NCSU Libraries Fellows 2014-2016

ANNOUNCEMENT: NCSU LIBRARIES FELLOWS 2014-2016

We are very pleased to announce the appointment of the 2014- 2016 class of NCSU Libraries Fellows: Virginia Ferris, effective 11 August 2014; Josephine McRobbie, effective 1 July 2014, and Heidi Tebbe, effective 11 August 2014. The NCSU Libraries Fellows Program develops future leaders for academic libraries, with a focus on science, engineering, and digital librarianship, on diversity, and on library management.

For more than 15 years, the program has attracted an impressive group of talented new graduates from universities throughout North America. NCSU Libraries Fellows are appointed for a two-year term as members of the library faculty, combining an assignment on an initiative of strategic importance with an appointment in a home department.

Virginia Ferris is completing the Master of Science in Library Science, with a concentration in Archives and Record Management, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). While pursuing her graduate studies, Ferris was appointed as a Carolina Academic Libraries Associate, with an assignment in Special Collections. In this role, she arranged and described manuscripts and audiovisual materials, provided reference services, and completed a digitization field experience. Ferris came to the field of library and information science with a background in ethnographic research, music licensing, Irish Studies, oral history, and public history. She previously served as Oral Historian and Archival Assistant with the Glucksman Ireland House and worked for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City.

Ferris's current research focuses on linked data and semantic web practices for archival description, and she is earning the Certificate in Digital Curation at UNC-CH. She holds the Master of Arts in Irish and Irish American Studies from New York University and the Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University. She has published and presented on the topic of the Irish and African American interracial community in 19tth century New York.

Ferris's home department will be in Special Collections. Her initiative assignment will be "Expanding Foundation and Corporate Support for Strategic Priorities," as part of the Libraries' advancement program.

Josephine McRobbie recently completed both the Master of Library Science and the Master of Arts in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University (IU). While completing her graduate studies, McRobbie was a Strategic Media Access Resource Team Member for the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative and the Local Coordinator for the 2013 Orphans Midwest Film Symposium. She served as a graduate assistant for the Survey of Hip-Hop course in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and for Traditional Arts Indiana, in addition to completing an internship with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Before pursuing graduate studies, McRobbie worked in public media, with a focus on arts and community reporting and production. She is also a touring and recording musician. McRobbie was a recipient of an American Folklore Society and National Endowment for the Arts Professional Development Grant (2013), a presenter at the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting (2012), and a delegate to the Smithsonian Folklore Festival (2012). Her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Sociology was also earned at Indiana University.

McRobbie will be based in Collection Management for her home department. Her initiative assignment in Research and Information Services is, "How Do You Talk to a Building? Patron-facing tools for space and service discovery at the D. H. Hill Jr. Library."

Heidi Tebbe is completing the Master of Library Science at Indiana University. She is currently a Senior Media Developer/Multimedia Apps Developer at Option Six, a division of GP Strategies, where she designs and builds interfaces, interactive media, and graphics for computer-based and instructor-led training. She leads a team to create processes and metadata standards for ingestion of multimedia objects into a Digital Asset Management System and provides media for instructional projects to a variety of clients, such as the pharmacy industry and software engineering. At Purdue University Libraries, Tebbe served as Databib Intern in the Distributed Data Curation Center, where she created and updated cataloging records and evaluated sites for inclusion in Databib, a tool for identifying and locating online repositories of research data.

Tebbe holds the Master of Science in Telecommunications, specializing in Immersive Media, and the Master of Arts in Astronomy, both from IU. She has served as an instructor, teaching and assisting professors in introductory and advanced astronomy courses and introductory telecommunications courses. Additionally, she was a research intern at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She holds the Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Missouri.

Tebbe's home department assignment will be in Digital Library Initiatives. Her initiative assignment, "Aligning Collections with Emerging Needs in Research Informatics," is based in Collection Management.