Kate Ghezzi-Kopel

Kate Ghezzi-Kopel headshot
Describe yourself in three words:

Curious, engaged, driven.

What are you reading (or listening to on your mobile device)?

I’m reading "Wow, No Thank You" by Samantha Irby. One of the endorsements on the cover describes it as “Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.” I agree! I’m about to start reading "The Best American Food Writing 2019" edited by Samin Nosrat, whose wonderful podcast, Homecooking, I’ve also been enjoying lately.

Describe ACRL in three words:

Community, conversation, learning.

What do you value about ACRL?

ACRL gives me the opportunity to connect with other librarians engaged in systematic review work at their institutions. This year I’m convener of the ACRL Systematic Reviews and Related Method Interest Group, and I’ve benefited so much from interactions with other librarians in this group on our listserv and in our monthly virtual journal club. As researchers across disciplines turn to librarians for their expertise on evidence synthesis methods, this community of practice has been a vital learning space for me.

What do you as an academic librarian contribute to your campus?

As a part of Mann Library’s research services team, I provide research consultations for students and faculty members, guiding them on best practices for finding, organizing, and evaluating the quality of the information they need. As coordinator of our Evidence Synthesis Service team, I work closely with researchers and sometimes join as co-author on systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and other types of evidence synthesis. I provide workshops on all steps of the evidence synthesis process, and I’m particularly excited to begin work on an IMLS-funded project to train librarians to perform evidence synthesis in fields beyond the health sciences with colleagues from the University of Minnesota and Carnegie Mellon University. Since 2018 I’ve led a team of incredible librarians who collaborated on Ceres2030 (https://ceres2030.org/), an international project of 78 researchers from 23 countries that developed eight evidence synthesis reviews on topics pertaining to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/). These reviews published last month in a special collection in Nature (https://www.nature.com/collections/dhiggjeagd), and each article features librarian co-authors. Projects like these showcase the true value and impact of librarian expertise.

In your own words

We live in a world of information overload, and I so enjoy working closely with researchers as an academic librarian to help them navigate the sea of resources that are available. Evidence synthesis in particular is such an exciting emerging service area for academic librarians. I encourage anyone interested in evidence synthesis to join us in the ACRL Systematic Review and Related Methods Interest Group (http://www.ala.org/acrl/acr-igsrrm)!

Credentials:MLIS, Pronouns: she/her/hers

Title:Health Sciences and Evidence Synthesis Librarian

Workplace:Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University

Location:Ithaca, NY