April 23-29, 2023 is National Library Week, a time to celebrate the people and stories from the ASU Library. This year’s theme, “There's More to the Story,” is an opportunity for us to share how we support our communities and student success at ASU. From book displays and e-resources to technology support and accounting, it takes a lot of people to run a library.
Check out the stories from a few of the individuals that make it all happen right here and on our Facebook and Instagram channels. Reach out to us, follow us, and stop by to visit! We’re here for you!
Jackie Young
"I envision and implement book displays and curate the art gallery at the Downtown Phoenix campus Library. "Nature Imagined" is an art exhibit by Robert Palmer, an ASU alumnus visual artist, that details how the artist finds inspiration for his watercolor paintings from nature. To highlight inspiration from nature, I organized a book display of nature writing and photography books to go along with the paintings. Access ASU will be bringing about 30 high school students to tour the art exhibit on April 27 about noon. In addition, in April we will have a Sexual Assault Awareness Month book display with books suggested by the Sexual and Relationship Violence Prevention program at ASU."
Corie Cisco
"I partner with students, faculty, staff and other community stakeholders to curate featured collections that engage with and represent the ASU community! I'm most proud of the featured collections we have put together with student coalitions and library staff that fill gaps in our print materials. A few collections of note are Black Voices, Disability and Inclusion and Letters of Lavender!"
Zoie Ypsilanti
"I help to fulfill requests for Distinctive Collections by sending materials housed at High Density Collections to either the Wurzburger Reading Room at Hayden or the Design Reading Room in Design. A project that I'm proud of was one that I took on when I first started in my position about a year and a half ago, which was to make materials located in the distinctive collections area of HDC accessible to patrons. My student worker and I spent close to three months putting storage location IDs on manuscript collections and publications that are housed in folders (aka pamphlets). In doing so, I like to think I have made it easier for the ASU community to access collections that they may not have known existed before!"
Seren Nutt
"I assist students in accessing materials and services offered within the library. I got to help Corie Cisco, our collections curator, with putting together our Letters in Lavender collection to feature the voices of the 2SLGBTQ+ community!"
Caelin Ross
"I curate ASU Library’s performing arts collections for the ASU performing arts programs and work to promote engagement with the collections. I am excited to teach special classes using archival items from the Child Drama Collection."
Christina Sullivan
"I manage the Naturespace at Hayden Library and coordinate projects. The project I am working on is making the Naturespace more visible to the students and faculty of ASU. Naturespace is for ASU Affiliates to find inspiration from the specimens we provide. The space is unique since it is interactive rather than behind glass. My staff and I have been hosting workshops for drawing, microscope games, and crafts. In the past year, we have had art and biomimicry classes come to use the collection. Our new addition to the space is a feather bank that works like the seed library where people can take feathers for their school projects. In the future, we hope to have a more engaging, friendly space where the ASU community can enjoy nature."
Karina Wilhelm
"I manage the Design and the Arts Library and an awesome team of student employees. I'm excited about the new Art and Design Lending Library. We have design tools to check out!"
Yitazba Largo-Anderson
"I create programming and outreach events, help manage the Labriola National American Indian Data Center's social media, and design book displays. I feel proud about the "Living Art: Movement and Form in Indigenous Poetry" Book Display that highlighted our Indigenous Open Mic Night with Jake Skeets."
Eric Prosser
"I work with faculty, staff, and students in the Fulton Schools of Engineering to support teaching, research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. I helped create the STEM Diversity Collection at Noble Library to highlight the voices of marginalized and underrepresented communities in the sciences and engineering."
Kerri Rittschof
"I am the Director of the Unit for Data Science and Analytics. The Unit for Data Science and Analytics partnered with ASU Interplanetary Initiative for a two-day hackathon, Spring 2023 at ASU, Hayden Library. This event brought 138 innovative and multidisciplinary students together in-person and virtually to leverage Google Earth satellite data to address the United Nations' Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs): Sustainable water access in Nepal, Climate impacts on Brazilian favelas, and Wildfire risk and social disparity in the United States. The students hacked for 2800+ hours, and came from nine countries worldwide; and seven other universities participated to include, including Harvard, Yale, Northern Arizona University, University of Nepal, and Universidad de Malaga (Ecuador). The hackathon was a huge success! Next year will even be better!"
Holly Kruper
"As an information user specialist, I process books for the hold shelf and process transit books from other branch libraries. At the Hayden Library information desk, I'm proud I get to help all the students, faculty and staff with the information they need. I also help onboard new staff members and student workers on our team!"
Steve Tanner
"I am a systems architect and software development team lead at ASU Library. If you login to a resource at the library, you're using code written by this team. We're improving how authorization works for library users. Increased reliability, faster response times, better visibility and empowerment for staff to see and fix problems. Enhanced metrics for leadership's data-driven decision-making."
Jonathan Wilcox
"I digitize archival materials for patrons to use for their research needs. A few weeks ago a patron requested specific pages to be digitized from a rare 18th-century book which they were going to then use the information to identify the artists who engraved the plates since the copy we have here at ASU is the only one that contains the artists' names."
Michael Sepulveda
"I am helping the Makerspace become a successful department! Over the last few years, we have been adding more and more services here in the Makerspace! We opened a sewing room, a VR room and a Cricut for crafting! Adding options for our students to use is a great joy!"
Marcia Henley
"I help manage the acquisition of print and e-books: ordering, receiving, purchasing, communicating with vendors and reconciling financial transactions. This spring I am processing the annual Sun Devil Reads refresh. I will look at each book to make sure it is truly “shelf-ready” from the vendor."
Karen Grondin
"I negotiate licenses for the databases, e-journals, and e-books available through the ASU Library. I am one of ASU's Digital Accessibility Liaisons. I am really excited to be part of this community at ASU as we work to promote accessibility at ASU."