On Friday, Nov. 6, LISSA will be hosting an evening with the creators of the library comic strip Unshelved on the campus of UNCC in the Fretwell Building Room 100. This event will take place at 7:00 p.m. A discussion board thread is up for anyone who wants to make arrangements to car pool together. This event is free to all LISSA members, all others will be charged $5 at the door. I hope to see everyone there. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at jrresor@uncg.edu. 
Hello, this is Gerald Holmes, Reference Librarian and Diversity Coordinator for UNCG University Libraries. As possibly one of the last people who can say they truly enjoyed belonging to Dudley High School’s Library Club back in the day, I have devoted my whole career to academic libraries, and loved every minute.
As Reference Librarian, I use the Reference desk, online chat, and phone, to provide general reference service that covers the humanities, sciences, social sciences, government information, and more. In this role I also serve as the Library’s liaison to Kinesiology and African American Studies, working closely with these departments to promote information literacy and provide library and information services to their students and faculty. As Diversity Coordinator I am on the Libraries’ administrative team to advise our administration on university priorities, grants and fund raising, marketing, and campus policies regarding diversity issues and resources. I coordinate the Libraries’ Post MLS Diversity Residency Program and chair the Diversity Committee; and have active memberships with ALA, ALA’s Black Caucus, ACRL, and NCLA.
I earned my library degree from U.N.C. at Chapel Hill, where I considered a career in Law Librarianship until I discovered how much I enjoyed the varied research interests of students and faculty in the academic library setting. From then on, I was hooked on academic libraries! My research interests include diversity issues, reference services, and the promotion of librarianship as a career. In the course of my own career, I have coordinated graduate student work assignments and Reference Desk staff training at three different academic libraries.
But that is enough about me. If you have any questions, thoughts, or fun ideas about academic librarianship, diversity issues, or reference service and training, I am eager to find an answer or an application. Minute by minute, I am always ready and willing to learn something new!
Gerald Holmes
Reference Librarian and Diversity Coordinator
University Libraries, U.N.C. at Greensboro
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402
Voice: 336-256-0273
Fax: 336-334-5097
Email: gerald_holmes@uncg.edu
I’m Charles Gobble. Most people call me Chip. I am the Media Coordinator at Jesse C. Carson High School in China Grove, NC. Carson High School has around 1200 students. It is the newest high school in Rowan County. We are in our fourth year of operation. Carson was the first new high school in our county in 40 years. Its opening was a big deal to the people of Rowan County. Boundary lines and rivalries that had existed pretty much undisturbed for 40 years suddenly got shaken up.
I taught high school History and Social Studies for 14 years prior to moving to the school library. My courses included World History, Civics, and AP European History. I still enjoyed teaching, but 12 years of teaching AP Euro to sophomores took its toll. There comes a time in your career when you just know it is time to do something different. I did not want to leave education, but needed something different. A friend, who was a School Media Coordinator, encouraged me to investigate getting my MLIS. The more I looked into it, the more I was convinced that was what I wanted to do. I enrolled in the MLIS program at UNCG (Charlotte cohort) in January 2002. I transferred from my teaching position into a school media position in 2004. I graduated with my MLIS in 2005. I was given the opportunity move to the new high school in 2006. Setting up a new school library was a real challenge, but it was very rewarding.
Through the course of a week as a high school Media Coordinator, I get the opportunity to wear many hats. I, along with my highly valued assistant, see to the daily operation of the Media Center. This includes scheduling and assisting with classes, collection maintenance, distribution and maintenance of A/V equipment, instruction and supervision of student Media Assistants, etc. I team up with another teacher to supervise a team of seven students to produce a weekly 20-minute school news broadcast. I see that a scrolling PowerPoint of the daily announcements is broadcast over the closed-circuit TV system. As we do not have a full-time technology facilitator, I am the on-site person to diagnose and triage any technology issues that arise. I assure you, it is never the same day twice.
If you have any questions regarding School Library Media, I will do my best to answer them.
I’m Ross Holt, and I am the assistant director of the Randolph County Public Library. Our library serves 140,000-plus people in Randolph and surrounding counties through seven sites, including the headquarters in Asheboro. We serve a population of increasing diversity, including significant numbers of Latino immigrants. We also make a special effort to create a welcoming environment for teens.
