Read a roundup of Rutgers University Libraries representation at the ALA conference in June.
Consuella Askew, vice president for university libraries and university librarian, was invited to write an ARL Research & Analytics Impact Report on the Libraries’ recent assessment of the Open and Affordable Textbooks Program. “Impacting Teaching and Learning Through an Open Educational Resources Initiative” was published on the ARL website and promoted in Rutgers Today on July 30. It was then included in the August 1 issue of the Charleston Daily.
Diane Biunno, metadata archivist at the Institute of Jazz Studies, is the NJ Caucus Representative to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC). In that role, she’s been organizing events across the state, including a recent virtual webinar focused on community archiving efforts at Newark’s Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), which has been a vital part of Newark since the 1960s and serves as a key advocate for early childhood education, environmental justice, HIV health services, and immigrant support. The webinar mainly focused on how the ICC is using community archiving to preserve local memory and document decades of activism.
Joanne Dera, science librarian at Dana Library, was a panelist at the New Jersey Association of School Superintendents Spring Leadership Conference. The panel, “People Power – The Human Connection in the Age of AI,” focused on AI in STEM education at the K-12 level and explored how to strike a balance between innovation and the irreplaceable human elements that drive learning, leadership, and student access.
Rutgers Today featured summer reading suggestions from Becky Diamond, business instruction librarian at Carr Library, Joanne Dera, science librarian at Dana Library, Matt Bridgeman, information and education librarian at RWJ Library, Bart Everts, reference and instruction librarian at Paul Robeson Library, and Judit H. Ward, science reference and instruction librarian at Chang Library.
Becky Diamond, business instruction librarian at Carr Library, Dee Magnoni, former associate university librarian for Rutgers–New Brunswick, Sue Oldenburg, geographical information systems specialist at Rutgers–New Brunswick, and L.M. Miller, library associate II and branch manager at Math/Physics Library, wrote a chapter, “Nurturing Social Connections and Collaboration,” in the book Well-Being in the Library Workplace: A Handbook for Managers (ALA Editions, April 2025).
Megan Lotts, art librarian at Rutgers–New Brunswick (Art Library), authored the article “The Power of Play in Libraries: Low Cost, High Impact Ideas” in the April 2025 edition of Public Library Quarterly, as well as the book The Playful Library: Building Environments for Learning and Creativity (ALA Editions, September 2024). Since the book was published, Lotts has given numerous invited presentations, including an appearance at the 11th Sharjah International Library Conference (SILC) in the United Arab Emirates and the keynote at the Virginia Library Association Annual Conference in October 2024, where she presented to more than 500 live attendees.
Rhonda Marker, head of open knowledge strategies (Central), was featured in a DOAJ blog post about some of the organization’s longest-serving volunteers. DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world. DOAJ volunteers come from all over the world, from a variety of backgrounds, and speak many languages.
Vincent Pelote, senior archivist and digital preservation strategist at the Institute of Jazz Studies, was featured in a Rutgers Instagram reel for International Jazz Day on April 30. The reel quickly went viral, with more than 15,000 likes and hundreds of comments to date.
The New Jersey Jazz Society invited Pelote to contribute to Jersey Jazz Magazine via a monthly column called “Pelote’s Place,” taking over for the late Dan Morgenstern, whose column was called “Dan’s Den.” In his first column in March 2025, Pelote honored Women’s History Month with a column about “women who have played jazz from the earliest days of music.”
John Powell, reference and instruction librarian at Robeson Library, was quoted in a Star-Ledger/NJ.com story marking the 155-year anniversary of the historic Atlantic City boardwalk on June 26. Powell’s expertise came from the research he had conducted to create the Boardwalk Empires exhibit at Robeson Library. The story was promoted in the July 1 edition of Rutgers Today.
Jonathan Torres, business and data services librarian at Dana Library, has a YouTube channel where he creates video content about AI and business and data research strategies. Among his more recent efforts are his “shorts” in which he reviews academic publications and distills key findings via easily digestible, two- to three-minute videos.
Mary Beth Weber, libraries coordinator for training and mentorship (Central), was interviewed in March for the Lost in the Stacks podcast.
Elizabeth York, electronic resources librarian (Central), presented “Leveraging Alma for ebook EBA selection, purchased ebook management, and PO Line creation” at the Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA) 2025 Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in June. She also presented “AI in Cataloging: Alma Developments and the Librarian Perspective” at the 2024 virtual Charleston Conference in December and was a panelist at the Library Journal and Ex Libris Webinar, “Enhancing Library Management with AI-powered Metadata Solutions” in March 2025. She also co-presented as a panelist at ALA Core Interest Group Week 2025 for the Catalog Management Interest Group. Her presentation, “Using & Contributing to the Alma Community Zone, ” was part of the virtual panel session, “Cataloging, Catalog Management & Sharing Metadata with the Community in an Era of Consortia, Linked Data and Machine Learning.”
Zara Wilkinson, reference and instruction librarian, and Samantha Kannegiser, student success librarian, both at Robeson Library, recently performed an assessment of the Paul Robeson Library Undergraduate Research Award and published their results in The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The article, “Let’s tell them what they’ve won: Assessing an undergraduate research award,” is open access via the Libraries’ Read and Publish agreement with Elsevier.
This infectious Instagram Reel, a collaboration between Rutgers University and Rutgers University Libraries, helped get the word out that Alexander Library was open 24 hours a day during finals and featured three Libraries student employees (and one friend to round out the group). The post has reached more than 17,000 unique users so far.