Heather Ball

Critical Pedagogy Librarian for Student Success and Assoc. Professor

PhD Candidate in Information Science, University at Buffalo SUNY, New York [2023]MLS and Dual Certificate in Archives and Preservation, Queens College, New York 2009MLitt Medieval Studies, University of Glasgow, Scotland 2006BA Medieval Studies, New York University, New York 2005

Professor Ball is the Critical Pedagogy Librarian for Student Success and Asst. Professor at St. John's University in the University Libraries. Before coming to St. John’s, she held several concurrent jobs: Global Network Research Manager for an advertising agency, Cataloger and Metadata Assistant for the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Coordinating Project Scholar as well as Website Project Manager for Livingstone Online. These experiences and differing roles helped to expose her to diverse projects and teams that could inspire and percolate ideas for future work. She is currently working on several digital humanities projects as well as information literacy projects, and has spoken at conferences and published over the years relating to inclusivity, libraries, digital humanities, and medieval studies.

Research interests include but are not limited to: diversity, equity, and inclusion in learning environments; information literacy instruction; digital humanities; qualitative and quantitative assessments; XML/TEI encoding; 12th-century medieval Britain; Geoffrey of Monmouth; Alexander Hamilton.

DNY 1000C, Hamilton’s New York, undergraduate
LIS271/273, Graphic Novels and Libraries, graduate
LIS221, Planning and Delivering Information Literacy Programs, graduate

Peer-Reviewed Publications
Ball, H. F., Simpson, K., & Burke, L. (2023). Open Praxis?: Navigating the Gendered Victorian Archive through Digitized Collections. Literature Compass(forthcoming)

Ball, H. F., & Simpson, K. (2022). Editing to Avoid Exclusion: Understanding the Subjective Power Dichotomies in Scholarly Editing. Scholarly Editing

Fuchs, C., & Ball, H. F. (2021). Making Connections for Student Success: Mapping Concept Commonalities in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, the CCSS, and the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. College and Undergraduate Libraries, 28 (2).

Ball, H. F., & Fuchs, C. (2020). Dissertation Deep Dive: Taking the Plunge to Support Graduate Students. Urban Library Journal, 25 (2).

Ball, H. F., & Simpson, K. (2019). Project Manuals as Zones of Engagement: Working Across Disciplines in the Digital Project. DH+Lib

Ball, H. (2011). Limitations and Ethical Implications of Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts. Library Student Journal (Vol. 6)

Ball, H. (2009). Enhancing Archives Curricula to Incorporate Digital Technologies. Metropolitan Archivist (Vol. 14, No. 1)

Book Chapters
Ball, H. (2022). “Meeting Students in the Middle: Using Social Media Platforms and Contemporary Music Genres to Teach Critical Reading Skills for Primary Sources” in Teaching Critical Reading Skills: Strategies for Academic Librarians, ACRL Press

Ball, H. (2021). “Promoting Student Authorship and Research Skills through Campus Collaborations” in The Scholarly Communications Cookbook, ACRL Press

2022: Engaging to Empower: Using Student Sentiment and Voices to Implement a Holistic Approach in Creating an Inclusive and Anti-Racist Library, World Library and Information Conference: IFLA, Dublin Ireland (poster)

2022: Stepping Up to the Plate: Creating Opportunities within the Library to Foster and Promote Anti-Racist Practices for Student Comfort, Library Instruction Tennessee (LIT) Conference: virtual (presentation)

2022 (accepted): Where Media Literacy and Civic Literacy Can Unite: Engaging the Progressively Inclusive Representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with IL Instruction to Help Students Understand Their Own Civic Engagement, Information Literacy Summit: College of DuPage and DePaul University Libraries, virtual (co-presentation)

2022: “It Always Seems Impossible Until it is Done”: How We Can Implement Equitable and Inclusive Practices into Our Encoding Standards to Meet the Needs of our Changing Social and Cultural Environments, Digital Humanities Collaborative of North Carolina Institute: virtual (presentation)

2022: <term type="for_everyone">: Reviewing Digital Humanities’ Encoding Practices from an Information Science Perspective to Reflect and Sustain Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tenets, Florida Digital Humanities Consortium Conference: St. Augustine, Florida (presentation)

2021 (invited co-keynote speaker): Mapping K-16 Connections for Student Success: Information Literacy Across the Educational Spectrum, ACRL of NY Chapter: virtual (co-presentation)

2021 (invited co-keynote speaker): We Need to Talk: Framing Conversations Among K-16 Librarians for Student Success, Long Island School Library Systems’ Regional Institute: Eastern Suffolk BOCES, virtual (co-presentation)

2021: Making Connections for Student Success: Mapping Concept Commonalities in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, the CCSS, and the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner, PILLARS Symposium: Empire State Library Network, virtual (co-presentation)

2021: “The Only Truth is Music”: Using Hip Hop in Instruction to Illuminate the Power of Voice through Advocacy, Critical Pedagogy Symposium: New York University Libraries and METRO (presentation

2019: Connecting Course Content to the Student Perspective: Incorporating Digital Tools and Media to More Deeply Engage Students, Teaching Narratives Symposium: New York, NY (presentation)

2019: Dissertation Deep Dive: Taking the Plunge to Support Graduate Students, LACUNY Institute: New York, NY (co-presentation)

2019: Erasing Disciplinary Lines and Unifying Scholars Through Code: How a Medievalist Librarian and Postcolonial Literary Scholar Work in Tandem on Victorian Explorer David Livingstone's Expeditionary Writings, Northeast Victorian Studies Conference: Amherst, MA (presentation)

2018: Victorian Expeditionary Literature, the Digital Archive, and Patterns of Editing and Publishing, British Association for Victorian Studies Conference: Exeter, England (co-presentation)

2018: Calculating Canons: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Use of Literature as a Guise for Political Discourse, Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies: St. Louis, MO (presentation)

2018: Fetch, Heel, Sit, Stay: Old Dog/New Dog Mentoring Perspectives, Teaching Professor Conference: Atlanta, GA (co-presentation)

2014: Collaboration to the Core: The Case of the Livingstone Project, National Endowment for the Humanities: Washington DC (co-presentation)

2012: Hypothetical Historians: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Authorial Status Reclassified, International Congress on Medieval Studies: Kalamazoo, MI (presentation)

2010: The Power of the Written Word: Textual Authority and its Veracity in the Middle Ages, Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium: University of Cambridge (presentation)

2010: The Alternate Medieval Medium: Experiencing Medieval Manuscripts through Digital Technologies, The Past’s Digital Presence Graduate Symposium: Yale University (presentation, panel)

2009: How Do We Keep Archives Viable and Digital Surrogates Sustainable?, Society of American Archivists: University of Austin, Texas (poster)

2009: The Ethics of Collection Digitization, International Congress on Medieval Studies: Kalamazoo, MI (presentation, panel)

Biology; Chemistry; Computer and Data Sciences; Information Sciences; Library and Information Studies; Mathematics