On his deathbed in Veracruz, Mexico, a man accused his acquaintance of this act of blasphemy: 窶�Usar dentro de los Zapatos, unas Ymagenes que le parecieron de Santos.窶�&ｲﾔｲ�ｲ�ｱ�;

The accusation, translated from the Spanish: 窶弑sing in his shoes certain images that appeared to be saints.窶�

The year was 1778, when putting printed images of saints, known as estampas, inside your shoes could get you swept up in the Spanish Inquisition, the tribunal established to root out and punish acts of heresy throughout the Spanish Empire.

Running from 1478 to 1834, the Inquisition operated through fear and ruthless efficiency, at least according to Monty Python, prosecuting an estimated 150,000 people for various offenses and executing between 3,000 and 5,000.

Now, thanks to a first-of-its-kind website co-founded by ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ Professor of History Karen Melvin, you can read all about the inquisition of Don Miguel de Zaragoza, an 18th-century silversmith accused of wearing unsensible shoes, as well as other cases of the Spanish Inquisition.

The website, Reading the Spanish Inquisition, is distinctive for : images of original Inquisition documents; text transcriptions into Spanish; and English text translations prepared by scholars. 

While there窶冱 no shortage of Inquisition source materials 窶� cases were recorded in meticulous, handwritten detail, and original documents can be found in libraries and archives worldwide 窶� complete English translations are 窶彷ew and far between,窶� says Melvin.

She knows of no single resource that offers all three: images, transcriptions, and translations. 窶弩e窶决e the only game in town.窶�

As the saying goes, necessity was the mother of this invention. Melvin, who teaches a ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ course on Inquisition, recalls comparing notes with a colleague at Boston College, Professor of History Sylvia Sellers-Garcﾃｭa, who also teaches the subject. 

They both identified a 窶徨eal shortage of English language material for students,窶� says Melvin. That led to a collaboration that produced Reading the Spanish Inquisition. 窶廬t came directly out of teaching needs, to make more material available for students.窶�

The website窶冱 initial set of images, transcriptions, and translations are drawn from Mexican Inquisition papers preserved at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. Meanwhile, the site窶冱 functionality, look, and feel was developed by the 窶徼alented and patient folks窶� in two ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ offices within the college’s Information and Library Services devision, says Melvin: Curricular and Research Computing, and Systems Development and Integration.

Doing the initial transcription and translations were Melvin, Sellers-Garcﾃｭa, and others, including one of Melvin窶冱 former students, Cristopher Hernandez Sifontes 窶�18. The process is 窶忻ery labor intensive,窶� she says. 窶弩e manually do the transcriptions, and manually do the translations.窶�&ｲﾔｲ�ｲ�ｱ�;

Going forward, Melvin hopes the site can crowdsource transcriptions and translations from historians, and the site is set up to .

Through the case of , readers can learn fascinating details of daily life in 18th-century Mexico that hint at the all-encompassing, sometimes fanatical nature of the Inquisition in Spanish society. Even for those who don窶冲 read Spanish, the document images are compelling: the various Inquisition officials窶� signatures are written with a great flourish, known as a rubric.

In Mexico as elsewhere in the Spanish Empire, the tribunal that carried out inquisitions had a few key figures. Zaragoza窶冱 case was typical. It was heard by the local 窶彡ommissary,窶� like a commissioner, in Veracruz. A 窶彷iscal窶� prosecuted the case. Everything was recorded 窶� written down, that is 窶� by a notary.

After hearing the deathbed confession, the priest immediately took it to the local inquisitor.

Three witnesses called to testify against the silversmith, who apparently was not a well-liked man, nor particularly handsome. He had an 窶彿ll-kempt beard,窶� 窶彗n average mouth with a few teeth missing,窶� and 窶彗 high-pitched voice, with evidence of a carbuncle on his forehead that is still healing.窶�

It was said that Zaragoza 窶彭oes not fulfill his Easter Duty窶� and that 窶徙ver the slightest matter he would burst out in blasphemies窶� and 窶彿s so foul-mouthed that many consider him a Freemason.窶� (Even the suspicion of Freemasonry was potentially a capital offence during the Spanish Inquisition.)

