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Appointments & Retirements

Coulbourne, Mark
Mark Coulbourne began as preservation librarian at University of Maryland, College Park, October 14.
January 8, 2020
De Leon, Stephanie
September 1 Stephanie De Leon became digital resource professional at Lone Star College University Park Digital Library in Houston.
January 8, 2020
Dias De Fazio, Diane
In July Diane Dias De Fazio was appointed curator of rare books and book arts in Special Collections at University of Iowa Libraries in Iowa City.
January 8, 2020
Floyd, Joni
Joni Floyd became curator for Maryland and Historical Collections at University of Maryland, College Park, Libraries September 16.
January 8, 2020
Hutchison, Brock
October 7 Brock J. Hutchison started as director of Louisville (Ky.) Public Library.
January 8, 2020

At ALA

Dougherty, Megan
Megan Dougherty, program officer for continuing education for the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), left ALA September 13.
January 8, 2020
Dubin, Jordan
The Association for Library Service to Children named Jordan Dubin as awards coordinator October 21.
January 8, 2020
Aleck, Nick
Nick Aleck joined the Information Technology department as user experience manager October 28.
January 8, 2020
Baker, Gavin
The Public Policy and Advocacy Office (PPAO) promoted Gavin Baker to deputy director, public policy and government relations, September 13.
January 8, 2020
Booth, Heather
Heather Booth joined Booklist as audio editor October 28.
January 8, 2020

Cited

Chicago Botanical Garden Lenhardt Library
In September, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Lenhardt Library in Glencoe, Illinois, received the American Institute of Conservation’s 2019 Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections.
January 8, 2020
McLeod, Clara
The Geoscience Information Society recognized Clara McLeod, earth and planetary sciences librarian at Washington University in St. Louis, with its Mary B. Ansari Distinguished Service Award at its annual meeting September 24.
January 8, 2020
CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows
The Council on Library and Information Resources has named its 2019 cohort of postdoctoral fellows: Rebecca Y. Bayeck, focusing on abolition, transatlantic slavery, early black librarianship, and other topics at New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Mary Borgo Ton, developing pedagogy strategies for Archivo Mesoamericano at Indiana University in Bloomington; Andrew Brown, coordinating digital humanities workshops at the University of Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute; Maia Call, improving digital management and library science practices at the US Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C.; Guillaume Candela, developing a digital platform for the Indigenous Languages of the Americas collection at Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island; Christian Casey, developing digital technology tools for the New York University Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; Alicia Cowart, creating a research support program for geospatial research at the University of Colorado, Boulder; Faithe Day, conducting data curation projects at the African American Studies and Research Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; Zachary Furste, developing strategies for preserving and curating executable archival materials at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; Amani Morrison, transitioning the Colored Conventions Project at the University of Delaware in Newark to a new digital platform; Aditya Ranganath, expanding New York University’s infrastructure supporting geospatial research; Brian A. Robinson, developing web-based content for training teachers to use the Digital Library on American Slavery at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Azure Stewart, working at the intersection of engineering education, librarianship, and research at New York University Libraries; Sean Tennant, developing workflows for data creation, use, preservation, and retrieval at Union College Library in Schenectady, New York; Kimber Thomas, facilitating preservation and use of the Community-Driven Archives Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Kevin Winstead, implementing new partnerships for gathering documents and organizing research data for the Colored Conventions Project at the University of Delaware in Newark.
January 8, 2020
Holmes, Gerald
Gerald Holmes, associate professor and diversity coordinator at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Greensboro Libraries, received the UNC Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science Distinguished Alumni Award in recognition of his contributions to diversity and equity July 10.
November 1, 2019
Scobey, Sarah
The Colorado Association of Libraries named Sarah Scobey, nonprofit resources librarian at Poudre River Public Library District, as 2019 Colorado Librarian of the Year.
November 1, 2019

