Dec 05, 2018 New Hires Welcome!
Rebecca Roper
Rebecca Roper is the new Moving Image and Sound Digital Archivist in Special Collections. Rebecca received her MLIS from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She also has a Master’s in Technical Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Rebecca just moved to Salt Lake City from Northern Michigan, where she worked as an archivist at Interlochen Center for the Arts, digitizing over 1000 open reel tapes of concert recordings for an ARSC grant, and a reference and instruction librarian at Northwestern Michigan College. She is excited to work with the wide variety of audio-visual materials in the collection and make them accessible to patrons.
Lyuba Basin
Lyuba recently joined the J. Willard Marriott Library as the Rare Books curator in Special Collections. Although she now has an official title, Lyuba began working in Rare Books more than five years ago as a part-time student employee. First introduced to the Rare Books department as an undergrad, Lyuba fell in love with the collection and knew she wanted to work towards being there full-time.
After graduating with a double BA in English and Applied Linguistics, Lyuba received a Fulbright scholarship and found herself Argentina teaching English at a small university in La Pampa. She was able to incorporate her knowledge of rare books, artists’ books, and library collections into her teaching curriculum, while developing a successful writing workshop that continues to be implemented today. The workshop and its pedagogy, which uses artists’ books as a way to teach English, was featured as a chapter in the Universidad Nacional de La Pampa (UNLPam) textbook, Express Yourself: Exploring Creativity in English Language Teacher Education.
Upon her return from Argentina, Lyuba completed an MA in World Languages and Cultures at the University of Utah, with an emphasis in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. Her master’s thesis brought her full circle as she analyzed some of the Marriott Library’s rare books and explored the “materiality of text,” arguing it is the most important aspect of reading.
To get a sense of what Lyuba is currently reading and researching (plus pictures of cool books) follow the Rare Books blog, Open Book.!
Ismaeil Hakimi
Ismaeil Hakimi Joined the Marriott Library, a lovely academic place, to work as Information & Research Specialist supporting the faculty and students.
Ismaeil has worked in the University of San Diego School of Law Library and many other public and private, national and international organizations, educational institutions and governmental agencies especially in law and reform projects.
Ismaeil lived in or visited many countries and cities, but likes Utah because of its snow, cold and hot wether, beautiful Valley, high mountains, and deep canyons, and nice people.”
Taiba Al-Janabi
Taiba works as a Records Specialist at the Archives and Records Management Center. The biggest part of Taiba’s job is taking requests from patrons and providing them with the records they need to get their work done. She says, “It makes me feel satisfied when I see people happy when they get an old record delivered to their office.”
Taiba has been in the United States for two years. She chose Utah because, “It is the best state to do a lot of outdoor activities like hiking, which is the best thing to relieve stress especially for someone coming from Iraq!” Hiking is Taiba’s favorite activity to do in her free time. Taiba received her B.S. degree in electrical engineering, but unfortunately she had a hard time working in her country.
Taiba explains: “Working as an engineer as a woman in the Middle East was dangerous because of the war. All of these things forced me to leave my country and start all over again here. I decided to do the second thing I love most beside engineering, which is working in a library.”
Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud
Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud, Objects and Book Conservator in Preservation, is an AIC Professional Associate objects conservator having worked for many museums and private clients in Utah during the past four years. She has a B.A. in Visual Arts from Rutgers University (2001), a B.A. in Art History from the Université François Rabelais (2002) and a “Diplôme national supérieur d’expression plastique, mention conservation-restauration des oeuvres sculptées” in the conservation of sculpture from the Ecole supérieure de beaux-arts de Tours (2007). Since then, she has worked freelance in France and America on a wide variety of sculptures and objects from museum collections, churches, historical monuments, and private clients.
Notable internships she completed in America took place at the Cloisters (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City), the Western Archeological and Conservation Center (Tucson), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In France, she has worked on monuments such as the basilica of St. Denis and the Thermes de Cluny du Musée du Moyen Age Thermes, and for many churches and museums, such as the Musée Rodin, the Musée de la Marine and the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Chaumont. Since her arrival in Utah, she has worked with many museums and institutions including the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, the Natural History Museum of Utah, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art of USU Logan, the BLM, the Topaz Museum, and several local private clients. She has taught courses on the care of objects and several workshops on degradations and safe display of objects.
Alex Anderson
Alex has worked as a part-time employee in Security and Information since 2013. He took a break this summer and then came back to the library as the Information Services and Circulation Coordinator. He graduated from the University of Utah in the spring of 2018 with a B.A. in History and a Minor in Italian. In his free time Alex likes to fish, hike, hunt, and he also enjoys photography.
Rachel Wittmann
Rachel joined the J. Willard Marriott Library as Digital Curation Librarian in the Digital Library Services Department. Prior to working at the University of Utah, she was the National Parks Metadata Specialist on the Open Parks Network Project at Clemson University Libraries in South Carolina. The move from South Carolina to Utah was made smoother with her long-haul lap cat, Moo. Working with primary source materials, history, and technology is a dream come true for Rachel. Having worked with the National Park Service in her previous role, she is eager to visit Utah’s National Parks and diverse landscapes. Rachel graduated with her M.S. in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute’s School of Information in New York City, where she lived for 10 years. Despite having now lived in all regions of the United States, Rachel claims Nebraska as her home state.