Another said that Zaragoza 窶徘rays with his hands behind him so that the Rosary falls over his posterior, and he stands this way until completing it.窶�&ｲﾔｲ�ｲ�ｱ�;

Another, a fellow silversmith said that when the bells of the local church rang, Zaragoza would let out a curse: 窶廛amn the bells and whoever has them rung!窶� The witness said that Zaragoza called friars 窶徨ogues窶� who 窶徼ake the habit in order to assure themselves of a meal.窶� And Zaragoza would tease the silversmith, telling the man he should spend more time with his wife than worshipping Jesus.

All in all, besides wearing shoes with saints on them, Zaragoza was accused of 窶彙lasphemies, disparagement of pious acts, cult, and veneration of the image of Our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified.窶�

The silversmith was lucky. On Oct. 22, 1778, the fiscal recommended suspending the trial, ruling that 窶徼here are not sufficient merits to pursue this case until more proof is presented.窶�&ｲﾔｲ�ｲ�ｱ�;(The trial record doesn’t say what Zaragaza said in his defense, or if he was interrogated, though one witness testified that Zaragoza said the images were Prussian.)

Melvin has reason to be optimistic that scholars will contribute to the site. As she notes, regardless of whether a historian specializes in the Inquisition (Melvin窶冱 own current research looks at alms collection networks in the early modern Catholic world), it窶冱 not uncommon for historians 窶徼o have a case or two in their teaching arsenal,窶� she says.

That窶冱 because, for teachers, Inquisition cases are 窶徘roblematically rich.窶� That窶冱 a good thing for students, who can learn about a treasure trove of complex topics with enduring historical relevance: religion, gender, anti-Semitism, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, among others.

In popular culture, the Spanish Inquisition has proven also to be comedically rich. Exactly 50 years ago, Michael Palin kicked off a now-famous Monty Python skit with the line, 窶廸obody expects the Spanish Inquisition!窶�&ｲﾔｲ�ｲ�ｱ�;

And though Python plays the Inquisition for laughs (the skit’s inept inquisitors torture a woman with soft cushions), our contemporary understanding of the Inquisition is pretty much how Palin窶冱 Cardinal Ximﾃｩnez clumsily states it: all about 窶彷ear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the pope, and nice red uniforms.窶�

窶弩e try to address the Inquisition stereotype in the class,窶� says Melvin, because it 窶徃oes against a lot of recent scholarship. For example, there were only three tribunals in all of the Spanish Americas, in Mexico City, Lima, and Cartagena, and how active they were varied.窶�

Early in her course, Melvin does mention the Python skit to her students. 窶彜ome have heard of it,窶� she says. 窶彜ome think it窶冱 funny 窶� it窶冱 not unknown.窶�

Never underestimate the power of chance encounters.

Case in point: This summer, ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ is taking a big step forward in its ability to track the use of electricity on campus. And most of the credit goes to a ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ IT staffer and a handful of students who just happened to be in the right places at the right times.

Until now, ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ energy manager John Rasmussen has analyzed the electricity usage in each of 28 ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ buildings by downloading raw data into spreadsheets. It’s a cumbersome process that takes lots of time and repetition, to say nothing of all the 11-by-17-inch printouts needed for annotating the data.

Now, thanks to the efforts of that student-staff team, Rasmussen can simply call up a dynamic online graph, capable of instantly depicting electrical draws for a given building in increments as fine as 15 minutes or as large as several months.

Straightforward and reliable, the setup is 窶忻ery helpful in understanding where all this energy窶冱 going,窶� Rasmussen says, 窶彗nd where the opportunities might be to make it more efficient.窶� And it’s key to his larger goal of being able to comprehensively monitor, manage 窶� and ideally, through consciousness-raising as well as technical upgrades, reduce 窶� campus consumption of both electricity and fuel for heating buildings.

窶弋his is a great project because it lets us see things that were invisible previously,窶� says ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ sustainability manager Tom Twist. 窶弩e can see in real time what the buildings are doing 窶� for instance, if we’re heating a building to its full capacity at 2 a.m.窶�

窶廬f you’re not in the business of energy management, it’s hard to understand the value of being able to quickly visualize energy-use data,窶� says Rasmussen. His analytical work incorporates not only electrical usage data, but data reflecting the effectiveness of ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ窶� campus heating plant in each building that it serves.

