April 2007

Librarian

Sarah How, Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach, Olin Library

While reviewing Sarah’s files in preparation for this article, I was struck by the remarkable range of assignment changes she has taken on over the years.  Dedication to collection building, a growing focus upon public service needs, flexibility in response to personnel changes, and agility in the face of perpetual organizational transformation are all hallmarks of Sarah’s work at Cornell.

With a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Library Science from the University of Chicago, Sarah also brought to Cornell experience directing the Geology-Geophysics Library at UCLA and working as the Senior Program Officer for Collection Development and Shared Resources at RLG.  In 1989 she began her career in Olin as the Bibliographer for Western European Social Sciences.  She has forged a strong and productive relationship with the Institute for European Studies, serving as a member of the Steering Committee, assisting with bringing in grant funding, and contributing to new programs such as the Mediterranean Initiative.  Active in WESS, (the Western European Studies Section of ACRL), Sarah has also traveled to Europe several times, networking with colleagues and engaging with European publishers and booksellers to improve acquisitions plans for Cornell.

From 1996 through 2002 Sarah also assumed responsibility for English and American Literature, Comparative Literature, Theatre, and Film Studies, then transitioned to selection for British and Commonwealth History.  After the untimely loss of Janie Harris, our Social Sciences Bibliographer, Sarah stepped into the fray last year to manage a daunting array of additional subjects, including government and economics, at a time when budgets were in crisis and major initiatives were under way for electronic journals and print materials in the Olin stacks.

Somewhere along the line, Sarah got it into her head that creating a stronger connection between collection development and public services would be a good idea for our patrons.  She became a member of the Olin Reference Services Department in 2003 and assisted in providing reference service and project support in the Fine Arts Library from 2004-2006, and she will soon be returning to the Olin reference desk.  Sarah’s prescience foreshadowed the formation of “CRIO,” the Department of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach where she has provided intellectual leadership and an information educational role.  A steady stream of librarians with new selection responsibilities confer with Sarah about all facets of their new duties, from complex budgets and impenetrable procedures, to trends in scholarly publishing.  An intrepid and enthusiastic traveler (she spent a year in Japan with her family in 1997/98), Sarah is also a great source of information about the best museum exhibitions, restaurants, bookstores, and local crafts in cities around the world!

~ Nancy Skipper

Associate Librarian

Eric Acree, Africana Library

Eric Acree has some great stories to tell about the Africana Library and the African American community.  He was night supervisor at the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library from 1989 to 1994, and a graduate student at the Africana Studies and Research Center before that.  During those years he met some of the leading figures of the twentieth century.  Eric went to Buffalo in 1995 to pursue graduate studies in library and information science and stayed in Buffalo, holding several positions at the University at Buffalo Libraries, until 2002 when he returned to Ithaca and to Cornell as Director of the Africana Library.

In January 2005, the Africana Library opened in a remodeled Africana Center.  The Library is in the front of the building, serving as an invitation for anyone passing by to drop in to spend some quiet time.  During the remodeling, Africana Library materials were moved to Olin Library and the staff moved to central campus as well.  Now that he’s back in the beguiling building on Triphammer Road, Eric travels to central campus often and hosts meetings at Africana as well.

In addition to his professional activities, Eric works with the campus Judicial Administrator’s office, advising students through their directed study program.  He recently traveled with colleagues from the JA’s office to a conference in Florida to talk about his participation.

Eric’s local activities are legend; he’s very active in the community.  He is a member of the Tompkins County Public Library Board of Trustees, the Village at Ithaca Library Committee, and he chairs the board of the Ithaca Multicultural Resource Center.  Eric often speaks and serves as a discussant on topics dealing with violence, diversity, and issues of race and gender.

Eric has developed a series of discussions at the Africana Center involving CUL librarians.  He has served on a number of library committees both here and at Buffalo, and has led discussions for the New Student Reading Project.

Eric is a person who shares--his stories, his interest in Africana materials, his diverse experiences.  He is an important member of the CUL community.  Congratulations on a well-earned promotion, Eric.

