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.
Aisha Grant
Aisha envisioned, arranged, and executed an amazing "University Libraries Fair" at the College of Veterinary Medicine to introduce CVM students, faculty, and staff to all the wonderful resources and opportunities available across the Libraries. Our patrons at the Library of Veterinary Medicine aren't always familiar with the full range of what the Libraries can do for them, and this was a perfect way to help get the word out. She planned every element of it perfectly, and carried it off without a hitch. Her Libraries colleagues had a great time, and the outreach was greatly appreciated by the CVM!
- Dave Provost, Peggy Gross, Sep 24, 2026
Laquanda M. Fields, Madelyn Kenney
Laquanda and Madelyn, the Outreach Graduate Student Assistant, planned and executed an absolutely fantastic Hobbit Day themed event for students. The attendance was astounding, with over 150 students engaging in the activities from garden-scaping, jewelry making, notebook creating, and scavenger hunting. Laquanda and Madelyn thoughtfully themed the entire event to create a warm, welcoming, and inviting event for students to take a wellness break and learn about workshops and resources at the Libraries. People were lined up at the door waiting for the festivities to begin, and I witnessed many students make new connections, form friendships, and share their creations with one another. I am so impressed by their attention to detail and dedication to wellbeing and belonging for our students.
- Cas Saroza, Sep 23, 2026
Julie Lu
We want to take a moment to recognize Julie for consistently being amazing! Your positive attitude, willingness to help, and dedication to getting things done don't go unnoticed. Thank you for always being available to tackle our technology issues - especially when it involves the Bookeye. Your support and expertise are truly appreciated!
- Aisha Grant, Ashton Reddish, Sep 10, 2026
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