Category: Staff News

Staff Advisory Committee Town Hall: November 2025

Andy Martinez, Chiaki Mills, and Corinne Suarez also contributed to this report.

The Staff Advisory Committee Town Hall in November aimed to emphasize the importance of staff voices in shaping the committee’s initiatives.

The Staff Advisory Committee (SAC) held a town hall on November 6. The purpose of the event was to emphasize the importance of staff voices in shaping the committee’s initiatives by encouraging participation from the Rutgers University Libraries staff. The committee hopes to amplify staff voices to advise leadership and foster transparency between the Libraries’ units.

Report of the VPUL/UL

Consuella Askew, vice president for university libraries and university librarian, began the meeting with an update on the Libraries’ strategic planning progress. She thanked Tony Nguyen and the faculty and staff who served on the Strategic Goal Writing Task Force for producing a comprehensive report and hosting a town hall. As a next step, the Libraries Leadership Team will take the task force’s recommendations and develop a more refined set of goals, objectives, and activities, along with an accompanying narrative to flesh out the strategic plan.

Askew updated the group on the Libraries’ core services. A small group from the Libraries Leadership Team will develop documents that communicate these core services visually. The team will draft internal documents, which will be used to help inform operational decision-making, as well as external documents for advocacy to stakeholders.

Mary Beth Weber’s work in her new role as coordinator for training and mentorship was also highlighted by Askew. Weber is working with a host of internal and external stakeholders, including SAC leadership, Planning Committee leadership, and the Libraries’ human resources manager, to create and deliver enrichment programming. She’s also charged with launching an internal leadership program, as well as externally focused educational programming that centers the Libraries as the intellectual hub of the university. The University Librarian’s Symposium Series on AI in Higher Education, launched on November 10, is a prime example of this external programming.

Askew concluded her report with her thoughts on how the staff can demonstrate the Libraries’ contributions to the academic and research priorities of the university. She stressed how the SAC has played a vital role in building an inclusive work environment to further these goals.

SAC Overview and Highlights

John Gibson, SAC chair, gave an overview of SAC’s accomplishments for the year. He highlighted the development of the governance foundation, a staff resources page, and an anonymous feedback form. He also mentioned the group’s participation in workforce planning, DEI initiatives, and the AI task force. In addition, the committee is looking to launch mini-town halls, discuss enrichment proposals, and explore mentorship opportunities.

Gibson also acknowledged the work of Secretary Roselyn Riley-Ryan and Ex Officio Hadiyah Sellers.

Standing Committee Reports

The standing committee chairs gave their group reports, highlighting each committee’s key contributions from the staff.

The Governance Committee, led by Tracy Meyer, focused on bylaws, elections, and nomination cycles. The group is now preparing for Spring 2026 elections and is seeking new members to help with the committee.

Andy Martinez of the Communications Committee reported on the workflow development of posting SAC minutes and the creation of a procedural manual. The group’s future goals include content writing and new stories published on the staff website and in The Agenda.

The Enrichment Activities Committee, chaired by Andrew Ruggiero, reported on its goals of promoting wellness, leadership, and professional development. Current projects include safety training, tech learning, and staff recognition.

Ruggiero concluded with some complimentary words for fellow committee member Grace McGarty. Ruggiero talked about how she brings out her best to serve others and that this was a guiding vision of the work of the Enrichment Activities Committee.

Unit Representative Updates

The town hall then moved on to some general updates from the individual units.

Rutgers–Camden, represented by Jennifer Rieber (Robeson Library), asked if anyone with questions or feedback could please reach out to her as the unit representative.

Isaiah Beard from Central acknowledged the work of retiring staff member Renee Clark. She has served in a range of roles in the Technical Services Building (TSB). Working for Rutgers since 1979, she had been in TSB making sure our materials reach our sites and the community we serve.

Rutgers–New Brunswick, represented by Jamey Silverstein (Carr Library/Annex), acknowledged his fellow staff colleagues who, like him, are wearing many hats due to staffing shortages. He provided an update on Douglass Library, where work is in progress to renovate the Media Service Point for use by University Online Education Services.

Video of the full town hall is accessible here:

Staff Advisory Committee Town Hall – November 10, 2025

December 17, 2025
Yini Zhu Retires after 26 Years of Service at Smith Library

Yini Zhu, Managing Librarian and Acting Associate Director at the George F. Smith Library of the Health Sciences, retired on January 1, 2023.

Yini was hired in 1997 as the Microcomputer/Media Librarian at UMDNJ’s Smith Library. Her interest and expertise in using technology led her to successfully pursue a master’s in biomedical informatics from the then UMDNJ – School of Health Related Professions. In 2004, she was promoted to Managing Librarian and Head of Access Services, a position she maintained through the merger of UMDNJ and Rutgers. In this role, she managed the circulation, interlibrary loan, media, and technical support teams and services at Smith Library. Most recently, Yini was named Interim Associate Director and co-lead of the Health Sciences Libraries this past September.

