by Kim Mears
The University Libraries has new additions to its faculty and staff. Please join us in welcoming them to Georgia Regents University!
New Faculty and Staff
Vicki Burchfield, MLIS, came to GRU to take on the role of Nursing Information Librarian at the beginning of March. Prior to GRU, Vicki spent two years on a fellowship at the library of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA. While there, she provided reference, instruction, and literature search services to CDC staff on a wide variety of topics. As the embedded librarian for the College of Nursing, her responsibilities include meeting with College of Nursing faculty and staff, informing CON about new resources and services, and training faculty and students in the use of library resources.
Linda Brown joined the administrative office of the Reese Library as an Office Specialist. She previously worked as an Office Associate for the Graduate School from 2007 until 2015. She assisted the first year biomedical students through their first year core courses.
Promotions
Erin Prentiss accepted the position of Reference and Instruction Librarian at Reese Library in March. Erin is no stranger to the GRU Libraries, having spent the last year serving as the Libraries’ Reference and User Engagement Librarian. In her new position, Erin will be responsible for teaching skills to GRU affiliates on the Summerville Campus, responding to research inquiries, and developing standalone instructional materials. Her bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology as well as her matriculation through the University of West Georgia’s education certification will serve her well in her role as liaison to the Department Sociology, Criminology, and Social Work and the Department of Teacher Education.
Thomas Weeks, MLIS, assumed his new role as Reference and Instruction Librarian at Reese Library on March 1. Thomas previously worked as the Manager of Access Services and Interlibrary Loan at Reese Library. In his new role, Thomas will be responsible for providing reference assistance to students, faculty, and staff, teaching instruction classes, and serving as liaison to the Department of Art and the Department of Political Science.
Awards
Julie K. Gaines, MLIS, Associate Professor, was awarded the 2015 Outstanding Faculty Award for the GRU Libraries. She is the inaugural librarian and Head of the GRU/UGA Medical Partnership Campus Library in Athens. She is the solo librarian who serves the Athens campus and is one of the core educators for the medical students. Julie is fully integrated in the medical school curriculum by teaching Evidence-Based Medicine topics for classes and clerkships, and she is a small group faculty facilitator in the community health and the population health components of the curriculum. She also assists the faculty and students with their technology needs including social media and mobile technologies. Julie supports and works with the faculty and students on different research projects, such as scholarly collaboration at a distance and on the use of iPads in medical schools in the clinical settings. She also collaborates with the GRU Greenblatt librarians on research projects and planning for the libraries’ services to the GRU campuses.
Her recent publications and research included a book chapter on Outreach in Health Librarianship, an AMEE guide on medical education scholarship, an article on the use of iPads by third-year medical students and a paper on embedded librarianship. She received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina and is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the library and information science honor society.
Peter Shipman, MLIS, has been accepted into the Educational Innovations Institute Teaching Scholars Program for 2014-2015. Shipman’s project will be related to his embedded librarian duties with the College of Dental Medicine and evidence-based dentistry principles and practices.
Certifications
Carol Waggoner-Angleton, Special Collections Librarian, received the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Digital Archivist Specialist Certificate upon successfully completing the course work and Comprehensive Examination. SAA is the preeminent national organization for archivists.
According to the SAA site for the Digital Archivist Specialist Certificate: “SAA is committed to providing education and training to ensure that archivists adopt appropriate practices for appraising, capturing, preserving, and providing access to electronic records….the Digital Archives Specialist (DAS) Curriculum and Certificate Program [is] designed to provide you with the information and tools you need to manage the demands of born-digital records.”
Publications
Ballance, D. & Webb, N. (2015). For the mouths of babes: Nutrition literacy
outreach to a child care center. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet, 19(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1080/15398285.2015.998054
