Faculty Profile
Education Librarian
Associate University Librarian
Affiliate Faculty College of Education
Education Library Room 1501
352-273-2793
brittany.kester@ufl.edu
Brittany Kester, Ph.D. (She/Her/Hers)
Education:
Ph.D. University of Florida, Curriculum & Instruction, Language & Literacy Education
MLIS Florida State University, Library and Information Science
B.S. University of Central Florida, Elementary Education
Research Interests: Information literacy, accessibility and inclusive pedagogies, K-12 educational research, and children’s and young adult literature
Subject Specialist for Art Education; Children’s Literature; Computer Science Education; Curriculum, Teaching, & Teacher Education; Early Childhood Studies; Educational Technology; Elementary Education; English Education; ESOL/Bilingual Education; Mathematics Education; Reading and Literacy Education; Teachers, Schools, and Society; Science Education; Social Studies Education; Special Education; Statistics Education; Teacher Leadership for School Improvement.
Grant Activities:
- Co-PI – Middle Grade and Young Adult Books with Black, Indigenous People and People of Color: Where are They?
- Team Member – Reanimating African American Oral Histories of the Gulf South: Tailoring Education and Research through Natural Language Understanding
- Co-PI – Bilingual Children’s Books: Bridging Cultural Gaps with Literature
- Co-PI – Decolonizing the Children’s Literature Archives: Multicultural Picture Books
- PI – The Coral Way Bilingual Experiment Digital Collection (1961 to 1966)
- Co-PI – Full STEAM Ahead: Mixed Reality Laptops @ Education
- Team Member – Fabrication Technologies Supporting Student Coursework
- Team Member – Education Library Tech Upgrade
Recent Publications:
- Kester, B., & Wang, X. (In Press). Information literacy experiences: A conversation between an international student and an education librarian. Journal of New Librarianship.
- Bjartmarsdóttir, J. B., Kester, B., Guðmundsdóttir, B. G. & Bjarnadóttir, R. (2025). School-based universal mental health literacy curricula for K-12 education: A scoping review protocol. Nordic Journal of Systematic Reviews in Education, 3, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.23865/njsre.v3.6736
- Campbell, L., & Kester, B. (2024). Ready for it? Ensuring web content accessibility in libraries. LibTech Insights (LTI). https://www.choice360.org/libtech-insight/ready-for-it-ensuring-web-content-accessibility-in-libraries/
- Elrod, R., Koppitch, M., Laboy, L., & Kester, B. (2024). Mind the gaps: Exploring diversity in school library collections. Knowledge Quest, 52(4), 46-52.
- Abramowitz, B., Ennes, M., Kester, B., & Antonenko, P. (2024). Scientist-school STEM partnerships through outreach: A systematic review. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-024-10445-7
- Kester, B., Coady, M., & de Farber, B. (2023). The Coral Way “experiment”: Building an archive to unravel the beginnings of the first publicly funded Spanish-English dual language program in the United States. US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal, 7, 38-68. https://doi.org/10.7560/OHJ703
- Campbell, L., & Kester, B. (2023). Getting started with accessible user experience (UX) research: Why to include students with disabilities in UX research. LibTech Insights (LTI). https://www.choice360.org/libtech-insight/getting-started-with-accessible-user-experience-ux-research/
- Campbell, L., & Kester, B. (2023). Centering students with disabilities: An accessible user experience study of a library research guide. Weave: Journal of Library User Experience, 6(1). https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/weaveux/article/id/1067/
Recent Presentations:
- Kester, B., Hines, A., & Elrod, R. (May 2025). Discovering children’s and YA books: Insights from a large-scale, multi-year grant project. Poster Presentation at the Florida Library Association (FLA) 2025 Annual Conference. Orlando, FL.
- Kester. B., & Koppitch, M. (Nov. 2024). Supporting diversity in school and classroom libraries: Using the Diverse BookFinder to evaluate book collections. Presentation at National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) 2024 Annual Convention. Boston, MA.
- Kester, B., & Hines, A. (Oct. 2024) Square peg in a round hole?: Navigating systematic review requests beyond the health sciences. Presentation at the Florida Association of College & Research Libraries (FACRL) 2024 Annual Conference. Virtual.
- Bjartmarsdóttir, J. B., Kester, B. [presenters], Bjarnadóttir, R., Guðmundsdóttir, B. G. [contributors]. (Oct. 2024). School-based universal mental health literacy curricula for k-12 education: Preliminary results of a scoping review. Presentation at líf og heil 2024: Líf-og heilbrigðisvísindaráðstefnan (Life and Health 2024: The Biomedical and Health Sciences Conference). Reykjavik, Iceland.
- Kester, B., Bjartmarsdóttir, J. B. [presenters], Bjarnadóttir, R., & Guðmundsdóttir, B. G. [contributors]. (Sept. 2024). School-based universal mental health literacy curricula for K-12 education: Inclusion, equity, and access. Presentation at Menntakvik 2024. (Annual Icelandic Conference in Educational Sciences 2024). Reykjavik, Iceland.
- Campbell, L., Kester, B. [presenters], Laboy, L., Santamaria-Wheeler, L., & Aronson, K. [contributors]. (Jun.-Jul. 2024). Collaborating with graphic design students to create an accessible brand identity. Poster Presentation at the American Library Association (ALA) 2024 Annual Conference. San Diego, CA.