~ Jean Poland

Virginia Cole, Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach, Olin Library

When Virginia was hired in Olin Library as a reference assistant in 1997, it became quickly apparent that she would give us a ‘run for our money.’  In a remarkably short period of time she was providing reference service in Olin and Uris Libraries with a part-time position in the Maps Collection, and a brief stint in the Fine Arts Library along the way as well.  When she began assisting in our Electronic Text Center, learning HTML and EndNote and dabbling in JavaScript and PhotoShop, all in the same year, I realized how fortunate we were to have her here at Cornell as we moved toward a rapidly evolving future.

With her excellent reference skills, great aptitude for technology, and a notably voracious appetite for learning, Virginia easily became the top candidate for a Reference and Digital Services Librarian position in 2001.  She hit the ground running and, in her spare time, she became our Medieval Studies selector as well, having managed to complete her Ph.D. from SUNY Binghamton in 2002, while working full time!

From locating medieval manuscripts to applying the latest software for innovative reference services, there seems to be no end to the challenges Virginia embraces.  In addition to providing a full range of reference services and numerous research consultations, Virginia is the chairperson of the Digital Reference Services Committee--a group that coordinates and manages Cornell Library’s online chat reference service.  She has also been an active member of the Citation Management Working Group.  Through months of spirited persistence, she played a major role in implementing RefWorks campus-wide, in collaboration with Cornell Information Technologies.

Through involvement with the Medieval Studies Program and the History Department, Virginia has strengthened the Library’s connections with the academic community and developed quite a fan club among our graduate students and some of our more enterprising undergraduates.  She is also an effective, lively teacher, engaging students, faculty, staff, and alumni in many workshops, seminars, and course-related instruction sessions.  She provides classes on a remarkable array of topics, from electronic genealogy to primary history resources to the latest version of RefWorks, with a characteristically infectious enthusiasm.

Virginia is also an intrepid traveler.  In addition to making presentations at several conferences, she won a stipend from ACRL to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair and learn about European publishing.  Next thing we knew, she had jumped in her car to drive to Washington, D.C. to participate in a user meeting where information on a new release of digital reference software was discussed, then she was off to Buffalo to look into forming a statewide cooperative.

Pizza party?  Departmental social gathering?  Most likely Virginia has been one of the instigators.  And if you ever have a question about cockatiels or budgies, Virginia is the one to ask.

~ Nancy Skipper

Mihoko Hosoi, Hotel Library

Since Mihoko Hosoi began her work in the Nestle Library in March 2001, the department has been challenged by a series of changes.  In March 2003, I became Acting Director of the Nestlé Library and began working directly with Mihoko and the staff of the Nestlé Library.  Mihoko was the coordinator of Hostline, the Nestlé Library’s fee-based research service.  As coordinator of Hostline, Mihoko improved the profile of this service both within the School and with external constituents.  These accomplishments reflect the effort that Mihoko has put into promoting this service.

In 2003/04, we began to view Instruction Services as a strategic activity for the Nestlé Library.  Our instruction activities connect the Library with the students, faculty, and the curriculum in the School.  Mihoko focused on building the unit’s instruction program.  Her networking and connections with Hotel faculty have been invaluable in the development of this program.  She now leads this effort for the Nestlé Library.

In the summer of 2005, Mihoko was accepted into the Employee Degree Program and began work on an MMH degree (Master of Management in Hospitality) from the Hotel School [see the October 2005 issue of Kaleidoscope].  In January 2006, she did an internship at the Statler Hotel.  She completed her coursework and graduated in December 2006.

More recently, Mihoko represented the School and the Library when she presented a paper, Motivating employees in academic libraries in tough times, at the annual conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL.)  In addition to presenting a paper at this conference, Mihoko also received an ACRL Scholarship that covered the registration for this conference.

This past year, Mihoko has been involved in two major committee assignments.  She has also worked as co-chair of the Library’s Reference & Outreach Committee to present the Cornell Library with a plan to move our data collection on reference services to a sampling model.  We expect that this will improve the quality of information that we have about this service.  As part of the Digital Resources Committee, she has been responsible for some of the committee’s regular written communications with the Cornell Library community.  She has also been called on to work with information resource vendors.  She has set up trials for the campus and negotiated favorable subscriptions for the Library.

Mihoko also initiated a reference question database project that we call the Hospitality Knowledge Base.  The reference team at Hotel has prepared a number of questions and answers and the Hotel School’s Web team built the appropriate infrastructure for this Web-based service.

~ Don Schnedeker

Jesse Koennecke, Mann Library

Jesse came to Mann Library as the Head of Access Services in 2001 after many years as a member of the CUL community as both a student worker and a staff member.