I worked summers during college at the Asheboro library, doing a little bit of everything. Following a short stint after college as a reporter, I returned to the library as a volunteer, which led to a temporary position, which led to a full time position. By the time I entered the MLIS program at UNCG in 1992, I was a member of the Reference staff. I enjoyed work at the library, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to make it a career (I still moonlighted for a local weekly newspaper as a reporter) until a new director, Richard Wells, took over and showed me what the library could be and what librarians could do.
As assistant director, I’m head of the Reference Department and systems administrator (although the day-to-day duty is mostly delegated to our MIS specialist). I’m responsible for the library system in the absence of the director. I’m also heavily involved in setting policy for the library. One of the de facto roles I have taken on is marketing of and publicity for library services and programs: you have to reach people where they are and we try to use every tool available, from traditional news releases to Twitter. I’m also continually on the prowl for ideas, products and services that enhance public service or make the library easier for people to use – I’m very proud that we were the seventh library in the country, the first library in North Carolina and the first Horizon library to implement LibraryThing for Libraries, the in-catalog reader’s advisory service that harnesses the combined wisdom of LibraryThing.com’s hundred of thousands of members and relates it directly to books in the library’s collection.
I served as president of the North Carolina Library Association from 2001-2003. It was somewhat intense but very rewarding. I hope that we made NCLA engaging and relevant to the library community, and raised the profile of NCLA as the statewide voice for the library community. We worked closely with the North Carolina Public Library Directors Association on state-level advocacy, and increased state funding for public libraries and for NC LIVE.
I will be happy to answer any and all questions, and if I don’t know the answers, I probably know where to look them up!
I guess I’m the archives/special collections representative to this blog feature. I’ve had my current position as Librarian of the Friends Historical Collection and College Archivist at Guilford College since 2000. I got my start in archives as an undergraduate work study student at Earlham College where I had the opportunity to work closely with the college archivist for four years and also do archival research as a history major. I pursued graduate work in both history (MA) and library studies (MLIS) at UNC-G. While in graduate school, I worked part-time at Guilford College in a variety of library positions (archives as well as serials, reserves, and reference in the main collection). I also had a part-time job at Old Salem which provided opportunity to learn more about public history in a non-library setting. I keep up on issues in archives with regular participation in the Society of North Carolina Archivists and other professional archival organizations.
I’ve always had an interest in social history and the connections that can be found through manuscript collections. I often enjoy history most when I can connect it to people, places, and subjects that speak to present day and have some kind of local or personal connection. College archives are a great way to experience that type of history and special collection work gives opportunities to work with a huge variety of materials and provide access to a diverse group of researchers. In my current position, I work with college undergraduates, faculty, graduate students, and a variety of folks unaffiliated with a college or university who have an interest in topics we support with our collections. The Friends Historical Collection functions as a library within the larger academic library so I handle reference services(both in person and online), collection development, processing of archival materials, as well as a variety of management responsibilities such as supervision of staff and volunteers, budgeting, and donor relations. In my work as Friends Historical Collection Librarian, I work with churches and organizations affiliated with the Society of Friends (Quakers) throughout North Carolina (and some other areas as well) to manage their records and related manuscript materials. I also acquire and maintain a comprehensive collection of publications (monographs and serials) relating to the Society of Friends (Quakers) on an international level. In my work as College Archivist, I (along with our archives associate, Liz Cook) look after the records of the college which includes keeping up on records management issues as well as describing, preserving, and providing researcher access to our older records. Both sides of the position involve extensive opportunities for outreach and instruction. Each day brings new opportunities.
My position at Guilford as a professional librarian comes with faculty status but not tenure. This means that I participate in faculty meeting and with committee service. I go up for review through the Faculty Affairs Committee for promotion (we have a parallel rank so I am currently an Associate Librarian) but don’t go through a tenure review. I am a member of the overall library’s management and public services teams and serve as a collection development liaison for several academic departments so end up doing a fair amount with non-archival topics and collections as well.
