NJLA Academic Librarians Section and Association of College and Research Libraries NJ Chapter

After 19 years, in mid-June, 2012, Ruth Hamann retired from her position as Reference Librarian at Passaic County Community College.

Her return to the library field, after a hiatus teaching ESL, came at a time when library science was entering the electronic age. She had the opportunity join many other librarians on the learning curve and to continue to develop professionally throughout her career. At PCCC she collaborated with faculty and students from many disciplines and developed curricula involving a variety of aspects of Information Literacy.

In the course of her career she served as a member of the Executive Board of NJLA-CUS/ACRL and was an active member of the User Education Committee. She was also an active member of VALE and helped to establish the “Progression Standards for Academic Libraries.”  She made presentations at professional conferences at the local, state and national levels to share her work and innovations.  Her “Swan Song” was a presentation at the NJLA Spring Conference at Atlantic City in June, 2012. This was a poster session describing her adaptation of the Information Literacy component she had designed for the “First Year College Experience” course to make it accessible to students in Spanish-speaking sections of the same course at PCCC.

Ruth is continuing her involvement with the library world by serving as a Trustee of the Summit Free Public Library. She is currently working on creating an Advocacy Plan for that library as part of her participation in the “Turn the Page 2.0” e-workshop being offered by the Gates Foundation, ALA, and PLA. She is hoping to find some part-time/short-term challenges in the academic library community as well.

Ruth can be reached at ruthhamann.lib@gmail.com.