Jesse is a caring supervisor who employs an open door policy with his staff, and he is always available to listen to or consult with his colleagues. Jesse recently led his staff through a major re-organization.  Jesse listened, guided, and nurtured his staff through this change.  I was particularly impressed with the way Jesse worked with his staff throughout this process—gathering information, listening to ideas, and gently moving everyone forward.  This type of staff change typically produces stress for those involved; in this case, employees were eager and excited about the changes to come.

Jesse’s knowledge of public services issues and trends, along with his management and technical skills have placed him in high demand for service not only on CUL and CU committees, but on national and regional committees as well.  In his major area of responsibility—access services—Jesse has assisted with the development and implementation of library to office delivery and faculty indefinite loans.  Jesse’s interest in making document delivery more transparent, efficient, and speedy for our users led him to leadership roles in implementing Borrow Direct, RapidILL, and MyDocumentDelivery here at Cornell.

Jesse has played a key role in the work of the LMT Objective #6 Team (presently referred to as “Get It”).  His technical skills, knowledge of the systems we use to deliver materials to users, and his strong service orientation have made him an integral part of this team.  Jesse has been a major contributor to all of the CUL groups he serves on.  These teams included those that worked on implementing the Electronic Resource Management System, the WebBridge OpenURL Resolver, and WebFeat.

Additionally, Jesse has served as the program planning chair for the Endeavor Mid-Atlantic User group; he planned and administered a popular and well attended annual meeting at Millersville University.  He is active within RLG, and is on the Borrow Direct Operations Group.  Jesse has participated on several RLG sponsored panels that address document delivery trends and issues.

Jesse is a proactive manager who strives to create a caring, challenging, and dynamic environment for his staff.  He has managed to skillfully balance his managerial duties at Mann and his commitments to many other projects.

One final comment—as many of you may or may not know, Jesse is a great percussionist who has played at many Mann functions including a two year gig as the headliner at our new student welcome event.  He also plays a mean table (rumpathumpthump) during long meetings.

~ Howard Raskin

Maureen Morris, Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach, Olin Library

Maureen came to Cornell from Canada, by way of Arizona.  After receiving a BA in Anthropology and an MLIS at the University of Western Ontario, she excelled in her position in the library at Arizona State University West.  We were extremely fortunate to have been able to lure Maureen to Cornell in 2001 when she became Reference and Digital Services Librarian in Olin.  I still have vivid recollections of clutching her promising resume, imagining how wonderful it would be to have a new staff member with strong teaching skills, a good reference background, project management experience, Web design skills, a user-centered focus, and an excellent aptitude for technology--all in one person!  Maureen has turned out to have all that, and more.

Within a year Maureen was appointed half-time CUL Web Librarian and immediately embarked upon a re-design of the Library Gateway.  Since then, she has participated on an unending series of major projects with breathtaking deadlines, daunting technological challenges, and high stakes for our patrons’ ability to navigate and find the information they need.  The Electronic Resource Management Team, the WebBridge Implementation Team, and the Metasearch Team which lead to the Webfeat Implementation Team are some of the highly successful group efforts to which Maureen contributed with grace and determination.  She has a remarkable capacity to balance competing agendas, build consensus, and remain focused upon user needs--qualities which led to her more recent appointment as co-chair for the Assessment and Usability Committee.  Fending off more requests for Maureen’s time on committees and task forces was a notable feature of my year as her supervisor!

In the midst of all this, Maureen also deepened the academic focus of her career by taking on a collection development assignment and becoming the Anthropology selector in 2006.  An adept and creative teacher, Maureen was already providing many instruction sessions for the Anthropology Department each semester.  In addition, she is a mainstay of our workshop series, developing and teaching classes on a range of topics from PowerPoint to DreamWeaver.

Maureen is also a librarian with a sense of compassion and interest in the needs of others.  In addition to networking with anthropology librarians at ALA conferences, she has managed to carve out time to work with the International Relations Roundtable, helping to organize the international section of the ALA poster sessions and assisting international librarians find their way around the conference.  And even if you are not an international librarian, Maureen is always ready and willing to provide a helpful recommendation for anyone struggling with a movie or video decision for the weekend.

