The Kent State University at Ashtabula Library is one of three libraries in the Kent State system to receive a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the State Library of Ohio and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to fund “Celebrating Ohio Book Awards and Authors” on each campus.
The grant totaled over $1,200 with no match required. In addition to Ashtabula, the Kent and Trumbull campus libraries were also awarded grants.
Celebrating Ohio Book Awards and Authors is a collection of over 1,800 works from fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The Ashtabula project also complements Kent State University Library’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategic plan, which is committed to building an accessible and diverse collection of content and materials. A display featuring many of the 60 books Ashtabula selected has been set up at the library to showcase the campus’s new collection will run through April 30, 2022.
Many of the works featured in the campus library program and display were recommended by Kent State Ashtabula faculty and staff.
“The grant enables our library to acquire a collection of award-winning materials that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Library Director Amy Thomas. “The faculty and staff who made recommendations for our collection picked books they felt supplemented their existing course materials or were what they viewed as critical diversity, equity and inclusion titles.”
Among the included works in the Ashtabula collection are the New York Times bestseller “Hidden Figures” and “What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars” by Pulitzer Prize winner David Wood.
A complete list of works available to be checked out at the Kent State Ashtabula Library, as well as a listing of all works in the three Kent State collections, is available at www.kent.edu/ashtabula/library.