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Appointments & Retirements

Ali, Nazli
Nazli Ali became librarian at the Escalon branch of Stockton-San Joaquin County (Calif.) Public Library in February.
May 1, 2020
Bopp, Melanie
George Mason University Libraries in Fairfax, Virginia, named Melanie Bopp head of access services, effective January 6.
May 1, 2020
Clark, Jasmine
Jasmine Clark joined Temple University Libraries in Philadelphia as digital scholarship librarian in October.
May 1, 2020
DiVittorio, Katy
Katy DiVittorio was appointed department head of collections strategies at University of Colorado Denver’s Auraria Library in October.
May 1, 2020
Ginsberg, Sharona
February 17 Sharona Ginsberg began as head of Terrapin Learning Commons at University of Maryland in College Park.
May 1, 2020

At ALA

Bedford, Katie
Katie Bedford joined Conference Services as conference assistant February 17.
May 1, 2020
Berquist, Rob
Internet Administrator Rob Berquist left ALA February 25.
May 1, 2020
Carrazco, Crystal
Crystal Carrazco, previously ALA member communications specialist, became social media manager in the Communications and Marketing Office February 3.
May 1, 2020
Davis, Mary Ellen
Association of College and Research Libraries Executive Director Mary Ellen K. Davis retired April 24.
May 1, 2020
Harris, Sharon
Sharon Harris, accounting specialist, left ALA January 31.
May 1, 2020

Cited

Kuonen, Cheryl
Cheryl Kuonen, executive director of Mentor (Ohio) Public Library, received a Woman of Achievement Award from Lakeland Community College March 22.
May 1, 2020
Berman, Sanford
Activist librarian Sanford Berman received the Edina (Minn.) Human Rights and Relations Commission’s Tom Oye Award, which honors residents’ socially minded pursuits, in recognition of his work to eliminate language that perpetuates bias from library catalogs.
March 11, 2020
Lakvold, Pamela
East Baton Rouge (La.) Parish Library’s Children’s Services presented its Spaht Scholar Award to Pamela Cambre Lakvold, librarian at Westdale Heights Academic Magnet School in Baton Rouge.
March 11, 2020
Richardson, Simone
October 22 Simone Richardson, a librarian at Akron-Summit County (Ohio) Public Library’s business and government division, received the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Impact Award for her work providing services to formerly incarcerated individuals.
March 11, 2020
Thomas, Felton
Cleveland Magazine named Cleveland Public Library Executive Director Felton Thomas Jr. its 2019 Community Leader of the Year.
March 11, 2020

Obituaries

Brunell, David
David H. Brunell, 73, executive director of the Bibliographical Center for Research in Aurora, Colorado, for 21 years, died February 14.
May 1, 2020
Erway, Ricky
Ricky Erway, 62, senior program officer at OCLC Research until her 2015 retirement, died January 25. Erway began her library career as an instructional materials librarian at University of Wisconsin but became a leader in digital library technologies when she joined a Library of Congress (LC) team evaluating its optical disk project in 1986. At LC, she eventually became associate coordinator of American Memory, a project that increased public access to LC special collections and that demonstrated that film, video, audio recordings, books, and photographs could be digitized. In 1995, she became digital resources manager at RLG, a research libraries collaborative, leading projects like Studies in Scarlet, which demonstrated the benefits of collaborative digitization initiatives, and the Art Museum Image Consortium Library, an early effort to deliver high-quality pictures of museum objects online. She continued working to advance library digitization when RLG merged with OCLC in 2006, producing reports like Shifting Gears to advance primary source digitization and the Demystifying Born Digital series.
May 1, 2020
Lynch, Mary Jo
Mary Jo Lynch, 80, director of the ALA Office for Research and Statistics from 1976-2003, died February 26. In 1994, she received the Rutgers School of Communication and Information and Library Studies’ Distinguished Alumna of the Year Award. Prior to joining ALA, she was a reference librarian at University of Detroit (now University of Detroit Mercy) and University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and an assistant professor in the University of Michigan’s School of Llbrary Science.
May 1, 2020
Morris, Betty
Betty J. Morris, 82, former school library program chair at Jacksonville (Ala.) State University, died February 18. She had also taught at University of West Georgia in Carrolton and received the Alabama Library Association’s Eminent Librarian Award in 2014.
May 1, 2020
Williams, Barbara Ann
Barbara Ann Williams, 75, died February 20. She served in the US Navy and worked in the Naval Library in Arlington, Virginia. After earning her MLlS in 1980, she served as a systems and reference librarian at NASA from 1980–1987, as program manager for the Maxima Corporation from 1987–1993, and as library consultant with the TransAfrica Forum, where she also built the founding reference collection for its Arthur R. Ashe Jr. Foreign Policy Library. She later worked at the Library of Congress and served on the executive board of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
May 1, 2020

