Book Reviews  925

Still, “Sense and Matter” provides the most thought-provoking chapters. It’s here that 
Brown moves from metaphysical utopias into time-bound, explicitly Black, futurisms. Her 
close readings of Octavia Butler’s Parable series and Samuel Delany’s works, simply put, as-
tound. Brown problematizes Butler’s version of utopia. Though it is religious and communal, 
she examines its biologically deterministic rootings and devotion to human superiority, con-
quest, and desire to colonize the stars. Meanwhile, she showcases how Delaney “plays with 
the lines between man, animal, and plant,” decentering human forms on a myriad of planets, 
including Earth, while suggesting that gender and biology are malleable (128). That utopia, 
even, is a thing of many-states, subject to forces beyond human control. As in earlier chapters, 
she contextualizes these examples using other science fictions of the time, making clear how 
white eugenicist thinking still defines what qualifies as human. These are the chapters where 
Brown breaks down what it means to be Black and human while showcasing the fluidity of 
Delany’s utopias, defining places in-between categorizations bound by white male dominance. 

In the end, Brown brings her theorizing home with an examination of Sun Ra, another 
musician and poet who speculated on ideas of futurity. However, this is where notions of 
human, or in-between states, fall away altogether. Brown states that, where Black women 
preachers melded in and out of touch-states and Butler and Delaney speculated on forms 
of selfhood in-and-around biological bounds, Sun Ra moves beyond that entirely into the 
“impossible,” and “complete abandonment of the very limiting paradigms of life and self” 
(159). Sun Ra devoted himself to rebelling, urging Black folks in particular to “give up your 
death!” and “rebel against the terms of being alive that would call for a beginning, middle, 
or end” (167). This is where, with Brown’s weaving, we come to the idea of utopia as cosmic 
and unending, a maelstrom of the highest form, without touch, embodiment, language, or 
any sense of self to be found.

I am thrilled about what this book does and the questions Brown raises, though my review 
hardly scratches the surface of her examinations. Regardless of your field, this is a must-read 
about Black existence and alternate states of freedom. For LIS workers interested in history 
and media, Black Utopias mirrors conversations in Black archival disciplines; it’s worth reading 
to examine the research methods, alone. And for interdisciplinary Black scholars, this book 
proves pivotal to understanding ourselves across diasporic tapestries woven through time 
and space.—Jennifer Brown, University of California, Berkeley

Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into 
Disciplinary Courses. Michael Stöpel et al., eds. Chicago, IL: Association of College and 

Research Libraries, 2020. 238p. Paperback, $65.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-
4852-1).
Michael Stöpel and a team of editors have crafted a unique celebra-
tion of faculty-librarian collaborations that highlights the relevance 
of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to 
all disciplines. This publication is a product of an AMICAL workshop 
developed to encourage faculty-librarian collaborations in the devel-
opment of courses that integrated the ACRL Framework for Information 
Literacy. AMICAL is a consortium of 29 higher education institutions 
located in 22 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and 
Central and Southern Asia. They are accredited by American Agen-



926  College & Research Libraries September 2021

cies and are members of the Association of American International Colleges and Universities 
(AAICU). Workshop participants committed to codesigning their instruction and teaching 
the course the following year. The book offers a thoughtful selection of these codesigned in-
struction sessions that demonstrate the value and impact of librarian-faculty collaborations 
in information literacy instruction. 

The book is aptly organized into three sections that take the reader through a journey from 
the initial discussions of the workshop to the development and presentation of the instruction 
sessions and lessons. Members of the AMICAL Information Literacy Committee begin the 
book with a thought-provoking analysis of the workshop survey. The chapter provides some 
very convincing evidence of the success and impact that the workshop had on instruction. The 
faculty provide some impressive testimonies, commenting on the value of the codesigning 
process and how it revolutionized their planning (24), and significantly improved student 
learning, student engagement, and the quality of the assignments. They credit this to the li-
brary input, in spite of the fact that the library nongraded assignments “didn’t carry as much 
weight” (25) to the students. 

Starting the book in this way is very clever and effective. The chapter presents these types 
of collaborative experiences as rewarding and attainable at a time when many instruction li-
brarians are struggling with how to apply the ACRL Framework to their discipline, and how 
to discuss information literacy with their faculty. The book begins by making this somewhat 
difficult collaborative process seem much more achievable and attractive. 

