It’s an extra happy New Year to us at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum as we welcome Kay Clopton to our team! Kay will serve as the Mary P. Key Resident for Cultural Diversity Inquiry at the Billy Ireland, a visiting library faculty position, for the next two years.

Kay is a Ph.D. candidate in Ohio State’s Comparative Studies program and the Administrative Associate for the Human Rights in Transit program in the Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Cultures. She was a Graduate Administrative Associate for the Discovery Grant Program in 2016-17. She taught Comparative Studies courses for six years as a graduate student, including second-year writing courses focused on popular culture, graphic arts, and American identity, as well as general education courses. Her graduate work focuses on sound effects in Japanese manga and North American comics and how they impact the reading experience. She earned her MLIS at Kent State University.

Thanks to her subject expertise, we are looking forward to working with Kay to enhance discoverability and use of our manga collection, as well as our other diverse materials.

The two-year Mary P. Key Diversity Residency Program, started in 1989, is designed to assist a graduate in making a successful transition to academic research librarianship
and provides the opportunity for hands-on experience in most areas of the University Libraries’ operations, including public and technical services, as well as administration. Mary P. Key was an emerita assistant professor of the University Libraries. Before retiring from the Agriculture Library in 1998, she served as the first chair of the Libraries’ Diversity Committee, which oversees the diversity residency program. She was the second African American librarian to head a department at the OSU Libraries.

Welcome aboard, Kay!