Saturday, November 12, 2011

Meet Our New Buddies

MENTEES

My name is Joletta Belton. I am a first year/first semester MLIS student at San Jose State University. I obtained my BA in Psychology from Oakland University (Michigan) in '98 and did a year of a Psychobiology/Neuroscience Ph.D program at Ohio State before moving to California to pursue my dream of becoming a firefighter. I am currently a firefighter paramedic for Orange County Fire Authority and love my job but an injury and surgery have led me to reassess my career path. Because I love research, I decided to go back to grad school in LIS and I am currently trying to figure out which way I want to take my degree! I have always loved learning new things; seeking, finding, synthesizing, and organizing information; I am passionate about research and have always been interested in law (but never pursued) so I want to explore law librarianship and learn more about the profession. 

I am a student member of ALA, SLA and ASIS&T.  I enjoy being outdoors, camping, hiking, reading, writing, and hanging out with my boyfriend of 11 years, John, and our dachshund, Buster. I am looking forward to a potential mentor relationship and perhaps finding the path to a career I love as much as my current position!
Brittany Cronin is currently a business reference and instruction librarian at San Diego State University.  She grew up in Denver, Colorado and moved to San Diego in July to start her career in librarianship.  She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Middlebury College and received her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in May 2009.  After law school, she attended the University of Denver where she received her Masters of Library and Information Science. She loves the field of librarianship so far and especially likes that every day she gets to do something different, reference, instruction, blogging and more!  She also enjoys the often amusing interactions she has with students being on a college campus. She would love to work as a law librarian and is excited to meet other law librarians in San Diego. She is enjoying being in southern California and likes to spend her free time playing soccer or hanging out at the dog beach with her two year old lab.

Susan Lee is currently attending SJSU to complete her MLIS.  She is a graduate of UCI and majored in English and Film Studies.  Susan also has a library tech certificate from Palomar College and a paralegal certificate from USD.  She interned at UCI Main Library and volunteered at the San Diego Public Library.  She is currently involved in ALA.  She has some paralegal training and want to work in a special library. Her goal is to learn, make contacts and try to find a volunteer, internship or entry level position. For fun, she likes to read, write and volunteer with homeless animals.
Am Sukitphaiboon is a first year Master of Library and Information Science student at San Jose State University. She received her B.A in Anthropology and Social Science, and certificates in Global Studies and Law and Policy from the University of California, Irvine. Currently, Am is interning at Iacoboni library where she assists the Community Library Manager in special projects specifically planning and implementing children story time and craft corner. In the past, Am has worked as a physical processing assistant at UCI’s Ayala Science library and volunteered at Clifton M. Brackensiek, a Los Angeles County Library. Am is looking to learn more about law librarianship since most of her experience has been in academic and public libraries. She is interested in foreign and international law, but is very open to other areas of law librarianship. Am enjoys traveling, photography, and good food. Her favorite travel destination is Thailand because she enjoys the carefree environment/ friendly people, spicy food, and photographing temples.  


MENTORS

Betsy Chessler is Sr. Associate Librarian for Morrison & Foerster, LLP, a large international law firm.  Prior to moving to San Diego, she worked as a librarian in Seattle at Perkins Coie.  She also worked as an Internet trainer at NorthWestNet (later Verio), and at the University of Washington libraries in Seattle and Bothell, Washington.  She worked as a paralegal for several years before being inspired to go to library school by her firm's law librarian.  She has a B.A. and M.L.S. from the University of Washington, and a paralegal certificate.  She loves being a librarian and wants to be one when she retires.  She appreciates that each work day is a new box of chocolates as she never knows what questions she will be asked to research.  She also really enjoys collaborating with other librarians and is very excited to share and learn as part of the SANDALL Buddies program.  She is currently Past President of SANDALL, following one term as President and two terms as VP, and was previously active in LLOPS (Law Librarians of Puget Sound), in Seattle. 

