Staffing

By Daniel Kiely, Diablo Valley College Lynda Letona

Public Services Librarian Reginald Constant was granted tenure at the Peralta Community College District Board Meeting on March 12, 2019. Prior to joining Laney, Reginald worked in a variety of library settings, including school, public and community college libraries.

Heather Dodge, Head Librarian at Berkeley City College, received a Fulbright award to teach in Norway for next academic year. Heather will serve as one of three Roving Scholars in American Studies. In this role she will travel to upper secondary schools throughout Norway giving workshops on a variety of aspects of American culture to Norwegian students—from zines to fake news and the Black Panthers—along with workshops for teachers on critical information literacy and teaching, OER, and primary sources.

By Irene Truong, Rio Hondo College

By Dan Kiely and Florence Espiritu, Diablo Valley College

By Tina Inzerilla, Las Positas College

We welcome Collin Thormoto as the new Librarian at Las Positas College.

By Irene Truong, Rio Hondo College

New Librarians

Rio Hondo College welcomes two new full-time tenure-track librarians, Claudia Rivas and Brian Young. Both officially joined our team on August 17, 2018.

Claudia earned her MLIS degree and Teacher Librarian Services Credential from San Jose State University. She was a Teacher Librarian for 5 years during which she also served as an adjunct librarian at University of La Verne, Rio Hondo College, and Cypress College.

By Evelyn Lord, Laney College

Michael Wright began graduate studies this semester at San Francisco State University. He is pursuing a Master of Science in Counseling (MSC). Michael is the Principal Library Technician for Technical Services.

By Peter Hepburn

College of the Canyons hired two new full-time librarians this past summer. Jennifer Thompson and Sara Breshears started on July 2.

By Romelia Sainas, Associate Dean Libray & Learning Resources
By Parisa Samaie New LASC Librarian Norma Drepaul
We just hired a new librarian named Jordon Andrade. We have an Interim Dean, Jodi Reed. One of our best librarians Angela Nesta is retiring June 30, 2018.
Librarian Rebecca Nowicki has been hired as the OER Librarian at Grossmont College. The position is being funded through the State's ZTC grant program. Rebecca is very excited to be working with Grossmont's faculty; educating and assisting in the adoption and adaptation of OER in order to create ZTC pathways for our students. In addition to being a long-time user and advocate of OER, Rebecca is an avid hiker who has scaled the likes of the Andes, the Alps, Mount Kilimanjaro, and even parts of Mount Everest. Let's hope that scaling the mountain of OER is less strenuous!

The library participates in the campus Student Success Workshops and will be giving a series of 5 workshops. The workshop topics range from: "Is any of it real? Living with Fake news and alternative facts", "10 steps to a research paper" , "Cite precisely: applying MLA & APA", "Research Ingredients: Academic sources for effective research", to collaboration with Counseling and workshops on "Build a better resume" and "Enhancing your job skills".

Inspired by Foothill’s emphasis on student equity, librarians jumped on board a grass roots effort among faculty to create a First Year Experience pilot aimed at students who are the first in their family to go to college (generally the population outlined in the college’s Student Equity Plan). Each student in the program is matched with a personal librarian and takes a one-unit library research class in the same quarter that they’re writing a paper in an English class.

Dr. Pearl Ly recently joined Palomar College as Dean, Social & Behavioral Sciences Division. The division includes various disciplines, the Library, Academic Technology Resources Center, and the Wellness Center. Prior to this appointment, she was the Learning Commons Director at Skyline College. Pearl was a former student at Palomar College and is looking forward to the opening of a new Library/LRC slated for Fall 2018.

Social Media and the Coastline Library.  I (Elizabeth Horan) am a solo librarian in my second year at Coastline Community College.  The Coastline "Service Area Outcomes (SAO)" survey, given annually in the spring, showed there was a lack of awareness of the Coastline Library and it's services with our students.  With this knowledge (and statistic) I visited the marketing department at Coastline and asked for their help. What unfolded was an interesting use of social media as a passive reference tool. 

Rio Hondo College Academic Senate has created a college OER committee as of Spring 2018. There will be divisional representation, one librarian has been invited to join and the library dean will be co-chair.

Additionally, Rio Hondo College, just launched the statewide Guided Pathways initiative. The brainstorming phase of this initiative has begun and progress will continue, which includes valuable librarian input.

The state Academic Senate will be having the South Regional OER workshop on February 9, 2018 and Rio Hondo College will be hosting this event.

Librarian Phillippa Caldeira has been appointed to the Laney College Guided Pathways team.