Libraries News and Information

Submitted by Amanda Folk:

Jane Hammons is the current featured teaching librarian on the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section website. Several times a year, the ACRL Instruction Section Teaching Methods Committee selects and interviews a librarian who demonstrates a passion for teaching, innovation, and student learning.

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Submitted by Meris Longmeier:

E. Leigh Bonds’s edited volume of “The Routledge Companion to Romantic Women Writers” has been published. Bonds authored both a chapter about Mary Robinson and the introduction as part of her editorship.

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Submitted by Sabrina Blocker:

Bill Cox has accepted the Senior Applications Developer position and will begin his new role on January 17.

Reporting to Sue Beck, Bill will be responsible for the end-to-end development and delivery of specialized library and administrative systems. He will collaborate with product owners, project managers and team members on the specification of business and technical requirements and propose and implement solutions that adhere to standards for data security, code quality, test coverage, digital accessibility and architecture. Bill will also provide technical support, maintain existing open-source and custom applications, collaborate in the investigation of problems, participate in weekly maintenance windows and more.

Bill comes to University Libraries from his position as a Senior Software Engineer at Root Insurance. He has also previously worked in software development roles at Nationwide Insurance and UNICON International. Bill holds a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and physics with a minor in statistics from University of Minnesota and a Master of Science in materials science and engineering from Ohio State.

Please join us in welcoming Bill to University Libraries!

Submitted by Sabrina Blocker:

James Bussey has accepted the 18^th Avenue Library Evening Circulation Assistant position and will begin his new role on January 17.

Reporting to David Gosha, James will oversee evening activities at 18^th Avenue Library and direct public service operations to ensure policies and procedures are carried out with the purpose of friendly and efficient service to all users. He will supervise checkout, check-in, holds, transits, sorting and searching of library materials using the Sierra Circulation Software, coordinate activities and responsibilities with day/evening supervisors, oversee maintenance of hold shelves, monitors status of terminals, printers, scanners, security and all other equipment in the department, troubleshoot reported or observed building, equipment and/or system problems, assist in the hiring, training, scheduling and evaluation of student assistants and more.

James has served as the Overnight Circulation Associate at 18^th Avenue Library since May 2022. He has more than 17 years of experience working in academic and public libraries, including Columbus Metropolitan Library, the New Jersey Institute of Technology library and Free Library of Philadelphia. James holds an associate’s degree from Pierce College in Philadelphia, PA.

Please join us in congratulating James on his new role!

Submitted by Sabrina Blocker:

Troy McGough has accepted the Digitization Assistant position and will begin his new role on January 17.

Reporting to Amy McCrory, Troy will be responsible for assisting the Digitization Specialist (Matt Carissimi) with scanning and photographing a variety of materials held in the general and special collections of University Libraries. He will assist with digitizing books, documents, artwork, maps and other materials using appropriate scanning and photography equipment, edit, convert and process digital images following departmental guidelines, conduct quality reviews of digitized content, maintain digitization labs and storage areas, track digitization work and more.

Troy comes to University Libraries from his role as a Printer Assistant at Local Threads. He has also previously worked in multiple photography roles with Fanatics.com, Portrait Innovations, Cliento Photography and as a freelance photographer. He holds an Associates Degree in commercial photography from the Ohio Institute of Photography and Technology.

Please join us in welcoming Troy to University Libraries!

Submitted by Sabrina Blocker:

Leah Janikowski has accepted the Research Coach position and began her new role on January 3.

Reporting to Michael Flierl, Leah will oversee a peer-coaching program providing research coaching and instruction, support the Ask Us service and participate in the creation of learning objects and just-in-time help materials that help students successfully develop their information literacy, critical thinking and research skills. She will help students develop essential critical thinking skills related to the use and creation of information, including understanding research assignments, selecting and scoping a research topic, developing research questions, mapping various facets of a topic and related sources, reading scholarly articles and evaluating sources critically and thoughtfully, among other related tasks. Leah will provide general research assistance and coaching primarily to undergraduate students and route in-depth, discipline-specific questions and needs to the appropriate liaison librarian or curator.

Leah comes to University Libraries from her position as a Graduate Academic Coach at Ohio State. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and fine art from Buffalo State College, a Master of Arts in educational psychology and quantitative methods from University at Buffalo-SUNY and is currently working toward her PhD from Ohio State in educational psychology.

Please join us in welcoming Leah to University Libraries!

Submitted by Sabrina Blocker:

Rachel Hammer has resigned her position as Archival Intake Coordinator. Her last day was December 19. 

Rachel came to University Libraries in February 2022 as the Accessioning Coordinator (later changed to Archival Intake Coordinator) in Archival Technical Services within the Content & Access Division. Rachel mainly coordinated the administrative and logistical operations that facilitated the intake of archival materials acquired by University Libraries Special Collections units. This allowed her to interact with many other areas within University Libraries.

“My time here as Accessioning Coordinator and Archival Intake Coordinator in Archival Technical Services was short, but University Libraries introduced me to some wonderful people,” said Rachel. “My interactions with everyone in Special Collections/Area Studies and over at University Archives were always particularly enjoyable. I have accepted another position here in Columbus, so I will not be going too far!”

We wish Rachel all the best!

Magda El-Sherbini presented her research “Development of an Arabic Open Access Multilanguage Thesaurus based on the Linked-Data Approach” at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual meeting in Denver (Session VIII-20 “Language, Linguistics, and Pedagogy”). She also chaired and moderated session IX-12, “Making and Unmaking the Nation.”

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Submitted by Eric Johnson:

Mara Frazier, Curator of Dance for the Jerome Lawrence & Robert. E. Lee Theatre Research Institute in Thompson Special Collections, was selected as a Bibliographical Society of America Malkin New Scholar. Mara has been invited to speak at the organization’s upcoming annual meeting in New York on January 27, 2023. Her presentation topic, “The Dance Typewriter: IBM, the Labanotation Element, and ‘Women’s Work’ in 1973,” examines the development, marketing and commercial failure of a typewriter meant to mechanize the transcription of dance notation scores. Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin (1913-2005) was a noted collector of dance books, and a scholar interested in dance, dance notation and Americana.

Jane Hammons, Teaching & Learning Engagement Librarian, had an article entitled “The faculty-focused model of information literacy” published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Information Literacy.

Abstract:
In a faculty-focused, or “teach the teachers” (TTT) model of information literacy (IL), librarians would spend a significant portion of their time on faculty development. To support the adoption of this approach, there needs to be evidence that librarians can act effectively as faculty developers and that faculty development (also referred to as academic or educational development) can produce positive changes in teaching practices and student learning. This paper explores the faculty development literature in order to better understand the potential of the faculty-focused model of IL. Two research questions guided the review. What can the literature on the effectiveness of faculty development tell us about the potential of the faculty development approach to IL? Additionally, what insight can the literature on the background, experiences, and identity of faculty developers provide to our understanding of librarians acting as faculty developers?

The analysis provides indications that a model of IL instruction focused on faculty could support increased integration of IL into the curriculum, as well as additional evidence that faculty development should be considered a viable role for librarians. However, the review also surfaced concerns about the identity and status of developers and the challenges of assessing faculty development that are relevant to librarians’ adoption of the faculty-focused model of IL. By exploring the faculty development literature as part of a consideration of the TTT approach to IL, this paper provides a valuable perspective to the ongoing debates about the future of IL.

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