Last week, our colleague Ann Barrett wrapped up a long and successful career at Dalhousie. As a tribute to the accomplished career Ann has had, we would like to share a few highlights with you; with thanks to colleagues Gail Fraser and Jan Pelley for providing many of the details.

Ann graduated with her MLIS from Dalhousie in 1981 and worked at the Kellogg Library as an intern from 1979–81. Before making the Kellogg Library her permanent workplace, she worked as hospital librarian at Tawam Hospital in the United Arab Emirates and at the Saint John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick.

In 1986, Ann returned to the Dalhousie Libraries, where she held a number of positions in public services, document delivery, systems, and for many years was the liaison librarian for the School of Nursing and for the Divisions of Pediatrics, Oncology/Hematology, and Obstetrics & Gynecology. Following several leaves from Dalhousie, working at the University of Papua New Guinea and later at the Institute for Marine Biosciences Library, National Research Council, Ann became Head of Public Services in the Kellogg Library, and supervised many staff and library interns over the years.

In her last role as Associate Dean Scholarly Communications and Head of the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library, Ann coordinated collections, liaison services, and communications and operations at the local level for the two spaces under the Kellogg banner: the Kellogg Library Learning Commons in the Collaborative Health Education Building and the Kellogg Health Sciences Library in the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building. As the Associate Dean Scholarly Communications, she led a team of librarians and staff from across the Dal Libraries in the development of Open Educational Resources production services, the consolidation of Dal Libraries services under the Research Commons umbrella, the implementation of the University’s research information system UNIWeb, and increased capacity for bibliometric analysis and services, Open Access support and digital preservation via our institutional repository DalSpace.

It would be impossible to list all of Ann’s impressive accomplishments and achievements from her 35 years with us, so we will share just a few where she was a trail blazer. In 1999, Ann initiated the first implementation of a proxy service for the Dal Libraries, and between 2003–2005 she coordinated the implementation of the Learning Commons in the Kellogg Health Sciences Library. Ann acted as project manager for the implementation of WorldCat Local in 2009, Dalhousie Libraries’ first discovery layer, and she coordinated the implementation and evaluation of a Single Service Point in the Kellogg Library, a first for the Dalhousie Libraries, in 2012.

More recently, Ann coordinated the planning for the move of the Kellogg Health Sciences Library staff and collections into new and renovated spaces in the CHEB and the Tupper Building. We will always think of Ann during our annual Research Bootcamp for RAs and TAs and the Summer Shine presentation event for MI interns, two enduring initiatives that were both conceived of by Ann.

Ann was truly dedicated to providing the best service to library users; she was always passionate about the education and training of staff, as well as mentoring library interns and early career librarians. She was a calm and measured voice on the Libraries’ senior leadership team and a source of inspiration and innovation.

Thank you Ann for your tremendous leadership, dedication, and unwavering collegial approach to your work, especially during the upheaval of the past year!

 

We’re pleased to announce that David Ryan is the new Library Services Supervisor, based at the Sexton Library. David will be a familiar face to many as he’s been working in term positions with the Dalhousie Libraries since 2018, having worked at both the Sexton and Kellogg libraries.

David graduated from Dalhousie with his MLIS in 2008. Since then, in addition to the Dalhousie Libraries, he’s worked at Mount Saint Vincent University and the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in roles such as reference and instructional librarian, cataloguer, and lecturer. David also has a background in communications. Over the past year, in addition to providing front line service at the Sexton Library and Resources support on the streaming video initiative, he’s written graduate and online teaching faculty profiles for Dal News on behalf of the Dal Libraries and the Academic Quality Team.

Join us in welcoming David as the newest permanent member of the Dalhousie Libraries team.