Hi, friends. Our elections for EC opened last week and I am one of the candidates you’ll see on the ballot for this Group. Therefore, I thought that I might share a little about my interests, my role(s) at the College of Wooster, and my goals for service on the Executive Committee for the Libraries and Research Group.
I have come to libraries by way of my interests in the material book, in digital humanities research methods, and the intersections of the two. Teaching is the cornerstone of my professional activity, and I’m grateful to work in an environment that fosters creative pedagogies and a spirit of experimentation. Personally and professionally, I enjoy making things, and so I strive to help students in my courses and workshops as they explore elemental parts — of, for example, books, digital systems, or even information — and articulate the parts’ relationships to their whole. This particular work will be buttressed in the coming years as I begin my term as an MC Lang Fellow with Rare Book School.
For four years, I have been the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the College of Wooster, as well the Director of its Collaborative Research Environment (CoRE). I am liaison to our English Department and our new Global Media and Digital Studies program; I also teach a digital humanities course in the latter. As the Director of CoRE, I am a steward of spaces and resources as well as the creator of a handful of digitally-inflected programs.
If elected, I will bring my experience in project management and program development to bear on my position on the EC for the Libraries and Research Group. Research faces unprecedented pressures, and I am excited by the prospect of addressing them with colleagues on the Committee. As an organization, we must stand for truth and labor for equity; as one of the voices for libraries within the MLA, I will do my part to center the library’s role in building students’ foundational relationships with information.
