The ARLIS/NA Ontario Chapter is happy to announce that there are two excellent candidates running for the 2013 Vice-Chair position, replacing former 2013 Chapter Vice-Chair, Effie Patelos.
The Chapter Executive would like to thank Claire Parker (Visual Resources Librarian at the University of Western Ontario) and Stephen Spong (Cataloguing Librarian at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, and Reference Librarian at the Osgoode Hall Law School Library) for their nominations. 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/CHX8K8R . 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 Wednesday, August 7th, 2013.
Claire Parker
Claire Parker is the Visual Resources Librarian at the University of Western Ontario. Her current research interests include information literacy, open source software, instructional technology and intellectual property, especially attitudes toward copyright. Prior to working at Western, Claire was employed as a Knowledge and Research Management Officer with the Federal Government of Canada, and as a Web Content Assistant with thehealthline.ca (an online health services directory).
Claire is actively involved in a number of professional organizations. As a member of ARLIS, she regularly reviews submissions to the society’s official bulletin, Art Documentation, and from 2012-2013 Claire acted as the Job Posting Liaison for ARLiSNAP. Claire is also a member of the Visual Resources Association. She belongs to the VRA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee, and was honoured to receive the Luraine Tansey Travel Award from this organization in 2013.
With regard to professional service at the local level, Claire is a member of the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association’s Equity Committee. Participation in this group chiefly involves addressing concerns and organizing speakers events related to issues of equity and fairness on campus. Claire is also a supervisor in Western’s MLIS Job Shadowing Program, which gives current MLIS students insight into the daily routine of an academic librarian.
Claire is eager to become more involved in the Ontario Chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America, and her dedication to visual arts librarianship, experience in professional committee work and strong work ethic positions her as a strong candidate for the role of Vice Chair.
Stephen Spong
I am currently a Cataloguing Librarian at the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s Dorothy H. Hoover Library, where I split my time with the Osgoode Hall Law School Library, where I am a reference librarian. I hold a B.A. Hons. in humanities, a J.D., and a Masters in Information.
I have a long-standing relationship with ARLIS/NA’s Ontario chapter, having first joined as a library student in 2009. I was involved in the initiation of the wildly successful vintage fund-raisers at OCADU, which have raised thousands of dollars for the chapter (and will hopefully continue to do so, with the next sale set for this fall!). These efforts achieved the Society Affiliate Gold Sponsorship level for the 2012 ARLIS/NA Conference in Toronto. I was also involved with the local conference planning committee for the Toronto ARLIS/NA Conference, where I served in the capacity of the Special Events Coordinator.
I am currently Co-Chair of the chapter’s Membership Outreach Task Force, which hopes to maintain the chapter’s success in reaching out to the art librarianship community as a whole – not just in Ontario, but across Canada and beyond.
My interest in ARLIS/NA in general and the local chapter in particular is rooted in a strong sense of the need to create a stronger community of information professionals (as well as providing guidance to students and aspiring art librarians), while also upholding the Chapter’s mandate of widening the public and professional awareness of art information resources in Ontario. While this is important with librarianship as a whole, it is particularly true of a comparatively niche field such as our own, where practitioners may find themselves relatively spread out.
This sentiment has played a huge part in my undertaking of the membership outreach initiative, as I strongly believe that this forms a critical role in the chapter’s mandate. Should I be provided the opportunity to serve in the capacity of vice-chair, I would ensure that the good work of the chapter is continued in the years to come, and that the chapter is able to evolve to support our member’s needs as well as foster awareness and growth in the field of art librarianship.
