Library Staff News
Transitions: Daniel Pitti
Tracy’s Kind of Town
Administrative Services Welcomes Elise Woods
Ivan Argüelles Named Classics Selector
CyberSemester Has Arrived
"Liquid Gold: California's Water" - An Exhibit by the Water Resources Center Archives
Library Unit Heads and Supervisors are encouraged to submit short introductions of newly appointed personnel so that Library staff can get to know them. Announcements of staff promotions, reclassifications, awards/publications, transfers, departures and other staff news are also welcomed by the CU News editor.
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It’s with a mixture of sadness for Berkeley and pleasure for the Humanities world that I announce Daniel Pitti’s resignation from The Library to accept the position of Project Director for IATH, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. This appointment recognizes Daniel’s extraordinary contributions to the humanities during the past three years in developing sophisticated approaches to the creation and online publication of primary sources. Through Daniel’s leadership, the international community of archivists and special collections librarians in the U.S. and abroad have developed community standards for the discovery, retrieval, and navigation of these online collections.
At Berkeley, in collaboration with Tim Hoyer and a close group of colleagues in The Bancroft Library, the Electronic Text Unit, the Systems Office, and across campus, he developed successful grant proposals for a series of research and demonstration projects that developed the prototype systems and standards for the archival world. Daniel’s efforts locally have been extended through a series of collaborative projects led by other research libraries. Most recently, Daniel and his colleagues succeeded in securing funding from the University of California to create a comprehensive database of archival finding aids for the UC system. The work that Daniel has led over the past three years has provided the basis for production projects throughout the world. The digital library that is emerging will have profound effects on scholarship, teaching, and learning -- in universities, K-12, and the community at large.
Daniel’s contributions to the archival community follow on his exceptional contributions to cataloging and authority control, both locally and nationally. Working with Charles Hamilton, he designed Berkeley’s automated authorities system which manages the collocation functions of the catalog with minimal human effort. When the system was implemented, a retrospective database project eliminated hundreds of thousands of discrepancies in the online system - accomplishing in only a few days, work that would otherwise have taken decades of human effort. His expertise in authority control and cataloging was a natural foundation for the innovations he has brought to the broader arena of creating metadata standards that will not only enable successful interoperability of distributed digital libraries and reliable migration and archiving of digital collections, but, more importantly, ensure that research and teaching are effectively supported in the online environment.
Daniel’s personal qualities, including intellect, humor, leadership ability, humility, and deep understanding of the research process, will be sorely missed on this campus. Despite the loss locally, we’ll also look forward to working closely with Daniel in his new role at IATH.
- Susan Rosenblatt
- Deputy University Librarian
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I'm at the same time both sad and happy to announce that Tracy Seneca has accepted a position at DePaul University.
She will be the Instruction Librarian at the DePaul Lincoln Park campus on the north side of Chicago. The job will be similar to what she does here, but with more reference, and some collection development tasks (in communication/media or chemistry!).
DePaul has 5 campuses: Lincoln Park is the Liberal Arts campus. Even though it's a Catholic University, only about half of the 17,000 students are Catholic. Its strongest programs seem to be business and computing, which are both centered at the Loop campus.
For more info about the University, see the DePaul home page at: http://www.DePaul.edu
For a lowdown on the location, take the virtual el to: http://centerstage.net/chicago/virtual-el/howard-danryan/fullerton.html
Tracy has talked about returning to the midwest for some time, so this is a dream come true for her. Tracy, we will miss you so much in so many different ways! All our best to you on this big adventure!
- Ellen Meltzer
- Teaching Library
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Administrative Services Welcomes Elise Woods
Administrative Services has a new staff member, Elise Woods, who has been appointed as a Senior Analyst assisting Michael Rancer, the Chief Administrative Officer. Elise comes to The Library with a broad range of analytical experience including over twelve years with the University of California, as well as consulting work in local government.
Elise will be responsible for managing a variety of special projects in Administrative Services, such as special budget analyses, audit responses, information systems consolidation, and management of selected external contracts. Elise will be located in the Librarian's Office but will be ranging far and wide on campus as she acquaints herself with our operation. Please welcome her when she reaches your corner of The Library.
- Mike Rancer
- Chief Administrative Officer
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Ivan Argüelles Named Classics Selector
It is with great pleasure that I announce Ivan Argüelles' acceptance of the acting Classics selector position in HAS. His .5 FTE assignment will encompass responsibility for all aspects of the classics collections, including collection development and management, faculty and graduate student outreach, and coordination of the Library's digital initiatives in Classical studies; it will run initially through June 1997 with the possibility of becoming a permanent assignment at that time.
Ivan brings excellent qualifications and an impressive record of achievements to this new assignment: in addition to receiving his B.A. in Classics from the University of Chicago, he has extensive graduate-level coursework in Classics and linguistics from NYU and his MLS degree from Vanderbilt. First at NYPL and then at Berkeley, he has held a succession of increasingly-responsible posts culminating in his present one as head of the Library's Original Cataloging division. In addition he is an acclaimed poet (winner of the William Carlos Williams Prize) and the publisher of Pantograph Press editions in Berkeley; he is now at work on "an epic [also called Pantograph] steeped in classical myth and history."
Members of HAS will be working closely with Ivan in the coming weeks and months to develop a thorough training and orientation program for his new duties. We look forward to working with him as he assumes this key responsibility for one of the Library's richest collecting areas.
- James Henry Spohrer
- Librarian for the Germanic Collections and
Return to Table of ContentsWell it's finally here! Cybersemester, that is. Check out the Library's Cybersemester Web Page, designed by Mary Scott at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/CyberSemester/ for a list of activities the library is offering this semester.
For a listing of campus activities, the Website to look at is http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~cybersem
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"Liquid Gold: California's Water" - An Exhibit by the Water Resources Center Archives
The Water Resources Center Archives is pleased to present an exhibit featuring unique historical and contemporary photographs, documents, maps, and books showcasing several aspects of California's water development.
Included in the exhibit are displays documenting the development of San Francisco's and Los Angeles' water supplies, Mono Lake, the St. Francis Dam failure, Hoover Dam, the Colorado Aqueduct, hydroelectric power development, the Central Valley Project, the State Water Project, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, agricultural water development, the Reber Plan, rivers, the environmental movement, and coastal engineering.
- Randy Brandt
- Water Resources Center Archives
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Copies of paper attachments are filed in CU NEWS binders available for staff consultation at the following locations:
| Business & Economics Library Circulation Desk Haas School of Business |
Engineering Library Reference Desk 110 Bechtel Center |
| Education/Psychology Library Reserves 2600 Tolman Hall |
Environmental Design Library Permanent Reserve 210 Wurster Hall |
| Humanities and Area Studies Service 2nd Floor Doe Library |
Librarian's Office 245 Doe Library |
| Northern Regional Library Facility Richmond Field Station |
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