Yini has led the Access Services staff through many changes and challenges, including migrating to ExLibris and ALMA, sunsetting Loansome Doc, migrating workstations from CORE to RAD, and pivoting services to accommodate remote instruction to support RBHS during the pandemic. She has expertly represented the Health Sciences Libraries on the Fulfilment Team; the Resource Sharing Team; the Web Improvement, Web Redesign, and Web Teams; the Google Books group; and so many more. She enjoyed teaching and training Access Services staff on workflows and procedures using a variety of platforms, including ExLibris, SpringShare, Canvas, and Kaltura. She served as the Health Sciences Libraries expert on Leganto, providing instruction and troubleshooting to faculty and academic departments throughout RBHS.

Yini is a longstanding member of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and the New York-New Jersey Chapter of the Medical Library Association. She served on the Medical Informatics Section of MLA since 2014. She has presented at the Access Services conference, VALE annual conference, RUL State of the Libraries, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and Medical Library Association annual meetings. In 2015, Yini was awarded a health information awareness grant by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. As PI, she designed an outreach program, SHARE the Info: Spread Health Awareness with Resources and Education. In 2001, she received the outstanding service award from the NY/NJ chapter of the MLA.

Prior to her time at UMDNJ, Yini held various roles and positions at Wayne Public Library, Bergen Academy and Bergen Technical School, Highland Park Library, and the East Asian Library at Rutgers University, to name a few!

Yini’s vast experience, positive attitude, and collegial spirit will be sorely missed. We thank her for her many years of service and tireless commitment to the Health Sciences Libraries and our constituencies.

We know Yini will enjoy this next chapter and fill it with family, travel, and time for herself. We offer our congratulations and wish her the very best.

February 1, 2023
Rutgers University Libraries Welcome Dr. Tajah Ebram as Black Studies Librarian

Dr. Tajah Ebram

Rutgers University Libraries and the Black Bibliography Project (BBP) are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Tajah Ebram as Black Studies Librarian. In addition to supporting faculty and students working in Black studies, Dr. Ebram will serve as the Rutgers lead for the BBP, which seeks to revitalize the practice of bibliography for African American literary and cultural studies. She will be based in Alexander Library, collaborating across the campus and with BBP colleagues at Yale University.

Dr. Ebram received her PhD in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in 20th-century Black literary and cultural studies, with a focus on Black radicalisms. Her dissertation was an interdisciplinary cultural history of the MOVE Organization. Dr. Ebram comes to us from Haverford College, where she taught courses on Black Philadelphia, race and ecology, and Black feminisms and the carceral state. She brings additional expertise in cultural geography, public humanities, and digital humanities.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Ebram to the Rutgers community.

January 31, 2023
SOAR Staff Acknowledged in Cancer Research Communications Journal

Rutgers University Libraries’ SOAR staff received a published acknowledgment in the January 2023* issue of Cancer Research Communications. Kudos to Geoff Wood, metadata librarian for Scholarly Communication and Collections, for helping author David Axelrod archive the supplementary data for his article in SOAR. We are pleased to see the Libraries recognized for their contributions to faculty research.

*Cockrell, C. and D.E. Axelrod. (2023). Combination chemotherapy of multidrug-resistant early-stage colon cancer: determining optimal dose schedules by high-performance computer simulation. Cancer Research Communications, 3: 21-30. https://doi.org/10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-22-0271

About Cancer Research Communications

Cancer Research Communications is an open-access peer-reviewed journal encompassing the full spectrum of cancer research.

About SOAR

SOAR (Scholarly Open Access at Rutgers) has been developed as a convenient website where Rutgers scholars can deposit their work and access further information about open access. Rutgers authors deposit legal copies of scholarly articles into SOAR at the time of the article’s final acceptance for publication, at no cost to them, making scholarship freely accessible to readers and researchers worldwide on the Internet. SOAR staff will research all permissions for you at the time of deposit. SOAR is crawled by Google and ensures access over time. Once it’s deposited, you’ll receive a permanent link for your article that you can use on your website, CV, courseware, and for social networking.

January 10, 2023
Erika Gorder Appointed University Archivist

We are delighted to announce that Erika Gorder has been appointed University Archivist.

Erika began working at Rutgers University Libraries in 1992 as an assistant archivist and, after time at several other repositories, returned in 1997 as an archivist at the Institute of Jazz Studies. She has worked in University Archives, serving as Interim, Associate, and Acting University Archivist since 1998.

Erika earned a master’s degree in history and archival studies from New York University, a master of library and information science degree from Rutgers University, and a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College.

Please join us in congratulating Erika on a well-deserved appointment.

