International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 9

International Journal of Open Educational Resources • Vol. 2, No. 1 • Fall 2019 / Winter 2020
Letter from the Editors
Samantha Cook is the Instructional Design Librarian at the University
of Wyoming Libraries. Samantha received her Bachelors in
History from the University of Wyoming and Masters of Science
in Information Studies from the University of Texas. Her current
research projects are Universal Design for Learning in library instruction,
libraries and centers for teaching and learning, accessible
library and archival practices for people with invisible disabilities,
and OER initiatives.
Kristina Clement is the Student Success Librarian for the University
of Wyoming Libraries. Kristina received a Master’s of Arts in
Italian Literature from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s
of Information Science from the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
Her current research interests include Universal Design for
Learning in library instruction, outreach to transfer students and
first-generation students, instructional assessment, Open Educational
Resources (OER), and user experience.
Hilary Baribeau is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University
of Wyoming Libraries. Hilary received her BA from Carnegie
Mellon University and her MLIS from the Pratt Institute. Her
research areas are in scholarly communications, open access, and
open educational resources. She currently manages the University
of Wyoming’s OER grant initiative.
Dear Readers of IJOER,
As early-career librarians, we were thrilled to accept the invitation to guest
edit a special issue of IJOER about Libraries & OER. This issue was very
important for us because libraries are often the leaders of OER initiatives
on campus. When we started our call for proposals we were hopeful that we
would get enough submissions for one issue but were delighted to receive a much
larger number of proposals than originally expected--nearly 50 paper proposals.
Because of the significant interest in this special issue, we chose to do a double
issue to properly showcase the ways in which libraries and librarians are critical
players in the open education landscape. The papers in the first volume of the special
issue are case studies that illustrate how different institutions create, sustain,
and assess their OER programs.
One of the reasons OER initiatives often begin with libraries is that librarians are
uniquely positioned to support the creation, adaption, and adoption of OER in
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doi: 10.18278/ijoer.2.1.1