Faculty Profile
Education Librarian
Assistant University Librarian
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
Publications:
- 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). 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/
- Laboy, L., Elrod, R., Aronson, K., & Kester, B. (2022). Room for improvement: Picture books featuring BIPOC characters, 2015-2020. Publishing Research Quarterly. https://rdcu.be/c1DVl
- Reed, K., Kester, B., Kaufmann, K., Homol, L., & Crampsie, C. (2022). Crisis librarianship: An examination of online librarianship roles in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 48(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102530
- Hosbach, A. & Kester, B. (2022). Assessing the needs of children’s and young adult collections for academic libraries. 2021 Charleston Conference Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12734740
- Israel, M., Kester B., Williams, J., & Ray, M. (2022). Equity and inclusion through UDL in K-6 computer science education: Perspectives of teachers and instructional coaches. ACM Transactions on Computing Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/3513138
- Elrod, R., Kester, B., & Spears, L. (2021). Library renovations and student behaviors: A longitudinal case study. Journal of Learning Spaces, 10(3). http://libjournal.uncg.edu/jls/article/view/2108
- Kester, B. (2021). Diversifying an academic library’s children’s and young adult collection: A case study from the University of Florida’s Education Library. Collection Management. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2021.1910888
Recent Presentations:
- 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.
- Elrod, R., Kester, B., Koppitch, M., & Laboy, L. (Oct. 2023). Conducting a diversity audit: School libraries and the Diverse BookFinder. IDEALab Presentation at the American Association of School Librarian (AASL) 2023 National Conference. Tampa Bay, FL