ALAO Mentor Biographies

Kathleen Baril

Library Director
Ohio Northern University

Areas of expertise: Acquisitions, Career / Recruitment and Hiring, Collection Development, Instruction, Library Management, Reference

Professional background: I have been the director at my institution for the last eight years. I have experience in library management including hiring, managing library personnel, strategic planning, renovations/space management and budget management. Since I work at a small institution, I am also a liaison to multiple departments, serve on the library student marketing committee and am involved in other marketing activities, assist students as their Personal Librarian and teach classes for my liaison departments. I am very interested in the ways that the library can advocate and move forward DEI initiatives. To that end, I started a cultural conversation series which has ended but we are moving forward with a creation of a library diversity plan. I also served on a university task force that recommended a number of DEI initiatives to administration. Finally, I have served on numerous committees both inside and outside my institution.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope that I can provide a space for the mentee to explore the library profession with someone from outside their organization, serve as someone to bounce ideas off of and just be a listening ear for the mentee when they need it. I hope that I can provide a new manager with guidance of any kind, I had several mentors when I first started as director and their feedback was invaluable to me.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). Outside of work, I like to read (of course), watch movies and walk/run. I am a precinct chair, secretary for the local League of Women Voters, and on the executive board of the UU Fellowship that I belong to.

Jason Ezell

Head of Learning & Engagement
Miami University

Areas of expertise: Instruction, Library Management, Instruction Program Development; Assessment; Info Lit & General Education; LGBTQ+ Studies

Professional background: I have served as a library instruction leader in four different academic libraries, most involving the development of a strategic program through learning assessment, general education outreach, and accreditation reporting. I have also briefly served as an associate dean of learning and engagement and a leader /mentor for faculty librarians. Part of my research agenda as an LGBTQ+ historian focuses on how the New Right, education policy, librarianship, and information activism have intersected following gay liberation.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope to help my mentee better advocate for and practice academic librarianship through the development of library instruction as a strategic program / curriculum and through the lens of their scholarship. I would like to better understand how library instruction / scholarship can be practiced differently in various university types and through a range of librarian roles. I am interested in shared publication / presentation opportunities, as well as to extend my community of practice around instruction design.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I am new to Ohio and am interested in LGBTQ+ community outreach. Also interested in history librarianship / primary sources; poetry; and film culture.

Craig Gable

Reference and Instruction Librarian
Ursuline College

Areas of expertise: Collection Development, Instruction, Reference

Professional background: Previously I've worked as a reference librarian at a small multi-campus community college in AZ; at a small private multi-campus Catholic college in NY; and at a small private college with a religious heritage in OH. Currently I work at a small private women's Catholic college in Ohio. I've also been a literature scholar and am currently a historian. My professional experience dates from 2000 to the present, and my college career (BS, MA, MLS) spans 1985 to 1999. I've grown up and worked along with the rise/development of computer technology in education, research, and librarianship. My experiences as a librarian are limited to small institutions, typically understaffed schools with undersized library budgets. As a student and paraprofessional I worked in numerous library settings. My professional experience and perspectives are exclusively of an academic librarian, with a touch of professional research and publishing thrown in.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope my mentee gains a broader understanding of what librarianship entails, including the challenges in relation to location, resources, and user community. For myself, I am hoping for the simple satisfaction of helping someone--which is what being a librarian is all about.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). Beyond librarianship I have a master's degree in English. I used to be a Harlem Renaissance literature scholar. For over a decade I've maintained an online database of primary and secondary source documents in relation to the assassination of President William McKinley.

Mandi Goodsett

Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian
Cleveland State University

Areas of expertise: Instruction, Marketing and Outreach, Reference, Scholarly Communication

Professional background: I have been working as a subject librarian at CSU for 9 years, so I have a fair amount of experience with liaison outreach, instruction, and reference. I am also passionate about professional development and can talk about serving on committees, attending conferences, conducting research, and serving in leadership roles (such as ALAO president).

