL project that led to the book.

Update: We now have a COVID-19 page with up-to-date information on initiatives and resources in support of instructional and library continuity during this time. At the “Continuity of instructional and library activities during COVID-19” member forum that AMICAL organized last week, there was interest in organizing some kind of regular open meetings for AMICAL members to continue discussions in this context – a sort of weekly “water cooler” conversation to help folks regroup and get fresh ideas on the various challenges they’re facing. Those challenges are many, after all – and though there are many online events being organized around the world on similar themes, sometimes the most relevant feedback, and the most practicable inspiration, comes from peers at institutions operating in contexts most similar to our own. AMICAL is therefore continuing this conversation as a series of live online forums under the theme of “Continuity during COVID-19”. The focus and target audience of these online forums will rotate to a different area each week – e.g. information literacy, pedagogy and faculty development, library management/collections/services – to avoid taking too much time each week from any one group, and so that the conversations are as focused, and immediately practicable and useful, as possible. Upcoming forums will be announced on AMICAL Connect and listed on our events page. If you’re an AMICAL member and have not joined AMICAL Connect yet, you may sign up now. The events pages of past forums will link to the recordings, notes and discussions about each event, access to which is restricted to AMICAL members. For easier access, AMICAL members may view playlist of all recordings from the forum series (requires an AMICAL Connect account). Propose a forum We invite AMICAL’s Committees, Interest Groups, and individual members to propose facilitating future forums in this series. If you’re interested, send us an email: Provide a brief description of the questions/issues you’re hoping to address in the discussion Suggest a date and time for the event: aim for scheduling your event after most AMICAL members have ended their normal working days (e.g. 18:00 Paris time or later), unless you have polled your target audience and determined that there’s a clear preference for an earlier time For each broad profile identified as part of your primary target audience (e.g. faculty developers, librarians, etc.), there should be someone from that profile helping actively to moderate the event. If your topic clearly relates to one of the AMICAL Standing Committees or Interest Groups, but you’re not part of that group, please contact the group so that they’re at least aware of what you’re proposing and have the opportunity to collaborate with you on facilitating the forum.

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 12 applications for the February 2020 cycle. The following applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Student-Visions: A photoethnography of the walled city Faiza Rafique Forman Christian College Professional development 2 day conference: 16-17 December 2019 Digital Humanities Summer Institute (June 2020) Dalal Hakim Rahme American University of Beirut Professional development 5 day workshop: 1-5 June 2020 Instructional Videos for Non-Russian Speaking Learners Mariya Antonova American University of Central Asia Project 5-month project: Jan - May 2020 Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) Hicham Zahnan American University of Beirut Professional development 2 week-long courses: June 2020 International Learning Collaboration: Culture, gender and psychology (ILC-CGP2020) Martin Dege American University of Paris Project 10-month project: Feb-Nov 2020 Data Art by Students, for Students at AUCA - Spring 2020 Anastasia Valeeva American University of Central Asia Project 2-month project: Mar-Apr 2020 Development of Digital Storytelling and Filmmaking Skills for Teaching and Research Caroline/Gabriel Wiedmer/Gee Franklin University Switzerland Professional development 5 workshops in April, May and June 2020 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 20 April. Check the Small Grant guidelines for full 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 8 April 10:00-10:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions, listen to your feedback and provide advice for preparing your applications. If we end up with lots of questions, we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.

In the last cycle for November 2019, the Small Grant Review committee received and review 7 applications, all of which were accepted. The following applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Training and Consultation for creating an Oral History Project at John Cabot University Alessandra Grego John Cabot University Staff exchange/consultation 3-day staff exchange/consulting with remote follow-up over the following 6 months The NYU Abu Dhabi Winter Institute in Digital Humanities Elie Abu Haydar American University of Beirut Professional development 4 day workshop: 19-22 January 2020 Educational App “Manas” Daniyar Karabaev American University of Central Asia Project 8-month long project: Dec 2019 - July 2020 Winter Institute in digital humanities (January 19-January 22 2020) Ramzi Al Malti American University of Beirut Professional development 4 day workshop: 19-22 January 2020 Multi-Campus Student Research Collaborative on Global Issues Tamo Chattopadhay American University of Central Asia Project 8-month long project: Oct 2019 - May 2020 Linked Open Data for Libraries and Scholars Basma Chebani American University of Beirut Staff exchange/consultation 2 day staff exchange/consultation: 21-22 April 2020 Winter Institute Digital Humanities Elie Kahale American University of Beirut Professional development 4 day workshop: 19-22 January 2020 Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadlines for the next rounds of applications are midnight on: 17 February 20 April 14 September The dates are subject to revision, so check the Small Grant guidelines for definitive deadlines and full 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 5 February 10:00-10:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions, listen to your feedback and provide advice for preparing your applications. If we end up with lots of questions, we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.

Registration is now open for AMICAL 2020. The deadline is just over a week from now, November 17, so make sure to register in time. Some important guidelines: If you have applied for a pre-conference workshop, wait for a response from the organizers before registering. The workshop application process is competitive as there are a limited number of spots available. Clarify what visa procedure you need to follow. If you need to apply for a visa through the local host (AUK), make sure to have a scan of your passport and academic degree as it will be asked in the form. Consult the financial support page to find out if you’re eligible and what the requirements are. For more information about the conference, visit the AMICAL 2020 website, which includes extensive information about the program and attending the event. –The AMICAL 2020 Organizers