~ Nancy Skipper

Susette Newberry, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

Susette originally came to CUL as Visual Resources Cataloger.  In this role she has raised the profile of RMC’s visual resources and, in partnership with the former Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, the Johnson Museum, and the Knight Visual Resources Facility at the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, she was instrumental in the development of the Luna Insight software.  Growing on these initiatives, Susette has had a pivotal role in the development of the RMC Images Collection, which has now become a sustainable image search tool allowing researchers and staff to undertake autonomous image research.

She has aided innumerable patrons including the Office of the University Librarian, the Office of the President, Alumni Affairs and Development, University Communications, the University Press, alumni at large, and most recently CUL Communications.  She has also helped to enhance the profile of special collections within CUL by her participation in many CUL groups and committees.

Susette was promoted to the position of Coordinator of Public Programs in 2003, and she has proved to be a leader and role model both in RMC and CUL. She curated the exhibition Artifex:  Leonard Baskin & the Gehenna Press, and served as co-curator for Get Out the Vote! Campaigning for the U.S. Presidency, Liberty Hyde Bailey:  A Man for all Seasons, Legacy of Leadership:  Cornell’s Presidents,and The Passionate Collector:  Willard Fiske and his Libraries.  In addition to her curatorial roles, she has coordinated the production of fourteen major exhibitions in RMC, both physical and virtual, and numerous other smaller exhibits in CUL, and other venues on campus, including the Johnson Museum and the Tatkon Center.  Having oversight for RMC’s Web site, she has coordinated the production of RMC’s award winning online exhibit sites and the implementation of the general site redesign.

Along with her other responsibilities, Susette not only provides excellent reference services, but she also coordinates and gives presentations and tours.  Sometimes these are last minute requests, and Susette always responds in a calm and orderly manner, combining her historical knowledge, her familiarity with the collections, and her articulate delivery.

In the past year, she was instrumental in setting up and co-managing a sustainable reproduction service model, and she has played a key role in conveying new procedures to staff in her usual patient and collegial manner. Most recently Susette decided to change her career path and accepted a position as Outreach Coordinator/Usability Librarian in the Department of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach in Olin Library.

Susette is someone who cares deeply about her work and about the library and the university.  This dedication is reflected in the high quality of her professional achievements, and we congratulate her on her richly deserved promotion to Associate Librarian.

~ Eli Brown

Nathan Rupp, Mann Library

Nate began his Cornell University Library career in 2001 when he was hired as Metadata Librarian in Mann Technical Services, but his position and responsibilities have evolved considerably since that time.  Nate currently holds the position of Electronic Resources Librarian in Library Technical Services.  Prior to coming to Cornell Nate was the Electronic Resources Cataloger at Bucknell University.

During the last several years there has been a steady growth in Nate’s professional skills and interests and he has been increasingly involved in numerous activities within CUL and the larger profession.  A few short months ago Nate completed the Cornell-Queens Executive MBA program.  While working full-time, Nate undertook this intensive program with numerous projects and papers, all with tight deadlines.  [See the December 2005 issue of Kaleidoscope].

Nate has been active in the North American Serials Interest Group, as both a committee member and chairperson and through his conference presentations.  He has also been a speaker at other professional forums and has written papers published in Library Hi Tech and Library Resources and Technical Services.  Nate has actively sought out opportunities for professional growth and involvement.  His presentation and paper topics reflect his broad interest in the issues that libraries are facing today, including building and providing quality access to digital collections and dealing with issues of automation and the skill changes needed in technical services.  Nate just recently gave a presentation on e-resources acquisitions and licensing at the Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference held in Atlanta.

During the last six years Nate has contributed to many projects and initiatives at Cornell. Please join me in congratulating Nate on his well-deserved promotion to Associate Librarian.

~ Bill Kara

Elizabeth (Zoe) Stewart-Marshall, Library Technical Services

When we received Zoe's application for the position of Assistant Database Management and Authorities Librarian in the summer of 2001, she immediately became the leading candidate for the job.  Her role in coordinating data migration for the University of Hawaii's implementation of Voyager in 2000-2001, her years of experience in Hawaii’s Library Systems Office, and her five years of service in that institution’s Database Maintenance Unit made her a well-qualified and promising fit for a division of CUL in which the combination of an aptitude for systems issues, along with a technical services background, is extremely valuable.  She has not disappointed us.  Zoe has utilized her analytical skills and long experience with library databases to assist and often take the lead in the development of automated processes that have saved enormous FTE time in keeping CUL's Voyager data as comprehensive and as clean as possible.