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope that my mentee feels supported and that I can serve as a genuine listener in their life. I would love to help the mentee identify their professional goals and then do what I can to help them reach those goals. I really enjoy connecting with other librarians in the region! I had some wonderful mentors so far in my career, so I want to give back by serving in that role for others. I enjoyed participating in this mentoring program in the past!

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I am a new mom, so I am happy to talk about the major challenges of being a working parent! I also am passionate about sustainability, both in my personal and professional life, so I would enjoy talking about that with a mentee too.

Ken Irwin

Web Services Librarian
Miami University

Areas of expertise: Collection Development, Instruction, Reference, Web Development

Professional background: I spent 20+ years as a reference/instruction/collection development faculty librarian at a small private college prior to my current role as in web development at a medium-sized public university. My current role also includes leadership in the libraries Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts. I expect I can offer general early-career advice, as well as perspectives on making big job changes. In addition to the specific areas of reference, collections, instruction, web development and DEI, I think I have a pretty good understanding of academic libraries as workplaces. and can help develop a person's preparedness to meet their employers goals and find their own professional niche. I have done some informal librarian mentoring in the past, and have been doing more “organized” mentoring through ALAO and ALA in the past year.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I'd hope for a mentee to cultivate their strengths and become more confident in their abilities; to expand their professional network and to develop some ideas about how they want to invest their time and energy in the profession, and how they might overcome any obstacles they face. Having been around the profession for a long time, I have found that mentoring helps keep me in touch with the ways newer librarians see the profession. In any area of life, I know that I have a lot to learn from people with a fresher perspective, newer training, etc, and I'd hope to expand my own ways of looking at the profession by learning from my colleagues.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). professional: coding, DEI. hobbies: hiking, mushroom hunting, dancing, caving, climbing

Krista McDonald

Library Director
Miami University Hamilton

Areas of expertise: Career / Recruitment and Hiring, Collection Development, Instruction, Library Management, Reference, I'm not an expert at the other things listed, but I have done many of them at some point in my career.

Professional background: I have worked in libraries for 26 years, 21 of them in academic libraries, and 18 of those at MUH. I have done a little bit of everything over that timespan, from copy cataloging and serials to web development and circulation.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor?  I hope the mentee gets everything they want and need from the experience. I have mentored people formally through ALAO and other mentoring programs as well as informally throughout my career. I have also served as a practicum supervisor for 3 KSU students. I always learn something from my mentees! This is never a one-way process. I look forward to learning from my mentees each year, whether it's something job related, learning more about something we both enjoy, or something else entirely.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I'm a single mom to three teens. I'm also raising three cats. :) I love sports - almost all of them (to watch not play - nobody wants to see that!). I have been very active with ALAO for most of my 18 years at MU. I am serving on OhioLINK's CIRM committee representing the 2YR and CC group. I have served on both ALA and ACRL committees. I have completed Library Leadership Ohio. I am very engaged with DEI work...I currently co-chair the MU Libraries' DEI Committee and serve on the ALAO DEI Committee, but I have served in other DEI roles as well. I co-facilitate Safe Zone training at MU.

Gerald (Jerry) Natal

Health and Human Services Librarian
The University of Toledo

Areas of expertise: Instruction, Marketing and Outreach, Reference, Scholarly Communication

Professional background: I previously worked for over a decade in various staff positions in public libraries, and began my professional career as a librarian at The Toledo Correctional Institution, Toledo, Ohio. I was a Visiting Instructor of Information Literacy at The University of Toledo, then hired as Digital Services Librarian at UToledo's Mulford Health Science Library. Currently I work from UToledo's William S. Carlson Library. My current duties encompass providing services to the programs in The College of Health and Human Services, including reference, instruction, and collection development. I also maintain the Instructions to Authors database (http://mulford.utoledo.edu/instr/) and am the library liaison for Latinx Initiatives, co-advisor to the UToledo chapter of the Student Veterans of America, and am a Military Service Center board member. My research interests are broad but mostly center on library outreach. I am a long-standing member of ALAO and am currently the organization's Immediate Past President.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I can relay my knowledge and experience in teaching information literacy, scholarly activity (I am tenured at my institution, so may be helpful to anyone going through this process), and leadership. Besides the satisfaction of helping others I have an opportunity to also learn from exposure to different backgrounds and perspectives.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I have a background in art and music; I collect vinyl records and old comic books; I am a Navy veteran.

