Candidates for 2013 Elections

Click here for descriptions of the positions

Chair/Chair-elect

Kevin J. Comerford
Assistant Professor / Digital Initiatives Librarian, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico Libraries
kevco[at]unm.edu

Kevin J. Comerford is an Assistant Professor of Librarianship and the Digital Initiatives Librarian at the University of New Mexico Libraries. He is based in the Center for Southwest Research where he has developed a variety of Scholarly Communications and Digital Libraries applications. His current and recent projects include the Tony Hillerman Portal (ehillerman.unm.edu), the UNM Open Journals Portal (ejournals.unm.edu), the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (sora.unm.edu) and the Celebrating New Mexico Statehood website (nmstatehood.unm.edu). Professor Comerford also serves as the chair of the University Libraries research data management initiative, and teaches a graduate course in Digital Information Management through the UNM Informatics program. He holds a Master of Information Science degree from the University of North Texas and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Texas Christian University. Previously he was the Group Manager for Media Content Management at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington (1995-2008), a systems developer for the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas (1995) and the Visual Resources Manager for the Dallas Museum of Art (1990-1995).

“SIGDL plays an important role in providing leadership, networking and collaboration opportunities and essential continuing education programs for both students and experienced professionals who are working in the field of digital librarianship. Although I just joined the SIGDL executive committee this year, I’ve quickly come to respect and admire the great work my fellow SIG officers have accomplished, and commitment they have to making SIGDL an innovative and vital resource for digital librarians. As chair/chair-elect I will support the existing programs and services that SIGDL provides; I am also quite interested in developing additional professional education resources through the webinar program and potentially other online venues.

I’ve worked developing and managing digital libraries and digital asset management services for the last 23 years, in both the public and private sectors, and I have served on or chaired a variety of state, national and international library initiatives. But I can’t remember a time during my career when it’s been more exciting to work in this field. Today’s digital libraries aren’t mere repositories, they have matured to become the loci for a wide variety of library, educational and research services. I look forward to engaging with all of the SIG members this next year to exchange ideas, experiences and explore the future potential of digital libraries. Thanks for the opportunity to serve SIGDL.”

Secretary/Treasurer

Elizabeth (Lizzy) Rolando
Research Data Librarian, Georgia Tech
lizzy.rolando[at]library.gatech.edu

Lizzy Rolando is the Research Data Librarian in the Scholarly Communications and Digital Curation department at the Georgia Tech Library. In this role, Lizzy is working to improve the data management and data archiving practices of Georgia Tech researchers, by providing outreach, training, and support of Georgia Tech’s trusted digital repository, SMARTech. Lizzy served as the 2013 Treasurer of SIG-DL and is an ASIS&T 2012 New Leaders awardee.

“I joined SIG-DL in 2012 because the community was knowledgeable, supportive, and excited about digital libraries. As the 2013 Treasurer and member of the planning committee for the 2013 Annual Student Panel, I was able to become involved in some of the exciting projects organized by the group, and I was able to see firsthand how SIG-DL contributes to the efforts of the ASIS&T community, encouraging active participation from practitioners, educations, and researchers alike. I would like to continue my work with SIG-DL, to support exciting and engaging programming, and to provide opportunities for those working with Digital Libraries to learn and collaborate with one another.” 

Communications Officer

Tina Jayroe
Systems Supervisor, Aurora Public Library
tinajayroe[at]gmail.com

Tina is the current Communications Officer for SIG DL and has been an ASIST member since 2007. She is the Systems Supervisor at Aurora Public Library, Colorado. She earned her MLIS from the University of Denver (DU) where she was an officer for the DU ASIS&T student chapter.

“I have been working with SIG DL for three years managing the social media and e-mail accounts. Also, for the third year in a row I am a part of the SIG’s student panel committee which showcases the work of master’s, undergraduate, and recently graduated master’s and undergraduate (new professionals) work at the annual conference. I have also worked with fellow officers and others in the field to promote and plan ASIST’s Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Summit. I hope to be able to serve ASIST again in this capacity in the coming year.”

Membership Officer

Anne Diekema
Assistant Professor, Utah State University,
anne.diekema[at]usu.edu

Anne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences at Utah State University. Her research interests are in digital libraries, personal information management, information organization, and human information behavior. Anne is especially interested in the use of technology to assist teachers and students in finding, organizing, and utilizing information in educational digital libraries. Currently, she is teaching aspiring school librarians as part of the School Library Media Administration program. Occasionally Anne can be found at elementary schools with therapy dog Rosa who helps improve kids’ reading skills as part of the R.E.A.D. program.