In the second chapter, 11 case studies describe each codesign experience in detail. Most 
of the courses were high-enrollment, introductory, or first-year experience courses selected 
for maximum impact. Some courses had very prominent information literacy requirements 
and clearly stated this in their objective; others had none. A general education History Course 
at AL Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, stated as one of its course objectives that 
students understand “the ways in which reviews and interpretations of academic books vary 
according to the context” (38), a clear articulation of the ACRL frame Authority Is Constructed 
and Contextual, whereas a marketing course at the American University of Paris, France, only 
required students to conduct their own primary data gathering and never made any use of 
customer research data until it was introduced through the library instruction (46).

The detail that the contributors have included in these case studies is remarkable. Each 
study explores the discussions and issues that were involved in the course selection and objec-
tives. The teams delve into the learning outcomes of the course and grapple with identifying 
the “threshold concepts” that correspond to the ACRL frames. Although these case studies 
expose some of the problems that librarians encounter as they try to collaborate with the 
faculty, the studies ingeniously provide a model of how the librarian and faculty can design 
and teach in a wholesome collaborative way that enriches student learning. Working with 
faculty to develop learning outcomes and identify related information literacy frames ensured 
that there were no disputes when assigning teaching time to the library portion of the class. 
It’s clear that the codesign process allowed time for faculty to understand and appreciate the 
involvement of the librarian. In most cases, the librarian taught several class sessions in ad-
dition to providing individual and group assessment and feedback to the students.

The third chapter includes lesson plans designed for easy use and adaptation. The editors 
provide information on the preparation and planning needed for the lesson to be successful 
and include a “Context” section that gives librarians the information they need to adapt the 



Book Reviews  927

lesson to a specific discipline. Selected lessons introduce levels of active learning that were 
previously missing in the courses, what one of the case studies calls “Doing Content.” In this 
lesson, students were learning how to connect marketing to information literacy by conduct-
ing surveys, presenting marketing plans, and serving as critics for each other’s pitches. At 
each stage, students were learning and using information literacy concepts from the ACRL 
Framework. This chapter also incorporates a plethora of assessment strategies. Although 
many of the librarians did not assign graded assessments, they found other creative ways to 
evaluate student learning. In the final project of a history course, for example, students were 
given the task of revising the syllabus and recommending revisions to their chosen section 
of the course. They were also asked to integrate one or two information literacy frames into 
the sections effectively infusing information literacy concepts throughout the lesson and the 
course. This is the ultimate goal of these faculty-librarian collaborations.

The editors clearly illustrate that, for these types of collaborations to thrive, they need 
to be supported and integrated into the academic department and the university. The pur-
pose of the workshops was to support and provide an opportunity for faculty and librarians 
to codesign their instruction and improve student learning. Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: 
Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into Disciplinary Courses serves as evidence that 
the workshops were successful. The book documents a wealth of experience and provides 
examples that teaching librarians and staff will want to continue digging into as they explore 
new and engaging ways to introduce and teach the ACRL Framework in the disciplines.—Lorna 
M. Dawes, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Claire McGuinness. The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook. London, UK: Facet Publish-
ing, 2021. 279p. Paper, $76.33 (ISBN 978-1-78330-462-2).

In The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook, Claire McGuinness, 
faculty in the School of Information and Communication Studies at 
the University College Dublin, offers comprehensive insights into 
different topics that are relevant to instruction librarians. These topics 
include the changing context of information literacy, social media and 
the rise of “fake news,” digital learning, and professional identity. 
The author also discusses the value of an articulated personal teach-
ing philosophy, the importance of self-analysis and self-reflection, 
developing a teaching role as a new instruction librarian, and leader-
ship and advocacy skills. McGuinness’ academic narrative style, set 
to small black font, is supported by a wide array of citations and data 
from reports and surveys. In addition, each topic offers “personal 
reflection points” along with figures and tables that highlight impor-
tant details. The chapters conclude with exercises inviting readers to 

reflect on the content covered through different hypothetical scenarios. 
McGuinness starts by addressing issues and trends surrounding information literacy. 

She invites readers to move from thinking about information literacy as an operational skill 
to a competency that requires problem-solving acumen and critical thinking capacities. Be-
cause ideas about information literacy are always evolving, the author refers to a “literary 
continuum” that encompasses different skills and competencies. Digital literacy, for example, 
includes multiple skills related to accessing different media to generating new content within