Speakers

Tiffany Eatman Allen is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a BA in Psychology and Political Science, and a Master’s of Library Science. She has worked in technical services in an academic library and a small corporate library, and currently serves as Personnel Librarian at UNC Chapel Hill. As Personnel Librarian, she serves ex officio on all search committees and participates in each librarian interview.

Rick Block is Head, Special Collections Metadata and Cataloging at Columbia University. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science and the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science. Rick won the first annual Adjunct Faculty Recognition Award at Long Island University in 2007. Rick is past chair of the ALA/ALCTS Commercial Technical Services Committee and the Cataloging and Classification Section Committee on Education, Training and Recruitment for Cataloging. Rick edits a column for The Serials Librarian titled "Voices of the Future." This column publishes papers submitted as part of library school courses that professors recommend for publication. He consults on technical services workflow, and writes and speaks on metadata, authority control, and training for cataloging. Rick has taught cataloging workshops in addition to his teaching as an adjunct faculty member.

Pamela Bluh is Associate Director for Technical Services & Administration at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. Within the University System of Maryland Libraries she played a leadership role in the implementation of three generations of computerized library systems. She received the 2004 Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award for her contributions to serials librarianship. She is active professionally in the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association. From 2003 to 2006 she served as editor of the ALCTS Papers on Library Technical Services and Collections. She was elected president of ALCTS for the 2007-2008 term and assumed the ALCTS presidency in July 2007.

Jennifer Castaldo is currently a Reference Intern at Duke University and will be graduating with her MSLS in May from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Last year she was the Electronic Resources Intern at Duke and worked in their acquisitions department. Jennifer has a B.A. in English from SUNY Geneseo and her current research interests include marketing electronic resources and electronic resource standards.

Jessie L. Copeland is the Resource Management Librarian at Georgia Gwinnett College. She received her Master of Science in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University.

Mary Grenci has cataloged serials for over eleven years and has been University of Oregon's Serials Team Leader for over nine years. Mary is also currently serving as Interim Head of UO's Metadata Services & Digital Projects, as well as coordinator of UO's institutional repository (called Scholars' Bank).

Emily Hicks is the Director of Information Acquisition & Organization at the University of Dayton. She is a member of the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Advisory Group and recently completed a two-year term as Chair of the OhioLINK Database Management and Standards Committee. Her current research interests include managing multiple generations in libraries and metadata for consortial repositories. She received her MLS from the University of Kentucky.

Sandy Hurd has extensive experience in the library industry, and has been involved with serials in various incarnations for many years. She has been director of strategic markets at Innovative Interfaces since 2003. She helped to bring to market Innovative's Electronic Resource Management (ERM) among her other responsibilities. Before joining Innovative, Sandy was senior manager of library information services at Northern Light Technology and prior to that, she spent over seven years as assistant vice president and director of library automation at EBSCO Subscription Services. Sandy has served on the editorial board of Serials Review since 1996 and has spoken frequently on EDI, the serials world, portals, and ERM.

Rebecca Kemp is the Serials Coordinator Librarian at UNC Wilmington, where she manages access to online and print titles. Her research interests include the Open Access movement, Institutional Repositories, distributed print depositories, and “next generation” library catalogs and cataloging practices.

Tamika Barnes McCollough is currently the Library Director of the EPA Library in RTP which is a contracted position through the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. Before becoming the EPA Library Director, Tamika was the Head of Reference and Information Literacy at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina from 2005-2007. Prior to that, she was the Engineering Services Librarian at North Carolina State University from 1999-2005.

Tamika is active in the profession and is currently a board member for Special Libraries Association (SLA). She is also a member of the ACRL Professional Development Coordinating Committee. She has been very involved with ALA’s Spectrum Program which is an effort to increase the number of minority librarians in the profession. Tamika is also involved on the local level and currently serves as the Secretary/Treasurer for NCLA’s Roundtable of Ethnic and Minority Concerns and is the employment relations committee chair for the North Carolina chapter of SLA.

Tamika is currently an adjunct lecturer at both North Carolina Central University School of Library and Information Sciences and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science. Her undergraduate degree is a B.A. in Biology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she received her MLS from North Carolina Central University.

Robert Mercer joined Ex Libris Group in May 2007 as president of the company’s North American subsidiary, bringing with him more than 15 years of experience in customer-facing executive positions in technology companies. As a regional vice president and general manager of SAS Institute, Inc., Rob increased customer satisfaction, delivered value-added products and services, established customer partnerships, and took new products to market. As a result, he achieved a growth of more than 40%, making SAS the top provider of business intelligence solutions in his region. Prior to his role at SAS, Rob held senior management positions at Dell Computer Corporation. Robert Mercer earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from University College, Cardiff, in Wales, UK.

Adam Murray is a recent graduate of University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s MLIS program. Having completed his degree in the summer of 2006, he became Murray State University Libraries’ first Head of Acquisitions in 8 years. One year later, he was appointed Interim Dean of University Libraries – the youngest ever to hold that position at Murray State.

Vicki L. Parsons is the Head of Collections at Georgia Gwinnett College. She received her graduate degree in Library Science from the University of South Florida.

Tim Rogers, Executive Director of NC LIVE, works closely with representatives of NC LIVE’s four communities of interest -- community college, public and independent colleges and universities, and public libraries -- to manage consortium services, projects, and activities. Among his many responsibilities, he provides vision and leads planning and assessment activities for NC LIVE as a statewide resource, negotiates all contracts for licensed resources, coordinates public relations, and seeks external funds for NC LIVE projects.

Rogers began his professional career as director of the Oneida (NY) Public Library, followed by three years as library administrator of the Coffey County (KS) Library. Prior to joining NC LIVE, he served as the Associate Director for Operations at the award-winning Johnson County (Kansas) Library where he was responsible for spending more than $6M annually, oversaw the planning and construction of three new libraries and increased organizational fundraising and grant writing. Rogers worked closely with local government agencies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and other libraries, to develop a series of community web partnerships to deliver high quality local, national, and commercial content with the library as the nexus. He serve as the lone public library member of the Kansas Digital Library initiative and representative of the state’s library community in Kan-Ed, a cooperative providing shared digital networks, content, and applications to all Kansas libraries, schools, universities, and hospitals.

Tim earned the Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Master of Library Science from Indiana University. He has been active in the profession, on both the state and national level, including serving as President of the Kansas Library Association in 2005, and in his community. He speaks frequently on collection development, strategic planning, and the public library as the center of a digital world. He lives in Clayton, North Carolina with his wife Carla and is a member of the board of the Public Library of Johnston County and Smithfield.

Merrill Smith served 17 years in library/learning resources administration in the NC Community College System. In addition, she spent 5 years as Southeast Sales Representative for YBP and 11 years as Account Services Manager for EBSCO, where she works currently. Her degrees include a BA in History, and MLS, and an Ed.D.

Christine Stamison is Swets National Sales Manager for Academic Libraries. Before joining Swets in 1992, she served as a serials librarian at the University of Illinois at Chicago and The University of Chicago. For the past seven years, she has lectured at university serials classes.