January 2, 2023
Collection Acquisitions Department Holiday Party

On December 22, members from the Collection Acquisitions department gathered to celebrate the holidays and their accomplishments over the past year. We were happy to see so many smiling faces!

December 22, 2022
Megan Lotts Drawing Selected for CR&L News Cover

Congratulations to Art Librarian Megan Lotts for having her drawing of Scott Hall (from inside the Art Library) selected for the cover of this month’s C&RL News! Read the newsletter at this link.

December 8, 2022
DEI Spotlight – December 2022
December 2022 Spotlight

The DEI Committee 2.0 was formed in late 2021 and comprises staff and faculty representing all Rutgers campuses. The committee’s mission is to:
- respect and foster perspectives that reflect varying backgrounds, identities, roles, and their intersections;
- create and support structures and behaviors that encourage equity, fairness, and justice; and
- promote an environment of belonging, respect, opportunity, and empowerment.
Reporting to the Vice President for University Libraries and University Librarian and the Libraries Leadership Team, the committee serves as an advisory body to the Libraries in support of RUL and university core DEI values and university priorities. In the past year, the committee worked with the RUL Human Resources department to review hiring practices and create a more inclusive work environment. The committee meets bimonthly and is currently working on its next charge, which will be announced soon.

Read the DEI Committee’s November 2022 Meeting Minutes
Read the DEI Committee’s October 2022 Meeting Minutes
DEI Committee Members

DEI Training and Events

Participate in the following training and events to expand your DEI knowledge:

Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence (STRIDE) Workshop

Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Time: 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

This two-hour workshop reviews research-driven best practices to recruit for diversity and excellence across every stage in the search process and is designed to help faculty produce diverse candidate pools and run effective searches. STRIDE workshops are recommended for faculty members with key roles in faculty recruitment efforts (e.g., search committee chairs and members).

Register for the Workshop

Babs Siperstein Humanities and Medicine Seminars

The Siperstein Seminars take an inclusive and intersectional approach to broaden the understanding of LGBTQIA+ issues to build healthcare workers’ capacity and knowledge base, thus increasing their ability to provide more comprehensive and holistic healthcare. To learn more about the seminars, please click this link.

Seminar: Transgender and Nonbinary Representation in Comics
Speaker: Tara Madison Avery
Date: Monday, December 19, 2022
Time: 6:00–7:00 p.m.

Tara Madison Avery is a cartoonist, bi activist, and the publisher of Stacked Deck Press, an imprint devoted to comics of LGBTQAIU interest. As a cartoonist, Avery created the bi-themed webcomic Gooch and has published stories in several queer-themed comics anthologies, including We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology (which she co-edited and published), winner of the 2019 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Anthology. She was invited to the 2015 and 2016 Bisexual Community Briefings at the White House and was chair of the Los Angeles Bi Task Force from 2013 to 2015. Avery has also been a board member of Prism Comics, a nonprofit organization that promotes LGBTQ comics, comics creators, and fandom, since 2012. In her work with Prism Comics, she has moderated several LGBTQ-oriented panel discussions at comic conventions across the country, including the first all-transgender panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2014.

Thank you to Kayo Denda, Head of the Margery Somers Foster Center and Librarian for Women’s Gender And Sexuality Studies, for organizing and promoting wonderful events.

Register for the Seminar

World Braille Day

Date: Wednesday, January 4, 2023

World Braille Day is celebrated every year on January 4 to commemorate the birthday of Louis Braille, founder of the braille system. Braille is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired.

DEI Reads

Check out what the DEI Committee is currently reading:
- “From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A New Way to Frame Dialogue Around Diversity and Social Justice” (Chapter 8 of The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections from Social Justice Educators, edited by Lisa M. Landreman)
DEI Resources

Explore these resources to learn more about DEI:
- Rutgers University Equity and Inclusion: diversity.rutgers.edu
- Center for Diversity Education and Bias Prevention Workshops: nbdiversity.rutgers.edu/educational-workshops
- Racial Equity Institute: racialequityinstitute.org
DEI Spotlight Archive
- December 2022
November 18, 2022
AvramCamp 2022: My Experience
AvramCamp is a one-day preconference offered by Core, a division of American Library Association (ALA). The event is named in honor of Henriette Avram, the creator of MARC format. It was offered on July 29 as a virtual event. Core describes AvramCamp as “a safe and welcoming space for women and non-binary technology library workers to explore common challenges faced, learn strategies for dealing with them, and discuss specific tools to build confidence….” AvramCamp is open to anyone, and registrants don’t need to be ALA members. Attendance was limited to 60 participants, who were from a range of libraries and at different points in their careers.

The event opened with a discussion of ALA’s code of conduct, an overview of a jamboard (a virtual bulletin board with virtual post-its), and a guided meditation. The meditation was led by Ginger Stevens, a certified meditation coach and certified life coach. It was the first event I’ve attended that began with a guided meditation!

