The Future of Rhode Island Libraries
Navigating the Future of Libraries: A Rhode Map
Friday, May 7, 2004
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Louise Blalock, Chief Librarian, Hartford Public Library, Hartford, Connecticut
Since 1994, Louise Blalock has been the Chief Librarian of the Hartford Public Library. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Robert Wagner School, New York University, and a Master’s degree from the School of Information Science and Policy, State University of New York at Albany. Ms. Blalock practices a philosophy of continuous renewal to keep the library at the center of the community. New and creative service initiatives at the Hartford Public Library are direct responses to understanding the community and what it needs. In 2002, in recognition of its innovative services and community partnerships the Institute of Museum and Library Services conferred the 2002 National Library Service Award to the Hartford Public Library. Ms. Blalock was named Librarian of the Year 2001by the Library Journal. Her abilities to forge partnerships; galvanize government and public support; respond to neighborhood needs; and obtain funding needed to provide new library services were cited by the editors of the Journal.
Mark G. Brown, Principal Planner, Rhode Island Statewide Planning
Mr. Brown is Chair of the Rhode Island State Data Center and liaison between the State of Rhode Island and the U.S. Census Bureau. He was a participant in the formative years of operations planning for the implementation of Census 2000. Previously, Mr. Brown administered federal housing programs under the aegis of the Executive Department for fifteen years. While working in the Executive Department, he was assigned to a research team of loaned executives working with Ira Magaziner in a comprehensive examination of the nature of human service delivery and funding in Rhode Island.
Stephen Coan, PhD, Vice President of Education, Mystic Aquarium Immersion Institute
Dr. Coan is the Executive Director of Immersion Institute at Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration. From 1992 to 2002, he served as Chief Education Officer at the JASON Foundation for Education, a middle school science program serving 1.5 million young people annually throughout the United States. An educator by training, Dr. Coan helped the JASON Foundation create its award winning teacher professional development programs, Internet exploration programs, and secured more than $20 million in grants and funding for the organization during his tenure. He has served as Executive Director of two educational organizations and was a senior advisor to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation on after-school issues. He has served on numerous boards of non-profit organizations and held faculty appointments at Tufts University, Bentley College and Cambridge College. He serves as a Youth Minister in the Boston, Massachusetts, area and is best known for his work with at-risk youth. He earned his Ph.D. and Master in Management of Human Services from Brandeis University.
Jane Fisher, Coordinator of Information Services, The New York Public Library, The Branch Libraries
Jane Fisher oversees the selection of print and electronic reference materials and reference-related staff training for the 85 branch libraries of the New York Public Library. She also has oversight responsibility for several major branch initiatives including Click on @ the library, a multi-year, $4 million digital divide program; CHOICES In Health Information, a consumer health information service; Community Information Services; and the Computer Page Program. In 2002/2003, Ms. Fisher participated in the Urban Libraries Council’s Executive Leadership Institute through which she designed and implemented a comprehensive Community Building Initiative for the Branch Libraries. She is Treasurer of the Reference and Adult Services Section of New York Library Association, serves on the RUSA/MOUSS Management of Reference Committee of ALA, and is a member of the Public Library Association and the NY/NJ Chapter of the Medical Library Association. In February 2004, she organized and presented a program titled “One City, Three Library Systems, 200+ Neighborhoods: Community Building Strategies for Urban Public Libraries” at the PLA conference. Library Journal recognized Ms. Fisher in its 2004 “Movers & Shakers” supplement. Ms. Fisher holds an MPA from the City University of New York, Baruch College, and an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Anne Hird, PhD, Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State College
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Dr. Hird, author of Learning from Cyber-Savvy Students: How Internet-Age Kids Impact Classroom Teaching, describes herself as living with one foot on the ground and one foot in cyberspace. She has worked with computer technology in schools since 1982. Her experience ranges from teaching in the Providence Public Schools to directing the $1.1 million grant across 27 elementary and middle schools. Under Dr. Hird's leadership, the M.Ed. in Instructional Technology recently became Bridgewater State College's first fully online degree program. She holds degrees from Brown University, Simmons College, University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College.
Karen D. Hyman, Executive Director at South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative
As Executive Director of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, Ms. Hyman develops services to 560 member libraries and administers QandANJ.org, a statewide, virtual reference service, which has been live since October 2001. Ms. Hyman is a nationally known speaker and writer on customer service, interlibrary networking and reinventing libraries. Publications include “Struggling in a One-Stop Home-Shopping World, or People Want What They Want When They Want It — Don’t You?” in Library Networks in the New Millennium: Top Ten Trends; and “Customer Service and the Rule of 1965: Stalled on the Way to the New Millennium” in American Libraries, October 1999. Ms. Hyman was the 1997 Librarian of the Year for the New Jersey Library Association and received its 2002 Library Service Award. She is the recipient of the 2003 Leadership Achievement Award from the ASCLA Division of the American Library Association.
Bonnie Isman, Director of the Jones Library, the Town Library of Amherst, Massachusetts
During the two decades that Ms. Isman has been Jones Library Director, the library has developed an active English as a Second Language tutoring program, foreign language collections, and computer skills classes. The library’s mission is “to stimulate and support the civic and cultural life of all people of the region” as a center for the community’s educational and cultural pursuits. Ms. Isman served as President of the Massachusetts Library Association in 1997-1998; as President of the Western Massachusetts Regional Library System in 1999; and President of the C/W MARS Network in 1988-1989. From 1976 to 1980 Ms. Isman worked at school and public libraries on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the summer of 2003 she took part in a professional exchange program with librarians in the Republic of Georgia.
