In her role as the Instruction and Student Success Librarian at Washington & Jefferson College's ("W&J") Clark Family Library, Cecelia's primary responsibilities are to coordinate the instruction, reference, and outreach programs for the library. In addition, she liaises with the Computer and Information Studies, English, First Year Seminar, Philosophy, Physical Activity and Wellness, Poltiical Science, and Public Service and Community Studies (Public Policy and Sociology) departments. Below are some examples of her work in instruction, reference, and outreach.
In the Fall 2022 semester, Cecelia and several colleagues began an academic year-long pilot program to incorporate information literacy instruction
into English Composition (W&J’s equivalent of first-year writing) courses. This initiative was in response to limited student retention of information
literacy skills from First Year Seminar ("FYS") instruction. Librarians believe that much of this lack of retention was due to the fact that the FYS
courses are mostly focused on getting students used to college-level work and life at W&J, and so there were not a lot of opportunities for students
to practice the information literacy skills discussed in library instruction sessions in that particular course.
The English Composition instruction sessions encompassed a wide range of basic information literacy concepts from topic and keyword development, search
strategies for popular library databases, and critical and contextual source evaluation. Sessions were designed in consultation with faculty
accompanying an assignment. The assignments in English Composition are more traditional research projects compared to the First Year Seminar assignments,
and so the library hoped that those assignments would make it easier for the students to apply the information literacy skills discussed in our sessions.
This program took off beyond the library's hopes, thanks to the enthusiasm of the English department chair and the adjunct instructors who teach the
majority of the English Composition classes. We were able to visit all but one or two sections in the Fall semester and visited all sections in the
Spring semester.
Learn more about this initiative in Cecelia's April 2023 blog post for the Pennsylvania Library Associatoin's "It's Academic!" blog below or her webinar for the "Connect and Communicate" webinar series on the Research page.
When Cecelia arrived at W&J, she was informed that most of the research guides had not been updated beyond link maintenance since c. 2016. Cecelia researched current best practices for subject guides, created and advocated for a revised style guide, and developed new subject guide skeletons to assist her colleagues in the reviison of subject guides. She also built the subject guides for her liaison areas and worked with faculty to ensure that the content fit with their curricula. For an example of the revised style guides, please visit the guide for Computing and Information Studies.
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, Cecelia combined her interests in Shakespeare and historic matierals with her work in outreach through a small exhibit on the Library's main floor about the First Folio and book structures. Cecelia collaborated with the College Archivist to display examples of a folio, quarto, and octavo from the Learned T. Bulman '48 Historic Archives & Museum's collections. The exhibit also included a "Make Your Own Folio" activity that visitors could do and then take home with them as a way to keep learning about both the First Folio and book strucutres. Cecelia also invited Shakespeare courses to come visit the exhibit to learn more about a different part of Shakespeare studies. For an image of the exhibit, please view a post from the Library's Instagram about the exhibit. Cecelia also runs the Library's social media accounts.
Beginning in January 2023, Cecelia began contributing quarterly to the Pennsylvania Library Association ("PaLA"), College & Research Divison's blog, "It's Academic!." This blog covers current topics in academic librarianship and the experiences of Pennsylvania academic librarians.
During the 2021-2022 academic year, Cecelia worked as a Graduate Student worker providing reference assistance to the Simmons community and mentoring undergraduate and newer MSLIS students. Beyond her reference work, Cecelia also completed two other projects: designing and implementing a taxonomy for tagging reference chats and creating a dashboard to display the results of the tagging data in collaboration with User Services Librarian, Brian Arrigo; and poducing a series of short tutorial videos to support the teaching and learning opportunities presented in chat reference. Cecelia worked under the supervision of User Services Librarian, Brian Arrigo.
This video series includes 5 short tutorial videos designed to answer frequently asked chat reference questions produced during the Spring 2022 semester. These questions were gleaned from the chat data produced by Cecelia's project with Brian Arrigo, as well as anectodal data from the experience of several graduate student workers (including Cecelia). The videos are designed to serve as teaching tools to accompany the answers provided by graduate student workers to patrons' chat reference questions. The videos are hosted on the Simmons Library's YouTube Channel in a playlist. Access the playlist.
During the Summer of 2021, Cecelia volunteered/interned with the library at the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C. She worked under the supervision of Library Director Ellen Clark and Reserach Services Librarian Rachel Nellis. Below are the projects on which she worked during the internship.
John Arthur Shaw (1939-2020) was a professor and diplomat. This archival collection contains the Honorable Dr. Shaw's research materials on the Comte de Vergennes, an 18th century French diplomat and foreign minister who helped to negotiate the alliance between France and the United States during the American Revolution. Cecelia processed, arranged, and wrote the finding aid for this collection. For more information about this and other collections, please visit the American Revolution Inistitute's website.
Charles S. Davies (1788-1865) was a lawyer and member of the Society of the Cincinnati who began to write a biography of General Henry Knox. This mauscript collection contains his reserach materials, correspondence, and drafts of his uncompleted manuscript. Cecelia completed and revised the arrangmenet of and finding aid for this collection. For more information about this and other collections, please visit the American Revolution Inistitute's website.
During the Summer of 2021, Cecelia interned with the Maryland Center for History and Culture as a Marketing Publications Intern. Her primary focus was developing and executing marketing strategies in collaboration with and under the supervision of Dr. Martina Kado, then Director of Publications for the Maryland Center for History and Culture's recent book, The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History, edited by Carl R. Lounsbury, PhD (Baltimore: Maryland Center for History and Culture, 2021), published in association with D. Giles, Ltd. For more infromation about the book, please visit the Maryland Center for History and Culture Press' new releases page. Below are a curated list of the projects on which she worked during the internship.
Cecelia created five social media posts to promote The Material World of Eyre Hall, mostly prior to its release in September, 2021, but some to continue interest in the book throughout the remaineder of 2021. Many of the posts seek to highlight the material culture and history of Eyre Hall and those who call it home. These posts were all posted to the Maryland Center for History and Culture's Facebook and Instagram pages. All of the links below are from Instagram for the posts that have been published as of January 9, 2022.
This post was timed for around the 4th of July, when many in the US were beginning to gather again with family and friends after the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The focus on dining spaces allowed the Publications Team to highlight some of the grand items in Eyre Hall's collections.
This post was timed in conjunciton with the annual Assateague-Chincoteague Pony Swim, which was unfortunately cancelled in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the post still highlights the rich history of horses at Eyre Hall.
This post was timed for the end of summer and the beginning of the school year. This post created a space for the Publications Team to highlight the sections of the book that discuss Eyre Hall's library.
This post was timed for the late fall or early winter and created a space for the Publications Team to highlight the complex world of 19th century treatments of tuberculosis and the role that the illness played in the Eyre family and the future of Eyre Hall.
The Maryland Center for History and Culture sought to market The Material World of Eyre Hall to peer institutions and other regional retailers in coordination with the marketing efforts of co-publisher, D. Giles, Ltd. In order to provide these organizations and retailers with information about the book, Cecelia wrote and designed summary pages catered to the thematic interests/specialization of the organization/retailer. Access the general summary page.
Maryland Historical Magazine is a semi-annual journal published by the Maryland Center for History and Culture. The next several issues will include excerpts from The Material World of Eyre Hall. Cecelia selected and copyedited the excerpts in collaboration with Dr. Martina Kado to highlight the varied perspectives from which the history of Eyre Hall is told throughout the book.