The meditation was followed by a keynote by Dr. Sharon Whitfield, Electronic Resources and User Access Librarian, Rider University. Dr. Whitfield is also a researcher, and her primary focus is gender and library technology. Her keynote was titled “Schrodinger’s Workplace: Existing in Multiple States of Being,” and focused on the impact of external departments and constant interruptions on our work. Whitfield stressed that we tend to make more mistakes when we’re fragmented. Other drivers include increased workloads due to post-COVID retirements and vacancies and an uncertain future. She discussed how we can take control in such circumstances.

Attendees were asked to reflect on our workplace and the various roles in which we serve. Whitfield asked attendees to discuss how they felt fragmented, both at work and in their personal life at home. We discussed whether we felt successful at multitasking and if we were effective at decision-making amid numerous interruptions. Whitfield addressed fragmentation and Imposter Phenomenon. Fragmentation can lead one to feel like an imposter, and she asked participants to acknowledge if they had felt that way.

The next topic was gendered fragmentation, a common part of the culture of academia. Women are often viewed as nurturers and take on more service. This is particularly true for BIPOC women. Women who are in technology fields often lack mentors. Whitfield noted that Imposter Phenomenon isn’t exclusive to women and reported that 70% of the general population have experienced imposter tendencies in relation to their work.

Whitfield shared a working definition of Imposter Phenomenon, which is common to high achievers, who are unable to internalize and accept their success. They often attribute their success to luck and fear that they will be revealed as a fraud. Although men may also suffer from Imposter Phenomenon, Syndrome, Whitfield reported that they tend not to internalize their feelings.

The discussion moved to an examination of the unintended consequences of fragmentation and Imposter Phenomenon, which include workplace mobbing (i.e., bullying), decision making that doesn’t balance short- and long-term consequences, toxic work environment, and burnout from taking on too much responsibility. Workplace mobbing is common in libraries due to lack of clear job descriptions and this results in people being pulled into different fragmented areas. Attendees were asked to consider what we might do to stop fragmentation and feelings of imposter phenomenon.

The remainder of the day was devoted to two breakout sessions and a closing discussion. Participants were asked to use virtual sticky notes to suggest discussion topics for the two afternoon breakout sessions. The suggestions with the most votes were selected (imposter phenomenon and invisible disability/neurodiversity). Feedback from the Imposter Phenomenon session included:
- Adopting the mindset that there’s no true emergency in the work we do.
- Recognizing that we may be our own worst critic.
- The phrase “just say no” isn’t just about drugs and may be used at work.
Feedback from the invisible disability/neurodiversity discussion included:
- Provide training tools and resources for student employees/co-workers based on how you wish you had been trained.
- Disclose to co-workers; explain the things that you need to be successful at work to those who need to know.
- Ask students at hiring if they need accommodations—mental/physical/religious accommodations.
The session ended with a recap of the breakout sessions and an open discussion.
October 12, 2022
Laura Costello Appointed Director of Strategic Planning and Assessment

Laura Costello was appointed Rutgers University Libraries’ new Director of Strategic Planning and Assessment, effective October 10. Laura came to RUL from Stony Brook University Libraries in 2018 as our Virtual Reference Services Librarian. In 2021, she was promoted to Research and Instruction Services Coordinator. Laura brings to this leadership position a set of skills informed and honed by her responsibilities here at Rutgers and by her previous roles as Head of Research and Emerging Technologies at Stony Brook University and Head of Library Materials and Acquisitions at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Laura has been an integral part of the implementation, administration, and training activities for several of our current data collection platforms, including Alma analytics and Springshare’s LibAnswers and LibInsight. She was also instrumental in the implementation of Leganto. This past year, she stepped in and took on the responsibility for compiling and submitting RUL’s statistical data for the ACRL, ARL, and IPEDS surveys in the absence of a full-time assessment person.

Her interest in assessment is evidenced by her body of scholarship. She has written and presented on library topics such as reference, space programming, and collections with a focus on assessment. A productive scholar, Laura has authored or co-authored three books, seven book chapters, and over 20 peer-reviewed articles and other publications. Laura is currently the managing editor for the Virtual Reference Bibliography and serves as a peer reviewer for Evidence Based Library and Information Practices. Her interest in assessment methods has led her to pursue a Ph.D. in Communication, Information, and Media at Rutgers with a focus on Library and Information Science. She expects to complete her degree in 2024.

Her record of service to the Libraries, the University, and the profession is extensive; the following are some highlights. On the national level, her activities include being a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance Virtual Reference Peer Group since 2020 and the LITA Assessment & Research Committee since 2016, for which she has served as Vice-Chair and Chair. Laura has been actively engaged in the governance structure and informing Libraries operations as Vice Chair of the Faculty Planning Committee and a member of the RUL Scholarly and Professional Activities Committee.

October 10, 2022