The REK Library Digital Co-Op

Poly Publishing is just one part of the Library Digital Co-op: the REK Library Digital Co-op (lib-digital@calpoly.edu) supports all phases of the research cycle by drawing on shared expertise, library infrastructure and platforms, and collaborations and networking to help support the needs of campus scholars and expand the reach of their work. The Co-op aims to engage and maintain open approaches to racial and social justice through digital and public initiatives, highlighting and supporting non-traditional modes of scholarship, and amplifying historically underrepresented voices in scholarship and creative work.

We support every aspect of the digital publishing lifecycle in a multitude of ways, including decision making, idea-generating, brainstorming, supporting non-traditional formats, networks, dissemination ideas, collaboration, and more.

We aim to cultivate a critical digital community on Cal Poly’s campus:

    • Join us for quarterly meetings discussing digital needs, wants, and ideals. Past workshops:
      • Monday 2/7/2022: What is an Ethics of Care approach to research? and How do I use information critically?
      • Tuesday 2/22/2022: What digital tools for storytelling can I access?
      • Monday 2/28/2022: What are the key things I need to know about copyright and open access?
      • Monday 4/4/2022 : How do I share my research?
    • Watch our BEACoN Mentorship Program Introduction to REK (slides).
    • Watch our College of Liberal Arts Online Teaching Workshop (slides).

See the diagram below to understand what questions we can help answer, or email us at lib-digital@calpoly.edu. 

The Digital Co-op is a group of white/white adjacent people who work in the library who have expertise in supporting the life-cycle of creative works and scholarship, including , sharing, publishing, preserving, organizing, assessment and  accessibility, focusing on collaboration, exploration, and critical creation. 

The following are our intentional expectations: 

    • We are co-operational, which means that we are all part of adding, critically analyzing, learning, and sharing the knowledge that we are handling. 
    • We are all mutually accountable to our communities.  
    • We aspire to be transparent about our approaches in collaboration and creation.  
    • Our intention is to share scholarship produced through the guidance of being transparent, accessible, and accountable to the local communities and important networks. We promote open access beyond institutions
    • We strive to center and highlight students, in a conversational, two-way, reciprocal manner of learning. 

The Co-op consists of the following people: 

Laura Sorvetti (she/hers) guides scholars on critical and ethical use of primary sources and archival materials, and applies radical empathy in archives work. 

jaime ding (she/hers) served as the Digital Publishing Research Fellow with Kennedy Library’s Creative Works department from August 2019 and concluded in March 2022 where she joined Tufts University as the Student Success Faculty Librarian. She engages in critical race theory and Black feminist theory to structures of digital academic publishing, facilitating conversations to offer available alternative tools for shifts in structures, continuously advocating for new methods of validation, new/old imaginations of learning and sharing.

Russ White (he/him) applies data and geospatial tools, to help scholars approach problems from across different disciplines, and advocates for data literacy, and a careful critique of data and its applications.

Danielle Daughtery (she/hers) assists in worldwide dissemination of Cal Poly student and faculty research through the Digital Commons platform, and advocates for Open Access research. 

Catherine Trujillo (she/hers) applies a Xicanisma, Black, Indigenous feminist lens as a way to enact radical change within libraries, archives, and museums, and advocates to exemplify nontraditional backgrounds and approaches for the stewardship of cultural histories, storytelling, publishing and design. 

Brett Bodemer (he/him) shares strategies for articulating research questions and techniques for identifying and finding relevant information resources to support that research, with a Humanities & literature background but conversant with all fields represented in the College of Liberal Arts. 

Zach Vowell (he/him) broadens, with care, online access to the library’s archives, and preserves digital collections. 

The Co-op is happy to collaborate with the following entities on campus: Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, the Public Humanities Collaborative, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. 

Contact us at lib-digital@calpoly.edu. 

14 + 3 =

For Poly Publishing specific ideas, please see our consult sheet, or contact us above.