Eleanor Mitchell Editor & Author

Eleanor Mitchell became Director of Library Services at Dickinson College in August, 2005. Prior to that, she was Head of the Undergraduate Library at UCLA since 1995, and Director of the Information Literacy Initiative there from its founding in 2001 through 2004. She served on the editorial board of Reference Services Review since 1998, becoming co-editor in 2005. She has worked in libraries at Arizona State University, Westchester Community College, Vassar College, and Newsweek magazine. Her undergraduate degree was in English, from Skidmore College; her MLS was from SUNY Albany, USA. Eleanor thinks, writes, and speaks about undergraduates and libraries frequently.

Peggy Seiden has been College Librarian at Swarthmore College since 1998. Prior to joining Swarthmore, she directed the Skidmore College Library, the library at Penn State, New Kensington and worked in various capacities at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests and publications are focused on user behavior and library organizational dynamics. She is a past president of ALA’s Reference and User Services Association and served on a number of committees in ACRL. She currently chairs the ALA-APA Certification Review Committee for the Library Support Staff Certification program. Her interest in Special Collections stems back to her graduate work in Medieval Studies. At the University of Toronto she had the opportunity to study Paleography under the tutelage of Father Leonard Boyle who subsequently became the Vatican Librarian. She also has a masters in Library and Information Science (Rutgers University); her undergraduate degree is from Colby College.

Suzy Taraba is Director of Special Collections and Archives at Wesleyan University. She holds BA and MALS degrees from Wesleyan and the MS in Library Science from Columbia. Before returning to her alma mater in 1997, she held special collections positions at the Bakken Library of Electricity in Life (now the Bakken Museum), Columbia, Duke, and the University of Chicago. Suzy is a former chair of ACRL’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section. Fostering undergraduate excitement about special collections and archives is one of her favorite parts of her job.