Rasmussen adds that it would have cost ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ tens of thousands of dollars to purchase the commercial equivalent of the product put together by Maureen Haining, a ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ programmer analyst, and five students. He says, 窶弋hey are pretty sharp kids.窶�

So what about those chance encounters? A few years ago, Twist made a presentation to Information and Library Services staff. Haining was there, and it came out that she and Twist live near each other up the Maine coast. So they started carpooling to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ.

One of their commuting conversations involved Rasmussen’s travails with the electrical-usage data and the efforts of ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ EcoReps 窶� students overseen by Twist who undertake sustainability initiatives 窶� to help with that. Long story short, Haining started working with the EcoReps, including some tutoring in the use of Python, a popular and powerful programming language.

They got as far as creating a way to depict static snapshots of electrical draw, an improvement over the printed spreadsheets, but not ideal.

Fast-forward to winter 2020, when Haining began teaching 窶弃rogramming for Data Analysis and Visualization,窶� a one-time Digital and Computational Studies course based largely on Python. (Perhaps reflecting how DCS has elevated awareness of the power of data at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, digital resources like Python and R no longer seem as occult to casual observers as they once might have.)

And therein lies the other random encounter. It soon became clear that three seniors in the course 窶� Leo Crossman, Fahim Khan, and Avi Brach-Neufeld 窶� already had considerable know-how in the snake-named programming language. (Also involved in the project are two EcoReps, Biruk Chafamo 窶�22 of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Kyung Phil Ko 窶�22 of Ontario.)

窶弋hey were doing very well, and were very helpful in the classroom with the other students,窶� says Haining. In fact, the three let on that they窶囘 taken the course mostly because they needed the credits. 窶彜o I said, 窶聾ell, then, I have a project for you.窶吮��

Crossman, Khan, and Brach-Neufeld teamed up with the EcoReps, specifically that organization’s Data Group, to help with the electrical usage project. Haining窶冱 three 窶徑earned a whole new set of skills for visualization,窶� she says. 窶廡ahim had a strong interest in that. Avi leveraged his Python skills to package up and deploy a production level Python application. Leo was very good with JavaScript and knew about web development.窶�

She adds, 窶廬n all, they worked extremely well as a cross-functional team.窶�

窶廬t was a good opportunity to work on a real-life coding project as part of DCS course work, and I was excited to do it,窶� says Khan. A physics major from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Khan starts work this summer as a software developer at Tyler Technologies in Falmouth, Maine.

A knotty problem Haining’s team confronted is that the raw data from the electrical submeters is not “clean” 窶� that is, there may be gaps, spikes, or other anomalies in the data, which emanates from the submeters as data pulses that are stored on a server. (Steam-heat data is even quirkier.)

窶弋he students automated the process of cleaning the data,窶� says Twist, 窶彗s well as creating that easy visualization tool so that anyone can go in and look at the data, and know pretty quickly if the buildings are behaving the way we wanted them to.窶�

窶弋hey are really bright, motivated kids,窶� Haining says, 窶彗nd they’re really good窶� with the technology.

But Haining deserves a share of the kudos, too, Twist says. 窶廴aureen did a really nice job of shepherding them through all the potential pitfalls and problems that could have just stopped everything cold.窶�

One of the two EcoReps engaged in the project most recently, Kyung Phil Ko is a member of the EcoReps窶� Data Group. For him and the EcoReps overall, he says, applying data analysis practices to electrical consumption 窶徘rovides valuable insights into larger systemic issues, such as how buildings use an unexpected amount of energy, and cultural issues, like peak energy usage driven by our insatiable demand.窶�

Those insights can inform how another EcoRep working group, its Media Group, shapes its campus messaging about conserving electricity, as well as 窶忤hat capital investments we ought to recommend窶� for a third group, Energy Solutions. That’s a particular interest for Ko, whose sights are set on a career in financial initiatives that support sustainability.

