New university librarian for Memorial

By Jeff Green | July 27, 2007

Memorial has appointed a new university librarian. Lorraine Busby replaces longtime librarian Richard Ellis who officially steps down on Aug. 31 but will continue to work in Memorial’s Queen Elizabeth II Library in St. John’s. He has occupied the librarian position since 1982.

Ms. Busby begins with Memorial this fall.

Su Cleyle, university associate librarian, will serve as acting university librarian from Sept. 1-Oct. 31, 2007.

Ms. Busby’s appointment was approved by Memorial’s Board of Regents on July 19.

A graduate of Queen’s University with a bachelor of arts degree, Ms. Busby also holds a master of library science degree from the University of Western Ontario. She has been the associate university librarian, information resources, at Western since 2001. Ms. Busby moved into the academic library world when she joined Western in the mid-1980s after beginning her career in a corporate library. She has worked in almost all of the subject-based libraries at that institution in a variety of progressively more responsible positions.

While at Western, Ms. Busby has served as the head of the Engineering Library, the Music Library, the Allyn and Betty Taylor Library, and acting head of the Law Library.

She has developed strong expertise in all aspects of collection development as she focused on building quality collections to meet the needs of students and faculty in learning and research activities.

Ms. Busby has undertaken project work and specialized assignments that have given her additional experience in human resource issues, space planning, and corporate strategic planning.

Her academic interests lie in exploring library and vendor interactions. She participates on regional and national consortiums to collaboratively acquire electronic resources.

“I am excited and delighted to be joining Memorial in the near future,” she said. “The libraries’ national reputation for valuing and providing top-quality services and collections makes Memorial libraries enormously appealing.

"With a history of well-managed operations and services there are great opportunities to build from strengths for the future. I look forward to working with everyone to strategically accomplish our common goals.”

Over the past two years, Ms. Busby has taught a graduate-level course for the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western. This experience led to an invitation to teach a similar distance education course for the School of Library and Information Science at San José State University.

She regularly is invited to speak to library students and at various library conferences on issues pertaining to the acquisition and management of library resources.

Ms. Busby officially begins as university librarian at Memorial on Nov. 1, 2007.


Contact

Marketing & Communications

230 Elizabeth Ave, St. John's, NL, CANADA, A1B 3X9

Postal Address: P.O. Box 4200, St. John's, NL, CANADA, A1C 5S7

Tel: (709) 864-8000