Shout-outs to Staff
The following are Libraries staff who have received a shout-out from one or more of their colleagues for going out of their way to be extra awesome at their job.
Shira Greer
Huge shoutout to Shira for coming through on a collaborative lesson for a class. They taught students about using our databases to retrieve newspaper articles and spent some time explaining Boolean operators and other features of good searches - all in a limited time frame. Students were absorbing the information and were clearly learning something new, as evidenced by the smiles, widening eyes, and assertive head nods. More impressive, however, was the speed and depth with which Shira answered their questions, providing additional resources that satisfied the students and instructor alike. This was expert library instruction, and I'm honored to call Shira a colleague.
- Gabriel Graña, Sep 2, 2026
Darren Boone, Robin Kelly, Ryan Hunter, Konteh Farrar, Chris Tonelli
As part of Christina Koch’s homecoming to NC State University after her Artemis II mission, Duke Energy Hall (DEH) hosted a major press conference featuring Chancellor Howell and the astronaut answering questions from schoolchildren and journalists. While DEH regularly hosts a variety of events, managing simultaneous feeds for the approximately 20 news outlets in attendance presented a unique challenge. Ensuring reliable press feeds and high-quality audio called for strong coordination among the DEH team, the IT department, Libraries Communications, and University Communications. This collaborative effort involved critical technical fixes, including a dedicated Sunday afternoon quality check to guarantee Monday's event ran smoothly. Ultimately, the press conference was a big success, enhancing Christina Koch’s campus visit. Many thanks go to Ryan, Konteh, Darren, Robin, and Chris for pulling off this event!
- Joe White, Aug 27, 2026
Maria Rice
Maria makes life as a supervisor easier. She answers questions quickly and thoroughly, makes (many!) fixes to errors in timesheets and is always a kind and reassuring presence. She does all of this in response to panicked emails or chats, but also does heavy front-loading work to make sure supervisors have what they need with events like the Supervisor Unconference and making well-documented processes available on Confluence. Thank you, Maria!
- Alison Edwards, Aug 19, 2026
Khaled Badwan
Khaled to the rescue, once again! Yesterday, we discovered that our scavenger hunt ipads were missing essential apps with classes scheduled to use them the next day. Khaled came down within a few minutes, talked to the right IT colleagues and got it resolved all within about 30 minutes, during a very busy first week of classes. This is not the first time (and I'm sure won't be the last) that he has shown up to save the day. Thanks, Khaled!
- Alison Edwards, Aug 19, 2026
Manuela Cretella Foglio
As part of a major system migration that affects the entire Libraries organization, Manuela created documentation that is astounding in its comprehensiveness and its quality. It's easy to navigate, and the steps are clearly written and feature helpful screenshots and even photographs. When I'm helping a patron through a tricky process, this documentation makes it easy and quick to figure out what to do. Thank you, Manuela!!
- Robin Davis, Aug 7, 2026
Shira Greer, Aasta Thomas, Sojourna Cunningham
The Bridging to the Wolfpack team put together a fantastic full day conference and workshop for high school librarians to learn about collegiate level information literacy, instruction, research, AI, and more! Their hard work in planning such an intentional experience for librarians across the state will have huge ripple effects for first year college students successfully engaging in research and writing at NC State, coming in more prepared as their librarians "bridge" them to these higher level competencies. I am especially impressed by Shira's willingness to hit the ground running in planning and executing the event, only starting her Fellowship a year ago. She and the team listened to the needs of these librarians and immediately took action to fill the gap, ultimately benefitting the students who will join the NC State community in the future. It was such a joy to witness the day and hear positive feedback throughout from the attendees.
- Cas Saroza, Aug 4, 2026
Sarah Setzer
If you are accessing electronic resources through Alma, it is probably because of Sarah!
Sarah has been and continues to be an amazing advocate for our users during this migration. She is consistently identifying and fixing technical gaps in electronic access, experimenting with new features of Alma, and providing help and feedback when others are struggling to get the data they need or implement a clean-up project in the most efficient way. We are so lucky to have Sarah on our team doing amazing work!
- Beth Ashmore, Jul 14, 2026
Lara Fountaine, Courtney Hewett
The 'Family Dance Party' at Hunt Library was such a fun, engaging, and exciting way for children and their families to take part in our Libraries programming and spaces with dancing and music making. Courtney's DJ-ing and Lara's MC-ing brought so much energy to the event and ensured a memorable day the Libraries for all the participants including the children and their families. It was a generous, joyful, and inclusive event that brought in new members of the Libraries community and it couldn't have happened without Lara and Courtney's above-and-beyond effort and talents.
- Colin Keenan, May 22, 2026
Kristen Rivers
I have been involved in a lot of event planning this year and each time when I have needed something from Kristen Rivers she goes above and beyond. Whether it was last minute coffee for an LFC meeting or facilitating a retirement party, Kristen comes in and makes sure we have everything we need and that our events are welcoming and trouble free. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of the hard work that Kristen puts in and the joyful way that she makes it all look easy.
- Beth Ashmore, May 20, 2026
Maria Rice
Managing the SHRA annual appraisal process is no small feat, but Maria always handles it like an absolute pro. With her unmatched determination, she again this year took on the monumental task of emailing, tracking, and gently (but persistently!) working with Libraries' supervisors to keep things moving. Thank you, Maria, for your incredible patience, hard work, and for keeping us all on track!
- Laura Blessing, May 19, 2026