Alex Clements
Alex has worked at the library in Security and Information since August of 2015 and is now the day-time security supervisor. She grew up in a small town in Idaho and moved to Salt Lake to attend the University of Utah. She is currently a student in the Entertainment Arts Engineering program through the College of Engineering and is looking forward to completing a master degree in Games. In her free time Alex enjoys playing video games, hiking, and anything to do with music. She is also a fiercely competitive board game player.
Alayna Eiting
Alayna Eiting had previously worked in Collection Services at the Marriott Library as part-time staff for three years during her undergraduate studies. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts emphasis in painting and drawing from the University of Utah and went on to become an instructor for Paint Nite Salt Lake City. Aside from painting, fitness has always been one of her passions which compelled her to become a certified personal trainer. She is now Collection Services Coordinator here at the Library where she helps with patron requests, manage the various collections the library houses, and enjoys being surrounded by knowledge. She still does personal training outside of the library and paints whenever she has the chance.
Eli Schroeder
Eli is the new Night Services Supervisor and has been working in the Security & Information Department since July of 2014. He recently graduated in December of 2017 with an Anthropology Bachelor of Science, an Integrated Human Biology Minor, and an Environmental Sustainability & Studies Minor. Eli is fascinated by topics of behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology. In the future, he would like to pursue a Master’s Degree in Cultural Resource Management to utilize components of both anthropology and environmental science. Eli likes to play board games, video games, and spend time in the mountains through camping and rock climbing. He also enjoys watching soccer and is a huge fan of German soccer team Bayern Munich.
Tallie Casucci
Tallie is joining us from the University of Utah’s Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, where she worked with innovators to research and develop medical apps, devices, and serious games. In her new role, Tallie will be the liaison to the departments of Bioengineering, Entertainment Arts & Engineering (EAE), and Health, Kinesiology & Recreation (HKR). Additionally, Tallie will work with the Marriott Library’s team on patent support. Tallie’s research interests include rock climbers’ information-seeking behaviors, burnout and wellness, educational technologies, and evidence-based practice. Tallie co-teaches the graduate EAE course, Serious Games, with Dr. Ashley Brown. As a student-athlete, Tallie graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in Exercise and Sport Science and a Business Essentials Certificate from the Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC-CH. Afterwards, Tallie completed her Master of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the University of Utah’s faculty, Tallie worked as a solo-academic-librarian and volunteered at hospital libraries.
Teresa Hebron
Teresa joins Mountain West Digital Library as the Digital Metadata Librarian with nine years’ experience in managing information technology systems in the context of libraries. She spent the first phase of her librarian life at Innovative Interfaces in a variety of roles, primarily focusing on support and configuration of public-facing search and discovery tools, outreach to libraries, and project management for ILS migrations.
She graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Arts in Germanic Studies and completed her Masters of Science in Information at University of Michigan. Immediately prior to joining MWDL, Teresa worked for Propertybase Inc here in Salt Lake City, providing software support to real estate customers globally, on-boarding new clients, and conforming customer metadata into systems.
When she’s not knee-deep in data spreadsheets, she roots for the Jazz, Warriors, and Bulls (not necessarily in that order!), reworks her figure skating fantasy team roster, and daydreams about a galaxy far, far away.
Allie McCormack
Allie was previously the Rare Books Catalog Librarian at Baylor University, where she worked on everything from early printed hymnals to Russian samizdat to historical Texana. A Chicago native, she studied Classical Studies and Medieval Studies at Smith College before earning her M.A. in Medieval Studies from Fordham University and her M.L.S. with a focus in rare books librarianship from Indiana University, Bloomington. She has also studied at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Allie’s research interests include the history of the book, the history of reading, inclusive and user-responsive cataloging practices, and the future of descriptive metadata.
Greg Midgley
Greg Midgley first worked for the Marriott Library as an intern with Digital Collections when he was studying at the
University of Utah for his History BA. After graduation, he found a job with the South City Campus Library of Salt Lake Community College handling circulation and reserves. Early in 2015 he returned to the Marriott Library as a part-time employee in the Interlibrary Loan Department. Work continued in that position until December 2017, when he moved into a full-time staff position as Acquisition Order Specialist in the Acquisitions Department. Concurrent to studies and work in the library field, he has been teaching music and performing in local groups and solo projects. One recent collaboration with the Salt Lake Electric Ensemble on a Philip Glass piece saw their recording released on the composer’s own Orange Mountain Music label in early 2018.
Tad Garland
Tad is originally from Natick, Massachusetts and is therefore an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots. He’s been living in Utah since 2001. He came to the U first as a student to get a B.A. in History. During that time, he worked as a shelver for the Salt Lake County Library system, so he has worked in libraries since graduating from high school. After graduating with his bachelor degree, Tad returned to get a second degree in Political Science and worked as a student employee in the Marriott Library’s Archives and Records Management department. After graduating the second time, Tad left the library for another job. When a full time job opening in Archives and Records Management opened, Tad returned and took the position of Senior Library Specialist. He now serves as Archivist.
Nicole Lewis
Nicole joins the Marriott as Lead Cataloger from Backstage Library Works with twelve years’ experience in cataloging and classification and nine years’ experience in project management. Nicole received her BA from BYU in Near Eastern Studies with an emphasis on Hebrew language, and her BS from the University of Utah in Human Development and Family Studies. She also has a Project Management Professional certification from the PMI Institute.
Nicole’s love of libraries began while working in Book Repair the BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library as an undergrad. A native of Utah, she’s also lived in the UK and Russia, and often dreams of more international travel.
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