The project overall 窶忤as definitely a valuable learning experience,窶� says Brach-Neufeld, a physics major from Silver Spring, Md. Brach-Neufeld, who will start a position as a developer at healthcare software manufacturer Epic Systems in August, did the Python coding that cleans the electrical-use data.

窶廬n addition to the pure programming knowledge I gained, it was the first time I had delivered a final product,窶� he says. 窶弃reviously, all of my programming experience had been primarily for my physics research or my own enjoyment. Although it was a challenge, I learned a lot about how to make my programming user-friendly and professional.窶�

For Ko, the exposure to programming was fun and beneficial. But more important, he says, 窶徼he soft skills I learned 窶� to become more comfortable with uncertainty, particularly in the beginning, and relationship management 窶� are what I’m going to take away the most. Perhaps I would have been more stressed in the past few months if I didn’t have this project to learn such skills.窶�

Kirk Read窶冱 oral French course has long had a theatrical flair.

To teach lessons in vocabulary, grammar, and francophone culture, the professor of French and francophone studies conjured the fictitious Marie Malika d窶僊lger and created an episodic play, in French, about her life and adventures as a young Franco-Algerian woman.

For more than 20 years, Read gave the scripts to his students in hard copy. The students would learn the lines, create their own additions to the protagonist’s life and times, and take quizzes and tests that Read administered.

This year saw a change in the presentation of Read窶冱 course. With support from the college窶冱 Information and Library Services department, Read and a group of students spent last Short Term turning Marie Malika d窶僊lger into what窶冱 known as an open educational resource (OER) 窶� specifically, a website that anyone at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ and beyond can use freely.

In April, students in Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read’s oral French course perform a scene from Read’s Marie Malika d’Alger plays. From left, Kaylah Johnson 窶�21, Kate Carrier 窶�22, Jamie Kelleher 窶�19, Jake Michael 窶�21, and Emma Vlahakis 窶�20. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

Read and his students are perhaps the most, ahem, dramatic example of efforts at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ to use advances in information technology to make course materials cheaper, more accessible, and more versatile.

Key to the college窶冱 growing success in adopting OERs 窶� or, more broadly, less-expensive course materials 窶� is creating new partnerships across campus. To that end, ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ librarians reach out to individual faculty members, and professors know that they can come to the library with their own ideas. Meanwhile, staff at the College Store review course materials and reach out to professors if there are cheaper options available.

The ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ library monitors the cost of course materials and helps faculty secure less-expensive alternatives, says Pat Schoknecht, vice president for information and library services and college librarian.

窶弩e窶决e actively looking for the courses where the textbooks are really expensive, or those courses that have a very high enrollment even if the textbook isn窶冲 that expensive,窶� says Pat Schoknecht, vice president of Information and Library Services and college librarian. 窶弩hen we find them, we will go in and actively talk to the faculty member窶� about alternatives.

That could mean using an open educational resource, or OER, strictly defined as a material whose components are in the public domain and are free and open for anyone to use. It could also mean using an ebook or journal that the library licenses, or simply a less expensive textbook.

Recently, the library received a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to join the and provide mini-grants to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ faculty who review, use, or implement open access materials.

Long an economic challenge for students, required course materials 窶� whether a copy of the Norton Anthology of American Literature ($50.65, used) for an English course or much more expensive textbooks in STEM disciplines or foreign languages complete with a code for online assignments 窶� can run into the hundreds of dollars, potentially shutting students out of certain courses and majors.

Students pack the Ladd Library during the week before finals in April 2018. Students have sometimes pushed the library and their professors to explore alternatives to traditional textbooks.ﾂ� (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

In response, ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ has tried to make those costly materials available through Ladd Library: Since 2013, the library has kept a copy of every required course material on reserve, one of the few such programs of its kind. In addition, other campus offices, including the Office of Intercultural Education, maintain collections of frequently needed course materials.

What窶冱 different now is that technology and the availability of OERs have caught up to the need.

