The final ballots for the 2011-2013 Executive Committee election were submitted at yesterday’s meeting. As announced after all the votes were counted, the new elected Chair and Members are:
Executive Committee Chair: Kenn Bicknell
Digital Resources Librarian, Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
L.A. As Subject’s Web & Technology Committee Chair
I have been a professional librarian since 1987, with work experience in archives, museums, public libraries and special libraries. My foundation lies in traditional reference and technical services, social media, web management and digitization projects.
I have helped L.A. As Subject open up listserv communication, develop Facebook and Twitter presence, and launch our new interactive website.
I welcome the opportunity to lead L.A. As Subject’s Executive Committee in achieving great things for both individual members and the organization as a whole.
I will work with the membership, the Executive Committee and our USC hosts in establishing and executing a strategic planning process to determine both short-term and long-term goals and how to accomplish them.
I look forward to leveraging our collective skills and energy through dynamic meetings and workshops, engaging current members and cultivating new ones, sharing best practices more effectively, establishing collaborative partnerships, exploring volunteer, technology and research initiatives, investigating funding opportunities, and promoting our members and collections more broadly.
I regard L.A. As Subject and its members as priceless resources, the potential for which we have only just begun to unlock and share. I have no doubt we can position ourselves as a national model for regional cooperation, creating an online portal as the “go-to” resource for those interested in Southern California history and culture as well as those who ask “What is L.A.?”
This is an exciting time for L.A. As Subject.
Executive Committee Members
Rebecca Fenning
Manuscripts & Archives Librarian, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA
In my short time participating in LA as Subject, I have been energized by our group’s potential power when it comes to connecting users to our institutions and us to one another. I am interested in serving on the LAAS Executive Committee because I want to help our group build upon the success of the Archives Bazaars by moving into new areas of collaboration and programming. One of my main goals is the growth of projects like our collaboration with KCET, which would bring together the wealth of our collective institutions for public consumption. As a group, we are rich in resources – be they historical materials, subject expertise or professional skillsets – and there are many ways we can channel this richness and power into fulfilling our group’s mission to promote and preserve LA’s historical archives and collections.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles and received a BA in English literature from Bowdoin College and an MLIS with a concentration in archives management from Simmons College, Boston. I have worked in the Harvard Law Library’s Special Collections and the Institutional Archives at the Getty Center before becoming the Manuscript and Archives Librarian at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in 2008. Professional affiliations include the Society of American Archivists, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association, and the Society of California Archivists.
Florante Ibanez
Volunteer Webmaster and Archivist, Filipino American Library
I have over the years dedicated my energies towards issues of social justice, diversity and community. While these themes certainly overlap, they are to me also focused. Social justice issues to me are more in line with What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) in conflicting situations. Striving to do what is right and just. For diversity I believe that while many talk it, we need to think about what does it really take to make it happen, and do it. My view on community is not just about Filipino Americans, or Asian/Pacific Americans but about what a community of all can do working together.
I will apply this to my role in the LAAS Executive Committee as I have tried to do in my past library/archival, non-profit organizations, and civic/community life. While I’ve worked at the Loyola Law School Library for almost 20 years, my life as the volunteer webmaster and archivist for the Filipino American Library is my real passion. Two summers ago I organized the transfer of papers of Royal “Uncle Roy” Morales, a local community leader and UCLA instructor, to the Library of Congress’s Asian Pacific American Program at their request. My wife and I co-authored a book “Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay” under ARCADIA Publishing to pictorially document the history of our community. I was recently appointed to the Carson Historical Committee that was tasked to develop a Carson Historical Society. I was blessed to be given the opportunity to teach part-time the Filipino American Experience classes at Loyola Marymount University (LMU).
Michael Palmer
LA as Subject Executive Commitee member, 2009 - 2011
LA as Subject Archives Bazaar Planning Committee, Co-chair
I was born in Germany and raised in Claremont, received a BA in Medieval History and Archaeology from Yale College, and an MLIS from San Jose State University. I have over 25 years experience working in archives, both in Great Britain and the United States, including the Honnold/Mudd Library, what is now the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I have written and lectured extensively on 18th- and 19th-century immigration and maritime history, and have a particular interest in the records of under-documented communities. Along with serving on the Executive Committee, I have served on the Archives Bazaar Planning Committee since 2006, since 2009 as Chairman.
Dale Ann Stieber
Special Collections Librarian, Special Collections Department, Occidental College Library
LA as Subject Membership Committee Co-chair
I have lived in Los Angeles since 1968 –more years than I spent in Cleveland, Ohio, the city of my birth. After 25 years of producing events and programs in and for Los Angeles, I became an archivist/librarian. I am the Special Collections Librarian at Occidental College in Eagle Rock , an institution founded in 1887 (in Boyle Heights), at which there are significant holdings relevant the history of Los Angeles amidst a larger body of artifacts, rare books, and manuscripts.
My participation in LA as Subject Forum dates back to 2005 when I became the representative of Occidental College Library to the Forum. Mindful that LAAS Forum and the Directory were established over a decade before 2005, my engagement came at a time of when LAAS members established an independent Charter and presented the first Archives Bazaar. That vibrant year of activity shaped my perspective of the potential of our organization to identify and promote the preservation of valuable LA historical materials and raise the awareness of all Angelinos and the region to our mutual diverse history. I’ve served once on the Executive Committee and am a co-chair of the Membership Committee. I see our next years as time to work together to improve awareness and preservation of our individual collections, uncover hidden collections and enlist new members, and build partnerships within our membership and with other community groups in the Los Angeles region.