Feel free to contact me about archives and archival opportunities. I’m also glad to share with those interested in college librarianship more generally (as opposed to work in a larger university setting).
Gwen Gosney Erickson
Friends Historical Collection Librarian and College Archivist
Hege Library, Guilford College
336-316-2264
My name is Amy Harris, and I’m the Information Literacy Program Coordinator and Reference Librarian at UNCG. I graduated from the MLIS program at UNCG in 2005. I started in the Reference Department at UNCG in 2005 as a temp and got my tenure-track job in June of 2006. Before I became a librarian, I had a variety of interesting jobs, including elementary school teacher, payroll administrator, talk radio show host and assistant manager of the concession operations for the Winston-Salem Warthogs (RIP Wally). In my personal life, I’m married and have a (precious) nine-month-old daughter.
When I started library school, I wanted to be a school media specialist, because I was teaching at the time. I quickly realized that wasn’t for me. Then I wanted to be a cataloger so I did a cataloging independent study. Shortly thereafter, I heard about the Reference Intern Program at Jackson, so I decided to give reference a shot. It definitely stuck. I love working with people to find the information they need.
In addition to traditional reference librarian duties, I serve as the library’s Information Literacy Program Coordinator. When I began working at Jackson, I was the First-Year Instruction Coordinator. This entails working closely with first year classes such as English 101. Outreach is a huge part of this job, as the instructors are typically graduate students and a new group starts every year. This position also involves lots of teaching one-shot instruction sessions. In academic year 2007-08, I taught 100 of these sessions. Luckily, my colleagues are very supportive so I’m able to focus most of my attention on teaching during the busy times of the semester. I’ve recently added the Information Literacy Program Coordinator title, which means in addition to the outreach, I’ll be working to make information literacy a more important issue on campus. In my spare time, I work with the Dean of Student’s Office to teach students about Academic Integrity and plagiarism, and I’m also the co-coordinator of the Reference Intern Program. It’s chaotic at times, but I think I have an awesome job!
If you have any questions about general librarian stuff, teaching, reference or being on the tenure-track, I’d be happy to try to answer them!
The LISSA/LIS Department Mentoring program begins today. First up we have Amy Harris who is a First Year Instruction Coordinator at UNCG’s Jackson Library. If you have any questions you would like to ask Amy, just post a comment to the blog and she will get back with you.
Jennifer Whicker
The LIS Dept./LISSA Mentoring Program will begin Monday, September 28 and will run through Sunday, November 1. Each week will feature a different librarian. We are going to run this from the LISSAland blog (http://lissaland.wordpress.com) this year. A post will appear on the blog each Monday from the librarian for that week. You can then reply to the post with any questions you might have, and your questions will be answered there in the comments section of the blog post. The schedule of librarians is as follows:
If you have any questions please let me know.
My best,
Jennifer Whicker
There will be a LISSA meeting on Monday, September 28 at 4:30 p.m. in the LIS Lab Curry 349H. Light refreshments will be served. We will be discussing the mentoring program that begins that day as well as the upcoming events we have planned for the rest of the semester. Hope to see you there.
My best,
Jennifer Whicker
This is just a reminder about this upcoming event. The flier is not attached to this email. It is available in the Documents section in Blackboard.
Jennifer Whicker
Please see the attached flier, and join us in 105 Caldwell Hall from 5-8 PM on Thursday, October 1st for an evening of presentations by and discussions with Federal librarians. This event is co-sponsored by the UNC-CH chapters of SCALA and SLA.
Our four presenters are:
Presenters will discuss a variety of topics, including: types of Federal libraries, position titles, series and salaries, typical paths of recruitment at their agencies, life as Federal librarians and Federal contract librarians, and how to apply for Federal positions.
After the presentations, stay for a group Q & A session and informal networking (food and drink provided!) All students, professionals and alumni are welcome.
See the government’s site of Best Places to Work
Browse open positions at USAJobs
For more details, see attached flier, and RSVP on Facebook, here.
Please direct questions to Josiah Drewry at jdrewry@nationalhumanitiescenter.org
Josiah Mark Drewry
National Humanities Center Library
7 T. W. Alexander Dr., P.O. Box 12256
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-406-0106
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