I went on the SLRC Tour this past fall and remember that SLRC can do a lot for the public library at which I work.

Can you tell me more about what the State Library Resource Center has to offer?

Maryland's State Library Resource Center does offer many services for Maryland public libraries. On the State Library Resource Center web site there is a great deal of information. You'll want to check out the section for Public Librarians.

The State Library Resource Center brochure also lists many services offered to local libraries.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Julie Strange!
Statewide Coordinator, Maryland AskUsNow!

What do you do?
I am the Statewide Coordinator for Maryland AskUsNow!, Maryland’s online information service. We’re available 24/7 to Marylanders for all their information needs. Being Statewide Coordinator means that I manage the grant that we’re funding by, coordinate and train librarians around the state, am in charge of new partnerships and marketing initiatives and have my hands in customer relationship management, system troubleshooting, our online presences and social media planning. In general, I make sure that our librarians get what they need so that our customers can get what they want.

How did you get here?
I’ve always had an interest in learning but while knee-deep in the research for my undergraduate thesis (on interpersonal communication & computer mediated communication) someone suggested I go to library school. I didn’t know what I’d be getting into, but I knew that I wanted to continue my schooling so I went off to Rutgers to earn my MLIS. It was there that I met Dr. Marie Radford, a key player in virtual reference and reference excellence research and practice. Once I began working on her grant-funded research project on interpersonal communication within virtual reference interactions, I fell in love with virtual reference and the rest is history. From there, I came down to Maryland to work with Joe Thompson on AskUsNow! in November 2006.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
What isn’t to love? I get to help customers get the information they need when they need it, meet so many amazing library professionals all across the state, and get involved with many statewide projects (like LATI and VisionQuest). In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the country and expand my network- there are so many amazing people out there doing such amazing things- both inside and outside of library land.

My favorite thing, though, is probably the fact that I get to do so many different things and wear so many different hats- it’s always exciting!

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
That’s a trick question. I don’t read books I don’t think I’m going to like! :-) Though, since I usually tend to read non-fiction I’m always pleasantly surprised when I can really get into and enjoy a work of fiction!

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
I appreciate all that SLRC offers to our Maryland Library Community- the trainings, resources, collections, tours, and programs. I have a special place in my heart, though, for LATI- especially since I am involved in it for 2010!

What do you do when you’re not reading?
When I’m not running AskUsNow! or reading, art is a huge part of who I am- design, painting, film & music included. Traveling is also something I love- I am slowly marking all the states off my list, but also have a handful more countries I want to explore. I love being outside- kayaking, being at the beach, enjoying the world. But I never know what things the world will bring, so I will usually try anything at least once.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Rebecca Sullivan!

Job & Career Information Center Manager

Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center

What do you do?

I am the Job & Career Information Center manager and the assistant manager of the Business, Science & Technology Department (BST). I work as a librarian in BST answering questions about all sorts of topics. I also teach classes and trainings on job related topics – job searching, interviewing, and resume writing. I’m also fortunate to be able to do outreach through the Job & Career Information Center to community groups that are interested in tours and classes.

How did you get here?

I finished my MLIS at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was looking for a job. A friend from library school was working at the Pratt Library and suggested that I might apply for a job here. I ended up moving out to Maryland and have been here ever since!

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

My favorite part about being a librarian is helping people find answers to their questions. It is a lot of fun, especially when the question requires some detective work. I also really love teaching classes about job searching. Teaching people skills that can help them get a job is really rewarding.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?

Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy. It’s an interesting book that combines photographs and newspaper text from Black River Falls, Wisconsin from 1890-1910. The images can be really creepy – including children in coffins – but it is a really fascinating read.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?

I really like the LATI Blog – and not just because I’m the editor of it! I think it’s a great resource for finding new ways to answer customer questions. I definitely learn a lot when I read the answers that are sent to me.

What do you do when you’re not reading?

During the spring and summer I like to run and bike outside. I also love camping and traveling. I’m hoping to visit all 50 states eventually!

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Jeff Korman!
Maryland Department Manager
Enoch Pratt Free Library/Maryland's State Library Resource Center




What do you do?
I am one of three SLRC Managers who serve under the Chief of SLRC and work with other SLRC subject departments. I am also the coordinator of the SLRC committee responsible for marketing services. In addition I am the everyday manager of the Maryland Department.

