Queens College, The City University of New York

Graduate School of Library and Information Studies

Prof. Regina Carra taught LBSCI 735: Museum Studies in Spring 2024 and will teach LBSCI 732: Introduction to Archival Studies.

Academic Statement: She is the Rapaport Archivist at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), where she leads the development, processing, and access of the AFAM Archives. Previously, she was a project archivist for the Mark Morris Dance Group. In addition to her work for AFAM, she is a member of the ArchivesSpace User Advisory Council (UAC) and the Society of American Archivists’ National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group. An alum of Queens College’s MLS/MA program, Regina’s research interests focus on the history of cultural heritage institutions and the people, work practices, and narratives that sustain them. Her article “DJK: (Re)Inventing Eastern Europe in the Library of Congress Classification,” based on research she began as a student, was published in Slavic and East European Information Resources in 2021.

Prof. Kyle R. Triplett will teach LBSCI 790.3: Introduction to Rare Book Librarianship in Fall 2024.

Academic Statement: He is Rare Book Librarian in the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Division at NYPL. His areas of interest are descriptive bibliography, history of the book, and teaching with special collections. He is a member of the Bibliographical Society of America and has served as a lab instructor for Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. Also an adjunct professor, he has taught courses on rare books to future librarians at various institutions in the city. Kyle has been at NYPL since 2011.

Prof. Rachel Leff will teach LBSCI 790.3: Academic Librarianship in Fall 2024.

Academic Statement: As an academic librarian, I believe the library plays a central role in higher education, providing essential resources and services to students, faculty, staff, and the community. My professional interests include research and instruction, information literacy, community partnerships, information ecosystems, and library history. My goal in teaching at the Queens College GSLIS program is to share how academic libraries work as well as what my students might expect working in one. I encourage students to look more deeply into those facets of librarianship that interest them, and I strive to support that independent investigation.

Will be taught by Kyle Triplett, Rare Book Librarian at New York Public Library.

The class will survey issues in rare books and special collections, including an overview of the history of the book, descriptive bibliography and information sources and services for rare book librarianship.

Will be taught by Rachel Leff, Research and Instruction Librarian and Head of Research Services at Sarah Lawrence College.

This course provides students with an understanding of the major components of academic libraries, common academic library resources, and academic library services. Students will learn about the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy, academic library classification systems, how to conduct a research consultation, how to plan an instruction session, and current issues impacting academic libraries, including open educational resources and information ethics.

This series is brought to you by the GSLIS Research and Pedagogy Committee. Speakers for Spring 2024 included:

OlaRonke Akinmowo, the founder and director of the Free Black Women's Library, a reading room, art space, and collection of materials by Black women and nonbinary authors located in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

Mel Manuel and Jeremy J.F. Thompson, founders of Queer Northshore, “Organizing to Win: The Fight Against Censorship in St. Tammany,” a discussion of how the community organized for wins in Louisiana.

Dr. Nerve Macaspac, GSLIS Assistant Professor, "Digital Civic Spaces." How do human rights defenders create digital spaces of peace and protect themselves from online violence? At stake is a better understanding of the challenges and prospects of digital civic spaces in the promotion of human rights and peace.

Prof. Emily Drabinski will receive the Torchbearer Award from The Publishing Triangle, the association of LGBTQ+ people in publishing.

Prof. Arlene Laverde’s project "The First Amendment and the Freedom to Read” received the American Association of School Libraries Roald Dahl's Miss Honey Social Justice Award."

Dr. Nerve Macaspac received the Henry Wasser Award, presented to CUNY Assistant Professors in recognition of outstanding research, or potential for such, in the humanities or sciences, including social and life sciences. He also received a PSC-CUNY Research Award (Trad B Cycle 55) for his ongoing research on spaces of peace. Dr. Macaspac also co-curated and installed an exhibition, “Creating Safer Spaces,” at the Delegates’ Entrance of the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York City from April 29-May 3. The traveling exhibition will be installed in Medellin (Colombia) in June 2024, and has previously been on show in Nairobi (Kenya), Bangkok (Thailand) and Aberystwyth (Wales), explores the unexpected power of nonviolence in the protection of civilians living in the midst of violence. Alongside the exhibitions, Dr. Macaspac co-authored with Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Aberystwyth University) and Rachel Julian (Leeds Becket University) five (5) policy briefs on local community protection specifically for the UN and its member states. He also will be speaking at a panel on the Protection of Civilians (PoC) Week at the UN on May 23, 2024.

Prof. Natalie Milbrodt has been hired as CUNY University Archivist as part of a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to make university archives more accessible to the public. The project will streamline access to sources from twenty five campuses, promoting use of materials that are “richly intertwined” with the history of New York City, and will catalog, organize and further digitize special collections across CUNY. link

Dr. Joe Sanchez was awarded $313,318 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the research project “Teenage BIPOC Readers of Manga: Librarians Learning from Teens of Color.” He also received a $4,795 Research Enhancement Award to support the project from Dean Pechenkina. He presented a paper at the ASIS&T Social Informatics Symposium “Culturally Responsive Design in Undergraduate Research Experiences,” a poster at the iConference “Tiktok Trees: A Preliminary Analysis of Tiktok Pedagogy” and a paper at the Society for Information technology and Teacher Education “Towards a Methodological Framework for Categorizing Informal Learning Content in TikTok.” He has been appointed to the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board and the ALA Committee on Accreditation. At the ALA Annual conference he presented the “RUSA President’s Program: Leading for Justice: Surveying the Intersection of Social Justice and User Services.”

