Dr. Rachel Harris

I am a librarian, educator, researcher. As the Scholarly Publishing Librarian, I lead and coordinate our open educational resources program and support the growth and development of our open scholarship services. As a researcher, I engage in publishing history through the intersections between art history and book history. Finally, as an educator, I believe in increasing access and diversifying our approach to inclusivity in higher education.

Education

Research Interests and Expertise

> Print culture: illustration, interpictoriality, advertisement, storyboards

> History of the book: text-image interactions, children’s books, artists’ books

> Fairy tales: images, narrative variation, characters, publishing history

> Issues of age, gender, race, as well as animality

> EDID: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization in libraries and book studies

Courses taught

GPTK 704: Seminar in University Teaching for Graduate Students – Fine Arts Section, CTL, Concordia University, Winter terms 2016-2020

ARTH 396: Art and Culture: Artists Books, Art History Dep., Concordia University, Summer term 2019 

Select librarian-led workshops

General Workshops

GPLL266: Interdisciplinary Scholarship: Advanced Bibliographic Searching

GPLL263: Peer Review Roundtable

GPL283: Contributors of Literate Citizenship in an Age of Phony Information

GPDI279: Taking Control of Your Academic Profile Online

OER Workshops and Events

Copyright module within the Thesis Boost

Past Workshops 

I developed and offered subject-specific workshops across disciplines in Cinema, Music, Dance, Political Science, Government Information, Philosophy, and Women's Studies. I have updated and offered general library workshops such as The Way of APA, Zotero, Researching in the Library.

Open Educational Resources (OER)  - as OER Program lead

Open Access at Concordia  - as a member of the Scholarly Communications Committee

ORCID at Concordia - as member of ORCID Project Team

Spectrum - as lead Spectrum Editor

Copyright - as a member of the Copyright Committee

Peer-reviewed

Co-author with Jessica Lange and Pierre Lasou – “Plan S and Open Access (OA) in Quebec: What Does the Revised FRQ OA Policy Mean for Researchers?”EBLIB 19, no. 1 (2024): 35–57. Accepted manuscript and French translation available in Spectrum.

Author – “Imprints from Book Illustration and Advertisement: Eco-Sources in Walt Disney’s Sleeping Heroine Films,” Marvels & Tales 36, no. 2 (2022): 258–83.

Editorship and reviewing contributions (selected)

Guest editor with JP Mongeau – “Special Issue: Disrupting Whiteness Within Special Collections, Bibliography, and Book History,” Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, forthcoming 2026.

Book review editor –  “Book Reviews.” Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada 57- (2019-present).

Associate editor with editor François Dansereau – “Encounters: New Horizons in Audio and Visual Collections,” MOQDOC, 2020.

Conference Papers and Panels (selected)

“The Book Reborn as Imprints from Our Climate Crisis in Early Disney Fairy Films” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, York University, May 29, 2023).

“A Dance Between Text and Image: The Pictorial Over the Textual in Walter Crane’s Fairy Tale,” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada, Virtual, Nov. 4, 2022)

“Together and Apart Over Time: Text and Image in the Coloured Fairy Books Series” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Virtual, May 17, 2022).

“Finding Another Country in the Stacks: Decentering Whiteness within Special Collections, Bibliography and Book History” (co-moderated with JP Mongeau the keynote panel featuring presentations and discussion with Hannah Claus, David Fernández, Désirée Rochat at the Annual Conference of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Virtual, May 16, 2022). 

“Expanding Research Possibilities for Visual-Information Seekers with a Renewable Workaround” (Paper presented at Concordia Library Research Forum, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, April 26/7, 2022).

“Beyond the Textual: Visual Information Systems That Help and Hinder” (co-moderated and presented with Joan E. Beaudoin a roundtable presentation and discussion at ARLIS/NA, Annual Conference, Chicago, United States, April 8, 2022).

“The Human and Animal Imprint in Walt Disney’s Fairy-Tale Films” (paper presented in the Fairy Tales and Folk Narratives Division at the Annual Conference of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, accepted for the 2020 conference, which was cancelled because of COVID-19, presented virtually, in 2021).

“Book Illustrations and their Contextual Difficulties in the Era of Mass Digitization” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada, Waterloo, ON, Oct. 25-27, 2018)

“Part I: Art Histories and Digital Humanities: Knowledge Development and Digital Technologies; Part II Digital collections and large corpuses” (digital art history panels co-organized with Felicity Tayler, Corina MacDonald, and Samuel Gaudreau-Lalande at the Annual Conference of the Universities Art Association of Canada, Waterloo, ON, Oct. 25-27, 2018).

“Minding the Gap for Online Book Illustrations” (paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Electronic Literature Organization, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Aug. 13-17, 2018).

Guest Presentations and Lectures (selected)

“Open Access Publishing Landscape” (presentation for the Open Science Working Group, Concordia University, Sept. 11, 2023).

“OERs in Action: Promoting Open Education Resources on Campus - Concordia University” (presented with Sarah Fakrhi at Open Education Talks, University of Calgary, Virtual, March 29, 2023). 

“Demystifying Open Educational Resources in Higher Education” (guest presentation at Ped Day, Vanier College, October 12, 2022). 

“Accountable versus Safe Spaces: A Librarian’s Perspective” (guest presentation at the Global Emergent Media Lab. Virtual. Oct. 29, 2021).

“Brown Bag Morning Tea: Insights: What Makes Decolonizing Libraries Difficult?” (guest presentation at the Brown Bag Series. Concordia University Library, Aug. 5, 2021).

 “ARLIS/NA: Moderator Webinar” (guest presentation for a pre-conference professional development session at the Annual Conference of the Art Library’s Association of North America, Virtual, May 3, 2021).

“Writing as Solution: April – Bring your Brown to Work” (guest presentation for Fourth POC Connections and Solutions Series, Diversity Committee of the Art Library’s Association of North America, Virtual. Apr. 30, 2021).

Open Access Repositories

Current

Concordia University Open Science Working Group Member

Open Access Working Group Member

PBUQ: Groupe de travail pour l’implantation d’un pilote de soutien à la publication de manuels de cours libres, membre

Réseau de leaders des REL, membre

OER Advisory Committee Member

CARL 2022-2024 Open Education Working Group Member

President’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism: Faculty Development Subcommittee Member

CUFA Council Alternate Member (2021-2024)

Membership

Art Libraries Association of North America (ARLIS/NA)

ARLIS/NA Montreal Ottawa Quebec MOQ Chapter

C-ARLIS/NA Canada Chapter

Bibliographical Society of Canada (BSC)

Research Groups: Global Emergent Media (as member)

International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA)

Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) 2015-2016, 2018-2019, 2022-2023

L'association des bibliothécaire du Québec Library Association 2017-2018