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

Latest Library Links

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The clock and calendar regulate many library activities, but the seasonal and temporal dimensions of libraries are largely unexplored. Intrigued by observations of colleagues’ temporal attitudes and behavior, Lora L. Lennertz and Phillip J. Jones at the University of Arkansas drew on the work of sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel to investigate the perceptions of time, schedules, and urgency among professional library personnel. The data showed almost no statistically significant relationships between demographic categories and the employee’s approach to time; however, multiple significant relationships existed between the latter and the employee’s department.
College and Research Libraries 81, no. 4 (May): 701-720
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On May 28, Ithaka S+R launched a study in collaboration with 11 research libraries to explore the impact of Big Deal cancellations on users, strategies for accessing content, and perceptions of the library’s role in providing access. The pandemic is intensifying budgetary challenges that were already leading many academic libraries to consider canceling Big Deal packages. Due to this challenging financial context it is increasingly unlikely that these packages will be replaced with alternative plans, such as Transformative Agreements, that ensure continuing access to the full suite of titles previously available. The project seeks to understand the long-term effects of cancellation on researchers.
Ithaka S+R, May 28
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On May 27, the James Beard Foundation announced its Media Awards winners for 2020. An online announcement replaced the usual New York City ceremony, originally scheduled for earlier this month. The awards honor the country’s best food authors, broadcast producers, hosts, and journalists. We’ve spent the majority of the past few months indoors, and turning to the kitchen not just for nourishment, but for a bit of an escape: getting lost in a new recipe, embarking on an ambitious project, or finding comfort in an old favorite. The winning books span a variety of topics, from vegetable-forward cookbooks to a “climate memoir.” All are worth adding to your must-read (and cook) list.
Food52, May 28
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Leighann Wood writes: “PLA, with its network of public libraries and library advocates, recognizes that health insurance and health literacy are priorities that allow individuals and families to navigate the broader health system to obtain needed care and avoid unexpected costs. Fears about health care (or lack of) during the coronavirus pandemic are raising the profile of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which can help those who have lost their jobs with an option to get health insurance. As of May 14, an estimated 16.2 million workers have likely lost employer-provided health insurance since the crisis unfolded.”
AL: The Scoop, May 29
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Podcasts are now unsurpassed in their ability to encourage thinking, compared to other internet media. Of course, much of the competition—listicles, cat videos, TikToks—may not seem especially strong, but podcasting’s combination of the oft-praised intimacy of radio and freedom from the temporal or demographic limitations of traditional broadcast media has proven unexpectedly potent. In fact, humanity’s craving for podcasts is such that, for more than a decade now, there have been too many to choose from. To help guide you through this embarrassment of audio riches, Open Culture has put together this list of the 140 best podcasts to enrich your mind.
Open Culture, May 25
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Mirela Roncevic writes: “The Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 will take place October 14–18. A decision to that effect was made May 28 by the supervisory board of BBG, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. The 72nd Frankfurter Buchmesse will take place on the fairgrounds in accordance with a detailed health and hygiene plan which will reflect the regulations mandated this autumn by the State of Hesse. Visitors will be admitted contactless after they have preregistered and provided a self-assessment of their state of health. Because of the pandemic, the fair will be a special edition: an onsite program combined with a forward-looking digital offering.”
No Shelf Required, May 28
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Marc E. Fitch writes: “My parents often ask me, ‘Why horror? Why can’t you write nice things?’ To which I generally reply, ‘Have you read the newspaper lately?’ Because there is nothing in the world of fiction that compares to the daily atrocities humanity inflicts upon itself, or to the seemingly chaotic and certainly uncaring universe that wields an ugly axe of natural disaster, disease, and death. Horror fiction tends to veil true horror in a guise of metaphor. Noir fiction plots its way through corruption, politics, and murder. Literary fiction, while often embracing a wider range of human emotion and experience, is built on a foundation of suffering, despair, and the prospect of each individual’s approaching death.”
CrimeReads, May 28

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