In her current assignment as LTS Database Enrichment Librarian, Zoe has often drawn on her analytical and organizational skills to develop or overhaul workflows within LTS's Database Management Services (DMS), currently a group of some twenty staff members working in a broad range of technical services areas.  Her ability to understand how individual processes fit the broader goals of the department strengthens our ability to work efficiently and collaboratively.  Moreover, she has been a driving force for the extensive cross-training we've done in DMS since her arrival.  This kind of broad understanding and leadership is a skill that was not readily apparent when we first interviewed her for the Cornell position and has been a pleasing bonus for us in DMS.

It is unusual for a technical services professional to participate extensively in ALA divisions other than the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), but Zoe’s library systems interests and background have led her to regular and productive work in ALA’s Library and Information Technology Association (LITA).  Her frequent LITA committee work, her role in planning the 2005 LITA National Forum, and her subsequent nomination to the LITA Board of Directors attest to her value to that organization and the positive image of LTS (and CUL) that she brings to what is essentially an IT group.  Her long involvement with Endeavor’s Unicode Task Force has made her to the go-to person for Unicode issues in LTS, a role that proved extremely valuable in last year’s upgrade to the Unicode version of Voyager.

Library Technical Services has been an extremely dynamic division of CUL over the past few years, with major reorganizations of staff and administrative responsibilities occurring with stunning frequency.  Zoe has proven herself under fire in this environment and I now find it hard to imagine going through these regular upheavals without her eager flexibility and resilience, her insightful advice, and her concern for the needs of staff during times of change.

Congratulations to Zoe on her well-deserved promotion.

~ Jim LeBlanc

Kizer Walker, Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach, Olin Library

Kizer began his career at CUL as Digital Projects Librarian for Cornell's Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences Libraries in 2001.  He served as project manager for CUL’s efforts in two international collaborations aimed at large-scale digitization and archiving of mathematics literature:  the NSF-funded Digital Mathematics Library project and the Electronic Mathematics Archiving Network Initiative (EMANI).  Kizer was also instrumental in the successful grant applications to NSF in 2002 and IMLS in 2004 to support the building of the Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL), and he served as KMODDL’s project manager. Subsequently he served as an instruction librarian in the Department of Instruction and Learning in IRIS and is currently Collections Coordinator in the Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach Department.  Since 2003 he has also been bibliographer and selector for Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Archeology and, since 2005, for German Studies.  He not only contributes to but also provides intellectual leadership across the system in the areas of collection development and scholarly communication.  He has served on many CUL and national committees.

Here's what John Saylor, Acting AUL for Collections and Scholarly Communications, says about Kizer:  "Kizer is a true leader and a very valuable consistent contributor to the Library, the University, and the greater community.  He has an incredible sense of humor and wit to go along with his writing and personal skills.  In the six years at Cornell University Library, he has made tremendous contributions to many key initiatives and goals of the library that serve our users.  In addition to incredibly productive work at CUL which keeps him very busy, he also is the father of two incredibly wonderful children and a weekly member-worker in the produce section at Greenstar Cooperative Market.  If you are there on a Sunday morning, stop and watch him prepare the cabbage which he does with the same care as his writing and editing. Congratulations, Kizer!"

Nancy Skipper, Reference Coordinator in CRIO, describes her collaborative work with Kizer thus:  "As a relatively new librarian, it was probably a bit of a shock for him when he became one of the four coordinators responsible for organizing and managing a newly integrated Department of Collections, Reference, Instruction, and Outreach in 2005.  With thoughtful intelligence, Kizer made important contributions to our administrative endeavors as we worked by consensus on a formidable array of tasks from structuring and balancing budgets, to redesigning workflow and filling positions, to planning agendas for meetings with staff and the administration.  Kizer could always be counted upon to provide cogent analysis of the issues at hand and to continue moving us ahead with a sense of purpose and determination."

Kizer holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from Cornell University and an MLS from Syracuse University.  He is particularly interested in the changing role of the research library and library collections in the transnational university and in issues surrounding scholarly communications in the electronic environment.

