Speakers

"Diversity Beyond the Obvious"

Friday, April 3, 2009

Karen E. Downing

Karen E. Downing, the Foundation and Grants Librarian at the University of Michigan University Library, received her M.I.L.S. in 1989 from the University of Michigan School of Information, and just earned a doctorate in Higher Education, from the School of Education at Michigan in 2009. Karen has been the Foundation and Grants Librarian since 2000, and has worked extensively with faculty, graduate students and the local non-profit community to identify funding sources for their research and projects.

Prior to her current position, Downing was the Assistant to the Dean for Cultural Diversity and Staff Development Officer at the University Library, where she worked across the organization on a variety of diversity initiatives. She also coordinated the Library's academic outreach efforts, and ran an undergraduate minority retention program.

Downing is very active professionally within the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries. Author of multiple books, book chapters and articles on libraries and cultural diversity, she recently coauthored Multiracial America: A Resource Guide on the History and Literature of Interracial Issues. Most recently, Karen received a grant from the American Library Association to assist with research on social identity and role performance among librarians, and received the ALA Equality Award for 2009.

Teresa Y. Neely

Teresa Y. Neely is currently Associate Professor and Director, Access Services, University Libraries, University of New Mexico (UNM). Dr. Neely holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from South Carolina State College (now University), and received her M.L.S. and Ph.D. degrees (Library and Information Science) from the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, PA.

Ms. Neely co-authored with Dr. Lorna Peterson (State University of New York at Buffalo) a White Paper on Diversity (commissioned by the ACRL Executive Board). The paper is entitled "Achieving Racial and Ethnic Diversity among Academic and Research Librarians: The Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Librarians of Color." (ACRL)

Neely's current research includes a book length project, tentatively titled Deconstructing 2PAC: The Lyrical Poetry of Tupac A. Shakur (under contract with Scarecrow Press, Inc.). In 2008, she secured a book contract with ALA Editions, tentatively titled, "How to Stay Afloat in the Academic Librarian Job Pool", co-edited with Megan K. Beard.