Dr. Nafiz Shuva published two papers: Shuva, N. Z. (2023). “They act like we are going to heaven”: pre-arrival information experiences, information crafting and settlement of immigrants in Canada. Journal of Documentation, 80(7), 1-24. link & Shuva, N. Z., Taisir, R., & Mallick, P. S. (2023). Information behavior and HIV/AIDS/STI awareness among Bangladeshi female sex workers: Do informational programs help? Information Development. link. Dr. Shuva has also been awarded a Cycle 55 PSC-CUNY Research Award (Traditional B) to explore the employment-related information experiences of Bangladeshi recent immigrants in New York City.

Dr. Johnathan Thayer’s book Citizenship, Subversion, and Surveillance in U.S. Ports: Sailors Ashore has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in their Global Studies in Cultural and Social Maritime History series. Additionally, Dr. Thayer has received awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and PSC-CUNY for a new oral history project and edited book project on marginal maritime heritage in New York City.

GSLIS Library Media Specialist alumnus Amanda Birro published an article in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of Young Adult Library Services. Birro, A. (2023). To genrefy or not to genrefy. Young Adult Library Services, 20(3/4), 53–58. http://yalsjournal.ala.org/vol-20-no-3-4-spring-summer-2022/page-c1?m=53337&i=803975&p=1&pp=1&ver=html5

GSLIS alumnus Marissa Burkland will deliver a presentation “Decoding AI’s Environmental Impact: Navigating The Path To Sustainability” at the ACRL Science and Technology Section’s Scholarly Communication webinar in June.

GSLIS student Sarah Pousty published an article in School Library Journal. Pousty, S. (2023). How to read wordless picture books with children. School Library Journal, September 6, 2023, https://www.slj.com/story/newsfeatures/How-to-Read-Wordless-Picture-Books-with-Children

GSLIS student Oscar Zamora Flores presented a poster titled “Didactic booklet on climate change: a long term risk assessment to protect archives” that won “Most Outstanding Poster, All Categories and Themes Combined” at the 2023 International Council on Archives in Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Wiśniewska-Drewniak will be visiting us from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Archival Science and Records Management, Faculty of History. She is currently directing a project called The impact of independent community archives for the University in Torun, researching the social and affective impact of independent documentary initiatives as they become increasingly visible as archival praxis.

Dr. Wiśniewska-Drewniak previously coordinated a research project entitled Community archives in Poland - a multiple case study, culminating in her doctoral thesis. She has also published on postmodernism and community archives, affect and archives, and issues in the documentation of Ukrainian refugee experiences.

During her stay in New York, Dr. Wiśniewska-Drewniak will be researching Polish diasporic archives, questions related to community archives in archival education, and she will be working on an edited anthology, Archival Pedagogies, with GSLIS Chair Dr. James Lowry, Dr. Tshepho Mosweu of the University of Botswana, and Dr. Pimphot Seelekate of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

GSLIS alumnus Raymond Pun has been elected 2024-2025 president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA)!

Raymond Pun (he/him) is the academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education, a teacher residency program in California, where he supports library services by engaging with residents and teacher educators. With over 17 years of experience in the library field, Ray has previously worked at Stanford University, Fresno State, New York University Shanghai, and The New York Public Library in various roles. Ray holds a Doctorate in Education from Fresno State, a Master of Library Science from the City University of New York - Queens College, a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from St. John's University. Pun has previously served as President of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) and the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), and on the American Library Association (ALA) Council as the CALA Councilor.

For the Spring 2024 semester, GSLIS provided matching stipends for four Archives Certificate students to complete for-credit internships at CUNY Libraries Archives departments as part of their coursework for LBSCI 795: Internship. Student interns spent the semester gaining experience processing archival collections, addressing preservation concerns, working with digital collections, and conducting reference and research services. 

Allison Hamilton, City College Archives & Special Collections, Supervisor: Sydney Van Nort

Amanda Hellberg, Hunter College Archives, Supervisor: Philip Swan

Carlos Semchechen, John Jay College Archives, Supervisor: Ellen Belcher

Janesha Yancey, Haitian Studies Institute Archives, Brooklyn College, Supervisor: Obden Mondésir

In March, GSLIS MLS/MA Dual Degree in Library Science and History student Mary Billyou was awarded the Pine Tree Foundation Catalog Inventory Fellowship at The Godwin-Ternbach Museum. The purpose of this one-year funded fellowship is to assist in the first stage of a multi-year inventory of the museum's historically significant collection of 7,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present. During this time, Mary will begin a complete physical inventory of the Art Storage, enter data (accession number, location, artist, title or description), cross-reference with the existing PastPerfect database records, and add Getty Institute authoritative nomenclature. Additionally, Mary will perform other tasks related to the permanent collection including research as needed.

The Godwin-Ternbach Museum, a part of the Kupferberg Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, located on the Flushing campus of Queens College, City University of New York, organizes cultural exhibitions and programs of contemporary and historical significance for the diverse audiences of Queens and the metropolitan region—students, faculty and public alike.

Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies

Rosenthal Library Room 254, Queens College, CUNY, 65-30 Kissena Blvd. Queens, NY 11367-1597
Phone: 718.997.3790  |  Fax: 718.997.3797