Ryerson Library is thrilled to congratulate four of our staff members who have received 2015 staff and faculty awards from the university. Steven Marsden, Kelly Dermody, Dana Thomas, and Weina Wang have been recognized for a wide variety of achievements, including enhancing accessibility to library content, teaching excellence, new assessment measures, exploring emerging technologies, and many more. Congratulations Steven, Kelly, Dana, and Weina!
From Ryerson’s Recognition & Awards page:
Steven Marsden – Make Your Mark Award
Steven Marsden, Library Systems Analyst, deserves recognition for his outstanding achievement in enhancing library service and fostering a culture of innovation. He was the lead developer of a number of ground breaking apps: Book Finder, an award winning interactive app that helps users retrieve books with ease; RULA Maps, a mobile/web app using geo-location and augmented reality technologies. The latter has been adopted by academic departments, manifesting the interdisciplinary collaboration at Ryerson. Steven is further developing the popular Student Online Room Booking application to extend to the Student Learning Centre. Steven customized an E-Reserve system for Ryerson’s “One Stop Course Readings” copyright management, including an impressive data-driven problem-solving solution to overcome the challenge of real-time statistics. He implemented the Papyrus system to manage accessible readings for students with print disabilities, making the University one step closer to full accessibility.
Kelly Dermody, Dana Thomas, and Weina Wang – Librarians’ Service Awards
Kelly Dermody has been the E-Learning Librarian since 2013. Prior to this she was the Accessibility Services Librarian. In her capacity as E-Learning Librarian, Kelly collaborated with Student Learning Support and drew upon work done at York University to develop the RUSearch Tutorial that is a step by step guide to developing, organizing, researching and writing an essay. Kelly was instrumental in developing five online tutorials on library research for use with the SSH205 students who are learning in a flipped-classroom approach initiated in fall 2014. Faculty feedback echoes that of lead instructor Paul Chafe: “This flipped approach really works, and I can tell you my students really benefited from the tutorials and the one-on-one time during the visit to the library”. Kelly continues to share her knowledge and enthusiasm with colleagues through presentations to staff, at conferences and in publications.
Dana Thomas is the Evaluation and Assessment Librarian and has been instrumental in conducting numerous surveys with the Ryerson community including Summon satisfaction, Ithaka S&R, and LibQual+. All of these surveys provide the Library with the data results that help to inform its strategic directions and operational objectives. She has demonstrated collegiality by providing covers for research and maternity leaves for other Librarians including the responsibility for Electronic Resources and other subject areas. Additionally, Dana hosted the successful and well-attended Canadian Library Assessment Conference here at Ryerson, an event that has continued to generate discussion for assessment best practices at Canadian academic libraries. In 2014 she had a prize-winning poster at an international conference that gave Ryerson broad recognition for its work in library assessment. Dana clearly demonstrates that she sets an example for achievement and success in academic librarianship.
Weina Wang brings strong leadership, customer service and a fresh air in organizational culture to the Ryerson community through her career as a professional librarian. As a leader and technology advocate, she was involved in many library-wide strategic planning initiatives and led staff through a series of changes in the organizational reshape process. She has helped set a new direction for the department based on emerging access service trends, and her proposal of a hybrid EM/RFID gate solution would allow the library to be operational ready for the new Student Learning Centre and any future RFID technological development. Most recently, her effort in the ever-popular laptop loan program and her enthusiasm for mobile learning initiatives have helped enhance the library’s reputation tremendously. Weina is a librarian, a business strategist and innovative technologist that helps build the Ryerson library to be a library of the future.