窶弋he resources and platforms have been upgraded to a point where they窶决e actually really good,窶� says Krystie Wilfong, an associate college librarian who works to gather and share open access materials. 窶弋he content the faculty needs is there, because a faculty from a different institution has written something they can then adopt.窶�

In 2011, the price of a book that Associate Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer uses for her differential equations course rose 窶徘recipitously,窶� she said.

窶廬t really helped to make the point clear in a way that I couldn窶冲 ignore, and students let me know that that was a problem.窶�

Associate Professor of Mathematics Meredith Greer works with students on Pi Day in 2018. Greer has used a variety of free or low-cost online textbooks for her math courses. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

Greer found a cheaper textbook for that course, but the episode prompted her to try to minimize costs across all her classes. She took materials she had already created for graduate-level courses and adapted them for ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ juniors, and she pored over listservs and online repositories for math assignments.

For her multivariable calculus courses, she used free online materials by MIT mathematician Gilbert Strang, and Calculus I and II courses across the department transitioned to an this year.

Along with Kirk Read and Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton, Greer shared her story at an April symposium on open educational resources, organized by ILS, supported by the Dean of the Faculty窶冱 office and the Davis Educational Foundation, and attracting librarians, booksellers, and informational technologists from 22 institutions in New England.

After assigning Strang窶冱 material for several semesters, Greer surveyed the students who had used the online textbook and presented her findings to the attendees. Using the website had its drawbacks 窶� students had to get used to navigating sections online as opposed to turning the pages of a book and writing notes in the margins 窶� but they enjoyed the low cost, versatility, and accessibility.

Indeed, finding and using OERs benefits students in at least two ways: reduced cost and, in some cases, improved teaching.

In 2013, then a professor at Maine窶冱 Unity College, Diaz Eaton was seeking resources to teach quantitative biology, an emerging and growing field that incorporates math and computer science. Colleges and universities were trying to develop new educational materials on the fly 窶� but the experts from school to school weren窶冲 necessarily talking to each other.

窶弃eople were reinventing the wheel at multiple institutions,窶� Diaz Eaton says.

Associate Professor of Digital and Computational Studies Carrie Diaz Eaton teaches a course on detecting misinformation in March. Diaz Eaton created QUBES, a hub for free biology course materials. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

Now, at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, Diaz Eaton is continuing her work with QUBES; this month she on making open access to biology education sustainable. She and her DCS colleagues are also working to incorporate open access into the structure of the nascent program. She makes sure to use free software to teach programming and involves students in designing her courses.

窶弩e’re thinking about open access as being more than just digital access, but also access into DCS itself,窶� she says.

Kirk Read’s spring 2019 oral French course was the last to use traditional printouts or PDFs of the play Marie Malika d’Alger. The class now uses a dedicated website, which will be opened beyond the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ community by next year. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

The ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ students who helped Kirk Read redesign his oral French course last May felt similarly empowered. They were quick to grasp the benefits of OER, as well as some of its challenges, like how to compensate or reward scholars who invest time and talent to create the materials.

Now well into the first semester of the redesigned oral French course, Read and his students are liking the online version of Marie Malika d窶僊lger. Lessons and scripts are clearly organized, each image is licensed or copyright-free, and Read and his students thought through issues like how best to give assessments through the site and how to make the site accessible to users with disabilities.

And if a problem crops up during the course, Read can change the site on the fly. The course website is designed to be usable by anyone and everyone with some knowledge of French, and he plans to open it to outside users within the next year.

窶弋he students get to own this text more than anything else,窶� Read says. 窶廬t窶冱 online. I can upload a different PDF or talk about things they like better than what I propose. They窶决e not spending a dime for this, and it窶冱 attractive and interactive. I窶冦 totally happy with it.窶�

As ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ窶� new head of Information and Library Services, Pat Schoknecht窶冱 domain spans centuries’ worth of information technology, from printed words to computing’s cutting edge.

Look more closely and you might be amazed at the scope of responsibilities handled by ILS staff: The programmers and analysts who keep software in tune, processing everything from Admission applications to tuition payments to your Annual Fund gift 窶� and who invent new technology for projects like ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ窶� Diverse BookFinder.

Network experts who keep buildings secure, telephones ringing, and the web where you want it, when you want it. Help Desk and classroom technology staff who keep glitches from spoiling your day. Digital media consultants who help you find the best way to tell a story.