Obituaries

Cline, Helen
Helen Cline, 87, managing editor for the American Library Association’s (ALA) Books and Publishing Services from 1968 until her 1991 retirement, died October 9. After retiring, she lived in Hennessey, Oklahoma, where she founded the Friends of the Hennessey Library.
January 8, 2020
Clyburn, Emily
Emily England Clyburn, 80, a longtime school and Veterans Administration librarian in South Carolina until her 1994 retirement, died September 19. She served as a librarian at W. G. Sanders Middle School in Columbia, Charleston Naval Academy, Simonton Elementary School and Burke High School in Charleston, and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Columbia. She was married to US Rep. Jim Clyburn and used that position to raise tens of thousands of dollars to help students afford college. South Carolina State University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2010.
January 8, 2020
Kuhlmeier, Sylvia
Sylvia Darlene Kuhlmeier, 60, died June 28. She worked as a librarian at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and as library director at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, and Missouri State University in West Plains.
January 8, 2020
Lukenbill, Willis
Willis Bernard “Bill” Lukenbill, 80, professor emeritus at University of Texas (UT) at Austin School of Information, died August 29. He taught library and information science at University of Maryland, College Park, 1972-1975 before joining UT in 1976; he retired in 2010. Lukenbill wrote eight books and more than 40 professional articles, and he presented his research at many international conferences. After retirement, he volunteered as an archivist at Metropolitan Community Church in Austin.
January 8, 2020
Mosley, Rose
Rose E. Mosley, 80, a member of the Maywood (Ill.) Public Library Board for 36 years, died September 10. Mosley was a member of the Illinois Library Trustee Forum starting in 1990 and held at various times the offices of secretary, vice president, and president. The Illinois Library Association awarded her its Outstanding Trustee Award and Citation in 1998. Mosley was a longtime ALA member and was one of the advocates for the merger of the Association for Library Trustees and Advocates with Friends of Libraries USA. In 2009, she became the 2009–2010 president of the merged organization, now known as United for Libraries.
January 8, 2020

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

Latest Library Links

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ALA President Wanda Brown issued a statement in response to Macmillan CEO John Sargent’s “Ask Me Anything” session at the ALA Midwinter Meeting on January 25. “Today, Mr. Sargent invited conference attendees to ask him anything,” it read. “He talked, and stakeholders from the library community asked questions and engaged. Unfortunately, he has not been listening to us…. Delaying, denying, or limiting access to new titles for libraries means limiting access for readers. We see only one acceptable outcome for this situation: Macmillan must lift the embargo.”
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, Jan. 24
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Authors and Olympic ice dancing medalists Maia and Alex Shibutani will promote the value of libraries as honorary chairs of National Library Week, April 19–25. The Shibutanis will shine a spotlight on our nation’s libraries, librarians, and library workers. “Find Your Place at the Library” is the theme for this year’s National Library Week, which emphasizes that everyone is welcome at the library. Maia and Alex Shibutani (aka the ShibSibs) are two-time Olympic bronze medalists, three-time world medalists, Four Continents Champions, and two-time US National Champions.
ALA Communications and Marketing Office, Jan. 24
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ALCTS, LITA, and LLAMA have announced that Emily Drabinski and Rebekkah Smith Aldrich will deliver keynote addresses at the Exchange Virtual Forum. The theme is “Building the Future Together,” and it will take place on the afternoons of May 4, 6, and 8. Each day has a different focus, with day 1 exploring leadership and change management, day 2 examining continuity and sustainability, and day 3 focusing on collaborations. Drabinski’s keynote will be on May 4, and Smith Aldrich’s will be on May 8. To get more information about the proposed future for joint projects such as the Exchange, join the conversation about #TheCoreQuestion.
ALCTS, Jan. 24
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Officials at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City said perhaps 85,000 historic and artistic items it had carefully collected for the past 40 years were most likely lost after a fire tore through a Chinatown building where its archives were stored on the evening of January 23. Museum President Nancy Yao Maasbach said that the collection, stored in the building at 70 Mulberry Street, was one of a kind and represented the single most important repository of New York’s Chinese community. While about 40,000 items in the archives were digitized, many physical items are irreplaceable. No one will be able to enter and retrieve items for at least three weeks.
New York Times, Jan. 24
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Visiting the library remains the most common cultural activity Americans engage in, by far. The average of 10.5 trips to the library that US adults report taking in 2019 exceeds their participation in eight other common leisure activities. Americans attend live music or theatrical events and visit national or historic parks roughly 4 times a year on average and visit museums and gambling casinos 2.5 times annually. Trips to amusement or theme parks (1.5) and zoos (0.9) are the least common activities on this list. Women report visiting the library nearly twice as frequently as men, and adults aged 18–29 visit the library much more than all older age groups.
Gallup, Jan. 24
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The Cleveland Public Library and the union representing library workers said January 23 they reached a tentative deal to resolve their simmering labor dispute, avoiding a potential strike that would have shut down some library branches and services. About 400 librarians, library assistants, clerks, maintenance workers, and custodians have been without a contract since December 2019. Contract talks between the library system and the union, the Service Employees International Union District 1199, have been ongoing since September, but broke down around the new year. Workers will vote on the contract on January 29.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 23
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Natasha Lomas writes: “Did you notice a recent change to how Google search results are displayed on the desktop? I noticed something last week—thinking there must be some kind of weird bug messing up the browser’s page rendering because suddenly everything looked similar: a homogenous sea of blue text links and favicons that, on such a large expanse of screen, come across as one block of background noise. I found myself clicking on an ad link rather than the organic search result I was looking for. This is Google’s latest dark pattern: The adtech giant has made organic results even more closely resemble the ads it serves against keyword searches.”
TechCrunch, Jan. 23

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