Here are some miscellaneous recent alumni updates. Are we missing something? Send your alumni announcements, updates, awards, and other news to sim@dal.ca. We love to hear about all the exciting things our grads are doing.

• From Tammy Whynot (MLIS ’12): “I pursued and got a publishing contract for multiple books–about librarians! They are romantic comedies I write under a pen name, and can be found here if you have any interest: www.annwhynot.com/books2. I put my collections class to good use in building a collection for the Mental Health Inpatient Unit here at our small hospital on the South Shore (South Shore Regional Hospital). Because of my training, I was able to take into account things like adults with a range of reading levels, and included items such as picture books and high-low books, something I wouldn’t have known existed without my time at SIM. I also made an effort to have a diverse collection with both BIPOC and LGBTQ2+ representation. I made a video which should you have interest, is available here: https://youtu.be/EHM_Nnx5qoA. Again, thank-you for the education I received. Good things are happening to me because of my MLIS, and I am very happy to be able to say SIM is part of my happiness in life, even all these years later. “
• Mikylah Gillis (MLIS ’20) joined the team at the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia in Fall 2022 as Archives Assistant. Her work will focus on preserving knowledge and understanding of built heritage in Nova Scotia, assessing and beginning a general organization of a wide range of archival material collected by the Heritage Trust over the last six decades and making them accessible.
• Dr. Toni Samek (MLIS ’91) was chosen as one of 10 recipients of the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee medal by the Library Association of Alberta. Dr. Samek is a professor at the University of Alberta SLIS program. She convened the CLA’s Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom, was the debut Library Journal Teaching award recipient in 2007 and is the recipient of the 2017 LAA’s President’s Award, which recognizes her major impact on a provincial level.
• Vinson Li’s (MI ’22) award-winning paper “Mapping the health science librarianship research field in 2012-2022” was published in the December 2022 edition of the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association. The paper won the JCHLA student paper prize in spring 2022. Full paper details can be viewed here: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/jchla/index.php/jchla/article/view/29626