Throughout higher education there is an increasing trend emerging in which resources and support for information and academic technology services are becoming increasingly important. Because of this trend, librarians are frequently the pioneers bringing forth new technology or tools that would assist in or improve teaching or learning. Alongside bringing on new or improved solutions, librarians are also training faculty and staff how to access resources and services already available to them.

Under the direction of Mary Mara, the director of CityU’s Library, our library directly falls in line with this trend and are some of the most innovative thinkers among us. Because of their great work and forward-thinking, we are renaming the library the Vi Tasler Library and Learning Resource Center.

To further their good work, we have asked Kelly Spangler and Sue Wolff to join them.

Kelly has assisted the faculty in identifying and acquiring a myriad of teaching and learning resources, and will now be able to bring her expertise to the library. Her experience will provide CityU with the knowledge it needs to expand its electronic resources, and will present CityU with the opportunity to improve our online teaching tools and general offerings. Sue is also well versed in institutional policies and electronic teaching systems through monitoring and assisting new faculty orientation. Through her fine work in overseeing the regional faculty conferences, she will join the Learning Resource Center and will continue to expand her work with faculty development. With her background and expertise in faculty development, Sue will be even more involved in teaching faculty and staff how to use new tools like Blackboard’s Collaborate and other synchronous teaching systems. And, will work on integrating greater technological tools into the teaching and learning environment. It should be noted that Kelly and Sue will continue some of their work on academic programs. Their expertise is now more centralized and optimized by their working at the Vi Tasler Library and Learning Resource Center. If you have a specific question for them or about them, please reach out to them individually or to Mary Mara.

Join me in congratulating the library on their new name and please do not forget to use our recourses and our librarians.