Hilda C. Landers Library & Archives

We’re happy to finally introduce our awesome new director Kate Pitcher! Please give a (belated) welcome when you see her around campus!

In July 2016, I became the Director of the Library, Archives, and Media Center here at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Prior to SMCM, I was the interim Director of Milne Library at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Geneseo.

I’ve worked in many different library capacities; including public libraries (I worked for the NYPL branch libraries for a spell) and in academic libraries doing collection development, instruction, government documents, web development, and as head of digital scholarship and publishing. In the latter capacity, I served as the Project Manager for Digital Thoreau, a collaborative digital project which encompassed a social reading platform for Thoreau’s works, a fluid text edition of Thoreau’s Walden manuscripts, and an Omeka digital collection collecting and studying the work and contributions of noted Thoreau scholar, Dr. Walter Harding.

Prior to SMCM, I was also the principal investigator of the grant-funded Open SUNY Textbooks project, which studied how libraries and colleges could develop services and infrastructure to support faculty development of open educational resources, open textbooks, and open pedagogy surrounding classroom teaching and learning. My research and writing interests are in these areas of open digital publishing and changing scholarly communication practices, as well as how libraries are evolving to assist faculty and their institutions in meeting the challenges of a digital, networked, and open academy. I’m also fascinated by the economics of information and the increasing need for democratic and sound information technology and public policy, especially as it relates to higher education.

I’m a native New Yorker (upstate, that is!) and so I’m used to snow, but really excited about being in a southern climate during the winter. I have three children, all in elementary school; one husband; three guinea pigs and a cat. When I have free time I like to read, swim, kayak, and bike. I’m also a politics junkie, so being this close to D.C. is a wonderful turn of events.

For more information and to see statements from other campus departments and groups:
Support & Solidarity for SMCM Students: Information and Resources
http://libguides.smcm.edu/support-and-solidarity

We are part of a community that values: intellectual, creative, and scholarly exploration; the power of a diverse community; and relationships built on mutual respect, integrity, and trust. We also live in the real world, and we believe that by engaging in ongoing dialogue, our community can shape the changing world. We can try to make this world a better place.

As a library, we have a responsibility to be a space welcome to all, where the free access to information and the free expression of ideas foster and encourage open discourse in our community. As members of the St. Mary’s community, we recognize the important difference between expression of a dissenting point-of-view and expression meant to belittle, dehumanize, and harm others.

We in the library, archives, and media center condemn the recent events at the Natty Boh hunt and all previous incidents of bigotry, bias, harassment, and hate speech that have occurred on campus and through various social media outlets. These actions are antithetical to what we want our college and our community to be. We stand in solidarity with our students who are targets of hateful speech and actions.

Veronica Arellano Douglas
Curtis Barclift
​Cheryl Colson
​Justin Foreman
Raven Glidden
Conrad Helms
Bonnie Kangas
Alan Lutton
Pamela Mann
Alex McGough
Carol Morris
Kenneth O’Connell
Celia Rabinowitz
Kent Randell
​Brenda Rodgers
Linda Russell
Katherine Ryner
Rob Sloan
​Joe Storey
Amanda VerMeulen

Alan Lutton, Library Office Administrator, received the LGBTQ Advocacy Award at the 2016 Lavender Graduation on April 8.

The award “recognizes contributions to or advocacy on behalf of gender and sexual minorities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland” by “students, faculty, and staff who have enhanced campus life, advocated or implemented campus policies that have improved campus climate, and/or increased visibility and awareness for all underrepresented gender and sexual identities.”

Previous recipients include Rachel Honig, Staff Therapist and Advocate (2015), and Celia Rabinowitz, former Director of the Library (2014).

Congratulations Alan!

Exciting news! The SMCM library has a new Research and Instruction Librarian.

Amanda VerMeulen joined the library team on August 3, giving her a few weeks to get her bearings on a way too quiet campus before the excitement of the start of the Fall semester.

Science is fun! Photo credit: Veronica Arellano Douglas

Amanda (last name pronounced vur-MULE-in, because we were all wondering) comes to St. Mary’s from the College of Southern Maryland, where she worked as a librarian for almost three years.

At SMCM you might see her in your first year seminar or hanging out with the science types as the library liaison to Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Environmental Studies, Mathematics & Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Physics (plus Economics, for good measure).

And because everyone wants to know: Amanda has a BA in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, and an MLIS (<–that’s the library one) from Dominican University (it’s in Illinois).

Come see Amanda in her office (Library 125), at the Reference Desk, send her an email, or give her a call to get research help, wax nostalgic about CSM (for all those transfer students out there!), or discuss the finer points of naming your pets after minor character on The Wire (her dog’s name is Mr. Cheese, after Cheese Wagstaff, so…ya know).