Please welcome our newest Library staff member!

The Library welcomes Opal Anderson to our staff! Opal is the new Administrative Assistant to our new Director, Jan Chindlund. She comes to us with extensive, rich and pertinent experience in business administration and event planning, most recently with the Union League Club.

Opal began an intense week of training yesterday, December 17th, overseen by our previous Administrative Assistant to the Director, Michelle Ferguson. Michelle will transition to her "new" role as Assistant to the Associate Vice President for Academic Research and Dean of the Library, Jo Cates.

Congratulations and welcome to Opal!

Library staff member gains more recognition as a top designer

Library Circulation Assistant Dieter Kirkwood has been recognized by Chicago Magazine as one of the area's top emerging fashion designers. His line, DieterBennet, is produced with fellow Columbia College fashion grad Bennett Cousins. Check out the article HERE.

You may remember that Dieter was named "One to watch" in Chicago fashion by the Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion show back in October.

Congratulations, Dieter!

Welcome new Library staff members

A belated welcome to two new staff members:

Amy Wainwright is the Library's new Circulation Assistant. She has been a student worker here at the Library for the past few years.

Jodie Stauffer is the Library's new Cataloging Assistant.

Both officially began their new positions last month. Welcome, Amy and Jodie!

Library staffer Cole Robertson's "After, image: A memorial for those lost to HIV/AIDS"

Yet more news related to our talented Library staff. Cole is the Library's Visual Resources Coordinator and the opening of his exhibit corresponds with World AIDS Day.

Center on Halsted Hosts Cole Robertson's "After, image: A memorial for those lost to HIV/AIDS"

CHICAGO ­ November 2, 2007 On Saturday, December 1, 2007, Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., will host a visual arts installation, "After,
image: a memorial for those lost to HIV/AIDS", by Cole Robertson. This collection of photographs is meant to serve as a memorial, in the most traditional sense, an aesthetically beautiful gesture commemorating the past.

The images, donated by the family members of those lost to HIV/AIDS, are re-workings of photographs of those lost to AIDS. They are then digitally manipulated and printed on fine vellum. They hang as a testament, as a loving tribute, and as a call to action.

Cole Robertson, an MFA-photography graduate of Columbia College, has exhibited work internationally and nationally and chose Center on Halsted specifically to host the installation. "As I work on this, I feel some empty places in my life...spots that should be occupied by people...people who are gone.

The event begins with a reception at 4:00pm and is followed by a talk back with the artist and others who contributed images to the exhibit. A donation of $10 is requested.

This project is supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

For more information or to RSVP contact Culture@CenteronHalsted.org 773-472-6469, ext. 245 or visit www.centeronhalsted.org.

Contact: Lori King, Center on Halsted, 773/472-6469, ext. 290 lking@centeronhalsted.org

Congratulations to Library staffer, Jacob Saenz!

Jacob Saenz, the Library's Acquisitions Assistant, has a new poem, "Sweeping the States," in this month's issue of Poetry magazine. He's also the featured poet on PoetryFoundation.org's blog Harriet today.

Jacob is a recent Columbia College Chicago Poetry major graduate (B.A. '06), and was interviewed about this impressive accomplishment on the department's blog: http://columbiacollegepoetryba.blogspot.com/2007/11/jacob-saenz-sweeps-slush-pile.html

Congratulations, Jacob!

Art of the Library reception this Thursday

We hope you can join us at the next Art of the Library Opening and Reception. While you’re there, take a moment to welcome Jan Chindlund, our new Library Director!

Refreshments will be served (Mmmm...free food!)

Thursday, 11/15/07, 5-7pm

Columbia College Chicago Library, Third Floor

624 S. Michigan Avenue

Art of the Library is an ongoing series (four times a year) of exhibitions featuring the art of Columbia College Chicago students, faculty and staff.

Library staff member "one to watch" in Chicago fashion

Congratulations to Dieter Kirkwood, the Library's Circulation Assistant extraordinaire, who was selected as “one to watch” at the Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion show.

Check out Dieter's fashion line dIETERbENNET

Congratulations, Dieter!

Library staff member receives All-Staff Arts & Media Award!

The Library is pleased to announce that John Moss, our AV Assistant, has been named one of 10 recipients of this year's All-Staff Arts & Media Award.

