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Staff

    Staff Showcase: Digital Initiatives Project Librarian Sarah Severson

    by Hanne Pearce October 20, 2022
    written by Hanne Pearce

    At the University of Alberta Library, there are a great many staff that work either on the front lines or behind the scenes to make our library services happen. In our staff showcase, we hope to bring those staff into the spotlight to share who they are both as professionals and as people who care passionately about information, knowledge and learning.

    Sarah Severson is a Digital Initiatives Project Librarian so her work primarily happens behind the scenes. In fact, she co-authored our most recent post in Library News about the Digitizing of Independent Weekly Entertainment Newspapers See and Vue. Her work involves managing and planning digitization projects for the Library’s many digitization projects.

    A large part of the Library’s mandate is to preserve and digitize information to make it available for research and study around the world. Sarah joined the Digital Initiatives team in March 2019 with a diverse background in librarianship. She worked at McGill University Library in Montreal, as a media librarian for CBC English Language Television and as a media librarian for Moment Factory (a media experience company) where she notes that a highlight was doing archival research for Madonna’s Super Bowl show!

    I asked Sarah a few questions so we can get to know her better:

    Describe an average day for you. What kinds of activities are involved with your work?

    I work on a large variety of projects so there is rarely an average day. Some days I’m at home attending meetings and doing emails while other days I’m in the library looking at the material we want to digitize. 

    What project are you working on now?

    Working with student journals – teaching a peer review workshop over reading break, training a few different editorial teams how to use our Open Journal Software. I’m co-chairing, for the second time, the online Student Journal Forum which is a long-running showcase of student journal work. Our Call for Proposals is open until October 31.

    I’m also working with other people in the library to get some of our unique collections digitized. In the last week, I’ve uploaded some maps to our internet archive collection, met to review a proposal to digitize our sheet music collection and next week I’ll be training on a new (to us) scanner so we can start digitizing more special collections materials in Rutherford Library.

    Some future projects include buying a scanner that will be available in our Digital Scholarship Centre and developing some Digitization 101 workshops. 

    What would you say is the most challenging about your work?

    Outreach! Getting the word out about all the great things we digitize to the right people. So much new digital content is going up every day. It’s hard to make the time to ensure the right people know it’s there for research.

    Where on campus is your go-to food/drink place? 

    Love going to Ace Coffee on the edge of campus (111th street and 86ave) early in the morning and sitting by the window.

    What kinds of things do you do when you aren’t at work in the library?

    Hanging with my two dogs. I love art and galleries. I just got back from a 6-day trip to NYC and it wasn’t enough time to see everything I wanted to. 

    If you want to learn more about the University of Alberta Library Digitization Projects you can read more on the website at Digitization at the University of Alberta or explore some of the digitized collections.

    Thanks for the read! Love us on the blog? Chances are, you’ll love us on social media! Follow us, @uofalibrary, on Instagram & Twitter!

    October 20, 2022 0 comment
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  • Ask Us! | Reach Out to Our Library Chat Service

    by Junelle Mah September 15, 2022
    by Junelle Mah September 15, 2022

    When COVID numbers began to climb in our community in Winter 2020, the University of Alberta plunged into the unknown world that was study/work from home. The University of Alberta Library was able to seamlessly transfer one aspect of our services out-of-office without missing a beat: our Ask Us! Library online chat service. We continue to help our community through this valuable online medium. Read on to find out what makes this…

  • Librarian’s Role in Health Science Research

    by Guest Author September 9, 2021
    by Guest Author September 9, 2021

    This post was written by Health Sciences Librarian, Sandy Campbell with support from her colleagues at the Scott Library There has been a collective effort among researchers to promote science and research to help society make decisions as we navigate this pandemic. Perhaps, you follow “Science Up First” on Twitter and have seen this action in real-time. Shedding some light on the research process and science literacy is of benefit to society.…

  • Celebrating Chinese Culture | Honouring Tea, Part I

    by Junelle Mah August 13, 2021
    by Junelle Mah August 13, 2021

    As the University of Alberta Library highlights China and Chinese culture in this month’s blog, I feel very fortunate to write a two-part special on Chinese tea. Not only do I get to venture into my favourite section of Rutherford’s stacks (fourth floor, call range GV 2907), but I get to transfer a piece of my personal history into written word. Part One will introduce Chinese tea, as well as some of…

  • Staff Call-Out | What have I learned while working remotely?

    by Junelle Mah April 30, 2021
    by Junelle Mah April 30, 2021

    As we see another remote semester come to a close, it is sometimes surreal to think of how long we have been providing support for our U of A community from afar. We were curious to find out what kind of hacks, tips, or pearls of wisdom our colleagues had discovered after working from home, so we asked, What have you learned while working remotely? Doris Wagner, Librarian (Law, Sociology, MLCS, History,…

  • De-Stressing Tips from Library Staff | Part II

    by Junelle Mah December 4, 2020
    by Junelle Mah December 4, 2020

    It is widely known that library staff are always willing to offer helpful tips and advice…call it an occupational hazard! Lucky for us, we received such a wealth of self-care tips from our colleagues that we had to create a second part to our Fall 2020 Staff De-stressing Tips blog! To catch up on Part I, take a peek here… otherwise sit back, relax, and enjoy Part II! Eva, Information Services Specialist…

  • De-Stressing Tips from Library Staff | Part I

    by Junelle Mah December 3, 2020
    by Junelle Mah December 3, 2020

    First, a giant shout-out to everyone for all the hard work done thus far in our Fall 2020 semester. We are truly proud of you! We invite you to take some time to rest, relax, and focus on a little self-care before you battle on to end this term on a strong note. Our lovely library staffers offer up their de-stressing tips in Part I of a two-part special! Elisabet, Information Services…

  • Finding Connections in Community and Space | An Alumna Looks Back

    by Junelle Mah September 24, 2020
    by Junelle Mah September 24, 2020

    Happy Alumni Week to one and all in our green and gold community. When you work on the campus of your alma mater, you can’t help but be surrounded by the nostalgia of your (now seemingly) carefree days as a student. Sure the faces and some of the buildings change, but the feelings of familiarity and good memories remain. As a proud Human Ecology alumna (with ALES, back when it was AgForHE),…

  • Happy Heritage Day: Our Staff Serve Up Their Family Faves in Absence of Yearly Festival

    by Junelle Mah July 31, 2020
    by Junelle Mah July 31, 2020

    There is no denying that a strong connection exists between family (blood or chosen), friends, food, and festivity. A highlight of summers-past in the City of Edmonton includes the ever-popular and wildly tasty Heritage Festival; an August long weekend sun-soaked celebration of our multicultural city. During this time, Hawrelak Park comes alive with a diverse display of various ethnic delights, including food! The current pandemic climate continues to change agendas;  we are…

  • Stitching the Curve: An Update

    by Hanne Pearce July 28, 2020
    by Hanne Pearce July 28, 2020

    It has now been well over five months since a group of us University of Alberta Library staff began a data physicalization project to stitch Covid-19 data in Canada. It’s a project that we called “Stitching the Curve”. This is a little update on this data physicalization project’s progress.  To quickly recap the project, members of our team have all selected provinces to either knit or crochet. Our colleague and fellow knitter,…

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