Diana Shonrock is new RUSA president
Contact: Cathleen Bourdon
Executive Director, RUSA
312-280-4395
For Immediate Release
June 13, 2006
Diana Shonrock is new RUSA president
CHICAGO - Diana D. Shonrock, science and technology librarian, Iowa State University, is the new president of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). She will assume office in July 2006.
"One of my goals as RUSA president is to smooth the transition from the 'Baby Boomers' generation to the 'Millenials,'" Shonrock said. "The future of reference and reader's advisory is the purview of the young/new librarians.
The important issues now are how to move in this direction without totally discarding the knowledge of the present generation.
I look forward to working with all the people in RUSA and particularly all the new interns I got to appoint to the RUSA committees as it's here the future begins. I hope I can pass on not only my love of reference, but my love of teaching."
Currently, Shonrock also is coordinator of Staff Training for Reference and Collection Development and bibliographer for the Human Sciences. She previously served as acting head, Social Sciences and Humanities Department and coordinator of the General Reference Section at Iowa State University.
Shonrock has a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University, a master's degree in library science from the University of Iowa, and a master's degree in family environment - housing from Iowa State University.
She is the author of an essay, "A Bookless Society - Who Says?," editor of ALA's "Evaluating Library Instruction..." and co-author of "Faculty/Librarian Collaboration to Achieve Information Literacy" and "Collaboration: Composition Instruction and Information Literacy in the Electronic Environment."
She also is
the co-author of WebPages for the Iowa Community Cookbook project, a database with nearly 3,000 entries that she oversees. Her current research includes a co-authored
bibliometric study of the citation patterns for the first 17 volumes of
Research Strategies.
An active ALA member, Shonrock has served as chair of the Management and Operation of User Services Section and was instrumental in the section's reconfiguration into the Reference Services Section. She has served on the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and ALA Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) committees and also served as LIRT secretary. She currently serves as a library school accreditation team member.
She is a member of two honorary societies: Beta Phi Mu and Kappa Omicron Nu.
RUSA is the ALA division devoted to supporting the delivery of reference/information services to all groups and of general library services to adults.
Its 5,000 members represent all types of libraries.