And, of course, the librarians and archivists who interpret 窶� and anticipate 窶� your research needs, not to mention tending to the 658,372 objects in Ladd Library’s physical collection, including 589,553 printed books, along with the documentary treasures in Muskie Archives.

Shown with Christina Bell, Ladd Library’s humanities librarian, Pat Schoknecht greets a young patron of the library’s diverse picture book collection during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day reading. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

All this, and much more, falls under Schoknecht’s purview.

ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ is unusual among colleges in placing both its information technology operation and its libraries under a single administrative umbrella.

For Schoknecht, who began last month as vice president for information and library services and college librarian, that distinctive arrangement was part of the appeal of ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ.

Schoknecht came to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ from Rollins College, where she served as chief information officer and assistant vice president for business services. She talked to us about the evolution of academic information technology departments, an idea about textbooks, and her brother, the biologist.

In terms of your professional or intellectual interests, what are your thoughts about adding oversight of a traditional college library to your portfolio?

I do see a lot of synergies between the library and the IT side. This is an exciting new set of responsibilities.

I窶况e worked with libraries very closely, so I think I know something. And then when you actually become the top person, you realize how much you don窶冲 know. And that, of course, is really fun, because now you have some new things to learn.

But you also bring new perspectives because you are an outsider coming in. And those outside eyes can be very important if they lead to questions that cause people to think of new interesting ways to pursue their work. I don窶冲 come in with answers, I come in with questions.

Prior to Rollins, you juggled teaching biology with running a major IT operation 窶� you were director of IT at Wagner College and you directed the Center of Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Richmond. How did teaching in the classroom prepare you for what you窶决e doing now?

It was a gradual sort of thing. This was back in the early 窶�90s, and so it was early in digital technology. I窶冦 an animal nutritionist, and nutrition is all about metabolism, and metabolism is all about the movement of nutrients through the body. For me, the real excitement of technology was that I could show these pathways to my students rather than just talk about them.

So I was very excited about using it, but I had these trepidations 窶� if it doesn窶冲 work, am I going to look stupid to my students? Is it going to take too much time? Because in the classroom, time is so valuable. It窶冱 got to work right away.

So I think the fact that I窶况e lived that experience really helps me to set the right goals for my ILS folks, so that we窶决e really keeping the faculty窶冱 concerns utmost in our minds.

Generally speaking, how has the IT approach to supporting the academic enterprise evolved?

Academic IT departments have gotten far better and much more professionalized than we were 10 or 20 years ago. You know, the way the IT department started at most schools was usually with a computer science faculty member who started doing some things, and it was pretty ad hoc.

And now we窶决e a professional department that can provide the level of support to faculty that they need. More than anything, I think it窶冱 been about process 窶� working through the processes that allow the IT staff to do what they need to do, but to do it in a manner that meets the needs of the faculty and the students.

For example, we understand the business cycles of the educational system. The admission business cycle is different than advancement窶冱 business cycle, which is different than the academic year, which is the faculty’s business cycle. Since IT impacts all of those, we have to adapt ourselves around the business cycles of the institution, and we窶况e just gotten much better at that.

What’s an initiative happening right now that, to you, epitomizes ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ ILS in action?

We are beginning some projects around open educational resources, and these are projects that will include both the library and the IT parts of ILS.

The idea is to think about how we can find, or maybe create, materials that would help faculty to replace textbooks in their courses 窶� and help make the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ education more affordable by decreasing textbook costs. We’re going to be looking for faculty who want to partner with us in that endeavor.

Something that窶冱 struck me during my 16 years at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ is the way that the library has become less of a heads-down, quiet repository of information. Now it’s more a site of dynamic interaction between students. It窶冱 not so much 窶徭hhh窶� anymore.

The library is the academic center of campus, but we know that students learn best when they can interact with other people, when they窶决e in collaborative learning environments. And so the library needs to be a place where they can find the resources that they need, using that word very broadly 窶� a place where they can either work alone because that窶冱 what they want to do, or in pairs or small groups.

