The ARLIS/NA Ontario Chapter is happy to announce that we have received a robust selection of excellent candidates that are running for the Student Representative positions. The membership will elect two candidates: one from the University of Toronto, and the other from Western University. The biographies of the nominees are listed below. Voting is now open to current ARLIS/NA Ontario members via an online survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y7VSNZ6 . If you need to renew your membership, you can do so by clicking here. Please take the time to exercise your membership voting rights and fill out the survey. All the information pertaining to the elections will remain confidential.
The deadline for voting is 5 pm on Monday, July 1st, 2013.
University of Toronto Nominees
Catherine Falls
Catherine Falls is a 2013 graduate of the MI program in the LIS and Book History and Print Culture streams. She holds bachelors degrees in Art History and Commerce from UBC and is beginning her MA in Art History at U of T this fall. Catherine has been an active contributor to art and information institutions in both Toronto and Calgary. She is a current member of the curatorial committee of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archive, where she manages and catalogues the archive’s art collection, including its National Portrait Collection. In addition to providing ongoing multidisciplinary reference services at U of T Mississauga, Catherine recently completed an art and museum studies cataloguing internship with Lord Cultural Resources and holds gallery experience through her work with the Museum of Contemporary Art Calgary.
Catherine holds a passion for modern and contemporary art and design. She is driven by a desire to make art more accessible and sees the art librarian as uniquely positioned to facilitate this process. Catherine has been a member of ARLIS/NA since 2012 and fervently believes in the society’s mission to foster cooperation and dialogue among art librarians. Her passion for and strength in facilitating these types of conversations within the information community, and her ability to create and manage events, relationships, and ideas, is evident in her recent role as one of three co-chairs of the 2013 iSchool Graduate Conference. Catherine believes her position as an iSchool alumnus studying within the Art History faculty will help connect these two currently separate academic spheres. She looks forward to engaging students with one another, with the broader association, and with the Toronto artworld more generally.
Justine Robles
I am currently pursuing the Archives and Records Management path at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, while also exploring coursework in Reference and Special Libraries. Presently, I am working as a Student Library Assistant for the Accessible Content E-Portal (ACE) Project at Scholar’s Portal.
I have a strong background in Student Leadership, serving as a College Council President and Residence Don at York University, and Summer Residence Coordinator at Columbia University. Through these positions, I have represented and engaged with groups of over 3,000 students and developed valuable skills and experience in event planning, marketing, outreach, and volunteer recruitment.
I am interested in working with ARLIS because I want to learn more about the arts information field and become part of a network of constant idea sharing. I hope that through the Student Representative position, I will also gain a better understanding of where my interests and passions fit within the professional world. I feel as though my combination of skills and experience will help me to successfully promote awareness of ARLIS and its initiatives to my peers, and hopefully introduce the role of art librarianship to students who haven’t considered it before.
M. Joanne Wadden
Joanne graduated with an MA in Sociology from York University in 2010. After graduation, she worked as a Research Analyst at the University Health Network and she now works at the University of Toronto. She has a passion for the visual arts and is committed to lifelong learning. She studied Material Art and Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCADU) and Ceramics at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD). While she was a student at OCADU, she worked at the AGO as a coordinator for major donor events. She was a volunteer at the Gardiner Museum (of ceramic art) for a number of years. Joanne is excited to be the recipient of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship for the upcoming 2013-2014 school year and she looks forward to being a student once again in the MLIS program at the University of Toronto in September.
University of Western Ontario Nominees
Nicole Lovenjak
Nicole Lovenjak is an MLIS candidate at the University of Western Ontario, where she also completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media, Information, and Technoculture (MIT) and Visual Arts. Her essay on art in The Cars’ music videos was published in Bon à Tirer, The Undergraduate Journal of Art History and Visual Culture at Western University. She holds a vocational arts certificate from H.B. Beal’s BealArt program, with a specialization in textiles and commercial art. While studying there she also received a Canadian Embroiderers’ Guild Award for her quilting work. Her artwork currently focuses on library collections and deselection.
She is currently employed at London Public Library as a page, a position she has held for six years. During this time she has helped organize and facilitate various cultural events, including Art in the Village, and annual community festivals such as Gathering on the Green, as well as printmaking demonstrations with fellow library assistants and art instructors. She also held a position within the London Public Library as a Literacy Facilitator in which she had the opportunity to plan weekly sessions and activities for children and coordinate volunteers.
Nicole gained special library experience at the Child and Parent Resource Institute (CPRI) from working in their Family Resource Centre providing reference assistance to families and clients on child and adolescent mental health and performing literature searches for medical staff as part of the Dr. Joseph Pozsonyi Memorial Library.
Since starting her MLIS at Western she has tried to focus her studies on art librarianship and ARLIS/NA, with research interest in the areas of art and design school collection management, the problems of decorative arts classification, and creating a collection development resource guide on artist’s books. Recently on her own accord she had the opportunity to attend ARLIS/NA’s annual conference in Pasadena, where she took part in the ARLIS/NA Canada Chapter meeting.
Nancy Perrin
I am Nancy Perrin, a current University of Western MLIS grad student and I would like to be considered for the executive position of Student Representative with ARLIS Ontario. I have a strong interest in working with in the cultural sector. Prior to beginning the MLIS program my work/educational background was in Theatre Design/Production. Through these experiences I developed a passion for research and preservation to which I am now developing a strong skill set through the MLIS program. My interest in this position with ARLIS is based on a desire to increase awareness of the role of the arts with in the field of Library and Information Science. Currently with in my program and the student groups represented within reflect very little on the arts, and I would like to play a role in changing this. I would also like to represent a voice for the arts in libraries outside of the GTA.