RUSA Announces Catherine Damiani as 2016 Emerging Leader.

The Reference and User Services Association, (RUSA), a division of ALA, announced Catherine Damiani as the 2016 Emerging Leader. Damiani is currently the Digital Services Librarian at the East Providence Public Library in East Providence, RI.

The Emerging Leaders program enables newer librarians from across the country to participate in workgroups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA's structure and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. Emerging Leaders receive $1,000 each to participate in the Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference, and each participant is expected to provide service to ALA or one of its units.

As RUSA’s representative for the 2016 Emerging Leader program, Damiani will kick off her tenure at the upcoming 2016 Midwinter Meeting in Boston, MA. and will end with a presentation and a poster session, at the Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. in June.

Ms. Damiani earned her Masters of Library and Information Science degree at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI. Although Damiani is new to librarianship, she has already made an impact on the library profession. Just recently, she was the award recipient of the EBSCO ALA Annual Conference Sponsorship, at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference, San Francisco (CA) and has participated in a variety of RUSA committees for several years.

The Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers’ advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need. Not a member, but interested in discounted registration rates on conference, preconferences and other events? Join, renew or add RUSA to your ALA membership at www.ala.org/membership. Learn more about the association at www.ala.org/rusa.