George Loftus, Executive Director of OSHEAN
Mr. Loftus was instrumental in the establishment of the Ocean State Higher Education, Economic Development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN) while he served as Director of Network Technology at Brown University. OSHEAN provides Internet access for its members, as well as access to the regional Northern Crossroads network and Internet2 (I2). Mr. Loftus joined OSHEAN full time in January 2001 and has seen OSHEAN grow from 3 founding members in 2000 to fifteen members in 2003. He also serves on the .edu Advisory Committee of the I2 and the Quilt K-20 committees that focus on developing applications for use of I2 for the broader education community, including K-12 schools. Mr. Loftus received the 1999 Governor's IT Achievement Award from Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Almond for his efforts in developing OSHEAN and other non-profit technology initiatives in the state.
Sarah Long, System Director, North Suburban Library System, Wheeling, Illinois, http://www.sarahlong.org/
Since 1989, Ms. Long has been the Director of the North Suburban Library System, an organization of over 650 academic, public, school and special libraries in the north/northwest suburbs of Chicago. Prior to this position, she was the Director of the Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon. She also directed the Dauphin County Library System in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the Fairfield County District Library in Lancaster, Ohio. She was a consultant at the state Library of Ohio and was an academic librarian in England. Ms. Long began her career as a school librarian. Having held a number leadership positions within the American Library Association, Ms. Long served as President in 2000-2001. She also is a Past President of the Public Library Association.
Carolyn Noah, Administrator of the Central Massachusetts Regional Library System (CMRLS)
CMRLS serves 255+ academic, public, school and special libraries. Its vision is to create synergy among libraries to improve the quality of life in central Massachusetts. CMRLS includes the Academic and Research Collaborative, composed primarily of libraries previously working together in the Worcester Area Cooperating Libraries. Ms. Noah has written extensively on distance learning and published the "Capacity Building for Libraries" in the March/April 2004 issue of Public Libraries. She is passionate about libraries and people's rights to information. She has served in the American Library Association in many capacities, currently serves on the Board of the Central and Western Massachusetts Automated Resource Sharing System (C/W MARS), and is the Massachusetts Library Association's Vice-President, President-Elect.
Maryann Scholl, Program Coordinator, Office of Marine Programs at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography campus
The Office of Marine Programs designs and presents marine and environmental science education and outreach programs to educators and students in Rhode Island. A few of the programs on which Ms. Scholl has worked are the School to Career Initiative, National Ocean Science Bowl, ARMADA Program, the Institute for Exploration and the JASON Project. As the JASON Project Coordinator, Ms. Scholl conducts workshops to introduce the science curriculum topics to educators throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts. During the last three years, Ms. Scholl pioneered the use of Internet2 (I2) delivering more science content directly to the school classroom, enabling more educators and students’ participation to the new curriculum. Ms. Scholl has also used I2 technology in conjunction with The Institute for Exploration for Dr. Robert Ballard’s oceanographic expedition to the Black Sea. She is now preparing to use it with teachers and scientists living outside of Rhode Island who are involved with the ARMADA Program.
Chester Smolski, Professor Emeritus, Geography Department, Rhode Island College
Professor Smolski received his undergraduate degree in Education from Bridgewater State College, and a Masters of Arts degree in Geography from Clark University. After doing additional coursework at Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University, Professor Smolski spent two years at the London School of Economics doing research and presenting lectures. He has received numerous grants for his work in geography from the Alcoa Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Rhode Island College Faculty Enrichment Fund, as well as grants amounting to over $600,000 from the National Geographic Society and others to fund the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance. He has served as Co-coordinator of the Alliance for the past 13 years. Professor Smolski has published and presented over 30 publications and more than 300 commentaries in the Providence Journal and the Providence Business News.
Judith A. Sykes, Principal of Belfast Fine Arts/Technology Learning Center in the Calgary Board of Education, Calgary, Canada
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Ms. Sykes has an Educational Diploma in Curriculum and Instruction in School Libraries, and an M. Ed. in Educational Leadership. She co-chaired the "Future of School Libraries Task Force" and is past president of the Association of Teacher-Librarianship of Canada. She is the author of two books: Library Centers: Teaching Information Literacy, Skills and Process K-6 and Action Research: Practical Tips for Transforming Your School Library.
Helen R. Tibbo, PhD, Professor, School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Tibbo teaches in the areas of archives and records management, digital preservation and access, electronic retrieval, and reference. She is a co-PI with partners at Duke University Libraries for two projects funded by the National Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC): the Managing the Digital University Desktop project and the NHPRC Electronic Records Research Fellowship Program. Dr. Tibbo is a co-PI with collaborators from the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto for a Mellon Foundation funded project to develop standardized metrics for assessing use and user services for primary sources. She is also director of the Minds of Carolina project that is developing tools, methodologies, and guidelines, to help scholars prepare their materials for self-archiving within the digital repository at UNC. She has been the organizer and an instructor in the Digitization for Cultural Heritage Professionals 2002-2004 workshops held at UNC-SILS. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the American Archivist and the Journal of Archival Organization.
Raymond F. von Dran, PhD, Dean of the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University
While at Syracuse, Dr. von Dran has advised on information technology systems and planning to the universities of Alaska, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island, and reviewed new information curriculum at universities of Arizona, Buffalo, Dalhousie, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, among others. He has been Chair of the Syracuse University Committee on Information and Communication Technology Issues and Chair of the Chancellor's Task Force on Guiding Principles for Information and Communication Technology. Dr. von Dran has written and spoken widely on a range of topics including information science education, competencies for the information age, the economics of information, managing information resources, and edited the proceedings of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS) on Productivity in the Information Age. In ASIS, he served as the Chair of the Education Committee, which created the association's first educational standards.
updated:
4/26/06
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