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.
Meredith Wynn
Meredith is the real deal as a web developer- a php wizard with full-stack expertise in web development who knows the ins and outs of our Libraries website. More importantly, though, she's a conscientious collaborator and is consistently receptive to new concepts and ambitions while keeping a really careful eye on objectives and scopes. It's awesome making stuff with Meredith and her colleagues on our Libraries Web Team.
- Colin Patrick Keenan, Feb 16, 2024
Virginia Ferris
Virginia is a dream collaborator- a subject expert who is deeply versed in the history of our University, of North Carolina, and of our Special Collections who welcomes new and returning visitors with open arms and well-curated selections. Her approach merges the old and new and I appreciate how receptive she and her colleagues in Special Collections are to integrations of new instruction, research, and exhibition concepts.
- Colin Patrick Keenan, Feb 16, 2024
Robin Davis , Beatrice Downey
Robin & Bea made the task of revising our department landing page a great experience. Our team really appreciated and enjoyed being able to exercise our creativity and learn best practices for users.
The results speak for themselves and we can't wait to work on the rest our site with them.
- Sandra Varry, Feb 2, 2024
Emily Schmidt, Lara Fountaine, Kelsey Dufresne
Emily and Lara had an idea for how we could connect with students creatively--making "collage journals" with a coil binder and cast-off book covers. They thought it would be a creative outlet and stress reliever for students during a time of overwhelm and uncertainty. Kelsey agreed and brought more ideas to the effort. Emily rescued old book covers from their trash can destiny, and purchased fancy washi tapes, stickers, markers, magazines, beautiful decorative papers, and many, many more kinds of collage items so the students would have lots of options.
The "Creative Journaling" sessions that have been held in the Fishbowl Forum turned out to be a SMASHING SUCCESS--drawing students who were looking for something relaxing to do between classes, or who were experiencing anxiety and needed an outlet for it. Since the first session, many students have returned every month -- they just can't get enough! I wish I had started a collection of all the things the students have said about Creative Journaling and about the women behind it. It has meant so much to our students.
Emily, Lara, and Kelsey found a beautiful way for students to revitalize and rejuvenate themselves, and it has made a world of difference for the mental health of many.
- Robin Harper, Feb 1, 2024
Meredith Wynn
In 2019, the Library Programs Committee approached web team about improving the user experience on our Library Workshops discovery page. Meredith helped us conduct user research in early 2020 to identify where our users struggled with finding and registering for workshops on our existing page. Even though the web team has had many other projects and priorities since that initial user research, Meredith did not let the workshops page drop from her list of projects, and just recently she completed the list of upgrades that we identified in 2020. As a result of her efforts our users can now search within our workshops offerings, filter workshops by location or category, and find all dates on which a workshop will be offered. (There are other features that I can't properly describe, but reflect the work that occurred under the hoods of Drupal and REPORTER.) Thank you Meredith for sticking with this project! The new pages is so much more functional!
- Anne Burke, Jan 16, 2024
Beatrice Downey
Over the past year, Beatrice Downey has worked to wrangle the Libraries' 150+ (and growing) videos in order to improve the browsing experience for users and the organization experience for staff. During the first phase of this project, Bea went through all the existing videos and categorized them by topic. She was always receptive to feedback and suggestions from stakeholders along the way. Once the videos were appropriately categorized, she added desired features like a search bar and a "sort by" dropdown. The resulting page (lib.ncsu.edu/videos) is a great improvement for users and library staff alike!
After she had brought order to the videos page, she turned her attention to our old tutorials and interactive guides page. She worked with others in the User Experience Department to rebrand that page as a Learn on Your Own page (https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/learn-on-your-own). I'm particularly excited about the opportunities this page will afford us to continue to present non-video asynchronous learning materials to our community!
Thanks so much, Bea, for your dedicated efforts toward this project!
- Anne Burke, Jan 9, 2024
Trevor Thornton
I was thrilled when Trevor recently moved the second version of Digital Assets of Enduring Value (DAEV) into production. Over the years, full-time and student staff in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) have relied on DAEV, a web application that helps us process born-digital materials. While planning and development for version two had begun before I joined SCRC, I appreciate how Trevor always took the time to help me understand how the application works. During the testing phase, he was always responsive to fix things, even when I knew he was working on other SCRC applications. The new DAEV is integrated with ArchivesSpace and our preservation system, automating more processes and making our work more efficient. Trevor is a pleasure to work with, whether that’s over Trello, email, or Zoom. Thank you Trevor!
- Shelly Black, Jan 9, 2024
Amir Blair, Elan Sandler
Early last summer, Amir reached out to learn about how (or whether) the Libraries had done any targeted outreach to University Athletics to support student athletes with their academic research needs. To my knowledge (and the memories of others he consulted) we had not been making any direct outreach to student athletes. Understanding that with their often tightly prescribed schedules, athletes may not be able to easily engage with the Libraries services, Amir reached out to the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes to find out how we could better support them. Elan joined the Libraries shortly after Amir made his initial inquiry and was on board by the time they heard back. Since then, Elan and Amir have met with staff in the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes to discuss student athlete support needs, and piloted several drop in library consultations hours at the Case Academic Center during Fall semester exams, with plans to do more during the Spring Semester. Kudos to them both for seeing an unmet need, and bringing awareness of library support to student athletes!
- Anne Burke, Jan 5, 2024
Duncan McDonald, Joseph Cummings
To say that the OLE team at Hunt has been instrumental in the government document weeding project would be an understatement. On a nearly weekly basis, Duncan and Joseph, transport several massive pallet boxes to ASX for recycling. Each of these boxes must be emptied by hand and then returned to Hunt. This is no small undertaking, with more than 35,000 documents recycled to date. Their dedication and graciousness have truly gone a long way in making sure this last, but very important, step of the project is completed. To put it simply, we couldn’t do it without them!
- Thomas Jones, Mia Partlow, A.R. Brand, Nakisha Moore, Dec 15, 2023
Adam Phillips
During our implementation for new software for TRLN Direct, Adam was extremely helpful in helping test the features, bugs, and workflows for our new software. Adam tracked issues on spreadsheets, brought issues and ideas to meetings, and helped create documentation. I really appreciate all of the detailed work they did to help move the project forward.
- Mia Partlow, Dec 15, 2023