I have had the opportunity to work with Kizer not only in the CRIO department but also in the Information Fluency team for the last two years.  His expertise and knowledge about the structure of information and information seeking behaviors in the humanities, his thoughtful insights, and his collaborative spirit have been invaluable to the team.  His flexibility of intellect and action, his willingness to contribute to team efforts and to lead them, make him, in my opinion, one of the most accomplished librarians at CUL.  His intellectual depth and thoughtfulness are truly remarkable and make him a very valuable colleague and an asset to the Cornell Library and the profession as a whole.

~ Kornelia Tancheva

Senior Assistant Librarian

Medha Devare, Mann Library

Medha earned a BA in Biology from Colby College in Maine.  Moving south, she received her MS in Environmental Toxicology (1993) and her Ph.D. in Crop and Soil Science from Cornell in 2000.  Her dissertation was on the rice-wheat system in Nepal.

Medha was working as a Post Doc on a grant assessing the comparative risk of transgenic corn on the soil microbial community when she saw our advertisement for Bioinformatics Librarian.  She was interested in a position where she could help scientists match research to tools, and where she could work with people more including opportunities for instruction.  Fortunately our position was a match.  Medha began full time in Mann in May 2004.  She became one of the few U.S. bioinformatics librarians in a non-medical library.  As this was a new position for us Medha developed the scope of the position as she learned about the library.

Medha has had ample opportunities for instruction.  She has taught in our open workshop series.  She created and taught a one credit course on Genomics in the spring of 2006.  She sponsored a session of the National Center for Biotechnology Information that was attended by over 150 faculty, staff, and students, and she gave a half-day bioinformatics workshop at the USAIN Conference held in Ithaca last fall.

She enjoys working the reference desk and participating in library projects.  She was co-chair of the Professional Development Committee in 2006.  Medha is also active in the international agriculture arena.  She is the lead author for a chapter in a World Bank project on the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development.  Medha has chaired the Life Sciences Working Group for the last year and a half.  Bioinformatics is a rapidly developing field and Medha is in permanent learning mode to stay current.  Most recently, she attended the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Genomics.

Most notably, Medha is, with Jon Corson-Rikert, the driving force behind VIVO.  VIVO began as an innovative approach to indexing, organizing, and displaying information about the life sciences at Cornell.  With the encouragement of the Vice-Provosts for the Life Sciences and the Social Sciences a proposal was submitted to Cornell senior administration for VIVO to become a university-wide resource.  That proposal was funded and librarian curators are currently working on the VIVO database across the life, physical, and social sciences.

Medha is on sabbatical from activities such as painting and watching movies in order to work on her current project:  “How to be a scientist, librarian, and mother of an extremely active five-year-old boy.”

~ Kathy Chiang

Keith Jenkins, Mann Library

Keith earned his MA in Mathematics from Cornell in 1993.  He was a public services assistant in Olin and Uris from 1995-2000.  Fortunately he decided to earn a Library and Information Science degree from Simmons in 2003.  In 2004 he came back to Ithaca and a position as Metadata Librarian in Mann Library.

As a metadata librarian Keith has been involved in a wide range of activities.  He has demonstrated particular strengths in projects needing a combination of metadata, database, and programming work.  Examples are JAbbr and BatchCat.  JAbbr, a tool for deciphering journal abbreviations, uses pattern matching to compare the inputted abbreviation against a list of approximately 200,000 titles and abbreviations.  For BatchCat he scripted and integrated information between three different databases’ schemas to create over 2,300 updated and cleaned records for CISER data holdings.

In 2005 Keith and Elaine worked together on a consultancy for the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library.  In order to stay current with metadata developments Keith attended the Ecological metadata workshop sponsored by the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity as well as the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) invitational workshop in Dublin Ohio in 2005.

Keith was a member of the Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) team while he was Metadata Librarian.  In the fall of 2006 as a result of the integration of Mann Public Services and Collections Divisions he became our GIS/Geospatial Applications Librarian.  Keith’s new focus is on GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and applying his technical skills to the geospatial arena.  He has already begun teaching our GIS workshops.  Last fall he took CSS420:  Modern Geographic Information Systems, learning how to use the Manifold GIS software.  He and Jeff Piestrak are the GIS consultants.  Keith works primarily with patrons who are using Manifold.  At the end of March he assumed leadership of the CUGIR team.

Since his arrival in 2004 Keith has worked the Mann reference desk.  He also continues his participation in CUL groups such as the Planning to Plan and ReDS projects.  He is a member of the recently formed Data Working Group.

