Cooking up engagement during a pandemic: The international Great Rare Books Bake Off between the Penn State and Monash University Libraries

In July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Monash University Library in Melbourne, Australia, and Penn State Libraries Pennsylvania, USA, leveraged their previously established international sister-library partnership to host a virtual engagement event focused on promoting selected special collections at both institutions. The Monash–Penn Great Rare Books Bake Off, friendly competition collaboratively developed by two academic libraries, engaged institutions’ communities with resources inviting participants bake featured recipes from post evidence of experiences social media platforms. addition awareness respective collections, primary goal collaborative project was offer local an enjoyable creative outlet difficult time. This illustrative case study describes how institutions planned, executed, assessed project.