Brittni Ballard, Learning Technologies Librarian

Higher education, eLearning, and disability justice

 About

Hello! My name's Brittni and my pronouns are she / hers. I'm an academic librarian with a background in K12 education, office administration, video game development, technology support, and college student supervision.

I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary English Education from Purdue University and Master of Library and Information Science from University of Maryland. In 2019, I was hired as Learning Technologies and subject specialist for Educational Technology and Literacy at Towson University.

My service and scholarship focus on user experience, critical digital pedagogy, disability advocacy, and web accessibility. All research interests are grounded in lived experience teaching, learning, connecting, and collaborating, often remotely, as a first generation disabled graduate student and library worker. Specifically:

I explore how to thrive in higher education by researching with and for disabled students, scholars, and workers. I am fascinated by values, behaviors, and points of conflict between them. I pursue a world of inclusion, not accommodation. I dream of access that is mutual, of and for the collective—not individually instigated. In that vein, I practice crip time, rest as resistance, imagination, emergent strategy, pleasure activism, active listening, body trust, and genuine accountability (self reflection, apology, repair, changed behavior). My scholarship deals in lived experiences of chronic illness and disability, with arguments strengthened by stories of past and present ableism and hope sustained by stories of present and future joy.

2024 #BookShelfie in Review

A grid of 18 diverse book covers. Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros; Imagination: A Manifesto - Ruha Benjamin; Professional Troublemaker - Luvvie Ajayi Jones; Bookshops & Bonedust - Travis Baldree; See No Stranger - Valarie Kaur; Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros; Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie; The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie; Leading from the Margins - Mary Dana Hinton; The Bookshop on the Corner - Jenny Colgan Weyward - Emilia Hart; The ABC Murders - Agatha Christie; Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan; The Curious Secrets of Yesterday - Namrata Patel; The London Séance Society - Sarah Penner; The Bookshop on the Shore - Jenny Colgan; The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki; The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - James McBride.

I read 36 ebooks in 2024, a personal best! My most read genres were: fantasy, historical, contemporary, mystery, and LGBTQIA.  I read multiple books by authors Agatha Christie, Kate Khavari, and TJ Klune. Nineteen of the books read... were part of series! What can I say, I hate endings 😆

Collage of 18 book covers. The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy - Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber; Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement - Ashley Shew; Days at the Morisaki Bookshop A Novel - Satoshi Yagisawa ; A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons - Kate Khavari; Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What is Human in a World of Machines - Joy Buolamwini; Percy Jackson and the Olympians Wrath of the Triple Goddess - Rick Riordan; A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality - Kate Khavari; More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa; When Women Were Dragons A Novel - Kelly Barnhill; The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks - Shauna Robinson; The Naturalist Society - Carrie Vaughn; Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times - Katherine May; Rest is Resistance A Manifesto - Tricia Hersey ; In the Lives of Puppets - TJ Klune.

Access

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Learn on, game long, and prosper!

Are you attending ACRL 2025 in Minneapolis or ALA 2025 in Philadelphia? If so, message me in the conference event app and we can meet in person!