News Library News Online
Vol. 21, No.3/Spring 1999

Table of Contents

Minneapolis: Welcomes the News Division on its 75th Anniversary
Aside Bar
Notes from the Chair
News Research at the Post
People
Rewarding a Job Well Done
Winter SLA Recap
Poynter: News Research in the  Newsroom
News Research with an Ethnic Touch
Technology Tips: ABC's Intranet
Public Reference

Web Extras:

Training Copy Editors
Election Winners

News Library News
SLA News Division Home

 

People

By Jeff Graveline

Dave Valenzeula was named Library Systems Director at the Buffalo News in December 1998, replacing then retiring Elliot Shapiro. In addition to the daily management of the library he is involved in CAR projects and digital text archiving. He came to the News in April 1998 from the Nashville-Banner and has been working in news libraries for almost two and a half years.

After 5 years at The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Dorothy Shea has returned to Florida. She is now a researcher at the Palm Beach Post library. She has spent over 20 years working in libraries, ten years as a law librarian and 6 years at the Miami Herald. She says she is glad to be back in Florida.

And this from the St. Petersburg Times … the news research desk is finally fully staffed, a first for quite some time. Caryn Baird officially joined the staff on January 11. She came to them from UNF where she was an assistant reference librarian and author of dozens of UNF web resource pages. She also spent 6 years at Loyola University in Chicago. She majored in philosophy and religion at Wellesley (Hillary Clinton’s alma mater) and received her MLS from Simmons College. Caryn is married and has 3 cats and four motorcycles. Cathy Wos came aboard in December, 1998 after a 12-week internship. She had worked at the reference desks of both USF and Eckerd College. According to Barbara Oliver, her internship gave her the chance to see the varying needs of reporters and "she still wanted to work here."

Jan Gehle of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has been promoted to Newsroom Business Manager. Most of her time is now spent with newsroom expense budgeting, legal matters, newsroom training and reader inter-action. She will still manage research services and says that she plans to continue her involvement with the News Division.

Carol Taylor is the new librarian at the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado. Carol , then Carol Bjork, was the 1984 Student Stipend Award winner (now the Vormelker-Thomas Student Award) while attending the University of Denver. She worked in the news library at the Dallas Morning News in the early 1980’s and took a break to spend more time with her kids. After two years at a public library, Carol took the job at the Daily Camera in December, 1998. She runs the one-person library and has become a "jack-of-all-trades" librarian.

We have another Vormelker-Thomas Student Award in the news. Leigh Poitinger, a 1997 Vormelker winner, joined the staff of the San Jose Mercury News as webmaster/researcher in March, 1999. She has mainly been involved with planning and creating the newsroom library Intranet. She came to the Mercury News from the Baltimore Sun where she worked in the news library for 1 and a half years. She received her MLIS from UT at Austin in 1997. During the recent library restructuring, there have been a few other changes as well. Chris Hardesty, formerly of the Raleigh News and Observer, joined the staff as Research manager and Linda Tsai was named Library Director.

Lany McDonald, Time Inc. Research Center, was presented with the company’s highest award, the Time Inc. President’s Award, on March 23. The award recognizes her successful re-engineering and re-positioning of her department. The award comes with a donation to a charity of her choice that will go to the scholarship fund of North Carolina Central University School of Library and Information Science. The scholarship fund honors the former Dean Annette Phinazee, who was dean of the school when she attended and was "an inspiration to us all."

Christina Darnowski was hired as Business Information Manager for the Time Inc. in October, 1998. She was previously the Director of Information Services for Oliver, Wyman and Company. She has also worked for Dialog and Lexis-Nexis.

In memory: From Kathleen Trimble, Director of Editorial Administration, U.S. News & World Report

Helen Orcutt, former Chief Librarian at The (Toledo) Blade, longtime member of the News Division and a 1984 winner of the News Division's Agnes Henebry Award, died yesterday at age 90. She held a number of offices in the Division in the late 1950s. An employee of the circulation department before joining the library staff in 1945, she was the Chief Librarian from 1950 until she retired in the late 1970s. Helen was a wonderful cook, a classical music lover, an avid reader and veteran observer of the political scene. She was a die-hard member of the Newspaper Guild for her entire career. She was my mentor and my dear friend. I will always be grateful for what she taught me.


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