Librarians as Full Participants in Participatory Action Research

Abstract

This case study of a participatory archiving event and its resulting collaborative digital archive is used to illustrate the powerful impact librarians have within participatory action research projects. It outlines the essential roles played by the three research, metadata, and archive librarians who worked alongside university faculty, community members, and a classroom teacher to preserve the languages, literacy practices, and histories of Southern Appalachia. This results in recommendations for viewing libraries as research sites and librarians as research partners across the entire research process to better connect public institutions to the communities they serve.