Brief Overview of Project

The partnership: Dr. Eva Revitt, MacEwan's Dr. Jennifer Long (Anthropology), and the students from Ethnographic Research Methods, Fall 2023 course, and Applied (Design) Anthropology, Winter 2024 course.

Project overview: At MacEwan University, as in most post-secondary institutions, tensions exist around who gets to access the library’s resources and questions exist concerning how to make these services accessible to the entire student body and surrounding community. 

Important contextualizing points for consideration:

• All Edmonton Libraries have a mandate to provide public access to their resources. However, there are many competing responsibilities, wants, and needs to Library's located in post-secondary institutions and their inevitable student-centred focus. 

  • Read more about the John L. Haar Library’s (the JLH Library’s) mission and vision here. It’s important.

• It is important to consider who constitutes the JLH Library’s community. Read more about MacEwan’s Strategic Vision as a downtown urban university here. 

Research projects in a nutshell (see pages for more detail)

In Fall 2023, students in the ethnographic research methods course were asked to explore and provide feedback on the Library website (its accessibility and student, staff, and faculty perspectives on how the use it). 

In Winter 2024, students in an applied anthropology class learned design anthropology methods to conduct design sprints and build tools (to collect further student feedback) on the way community is experienced in the Library space on campus.