Keith is a Chimesmaster, and just like Parker Posey’s character in the movie Party Girl, he has cataloged his music collection.  But he confesses he has not seen Party Girl.

~ Kathy Chiang

Gail Steinhart, Mann Library

Gail earned a BS double major in Geology and Geophysics, and Zoology, at the University of Wisconsin in 1989.  Then she came to Cornell and earned an MS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 1996, and worked for several years as the Research Coordinator for the Lake Ontario Biocomplexity Project.  Luckily for us she developed an interest in science librarianship and earned an LIS from Syracuse in 2005, just when we had a need for a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Librarian.

Gail reviewed and strengthened our GIS services and coordinated the continued growth of the Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR).  She organized a meeting of GIS stakeholders from across the campus to discuss how the library could best support the various audiences doing geospatial analysis.  She identified gaps in training and created workshops tailored to fill those gaps, including some specifically targeted to a discipline.

She maintains an active involvement in the Cornell environmental science community.  Currently she is working with scientists from the Upper Susquehanna Group on issues relating to their datasets.  She was invited to speak at meetings of the Association of American Geographers and the ALA Map and Geography Round Table.

In the fall of 2006 Gail became our first Research Data/Environmental Sciences Librarian.  She is now responsible for the identification and creation of our research data services.  Gail and John Saylor are co-chairs of the Data Working Group.

Gail plays the fiddle and is an avid bicyclist.  In the summer of 2005 she rode up the west coast of Newfoundland.

~ Kathy Chiang

Xian Wu, Wason Collection on East Asia, Kroch Library

Xian Wu began his career at Cornell University Library as a library intern in January 2003 and formally joined the CUL community as an electronic resource specialist in the ensuing month.  He currently serves as an electronic resources librarian and a Chinese studies bibliographer in the Wason Collection on East Asia.  Xian has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Iowa in 1993 and an MLS from the same university in 2003.  In 2006, he earned an MA in East Asian studies from Cornell University.

Xian Wu is a prized member of Kroch Asia Library in general and the Wason Collection in particular.  As Digital Librarian, Xian has tackled a wide array of tasks and assignments.  He is responsible for Kroch Asia Library's Web site and for providing basic training on Common Spot features to all of the Asia staff.  He trouble-shoots computer-related problems for Kroch Asia Library and designs information sheets on Chinese electronic databases for the Asia Reading Room.  He coordinates and schedules workshops on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean electronic resources and demonstrates these resources to users. He also provided assistance to LTS in testing and evaluating the Voyage Unicode system.

Beyond his work in Kroch Asia Library, Xian has participated in several electronic resources-related initiatives.  He was a member of the Cornell Library E-Book Review Team and contributed to the team's report.  He was also a member of Cornell's Race and Religion Web site Development Team and contributed to the Web site's Asia section.  He collaborated with the East Asia Program and the Department of China and Asia Pacific Studies in writing a grant proposal for digitizing East Asia series published by the East Asia Program.

As Chinese studies bibliographer, Xian's primary responsibilities include assisting the Wason curator in selecting materials on China in all formats, providing reference assistance to the Wason patrons, providing bibliographic presentations to undergraduate and graduate students interested in East Asia, providing guided tours to visitors of the Wason collection and Kroch Asia Library, selecting items designated for the Annex, and supervising student assistants.  During the absence of a Wason curator, Xian also took responsibility for contacting book vendors and managing the acquisitions budget for Chinese materials.  He made a productive trip to China during the summer of 2006 negotiating with Chinese vendors for better prices and services.

Xian has demonstrated his commitment to professional service through active participation in a variety of internal and external committees and activities.  He is a member of the Citation Management Committee, the Metadata Working Group, the Economic Status Committee, and the Instruction Committee at Cornell Library.  He was elected to a three-year term (2005-2008) as the chair of the library technology committee at the Council on East Asia Libraries.  He participated in a joint project initiated by Columbia University East Asia Library to create PDF files for the title page of a Korean book series, and he presented a paper on collaboration and commitment in digital preservation to the 2006 IFLA East Asia Library Conference in Seoul, South Korea.

Xian Wu has distinguished himself though his dedicated service and please join with me in congratulating him on his well-deserved promotion.

~ Liren Zheng