Alumni Spotlight I

St. John’s DLIS graduates are doing amazing things!  The Alumni Spotlight section provides updates on their activities and accomplishments.

Monique Harding (MLS ‘11)

For the past three years Monique has been working as an intern at the Records Management Department at the NYC Economic Development Corporation. Last month, she accepted a position as Director of Records Management for the NYS Attorney General Real Estate Finance Bureau. There, Monique will lead the upper level management of ten colleagues.  In May 2014, Monique will complete her MBA with a concentration in Information Systems.  In addition, she is pursuing a Project Management Professional Certification. Congratulations Monique on your new position!

April Earle (MLS, ’09)

April is currently the Senior Assistant Librarian at Farmingdale State College.  She is primarily in charge of cataloging but other duties include handling electronic resources, working the reference desk, and teaching information literacy classes to both faculty and students.  April joined the Farmingdale team this summer, becoming a part of the seven librarians and seven staff members.  Because of this small staff April says it, “will allow me the opportunity to do a little bit of everything – – or perhaps a lot of everything.” In addition, April is currently pursuing her Advanced Certificate at DLIS.

Denise McIver (MLS ’11)

Denise has been elected to serve on the Executive Committee of LA AS SUBJECT with other librarians, archivists and historians that are committed to collecting and preserving the cultural history of Los Angeles. On a trip to NY in May, she met with the director, and deputy director of The Schomburg as well as the executive director of the California African American Museum.  Together, they proposed an exhibition, ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’, of Maya Angelou’s work.  Denise says, “I believe/hope/pray I’ll be working on it as co-curator…this is amazing! And I’m blessed to have such a receptive ‘boss’”.

Robert Drzewicki (MLS ’11)

Robert is a Content Information Manager at Gartner, Inc. and an adjunct Metadata and Library Systems Specialist at New York University. He is also the SLA-NY Scholarship Award Chair.

Megan Margino (MLS ’13)

Megan’s essay “Revitalizing Traditional Information Literacy Instruction: Exploring Games in Academic Libraries” was accepted for inclusion in the “Future Voices in Public Services” column, in Political Science Quarterly volume 9 issue 4.

Katrina Ortega (MLS ’13)

Since graduation, Katrina has been working part-time as an Outreach Services Librarian for NYPL.  Focusing on the incarcerated population, she has been working on two projects.  The first, “Daddy & Me” consists of gathering a group of men/women at Rikers or city jails/courts having them read a story for their kids.  They record the stories and then send the inmates’ children a copy of the recording and the book, so that they’ll be able to listen and read along as their parent reads to them.  The second program was a book club at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.  Katrina is also doing reference work for incarcerated people.

Taryn Rucinski (MLS’12)

Taryn’s most recent article, Searching for the Nano-needle in a Green Haystack: Researching the Environmental, Health, and Safety Ramifications of Nanotechnology, in the Pace Environmental Law Review.