I was talking to somebody the other day who I think said it best: 窶弋he library is the place where intentional learning should be happening.窶� We want people to come in with that intentionality and we want to provide them with the services that help them accomplish whatever that intention is.

Was there anything in your early life that would have suggested you窶囘 be doing what you are now?

Absolutely nothing! I was truly a committed biologist throughout all of my young life, teen years, into college, throughout graduate school. My older brother was, for a while, also a biologist and he窶冱 13 years older than I am. So when he was at college I was a little kid, and he would bring his fetal pig home over Christmas break to dissect. I was the one in the basement with him doing that because that was so exciting to me.

I really didn窶冲 get into IT for the IT component, I got into IT because of the teaching component. You know, for me it was all about, 窶廩ere窶冱 a tool that窶冱 going to enhance my teaching, and so I need to know more about this tool.窶�

So I really went from being that committed biologist to a committed teacher 窶� and then from there I said, 窶弩ell, I can impact 100, 200 students a year through my teaching. If I move into a technology role, I can impact 2,000 students a year.窶� And that felt like the right thing to do.

ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ President Clayton Spencer announced today that Patricia A. Schoknecht, chief information officer and assistant vice president for business services at Rollins College, will become vice president for information and library services and college librarian at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ effective Jan. 1, 2018.

窶弃at brings to this role extensive experience at the intersection of IT, academic libraries, and educational technology,窶� Spencer said. 窶廬n her current role at Rollins, Pat has leveraged advances in technology to enhance quality of service in classrooms, libraries, financial systems, and campus safety. I am pleased that such an accomplished leader will be joining the senior staff.窶�

Patricia A. Schoknecht has been named vice president for information and library services and college librarian at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College, effective Jan. 1, 2018. (Scott Cook / Rollins College)

窶廬 am thrilled to join the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ community at this dynamic point in the college窶冱 history,窶� said Schoknecht. 窶弋he combined leadership model of IT and library services at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ greatly intrigued me. As a full-time faculty member prior to moving into technology positions, I appreciate the importance of a dynamic library in support of academic life. ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ was one of the first institutions to recognize and embrace the power of collaboration in these critical areas.窶�

Reporting to Spencer, Schoknecht will provide strategic and operational leadership on all aspects of information technology and library planning, programs, and resources. Leading a team of 65 professionals, she will oversee five departments, including Ladd Library, the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, Academic and Client Services, Network and Infrastructure Services, and Systems Development and Integration. As vice president for information and library services, Schoknecht will serve as the college窶冱 chief information officer and as a member of the president窶冱 senior staff.

窶弃at stood out in a national pool of strong candidates. We were particularly impressed that prior to her IT experience Pat served as a faculty member in biology, evident in a leadership style imbued with classroom presence and enthusiasm for dialogue,窶� noted Nathan Tefft, associate professor of economics and chair of the selection committee.

Since 2009, Schoknecht has overseen all aspects of information technology at Rollins, leading 36 professionals and 20 student workers. Her department includes divisions in instructional design and technology, administrative computing, network and operations, user services, and IT project management. Schoknecht worked closely with the library director at Rollins to develop strong collaborations in teaching and learning between IT and the college’s Olin Library. In 2013, she assumed the additional responsibility of leading the college窶冱 business services unit, which includes the post office and warehouse, print services, purchasing, and contract oversight.

Prior to Rollins, Schoknecht was director of information technology at Wagner College while simultaneously teaching as a professor of biology. She also split time between teaching and IT at the University of Richmond, where she directed the Center of Teaching, Learning & Technology and taught as an associate professor of biology. Schoknecht began her teaching career at Rutgers University as a faculty member in animal science. As a teacher and researcher, she has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and secured numerous research grants.

Schoknecht received a bachelor of science degree in zoology from George Washington University, a master’s in zoology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a doctorate in animal science from Cornell University.

Schoknecht窶冱 appointment at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ follows a national search overseen by a committee comprising students, faculty, and staff and supported by Opus Partners, a leading global search firm with deep experience in higher education. Schoknecht succeeds Andrew White, who has served as interim vice president since December 2016, following the death of vice president Katie Vale.