How did you get here?
In 1980 I came to Pratt out of library school to become the Government Reference Librarian- a special SLRC service that handles reference inquiries from Maryland state agencies. That job gave me a lot of experience with Maryland material. In 1985 I became the assistant manager of the Maryland Department; in 1997 manager of the Maryland Department and in 2002 was promoted to SLRC manager.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
There are so many things I like to do but clearly interacting with the public and other librarians at SLRC and around the state is the most rewarding. At heart I am a reference librarian and it is an honor to be part of the wonderful staff and work with the great collections we have here. I get to do lots of public programs and Maryland related training in just about every Maryland countly library system and that allows me to meet and work with so many front line librarians. And, it benefits SLRC too! I have a lot of library contacts across the state. It is great to keep those relationships going and continue to make new friends.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
A few years ago I was doing some reference work on local politics in the 1850's. Politics is not my favorite topic, but I used a new book (at that time) entitled Hanging Henry Gambrill: the violent career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies, 1854-1860 by Tracy Melton. It fascinated me and turned that mundane reference question into a real interest in life in the Civil War era. That led to interest in all kinds of related history and theories about what really went on at the time.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
No question- public programming. I love to pull together material on an historic topic, but to come at that topic from a different or strange angle. For example, not Edgar Allan Poe's gifted writing but his mysterious death. Not John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln but the conspiracy theory that has him living until 1903. Not Maryland history, but the history of Maryland as seen by Native Americans. Not famous Marylanders, but infamous Marylanders, etc. Booth is my favorite, and one gets to meet and talk to many people with like interests when presenting these programs.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
A lot of cooking and baking, spending time with my wife and sons and talking to my dog.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Sarah Kuperman!
Selection Librarian
Collection Management Department
Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center

What do you do?
I select materials for the State Library Resource Center and for Pratt Library too. I select both fiction and non fiction print materials and I work with some database selection and our statewide ebooks consortium as well.

How did you get here?
After I graduated from college, I took a job as an assistant in the Reference Department of a small public library. The librarians I met there were a wonderful supportive encouraging and fun bunch of people. Their encouragement led to my going off to library school in Chicago, then jobs in Boston, and NYC before I settled in Baltimore.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
I get to review a wide range of materials in my job. It's very interesting to me to see the trends in publishing as ideas are brought forth, reviewed, reworked and developed. As a SLRC selector I am looking for a wide range of high level materials, for Pratt Library I want to get the popular materials that suit the branch needs. In my job, I get to look at everything.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
Emily Post by Laura Claridge. How could a biography about a person who is well behaved be interesting? But Claridge uses Emily's life to describe a social history of America beginning just post Civil War to WWII. Emily Post had a close connection with Baltimore, which surprised me. She wrote the first edition of her book on Etiquette in 1922, but she was always revising and updating her book. In the WWII era, the military bought and distributed thousands of copies of the 1945 edition in order to help soldiers feel comfortable in unfamiliar situations. Emily was a strong supporter of young people and the changes they made in social behavior. Her goal was not to lay down rules and regs, but to provide guidelines to help people feel comfortable in social settings. Her underlying rule was that one should never discomfort another person.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
I am a fan of the Fiction Department's "What do you recommend ..?" They always give an interesting set of presentations.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
I am very involved with my wonderful family.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Michael Scott!
Digitization Supervisor &
Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage Coordinator
Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center

What do you do?
I am Digitization Supervisor and Coordinator of the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage (MDCH) program. MDCH is a statewide collaborative digitization program headquartered here at SLRC. We partner with libraries, historical societies, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions to digitize materials related to Maryland's history and culture. We also provide access to digital collections from throughout the state at the MDCH website (www.mdch.org). Items in the online collections include historical maps, photographs, manuscripts, art work, rare books, and oral histories. In addition to working with outside partners, our department also digitizes rare and unique materials housed here at SLRC, such as items from the Edgar Allan Poe and H.L. Mencken collections.