The award recognizes the artistic achievements of Columbia College Chicago staff and is funded through Columbia College Chicago's Office of Human Resources.

Congratulations to all of the recipients. Way to go, John!

The Library welcomes a new Director!

Please join the Library in welcoming our new Director, Jan Chindlund!

A welcome message from Jo Cates, Associate Vice President for Academic Research & Dean of the Library:

I am so pleased to announce that after a two-year search, we have a Library Director. Jan Chindlund will join our staff on Monday, September 24.

Before coming to Columbia, Jan was Group Project Manager/Head Librarian of the Global Business Research Information Center at McDonald’s Corporation, where she was promoted to increasingly responsible leadership positions since her arrival in 1995 as Head Librarian of the Marketing Services McLibrary. Prior to her work at McDonald’s, Jan was Assistant Vice President and Head Librarian at Duff & Phelps, an investment advisory firm. She received her MBA (Concentration in Innovation and Technology) from Benedictine University and MLS from Dominican University.

In addition to her skills as a manager and information specialist, Jan also brings space planning experience, facilitating three moves for the Information Center. We expect this experience will serve us well as the Library expands over the next few years.

Please take a moment and welcome Jan to the Columbia College Chicago community. I think you’ll appreciate her sense of humor and open and friendly demeanor.

New Orleans update

Our intrepid colleague, Shirley Bennett, has sent us a dispatch from New Orleans (see this post for some background on the trip). Here are some excerpts:

"The Mosquitoes are a fact of life here...and they have deadly aim! They are able to target areas along the straps of your sandals or bras as well as the lower half of each finger on one hand.

My NOLA experience is drawing to a close...this morning there is a writing session focused on capturing what two days in the field has wrought. [Yesterday and the day before, we were dispatched to specific houses or field sites where residents had asked for help.] On my first day, I along with four others, worked in the home of Mr. Heyward Jackson, who is is living in a FEMA trailer alongside his badly damaged home. There was a second home handled by another team of 5. Our tasks were basic: remove nails (high and low, to leave the frame of the house ready for drywall, clear the floors of loose debris and nails there. The work, though simple, takes a lot of time when one has to cover every crack and crevice of a place--especially one that has been pummeled as these places have been by such extreme natural elements.

Yesterday, I was all over the place...pulling Chinese tallow(?) in the wetlands area...cutting foot-high grass in a football size field...and ending up at the home base for the organization through whom our efforts for the day had been coordinated--Common Ground. One of the co-founders was on hand to share how the organization had begun and what projects lay in the near future for them. In fact, Mr. Rahim was on his way to Chicago to speak at some function at McCormick Place this weekend.

Ok, there has been some fun. A poetry slam, a crab bake in the parking lot, beignets in Congo Square and a barbecue at the home of the local poet celeb, Shakespear."

All of us here at the Columbia College Chicago Library are looking forward to Shirley's return and to hearing more about her experiences in New Orleans.

Columbia College Chicago supports New Orleans

At the end of this month, Columbia College Chicago Librarian Shirley Bennett will travel to New Orleans to help foster awareness of the continuing challenges faced by Hurricane Katrina survivors. Shirley is one of fifteen mentors from the College and its community partners who will be accompanying a group of twenty Saturday Scholars students who are making this trip as part of the culmination of a six-week course incorporating reading, writing and visual literacy based on the text of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts by filmmaker Spike Lee.

This trip builds on a previous outreach effort made by a group of Columbia College students who were accompanied by Lott Hill, former Assistant Director for Civic Engagement and current Acting Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. They traveled to the French Quarter to offer their assistance and support during Spring Break earlier this year.

Find these books and more on Hurricane Katrina in the Library:

Welcome "new" Library staff members!

The Library would like to welcome our newest staff members, Kristin Lipowski and Cole Robertson.

Kristin has been a part-time image cataloger but has accepted the newly created full-time position of Visual Resources Cataloger. She will begin her new role in August.

Cole returns to the library as our new Visual Resources Coordinator. He was formerly a student worker here before graduating with an MFA in Photography in 2006. His photography was selected for the SOHO Photo Gallery's National Juried Photography Competition in July.

Welcome and congratulations to Kristin and Cole!