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MIDDLETOWN, CT - This week Choice launches a new five-episode podcast called . The series combines interviews and storytelling to spotlight the breakthrough programs, hard-won advocacy, and community connections—including the personalities behind them—that are achieved in academic libraries across academe.

Shaped by Choice Editorial Director Bill Mickey and Senior Digital Media Producer Mark Derks, Patron Driven is the first narrative-forward podcast from Choice. Patron Driven is the second podcast offering in the Choice repertoire, and unlike its well-regarded predecessor, The Authority File, which was distinctly conversational, Patron Driven is entirely story-based and stems from crowd-sourced accounts submitted by librarians that showcase the strength, vitality, and creativity of both their libraries and themselves.

The first season of Patron Driven, called "The Heart of the Campus," tells the story of the destruction and subsequent rebuilding of the Lonestar College-Kingwood campus library in Kingwood, Texas, during and after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The story was developed from interviews with four pivotal library workers, sharing their individual experiences during the hurricane and describing the heroic efforts they and the rest of the Kingwood campus made to restore instruction, services, and activities for the fall semester.

Choice Editorial Director Bill Mickey says of the new podcast, “We’re excited to expand our podcast platform with the debut of Patron Driven. Academic libraries everywhere are going through pretty radical changes, and this series features success stories of librarians overcoming setbacks, driving innovation, and connecting with their communities in brand-new ways. We hope you’ll find them as inspiring, dramatic, and entertaining to listen to as they were for us to put together.”

Learn more about Patron Driven on the or access it directly via , , , and .

To discuss becoming a Patron Driven podcast episode sponsor, please contact Pam Marino at pmarino@ala-choice.org.

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About Choice

Choice is a publishing unit of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the 91´«Ã½. Founded in 1964, Choice has for over 50 years been the premier source for reviews of academic books and digital resources of interest to scholars and students in higher education. Today, Choice works to bring librarians, scholars, publishers, and the reading public together, facilitating a shared concern for the discovery, management, and preservation of scholarly information. Please visit Choice at for more information.