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Appointments & Retirements

Baird, Michael

June 1, Michael Baird became manager at Edson (Alberta) and District Public Library.

September 1, 2020
Benedict, Jenny

July 6 Jenny Benedict started as director of Sawyer Free Library in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

September 1, 2020
Bivins, Joy

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at New York Public Library named Joy Bivins associate director of collections and research services June 23.

September 1, 2020
Boruff-Jones, Polly

Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, appointed Polly Boruff-Jones dean of university libraries, effective July 1.

September 1, 2020
Brassell, Emily

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries appointed Emily Brassell associate head of the software development department June 1.

September 1, 2020

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At ALA

Chapman, Monica

Monica Chapman was promoted to program coordinator for the Coretta Scott King Book Awards at the Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services June 22.

September 1, 2020
McGovern, John

Credit Manager John McGovern left ALA June 30.

September 1, 2020
Ortegon, Megan

Manager of Public Policy Megan Ortegon left the Public Policy and Advocacy Office (PPAO) June 26.

September 1, 2020
Wagner, Emily

Emily Wagner, deputy director of advocacy communications in PPAO, left ALA June 19.

September 1, 2020
Aleck, Nick

Nick Aleck, IT user experience manager, left ALA May 29.

July 13, 2020

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Cited

Buljung, Brianna

Brianna Buljung, teaching and learning librarian at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, has been awarded a Fulbright US Scholar Grant to lecture at China University of Mining and Technology in Xuzhou in spring 2021.

September 1, 2020
Koscielski, Roberta

Roberta Koscielski, deputy director of Peoria (Ill.) Public Library, was named Librarian of the Year by the Illinois Library Association in July.

September 1, 2020
Thompson, Santi

Santi Thompson, head of digital research services at University of Houston Libraries, is the inaugural recipient of the Eva Digital Research Endowed Library Professorship.

September 1, 2020
Jefferson, Rebecca

In May Rebecca Jefferson, curator of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at University of Florida in Gainesville and a joint faculty member of the university’s Center for Jewish Studies, was named to the Florida Commissioner of Education’s Task Force on Holocaust Education.

July 13, 2020
Margolis, Deborah

Deborah Margolis, Middle East Studies Librarian at Michigan State University, received a Fulbright US Scholar Program award to conduct research in partnership with Tomorrow’s Youth Organization in Palestine and University of Jordan Libraries American Corner to encourage youth development and relationships among college-age youth and professionals around the world.

July 13, 2020

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Obituaries

Brewster, Barbara

Barbara Brewster, 98, a librarian and media specialist for 24 years at Ossining (N.Y.) Union Free School District, died March 31. Brewster was an early advocate for introducing computers to students and served as president of the Ossining teachers union.

September 1, 2020
Caplan, Nora

Nora Caplan, 93, head librarian for Noyes Children’s Library in Kensington, Maryland, until her 1981 retirement, died April 25. She had previously worked at the Library of Congress, and she published articles and stories in The Saturday Evening Post, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and The Washington Post.

September 1, 2020
Cooper, Marianne

Marianne Cooper, 82, chair of the Queens (N.Y.) College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (1990-2003), died April 15. She led the school during a period of fiscal difficulties when it was being considered for elimination, which it avoided by introducing new programs and updating older ones. She worked at Queens College for 36 years, also serving as the college’s affirmative action officer from 2008 until her 2011 retirement. She published several scholarly papers and was an active member of the Long Island Library Resources Coun cil’s board of trustees.

September 1, 2020
Gaylord, Mary

Mary Ardeth Gaylord, 65, former librarian at Kent (Ohio) State University and Eli Lilly and Company, died June 1. In 1986, she cofounded the Reference and User Services Association’s Business Reference and Services Section.

September 1, 2020
Gosnell, Linda

Linda M. Gosnell, 69, former head of children’s libraries at Pamunkey Regional Library System in Hanover, Virginia, died May 4. She had previously worked as a librarian at the American School in Tehran, Iran; Tufts Library in Weymouth, Massachusetts; and Henrico County (Va.) Library System.

September 1, 2020

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Send notices and photos to Amy Carlton, acarlton@ala.org.

Latest Library Links

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Scientific American Associate Editor Tanya Lewis rounds up the most insidious false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic, why they’re false, and why people still believe them despite evidence to the contrary. Among the eight persistent myths are believing the virus was engineered in a lab as a bioweapon, believing that face masks aren’t effective, and believing that herd immunity will protect the population if we just let the virus spread.

Scientific American, Oct. 12
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Melody Herr writes: “I’m not going to enter the debate over open access and open culture; I will neither criticize nor advocate for CC licenses. Rather, I’m interested in how US federal courts evaluate infringement claims and determine statutory damages in cases related to works released under the licenses. In a recent study, I examined about two dozen cases, with initial filing dates running from December 2014 through October 2018, retrieved from the database Westlaw. Here, I present a high-level overview of that study for anyone who engages with CC licenses: creators and users, publishing professionals and library professionals, advocates for and skeptics of open culture.”

Scholarly Kitchen, Oct. 14
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Boldizsar Nagy hoped that the tales in the children’s book he edited, Wonderland Is for Everyone, would help youngsters to learn to accept minorities and fight social ostracism. Instead, it has caused a stir in Hungarian politics, with the far-right and the ruling nationalist government labelling it “homosexual propaganda” that should be banned from schools.

Reuters, Oct. 19
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John Lindaman, manager of technical services at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J. Watson Library, writes: “There’s a popular misconception that librarians as a profession are conservative. Not politically conservative, but literally conservative—wanting to keep old stuff. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth—we are often on the cutting edge of using new technologies, and always looking for the most efficient, up-to-date way to help our patrons. However, the dirty little secret is that sometimes the old stuff, while no longer useful, is actually cool.”

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 14
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National Novel Writing Month is fast approaching, and author Anthony Anaxagorou rounds up 10 of his favorite books by writers writing on writing, “diverse in their central arguments and genres, [they] guide us toward more interesting and lateral ways to think about what we want to say, and ultimately, how we choose to say it.”

The Guardian (UK), Oct. 14
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The name of a white supremacist North Carolina governor will be removed from a Charlotte Mecklenburg Library branch, library officials said this week. Morrison Regional Library will now be known as SouthPark Regional Library, the library board of trustees agreed. The library was originally named for Gov. Cameron A. Morrison, who helped lead the white supremacy campaign of 1898 that terrorized Black residents and led to policies of segregation.

Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, Oct. 20
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Investigators are searching for the person who set a fire inside a ballot drop box in Baldwin Park, California, on purpose, potentially compromising dozens of votes. The incident happened around 8 p.m. October 18, in front of the city’s public library. Firefighters say someone purposely tossed burning newspaper into the official drop box. Mayor Manuel Lozano said he believes there were close to 100 ballots in the box at the time of the incident that were burnt or wet.

KABC-TV Los Angeles, Oct. 19

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