Our search to fill the position of Continuing Education Services Coordinator & Research/Instruction Librarian (left vacant when Barb Bolser joined the PACE staff in September 2006) has been successfully concluded, and Debbie Myers will be joining the Staley Library staff on January 8, 2007. We had an excellent field of applicants in our national search, and we interviewed several outstanding candidates before making the offer to Debbie.

Debbie will be familiar to some on campus, since she is a Millikin alumna (2005 bachelor’s degree in education) and a former student worker at Staley Library (2002-2005) where she was formally recognized as one of the library’s most outstanding students assistants in February 2003.

Currently Debbie is completing her master’s degree in library and information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (expected graduation date: May 2007). In conjunction with her studies she has worked as a graduate assistant at the UIUC Undergraduate Library, staffing the Information Desk and teaching instruction sessions to first-year composition classes. (And here I note another Millikin connection: Debbie's supervisor at the Undergraduate Library has been Susan Avery, librarian at Millikin 1997-2004.) In addition, Debbie has worked in the UIUC library's Conservation Department repairing damaged library materials.

Debbie, of course, is not the first Millikin student to find a career in librarianship. On our current staff, Cindy Fuller followed much the same path as Debbie has; and the "Other News" section of the November 2001 Staley Library newsletter lists more Millikin students who have had the wisdom to become librarians! (A cool newsletter in its own right, being the only one ever with sound!)

While Debbie's many Millikin connections gives us extra pleasure in Debbie's appointment, it is her own excellent qualifications that has earned her the position to which we warmly welcome her.