Brian Flota
Humanities Librarian, Professor
- email: flotabc@jmu.edu
- phone: (540) 568-6779
- orcid: 0000-0002-2868-2942
Building: Burruss HallOffice: 016MSC: 1706
Departments: Academic Engagement Unit, Research & Education Services Department
Pronouns: He / Him / His
Liaison to:
English, Media Arts & Design (SMAD), Modern Foreign Languages
About me
After obtaining my MS in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I started working at James Madison University in 2013. In this position I co-founded the Alternative Summer Break Academic Library Internship and have collaborated with JMU Libraries Special Collections and faculty in the English Department to develop a collection of Black comic books, poetry, and prose. I have produced scholarship on comics and pulp magazine collections in libraries, alt-ac careers, post-9/11 popular music, multi-ethnic American literature, Ishmael Reed, Richard Pryor, Richard Wright, and the Beat Generation. In 2015 and 2016, I donated approximately 10,000 comic books to JMU Libraries Special Collections. Prior to my career in librarianship, I earned my PhD in English from The George Washington University, teaching literature and composition classes at the public, private, and community college level from 2000 to 2011. I am also a proud first-generation college student.
About Academic Engagement Unit
We welcome people to the Libraries and help facilitate their experience by staffing the Libraries’ buildings and supporting people on their journey of inquiry. We answer and refer questions via Ask the Library, provide instruction sessions and consultations, and leverage our expertise to develop and provide access to scholarly collections, including special collections. Departments include Access & User Services, Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, and Research & Education Services.
About Research & Education Services Department
We further JMU’s teaching, learning, and scholarship mission through our work as educators, researchers, and collections managers. Research & Education Services is the home of the Liaison Librarians.