Limestone Director of Library Gives Presentation at Annual Conference

Limestone University's Director of the Library, Lizah Ismail, recently presented at the 2023 South Carolina Library Association Conference panel session entitled "Making OER Possible.”

The panel on October 19 highlighted efforts to advance the adoption of Open Educational Resources at their institutions and how this has been achieved. Open Educational Resources are seen as one option to address issues pertaining to affordable learning for college students across the nation.

Ismail’s presentation, “Affordable Learning Awareness from the Ground Up: Limestone University’s Affordable Learning Information Campaign,” was one of five presentations in the panel session, featuring members of the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) Affordable Learning Committee. Other panelists included librarians from USC Upstate, Clemson, Coastal Carolina, and Midlands Technical College.

The South Carolina Library Association (SCLA) is a state chapter of the American Library Association and an affiliate of the Southeastern Library Association. The association is made up of librarians from South Carolina who are dedicated to providing innovative services and promoting libraries and intellectual freedom to the citizens and students within the state.

This year’s three-day SCLA conference theme was “Libraries Make the Impossible POSSIBLE!” and it was held at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. The conference celebrated “the unique, creative, dynamic, and personal ways libraries have and will ‘Make the Impossible Possible’ for everyone.”

In addition to her role as the Director of the Library, Ismail is also an Associate Professor at Limestone. She was a member of the PASCAL Board of Directors and served on the Editorial Board of the Association of College and Research Libraries (SCRL). She currently serves on the ACRL's New Roles and Changing Landscapes Committee and on PASCAL's Affordable Learning Committee. Ismail has presented her research on non-traditional students, Net Generation students, and the use of Course Management Software in library services at several conferences. She has also published on these topics. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and History from Indiana University in Bloomington. She then went on to earn a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her Master of Arts in Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.