Rachael Elrod, Ed.D., Associate Chair of the Departmental Libraries & Director of the Education Library received the Education and Behavioral Sciences Section (EBSS) Distinguished Education and Behavioral Sciences Librarian Award from the Association of College and Research Libraries. This award honors an academic librarian who has made an outstanding contribution as an education and/or behavioral sciences librarian through professional and scholarly accomplishments and service to the profession.
Elrod’s goals have been to help strengthen the community, encourage collaboration, and spotlight the incredible work of EBSS members.
“EBSS has given me so many opportunities to grow as a leader and connect with others who care deeply about the intersection of librarianship, education, and the social sciences,” Elrod said.
Dr. Elrod’s accolades for EBSS include:
- Establishing the EBSS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee as a standing committee, an achievement that continues to shape EBSS’s culture of inclusion and serves as a model for other ACRL sections.
- Partnering with the Digital Scholarship Section (DSS) to host the online discussion forum “Data Visualization for Social Justice“
- Chairing the Reference Sources and Services Committee (2016-2020), where her group updated and transitioned the Education Librarian’s Toolkit and Statistical Directory for Education and Behavioral Science Librarians to LibGuides, ensuring these resources remained current and accessible.
- Remaining deeply involved in EBSS governance and programming, serving on the Advisory Council (2016-2024), Nominating Committee (2022-2023), and as Chair of the Conference Program Planning Committee (2021-2022).
- Organizing the EBSS Current Topics webinar series, which offered members a space to engage with emerging themes such as open educational resources and copyright in higher education.
Elrod has been an education librarian for over 15 years. She says her professional work is guided by a deep commitment to accessibility, diversity, and equity within the fields of education and behavioral sciences. Her teaching and research align with the focus on supporting neurodivergent learners and developing inclusive library spaces, such as the creation of a sensory-friendly study room she designed in consultation with neurodivergent students, described in a recently published article in The Reference Librarian. Since then, she has led collaborative projects surveying the experiences of neurodivergent students in physical and digital library spaces and leading a scoping review on how academic libraries support this population.
Her focus on accessibility and inclusion extends to the diversity of materials available to students and educators. As Principal Investigator (PI) on an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded grant to expand the Diverse BookFinder (DBF), she led a nationwide collaboration to strengthen access to diverse children’s and young adult (YA) literature. The DBF catalogs and analyzes pictures books featuring characters from underrepresented racial and cultural groups and through the grant, they expanded its reach and usability to include early/easy readers, chapter books, middle grade books, YA books, and graphic novels.
“Dr. Rachael Elrod has made an immense and powerful impact on the library profession, notably through her work with the Diverse BookFinder and its collection analysis tool, which is used by librarians and scholars nationally and internationally,” stated Nancy O’Brien, Chair of the EBSS Awards Committee.
DBF’s Collection Analysis Tool (CAT) allows users to audit their own children’s and YA collections. To date, nearly 3,000 libraries across the United States have used the CAT, including almost 200 academic libraries, many led by education librarians or housed in Curriculum Materials Centers. This work supports educators, librarians, and researchers in making more equitable collection decisions and ensures that students encounter stories reflecting their identities and experiences.
DBF’s influence continues to grow, inspiring subsequent research across the country. One project, for example, analyzed picture books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters, using the DBF’s framework to inform the Rainbow Book List. This study examined which identities are most frequently represented and explored intersections with race, ethnicity, and disability.
She also co-authored “Room for Improvement: Picture Books Featuring BIPOC Characters, 2015-2020” with Lisely Laboy, Dr. Krista Aronson, and Brittany Kester. Drawing on DBF data, this study received the 2024 ALA Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) David/Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award for its contribution to advancing understanding of multiculturalism in libraries.
“It feels incredibly rewarding to receive this award, and I am deeply grateful to EBSS as well as to the numerous colleagues, mentors, and collaborators who support and partnership have made this work possible,” Elrod said.