Please join us in welcoming Meredith Sommers, our new Information Resources Librarian/College Archvist, who began work with us on July 13th.

Meredith is a recent graduate of the School of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also received her BA, in Classics (while she, like Librarian Assistant Jack Weinbender, counts the Greek language as one of her major loves, please don’t ask her to translate, as it’s been a few years . . .)  At Pitt, she worked as an undergrad in the Fine Arts Library, and as a grad student in the library’s preservation department, where she repaired some books and built protective boxes for others.  She is most proud of her work rebinding Audubon’s Ornithological Biography of America, a five volume set.  (See her work on Volume 2 here).

Meredith is very much looking forward to getting to know Milligan, and to exploring beautiful Northeast Tennessee with her husband, Jon, and two children, Nathaniel and Cora (22 months and 10 weeks, respectively.)

Meredith is taking over from Ginger Dillon, who resigned in May to get married and relocate to the Washington, DC area. “We were sorry to see Ginger leave us, but we are very excited to have Meredith joining our library staff,” says Director of the Library Gary Daught.  Meredith’s job responsibilities will retain much of the hybrid character as when Ginger occupied the position—dividing her time between the Library and the Milligan College Archives.

But there has been some tweaking. As Information Resources Librarian, Meredith will be responsible not only for acquisitions and processing of books and media, but she will also manage the Library’s print and electronic journal and magazine subscriptions.  Daught asserts that the nature of information resource handling in libraries continues to change, requiring new skills and new ways of working. “It’s important for staff to be adaptable, remain flexible, and not to allow position descriptions to become too hardened.  Still, points of personnel change provide the most natural time to rethink and reconfigure.  The departures of Ginger and Jan Ricker (earlier in February) gave us a chance to seriously reevaluate our staffing needs in this area.  It seemed to make sense to bring the management of our various information resource types together under one position.”

Initially, Meredith will spend roughly two-thirds of her time developing workflows with Library information resource management, and one-third of her time as College Archivist. However, it is hoped that she can gradually increase the time she dedicates to archival work.

Next time you’re in the library, be sure to say hello to Meredith, the newest member of our team.