Colleagues, I trust you're well. As you recall, the HBCU Library Alliance and the Digital Library Federation (DLF) partnered in October 2017 to host the DLF Unconference. Follow this link https://diglib.org/hbcu-library-alliance for "Common Mission, Common Ground, " a brief final report on DLF's collaboration with the HBCU Library Alliance to organize the Unconference. Following the Unconference and based on continuing interest in the developing partnership, the Digital Library Federation and the HBCU Library Alliance submitted a $249,000 proposal to IMLS for The HBCU Library Alliance + Digital Library Federation Authenticity Project: Fostering Dynamic Fellowship Cohorts, Strategic Organizational Partnerships, & Authentic Community. Bethany Nowviskie, Executive Director, Digital Library Federation, informed me that the Digital Library Federation will receive a FY2018 Laura Bush 21st Century Library Program award for the project! Exciting news! Bethany and I will direct the project. Of course, we are grateful to IMLS for funding this project that will create continued opportunities for the HBCU Library Alliance and the Digital Library Federation to strengthen community and expand and deepen the concept of "authentic partnership." Thanks to Bethany Nowviskie and the DLF team, and thanks to the HBCU Library Alliance team for their combined efforts to develop the Authenticity project. Project Design The Authenticity Project has the following goals: 1) to provide DLF Forum travel bursaries that will enable practitioners from HBCU Library Alliance member libraries to intersect with and enrich the broader digital library community, especially at the culmination of a process in which the Forum itself has been transformed from a pure tech conference to one deeply invested in the social implications of library technology and its need to be under the greater control of historically disenfranchised groups; 2) to establish lasting and reciprocal mentoring relationships among our 45 Fellows and more senior librarians and technologists across both of our organizations; 3) to encourage DLF members to engage with HBCU Library Alliance activities, by offering opportunities to learn from project reports by future HBCU Fellows at the Forum and by creating networking opportunities that foster authentic personal relationships; 4) to enable HBCU Library Alliance leadership-staff and representatives of the board of directors-to attend the Forum and allied meetings for mutual exchange and strategic planning between our organizations (with DLF leadership travel to Alliance meetings contributed in kind); and 5) to deepen and enrich inter-institutional exchange among our members by incentivizing collaboration among DLF and HBCU Library Alliance member libraries through competitively-awarded Fellow-led micro-grants for joint projects of strategic importance to both organizations. The project we propose therefore takes seriously the notion of promoting authentic engagement at multiple levels: interpersonal, institutional, and membership-organizational. This grant would support 3 cohorts of Authenticity Project Fellows (15 in each program year, from 2019-2021) and engage between 30 and 90 seasoned professionals as mentors (between 75 and 135 core participants in all). Fellows will come from HBCU libraries and be recruited and selected by a joint committee of Alliance and DLF advisory board members and leaders. I'll share more formal details as they are received. Colleagues, this is great news! Respectfully, Sandra SANDRA M. PHOENIX HBCU Library Alliance Executive Director Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library 111 James P. Brawley Drive SW Atlanta, GA 30314 404-978-2118 (office) 404-702-5854 (cell) http://www.hbculibraries.org/ sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org%3cmailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org>> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. The 8th HBCU Library Alliance Membership Meeting is scheduled at the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library (GA) on Sunday through Tuesday, October 7-9. Click here<http://www.hbculibraries.org/meeting-2018-info.html> for registration and session details. Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/HBCULibAlliance Check out "PULSE!" The HBCU Library Alliance's News Source! - https://hbculibraryalliance.wordpress.com/