Faculty Profile
Education Librarian
Assistant University Librarian
Education Library Room 1501
352-273-2793
brittany.kester@ufl.edu
Brittany Kester (She/Her/Hers)
Education:
Ph.D. University of Florida, Curriculum & Instruction, in progress
MLIS Florida State University, Library and Information Science
B.S. University of Central Florida, Elementary Education
Research Interests: Information literacy, Universal Design for Learning, culturally responsive pedagogy and teaching, and children’s 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; Schools, Society, and Culture; 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 Scholarship:
- Kester, B., Coady, M., & de Farber, B. (In Press). 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.
- 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
- Kester, B. & Campbell, L. (Apr. 2022). Designing an accessible user experience study for undergraduate students with disabilities. Paper Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2022 Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA.
- 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
- Raber, E., Bradley, K., Burns, E. Cowley-Pettis, K., & Kester, B. (Jun. 2021). Diverse children’s literature in K-12 schools: Making mirrors, windows, and glass doors visible. Presented at the American Library Association (ALA) 2021 Annual Conference. Virtual.
- Israel, M., Ray, M., Kester B., & Williams, J. (Apr. 2021). Equity and inclusion through UDL in K-6 Computer Science Education: Perspectives of teachers and instructional coaches. Paper Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2021 Annual Meeting. Virtual.
- 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. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2021.1910888.
- Elrod, R. & Kester, B. (2020). Diverse BookFinder: BIPOC collection development for children’s and young adult collections. C&RL News, 81(10), 481-485. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.81.10.481