“I have been the SIGDL membership officer for a number of years now and would like to continue in this capacity. For the next term I would like the opportunity to continue our focus on recruiting new members from the SIG-DL social media venues, and making new members feel welcome to SIG-DL.”

Lyne Da Sylva
Associate professor at École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information (School of Library and Informaton Science)Université de Montréal
lyne.da.sylva[at]umontreal.ca

Educated first at the University of Ottawa and then in Montréal and Geneva, I have a multidisciplinary background (in Mathematics, Computer Science, Linguistics and Computational Linguistics).  I am now Associate Professor at the École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information (EBSI) at the Université de Montréal. Prior to this, I spent several years doing research and development work in Natural Language Processing (NLP), including four years in the private sector.

My teaching at EBSI now includes indexing and abstracting (both manual and automated), thesaurus construction, digital libraries, computer-assisted document management, and semiotics of information systems. My research focuses on the management of digital information, especially on tools for automating indexing and abstracting within Digital Libraries (bibliographic, archivistic or museum collections).

I am a member of two research groups at the Université de Montréal: the Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST) in the Department of Linguistics and Translation (aimed at building formal linguistic resources for NLP, information science and education), and the GRDS team (focusing on XML technologies) at EBSI. I am also a member of the following professional associations: ASIS&T (and SIG-DL since 2011), ACL (Association for Computational Linguistics, since 1992), ICOM (International Council on Museums, since 2012), ASTED (Québec-based association for science and technology for document management, since 2010), ACFAS (Association francophone pour le savoir, or “French-speaking association for the advancement of science”, based in Québec, since 1994).

“I am a researcher and a scholar with over 20 years experience in participating in professional associations linked to applied computer science and information science.

My involvement in Digital Libraries includes organizing a workshop in May 2012 (for the ACFAS assocation annual meeting) which brought together a great number of researchers and practitioners in Digital Libraries in Québec and French-speaking Canada and abroad. This was the first such event in Québec and I am planning to have follow up events in the future. With a colleague, I was a guest editor for a special issue on Digital Libraries of the Québec journal Documentation et bibliothèques (issued in August 2013). I was also invited to be the opening speaker for a one-day symposium on Digital Collections organized jointly by EBSI, the University of Sherbrooke and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (http://www.banq.qc.ca/activites/colloque/2013/collections_numeriques.html). I was thrilled to participate in LODLAM (Linked Open Data for Libraries, Archives and Museums) held in Montréal this past June, which generated a lot of exciting ideas for integrating LOD in Digital Libraries; with a colleague, I even initiated a session on NLP for Digital Libraries, which was, I believe, quite appreciated by the 20 or so people who attended.

In addition to my research work, my teaching context keeps me in constant contact with professional associations and the professional community of archives and libraries.

I have recently served, in a completely different setting, as manager for a sports team (my young son’s hockey team!) for three years, which involved managing the team roster, their personal details/contact information, keeping track of the budget, coordinating the schedule with the league’s manager and serving as communications person (through regular e-mails). I believe this has prepared me to handle operations related to membership information for SIG-DL.

I would serve SIG-DL diligently, as I have a vested interest: I believe I can be instrumental in building bridges with the French-speaking community of Digital Libraries.”

Webmaster

Dot Porter
Curator, Digital Research Services, University of Pennsylvania
dot.porter[@]gmail.com

Dot Porter is the Curator, Digital Research Services in the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania (http://www.schoenberginstitute.org/). Dot holds Master’s degrees in medieval studies and library science and started her career working on image-based digital editions of medieval manuscripts. She has worked on a variety of projects, focusing on materials as diverse as ancient texts and Russian religious folklore, providing both technical support and scholarly expertise. In her current position she both provides general digital humanities support for faculty and graduate students, and plays with digitized medieval manuscripts. Dot is an ASIS&T 2012 New Leaders awardee.

“I have been the webmaster for SIG-DL for the past year and thoroughly enjoyed the experience! My major task was migrating the website from Dreamweaver to WordPress. It would be a great privilege to serve SIG-DL as webmaster for another year.”