How did you get here?
Like many people, I had quite a few different jobs before settling on a career path and getting my M.L.S. I started at SLRC as a reference librarian in the Fine Arts and Music Department, then was hired as MDCH Coordinator in October 2008. Before coming to SLRC, I worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
I really enjoy traveling and meeting people from a variety of libraries and cultural heritage institutions. It's interesting to see the unique collections that exist throughout the state, and to work with other institutions to develop partnerships.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
Hmmm... let's see. Not too many come to mind. I once took a poetry class where we read a book called The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley. The entire book is essentially one long poem where the lines are segmented into phrases with quotation marks. It wasn't that I didn't expect to like the book, but it was quite a challenge at first to get used to the rhythm of the writing. In the end, though, I found it quite lovely and was glad I read it.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
At the risk of sounding biased, I suppose I have to pick MDCH. It's a great program that offers a range of digitization services to partners, and provides the general public with online access to collections they otherwise might not know about or might have to travel some distance to see in person.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
I love movies, travel, and going to art museums. My husband loves indie bands, so we go to shows when we can. I'm also a big animal lover, and spend a lot of time walking with my two dogs, Henry and Sylvie, in my neighborhood in south Baltimore.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet Andrea Snyder!
Grants Collection Manager
Enoch Pratt Free Library/State Library Resource Center


What do you do?
I’m the assistant manager of the Social Science and History Department and the manager of the Grants Collection, which is a nonprofit resource center. I coordinate and teach a series of classes for nonprofits on fundraising and management issues both at the library and around the state.

How did you get here?
I had an epiphany my sophomore year of college that I wanted to be a librarian. It didn’t come completely out of the blue as I’d always been involved with various libraries but I had never thought about it as a career choice before then. Right after completing my MLS at the University of Buffalo I moved here to Baltimore to start working at Pratt. 6 years later I’m still here and loving it!

What’s your favorite thing about your job?
I love the daily interactions I have with people. It makes my day watching a smile light up a customers face when they have the “a ha” moment.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
Maus by Art Spiegelman was my first venture into graphic novels. I’ll admit that I went in with some preconceived notions about graphic novels but they were completely gone by the time I was finished.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?
I love that we take our trainings and programs on the road to libraries all over the state.
It’s great to be able to go out and actually meet the library staff around the state that you’ve been speaking to via e-mail & on the phone. I also learn a lot from the other libraries when I’m “out on the road” to bring back here to Pratt.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
Music is a big part of my life. I’m in a handbell choir and also play the violin. If I’m not doing something music you might find me watching a hockey game or plotting my next road trip to visit friends.

Who are the People in Your State Library Resource Center

Meet John Damond!

Business, Science, and Technology

Department Manager

Enoch Pratt Free Library/

State Library Resource Center

What do you do?
I’m the manager of the Business, Science, and Technology Department at SLRC, and I’m also the measurement coordinator for the Library. The people who fund us have begun asking for different types of information on how we serve the public, and I am the person whose job it is to research, recommend, and coordinate the collection of new types of statistics.

How did you get here?

I worked in bookstores for many years before I decided to go to library school. I realized that I enjoyed helping people find information (many bookstore customers were using this giant chain store as a library), so becoming a librarian seemed like the ideal career move (though I’m still waiting for Bob Dylan to call me up and ask me to go on tour with him).

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

As a librarian, the most rewarding thing I do is give someone a GED study guide or finding information about a disease or disorder a customer has been diagnosed with. I like helping people in general, but cases like this are extra special. As a manager, I enjoy developing and implementing new ideas as well as assisting new staff grow and develop their library skills.

What’s a book that you didn’t expect to like – but did?
I can’t think of a specific title that fits this description. I did, however, have an experience when I read a book that I thought would be okay but turned out to be extraordinary. In 1992 I had the opportunity to go to Amsterdam, so I thought it would be neat to take a copy of Anne Frank’s diary to read on the plane to get me in the mood. Well, after reading the book and visiting her hiding place, I became totally obsessed with her story for several years, and I now have an entire shelf of books devoted just to Anne Frank and her family. Don’t start me talking about it, though, because I won’t shut up.

What is your favorite SLRC program, service, or training?

When I first started working at SLRC (in the late 1900s), one of my tasks as the New Guy in the department was answering reference questions from county libraries through MILO. It allowed me to explore all the nooks and crannies of this huge library collection, and it reminds me of the show The History Detectives on PBS. I still love getting difficult or weird questions and wading through all of our sources to find an answer.

What do you do when you’re not reading?
I’m a musician, so I play music a lot. I’m in an African drumming group, and I’m involved in a band with two other SLRC librarians (called the Footnotes), which plays concerts in library branches around Baltimore.