Daniela Solomon

Research and Engagement Librarian
Case Western Reserve University

Areas of expertise: Reference, Scholarly Communication, Engineering Librarianships, Metrics and Bibliometrics

Professional background: I have over 11 years’ experience as an academic librarian specialized in engineering disciplines. I hold a Master’s Degree in Library Science and Information from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the ”Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University, Iasi, Romania. In my role at Kelvin Smith Library, I continuously seek to understand the needs and interests of the researchers, faculty, students, and students groups or campus offices, and use my enthusiasm and creativity to develop programs and learning opportunities that engage the campus community and beyond. My research interests include information behavior of engineering departments, technical standards education, scholarly impact metrics, scholarly communications, and outreach and I have a substantial record of publications (see https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6200-5216).

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I believe that I am at a point in my career when I can offer a wealth of knowledge and guidance to a mentee in various aspects of the academic librarianship profession. Topics could include understanding user needs and engagement with library users, program development, research and publications, and new trends in scholarly communications. I would also be happy to share from my experience in engineering librarianship. My hope is that I could help someone excel as an academic librarian. I had some unofficial and sporadic mentoring initiatives as I have supported some of my younger colleagues in succeeding with some of their goals and I found their success very rewarding. I am looking in a more formal mentoring experience that will provide me a personal growth opportunity by practicing reflective practice, improving communications, and building long-term relationships. I benefited from encouragement and advice from more experienced colleagues and I want to give back by helping others in the profession.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I am interested in travel, gardening, and foraging.

Rocki Strader

Associate Professor; Catalog/Authorities Librarian; Interim Head of Bibliographic Initiatives
The Ohio State University Libraries

Areas of expertise: Cataloging, Department Management, Metadata

Professional background: I have a doctorate in music theory from Ohio State (1996) and received my MLIS from Kent State in 2001. My first professional position was as an electronic resources acquisitions manager (2002-2005). I moved to cataloging in 2005 and have been there since. (Prior to the MLIS, I was on staff in a variety of public services roles in four different libraries at Ohio State.)

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope that my mentee can learn about the wider library environment and how cataloging fits into it. I want to have wide-ranging discussions about the current intellectual, political and educational environment that we currently inhabit, and how all that influences how we view and engage with metadata and cataloging processes. I hope that my mentee can become comfortable with asking hard and complex questions and especially with sharing their own perspectives from their own experiences. I also want to learn with and from my mentee.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I'm an occasional church musician (cellist, sometime arranger of music) in a reconciling United Methodist church (all means ALL). My main hobby is Irish dancing.

Lynn Warner

Research & Health Sciences Librarian
University of Cincinnati

Areas of expertise: Instruction, Reference

Professional background: I have worked in academic libraries for many years, much of it doing instruction work. I remember what it is like to be new to instruction and would love to offer support to new librarians. I am passionate about information literacy, and the best part of my job is helping students understand and navigate information in all its forms.

What motivates you to serve as a mentor? I hope that my mentee will gain advice and valuable insights, but also connection and support. I worked with a student working on their MLIS this summer, and I got so much joy and satisfaction out of seeing her develop real world skills. I also learned a lot from her! I see mentorship as a great way to develop my leadership skills while supporting someone new to librarianship.

Please describe any special interest that may be helpful in matching you and your mentee (i.e. hobbies, special skills, service, or volunteer organizations). I am active in a few professional organizations in addition to ALAO: Cincinnati Area Health Sciences Libraries Association (CAHSLA) and Medical Library Association (MLA). In my free time, I enjoy running, knitting, and of course, reading.