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CHICAGO - The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is pleased to announce the first recipients of its in 2018. These grants of up to $3,000 each support new research on library contributions to student learning and success in areas suggested by the 2017 report "Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research" (prepared for ACRL by OCLC Research and available for or ).

The selection committee from ACRL’s chose eight proposals from a highly competitive round of applications. The grant recipients are:

• Rebecca A. Croxton and Anne Cooper Moore (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) for a project titled “Quantifying the Library's Value: Aligning Library, Institutional, and Student Success Data”
• Maggie Epstein, Jason Paul, and Bridget Draxler (St. Olaf College) for a project titled “Assessing Student Success through Collaborative Data Collection and Analysis”
• Nick Faulk and Emily Crist (Champlain College) for a project titled “Let’s Get to Know Each Other: A Mixed Methods Study on Library-Online Patron Communication”
• Starr Hoffman and James Cheng (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) for a project titled “Researchers on Academic Library Impact: Characteristics and Perspectives”
• Rebecca K. Miller, Carmen Cole, Stephanie Diaz, and Julie Porterfield (Penn State University) for a project titled “Activating Library Classrooms: Evaluating Formal Learning Spaces for Active Learning and Student Engagement”
• Marjorie Schreiber Lear, Hilary Smith, Kelly Estrada, and Rhianna Casesa (Sonoma State University) for a project titled “Communicating Value and Enhancing Library Use through Finding Common Language”
• Rachel Scott and Brannen Varner (University of Memphis) for a project titled “Empowering Parenting Students to Succeed”
• Theresa Westbrock (University of Northern Iowa) for a project titled “Students Helping Students: Creating and Evaluating a Collaborative Service Model in the Library”

“The research projects funded through this initiative significantly advance the research priority areas set forth in ACRL's 'Academic Library Impact' report,” says Alan Carbery, chair of the Value of Academic Libraries committee. “It’s exciting to see a geographical and institutionally diverse set of research grants recipients. The outcome of their work will undoubtedly benefit library practitioners demonstrating the impact of academic libraries at the institutional level.”

ACRL is delighted to support this new research and looks forward to working with these researchers as their projects develop. Another round of research grants is expected to be announced in early 2019.

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The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) is the higher education association for librarians. Representing nearly 10,500 academic and research librarians and interested individuals, ACRL (a division of the 91´«Ã½) develops programs, products and services to help academic and research librarians learn, innovate and lead within the academic community. Founded in 1940, ACRL is committed to advancing learning and transforming scholarship. ACRL is on the web at , Facebook at and Twitter at .