Libraries are Radical and So Are you

One of my very favorite things we do at River Campus Libraries is our Career Exploration In Libraries and Mentoring (CEILAM) undergraduate employment program. Each spring semester a cohort of  students of diverse backgrounds cocreate and manage projects with library workers from across every portfolio. We do so to introduce students to library work as…

It’s a weird time to be talking about anything that isn’t the plague or the rise of fascism. I’m going to do it anyway because working on the communication and passage of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures has been such a massive part of my professional service the past two years. The bonds and relationships I formed in the process…

Due to the fact that it’s November, I’ve been communicating this phase of my career and my sense of readiness for whatever will come next with the analogy of the turkey timer. For those of you who may not have encountered the turkey timer before it’s a simple mechanism installed in some turkeys to make…

Below you’ll find an excerpt from the introduction to a panel I moderated at the Charleston Conference titled Capitulating or Capitalizing, Compromising or Combatting: What is Meaningful Discourse Between Library and Vendor?. I am so grateful for the participation of Ashley Krenelka-Chase, Cris Ferguson, Rachel M. Fleming, Erin Luckett, and Kristen Twardowski. Hi, everyone. Thanks…

Below is the script of my keynote for the Valparaiso, Indiana branch of the American Association of University Women annual celebration. It was an honor and a thrill to to be invited to speak on the subject of feminist leadership to this group of extraordinary women. Hello everyone! It’s an honor and a thrill to…

This May Day, 2019, marks two years since I started work at the University of Rochester. I continue to be appreciative of this place that has offered me so much in terms of opportunities for collaboration, leadership, and innovation. I love my position for its scope (big enough) and its variety (weird enough). I work with…

Hey. Did you know when I was a child in the mid-nineties I went to Shakespeare Camp for several summers in a row? Now you do, and it’s why I am so loud, it’s called projecting and enunciating. I have received formal training. In my thespian years, ages 8-14, I played mostly middle-aged Italian men,…

Maybe your library has a publicly posted policy against taking any book donations (or most). Maybe your library’s collection is 100% based on book donations. Libraries do fall across the spectrum, don’t they? I work in a  library where space is at a premium. We don’t say no to everything, but we say no to…

Recently, I have been working with two undergraduate students as part of the River Campus Libraries’ Career Exploration In Libraries And Mentoring (CEILAM) program. In the program, library workers collaborate with students on semester length projects in support of library service areas. Our project focuses on using identified grant funds to expand our local collection…

Yesterday, the University of California publicly walked away from negotiations with Elsevier to take control of their research and the narrative. You can read the release from the Office of the President and the statement from the Faculty Senate online. While there are many takeaways from this move- and I’ll be watching the scholarly resources…