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Kelly is in her 33rd year in education and her eighth year as an academic librarian. Currently, she is the Associate Director/Head of Outreach and Instruction at Cornette Library, West Texas A&M University. Prior to becoming an academic librarian, she was a K12 educator where she taught mostly 6th, 7th and 8th grade Language Arts before becoming a school librarian for 14 years. During that time, she served on the Texas School Library Standards Revision Steering Committee and has written numerous articles about school librarianship. She is the Past Chair of the Texas Library Association (TLA) Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) and is the Chair-Elect of the College and University Division (CULD) of TLA. Areas of interest include making the HS to College transition smoother for students and K12/Academic library collaborations. To that end, she works on collaborative projects with school librarians and WTAMU Education Department faculty such as the fall 2023 program School Librarians: The Missing Piece which was a program for preservice teachers at WTAMU to learn about collaborating with their campus librarian and then went on to write about this experience in the article School and Academic Librarians: Cultivating Collaboration which was published in the 2023 Winter edition of Texas Library Journal. This collaborative group is currently working on a children’s literature symposium for preservice teachers which will take place in the fall of 2024. In addition to these things, Kelly presents at conferences as a way to challenge herself and grow as a professional and as a way to give back to the profession. Kelly practices yoga and enjoys walking the fine line between dispelling and embracing the common librarian stereotypes. |
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Mark is in his 11th year in education and his eighth year as a librarian. Currently, he is the Outreach and Instruction Librarian at Cornette Library, West Texas A&M University. Before coming to Cornette Library, he was a librarian for the Amarillo public library, and before that, he taught English Language Arts to 6th graders at Travis Middle School in Amarillo ISD. Before becoming a teacher, Mark walked the very odd road of someone who didn’t know what they wanted to do when they grew up, which means he’s built up a ton of stories, everything from becoming an Eagle Scout to being a forklift driver, to share with anyone who’s interested. It also means he’s picked up a bunch of odd habits. He enjoys a little bit of everything, including: collecting high-end fountain pens, cycling, powerlifting, writing, video gaming, and playing with his two daughters, both of whom have him wrapped securely around their little fingers. Mark loves bringing his unique perspective to bear on the many challenges facing librarians and librarianship. He doesn’t view himself as your average librarian, but that’s ok because we aren’t living in average times. |