Ruth Levor is the Associate Director and Head of Public Services at the University of San Diego Legal Research Center, where she has worked for the past 19(!) years. Before realizing her dream of moving to sunny southern California, she was circulation librarian and then government documents librarian at University of Cincinnati Law Library. She even practiced law for a couple of years in Cincinnati before leaving the dark side for librarianship. Her undergraduate and law degrees are from the University of Cincinnati, and her library degree is from the University of Kentucky. She feels that working as a librarian is a unique privilege that allows her to enjoy all the fun of the academic and legal worlds with little of the adversarial pressure that lawyers and professors have to contend with. For even more fun than her job, she enjoys playing with her two dogs and three cats, knitting, drawing, travelling, and attending classes and lectures about whatever interests her at the moment.
Michele Lucero has over 17 years of experience and comes to the LAC Group from the LA Law Library based in Los Angeles where she was Director of Communications responsible for the development and growth of the recognition of the organization.  Prior to this she was with West, a Thomson Reuters business in Los Angeles, where she managed Librarian Relations in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska. From November 2009 to present, Michele has worked closely with the University North Texas – California State University Northridge MLS Program as local coordinator working with faculty, students and organizing professional development opportunities. Michele has worked in the private sector with Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP in Houston, where she was the Legal Information Manager, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in Houston and Lionel Sawyer & Collins in Las Vegas. Prior to joining the firm environment, Michele worked at the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District for almost 10 years.

She earned her undergraduate degree in Management and International Business from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Michele earned her M.L.S. degree in Legal Informatics from the University of North Texas in 2004 and her M.B.A. in Strategic Management from the University of North Texas in 2008. She completed the Certificate in Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute at Pepperdine University in 2011. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Education in Organizational Leadership from Pepperdine University and a Master of Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute at Pepperdine University with intent to complete December 2012.

Michele is actively involved in many professional associations holding offices and serving on committees in the library, legal and education fields. She is involved with the American Association of Law Libraries, Houston Area Law Libraries, Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL), Western Pacific chapter, Private Law Libraries, San Diego Area Law Libraries, Arizona Association of Law Libraries, Special Libraries Association, California Academic and Research Libraries Association, and the American Library Association. Michele is also involved with the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Public Relations Society of America, Mediators Beyond Borders, and the Society of Educators. She has many notable publications and presented at many conferences.                      

Shannon Malcolm is a senior research librarian for Qualcomm, Inc. (an international company focused on semiconductors and telecommunications). Before Qualcomm he worked for Greenberg Traurig (a full-service, international law firm) and Bass, Berry, & Sims (a regional law firm in Tennessee specializing in antitrust and healthcare law). Before entering the private sector he served on the faculty of the University of Illinois teaching specialized research classes to graduate students in the college of law and the school of library and information science. He has passed the Tennessee bar and earned degrees from the University of Georgia (A.B), Indiana University—Bloomington (J.D.), and the University of Washington (M.L.I.S.). A native Atlantan, Shannon was also an avionics technician for the U.S. Navy, serving during the Kosovo Campaign. When not wrangling with patents and litigation, he likes working out, being entertained by his cats, and driving his BMW K1200R in the desert faster than he probably should.  


Daniel Raphael is the Senior Legal Research Specialist at the management consulting firm of Profit Recovery Partners where he is responsible for creating cost saving solutions for law firm libraries.  In the six years prior to joining PRP, Daniel provided legal research services to law firms through his company, Answer Key LLC.  He has served as the head of reference at Greenberg Traurig and Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel in New York, and holds a Masters in Library and Information Science and a BA in History from UCLA.  Daniel’s favorite activity is playing with his one year old daughter, whose own favorite activity is building a fort out of the living room cushions.


Anna Russell is the electronic resources librarian at the University of San Diego’s Pardee Legal Research Center.  She is very bummed that she has missed the Sandall Buddies kick-off meeting.  She will be thinking about the tasty frozen yogurt while helping patrons with reference questions at her library on Saturday.  Prior to working as a legal librarian, she has held a number of government jobs and internships.  She was a naval officer, transitioning into an intelligence officer and finally leading to true, dedicated information work by moving into librarianship.  Her MLIS is from San Jose State University and her JD is from the University of San Diego.  She has been a librarian for a little less than one year.  Starting any new career is hard, but she knows she is in the right career field because she doesn’t mind the learning curve of the new job and looks forward each day to coming into work.  She is interested in taking part in the Sandall Buddies program to be a possible source of information like many librarians were to her when she first started thinking about possible library jobs.  She is convinced that you won’t find a nicer, spunkier, more interesting group of people than a group of librarians.

No comments:

Post a Comment