People in the News

David Free

William H. Walters has been named professor and dean of library affairs at Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale, where he will be responsible for Morris Library, the Special Collections Research Center, the Sharp Museum, and the SIU Press. He most recently served as executive director of the library at Manhattan University, with earlier experience as professor, dean, librarian, data manager, research consultant, accreditation liaison officer, and interim director of information technology at Cornell University, St. Lawrence University, Manhattan University, Menlo College, the City University of New York, and the Providence VA Medical Center. Walters is eager to help SIU maintain and strengthen its position as a newly designated Research 1 (R1) university. He also plans to continue his research on scholarly communication, bibliometrics, academic librarianship, AI in higher education, nonprofit management, and educational assessment.

Emma Barrett-Catton has joined the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill University Libraries as health sciences librarian.

Kai Desir has been appointed administrative operations manager of access services at the University of Central Florida Libraries.

Courtney Douglass has joined the Goucher College Library as graduate research and instruction librarian.

Brionna Johnson is now e-resources metadata librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill University Libraries.

Mairelys Lemus-Rojas has been appointed head of digital scholarship at the University of Central Florida Libraries.

Thi Lettner is now music and performing arts librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill University Libraries.

Shelly Salo Martinez was recently appointed student engagement librarian at Middle Tennessee State University.

Kevin Seeber has been appointed senior assistant dean for research, learning, and access at the Binghamton University Libraries.

Nora Smolonsky is now undergraduate instruction and student success librarian at the Goucher College Library.

Emily Vorhies is now e-resources acquisitions librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill University Libraries.

Retirement

Julia Gelfand recently retired as the applied sciences and engineering librarian at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Libraries, where she served for 44 years. Prior to joining UCI, she worked at the University of Denver Libraries. This year, Gelfand received the Humphry/OCLC/Forest Press Award for International Librarianship from the ALA International Relations Round Table. She will also serve as a second Fulbright Scholar recipient at the Botswana International University of Science & Technology from January–June 2026. Long active in ACRL, Gelfand served on the ACRL Board of Directors from 2013–2017, cochaired several ACRL Colleagues Committees identifying sponsors and raising money for the ACRL conferences, was active in the Science & Technology Section, engaged in program development, and chaired the Publications Coordinating Committee, among many other roles. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was the 2021 recipient of the ACRL Academic Research Librarian of the Year. Her scholarship spans information literacy and scholarly communication in the sciences. In addition to ALA activities, Julia has been active in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), International Association of University Libraries (IATUL), and the Charleston Conferences.