Home People in the News

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

C&RL News, January 2007
Vol. 68, No. 1

by Ann-Christe Galloway

William Black, associate professor and administrative services librarian at Middle Tennessee State University, has received the Francis Neel Cheney Award for significant contributions to the world of books and librarianship. Recognition is granted to an individual who has contributed in a notable way through writing, editing, programming, or teaching that encourages reading and an appreciation of books.

Sharon Parente, assistant professor and team leader for reference and instructional services at Middle Tennessee State University, has been honored by the Tennessee Library Association with the James E. Ward Instruction Award. The honor recognizes outstanding and sustained work on programs concerned with library instruction.

Appointments
Adrian Alexander, executive director of Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), has been selected as the R. M. and Ida McFarlin dean of the library at the University of Tulsa (TU). He is expected to begin at TU on February 1. Since 1998, Alexander has served as executive director and chief operating officer of GWLA, a 31-member, not-for-profit research library consortium. Alexander’s leadership responsibilities included planning, organizing, and managing the cooperative programs for the association, which includes Big XII and Pac-10 universities with common interests in programs related to scholarly communication, interlibrary loan, shared electronic resources, cooperative collection development, digital libraries, staff development, and continuing education. Alexander was principal investigator on a federal grant from the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services to establish the Western Waters Digital Library, a collaborative GWLA effort that showcases materials from the special collections of 12 libraries in eight states. In addition to his work with GWLA, Alexander has more than 13 years of private industry experience for companies serving the academic library market, including the development of strategic planning to meet library needs. He has served as a consultant to Baylor University and the Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology in Kansas City during strategic planning initiatives for those libraries. He also worked for five years as a librarian with the University of North Texas. In 1999, he served as a visiting scholar/senior fellow at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Seangill “Peter” Bae has been appointed collections manager/document delivery specialist for History and Korean Studies at the University at Albany Libraries-State University of New York.

Emily K. Bell is now senior library associate/conservation at Wellesley College Library.

Elizabeth R. Breakstone has been appointed law collections librarian of the John E. Jaqua Law Library at the University of Oregon-Eugene.

Mary Chimato has been named North Carolina State University Libraries’ head of access and delivery services.

Jenny Colvin is now music librarian at Furman University.

Kathy Crowe has been appointed associate director for public services at the university libraries of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

Erin Dini has been appointed reference librarian at Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library.

Sharon Epps has been appointed head of access services at the University of Maryland Libraries.

Anita Foster has accepted the position of electronic resources librarian at Illinois State University.

Nancy Greco is now head of circulation at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

Margaret Adams Groesbeck has been promoted to head of public services at Amherst College.

Nitin Gumaste has been appointed associate educational technologist at the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University.

Samuel T. Hultzman has joined the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy as head of the circulation department.

Rong Li is the new Web services librarian at Illinois State University.

Scott Libson has been appointed assistant head of the collection management department at Columbia University’s Butler Library.

Colleen Major has joined the Columbia University Libraries as the networked electronic resources librarian.

Ida Martinez has been appointed social sciences liaison for the general libraries of Emory University.

Anne Ostendarp has been appointed project archivist at Amherst College.

Deborah Rhue has been named instruction services librarian at Illinois State University.

Kate Ross has been appointed head of technical services at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

John E. Russell has been appointed social sciences librarian/history at the University of Oregon Libraries-Eugene.

Pongracz Sennyey has been named associate director of libraries at Furman University.

Kathi Sigler is now instruction librarian at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

Annemarie Van Roessel is now a permanent member of Columbia University staff after serving as a temporary project archivist for the Avery Architecture and Fine Arts Library.

Sean Walton has been named instruction services librarian at Illinois State University.

Andrew D. Wheeler has joined the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy as electronic access librarian.

Retirements
Richard “Dick” Christensen head of systems at Illinois State University, has retired after 32 years of service. During his tenure, Christensen helped organize the library’s circulation system, interlibrary loan, reserves system, and saw the library through four online catalog systems. His leadership in Illinois helped shaped the Illinois Academic Library Consortium. In 2000 Christensen won the Illinois Library Consortium Systems Organization’s Contributor of the Year Award.

Steve Marquardt, dean of libraries and copyright officer at South Dakota State University since 1996, has retired after 33 years of service to the profession at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC), Ohio University, the Northern and Western Illinois Universities, and New Mexico State University. Marquardt led UWEC’s $13 million building expansion, as well as the testing and implementation of the first of 11 ILS installations in the UW System. He developed the RFP and selection process for the 60 member South Dakota Library Network’s second statewide ILS. Marquardt authored 15 articles, ten presentations at state library conferences, and served in editorial capacities for Library Issues and the Journal of Academic Librarianship. Recipient of the 2006 Brookings Human Rights Award and a 24 year volunteer leader in various Amnesty International positions, he plans to combine human rights and contributions to librarianship by continuing to work for the release of Cuba’s imprisoned library workers.

Linda Matthews retired in August 2006 after 35 years at the Emory University Libraries. Matthews joined Emory as a reference archivist in 1971. She became director of the special collections and archives division in 1982, and was appointed vice provost and director of libraries in September 2003. While previously geared toward Southern literature and history and other early Americana, under Matthews’ guidance, Emory’s holdings expanded to include some of the collections of English-language literature, particularly Irish poetry, and African American history and culture. In May 2006 Matthews was awarded the Governor’s Award in the Humanities.

Deaths
Robert C. (Bob) Miller, 70, director emeritus of the university libraries of Notre Dame, passed away October 8, 2006. Director of libraries at Notre Dame from 1978 to 1996, Miller previously served as director of libraries at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His career also included a year at the Library of Congress, administrative service at the University of Chicago Library, and librarian positions with Marquette University and the former Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, where he developed, designed, and implemented automated library systems. During Miller’s tenure at Notre Dame, the libraries’ collections nearly doubled in size. 

George E. Sereiko, former associate director of the university libraries of Notre Dame, passed away April 25, 2006. During his 30 years at Notre Dame, Sereiko served in three library positions: assistant director for the social sciences division,  assistant/associate director for public services, and associate director of libraries. Sereiko joined the university libraries of Notre Dame in 1962. He reconfigured the space in Hesburgh Library in order to support student study and faculty research, spearheading the creation of the Current Periodicals Room. He was also an early leader in the area of book preservation. 

Ed. note: To ensure that your personnel news is considered for publication, write to Ann-Christe Galloway, production editor, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e-mail: agalloway@ala.org; fax: (312) 280-2520.