Katie Vale, college librarian and vice president for information and library services at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ since September 2015, died unexpectedly on Nov. 27 due to complications from Crohn’s disease. She was 51 years old.

Katie Vale, photographed in February 2016 by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

In her brief time at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, Vale 窶徠uickly proved herself to be a strong and creative organizational leader,窶� said President Clayton Spencer on Nov. 28 in a message to the campus community announcing what Spencer characterized as 窶徭hocking and profoundly sad news.窶�

Praising Vale as a 窶從ational leader in educational technology,窶� Spencer said that Vale was a 窶忤onderful, collaborative colleague, a professional of enormous breadth and intellect, and a person possessed of quick wit and self-deprecating humor.窶�

Just the ninth college librarian since ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ窶� founding in 1855, Vale oversaw the college窶冱 integrated Information and Library Services organization, including Ladd Library, the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, Academic and Client Services, Network and Infrastructure Services, and Systems Development and Integration.

At the time of her appointment in 2015, Vale said that she looked forward to helping ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ 窶彭emonstrate how information technology and the library can support the value proposition of the liberal arts 窶� the lifetime reward of intellectual curiosity, academic rigor, and engaged citizenship.窶�

In a recent ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ Magazine story about the college窶冱 new interdisciplinary Program in Digital and Computational Studies, Vale said that she and her colleagues looked forward to supporting students and faculty in the new program because 窶忤hat ILS excels at, especially on the library side, is helping people make connections, find information, and learn to use technologies to ask questions and solve problems.窶�

She added that 窶徼echnology plays a central role in myriad forms of inquiry and expression, and students will learn and apply skills that will help them at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ and well beyond. That excites us a lot.窶�

She was an adroit advocate for her team窶冱 needs and projects.

In her time at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, Vale and her ILS team bolstered information security protocols and improved disaster preparedness while deepening the college窶冱 network redundancy capacity. They introduced better project-management practices and improved and expanded the capacity of the IT Service Desk.

She prepared the college窶冱 online research and scholarship repository, Scarab, to accommodate more faculty and student work, part of a rapid ramp-up of efforts to educate the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ faculty on the 窶彙road issues relating to scholarly communication, such as open access and authors rights,窶� said Laura Juraska, the college窶冱 associate librarian for research services.

Jim Bauer, who reported to Vale as director of network and infrastructure services, said she was an adroit advocate for her team窶冱 needs and projects, whether it was understanding the promise and limits of cloud computing or the changing space needs and uses in Ladd Library.

窶廬 could go to her with a list of 87 or so things that we窶决e doing, and she could turn that technical language into clear English to help other college leaders understand not just what we do, but how our work supports the college窶冱 academic mission and the choices that can be made based on limited resources,窶� said Bauer. 窶廬t was great to have those conversations.窶�

窶廳atie was an open, inclusive, unflappable, and deeply kind leader.窶�

Vale窶冱 other accomplishments included the introduction of a high-capacity computing cluster for ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ faculty working with big data; strengthening of the library窶冱 longstanding collaborations with Colby and Bowdoin; a collaborative project with the Dean of the Faculty to create a public, searchable online directory of ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ faculty and their areas of academic expertise; creation of a digital animation studio in Pettigrew Hall; completion of a new Academic Resource Commons in Ladd Library; and a partnership with the College Store to reduce textbook costs.

And, she embraced the student tradition of a special night of laser tag on the ground floor of Ladd Library.

窶廳atie was an open, inclusive, unflappable, and deeply kind leader,窶� said Andrew White, director of academic and client services for ILS. 窶弋hese characteristics were the hallmarks of her relationships with ILS staff and campus colleagues alike. She brought her razor-sharp wit and thoughtful intelligence to every conversation.窶�

About that wit. 窶彜he was low-key hilarious,窶� said Jeremy Cluchey, a former colleague who praised Vale as a role model with the 窶徨arest combination of being brilliant, competent, and supremely human.窶� After Cluchey took a position at Maine Audubon, Vale gave him a solar-powered, lighted chicken lawn ornament. 窶彜he didn’t shout her jokes, but they were better than everyone else’s so you made sure to listen.窶�

Active in a variety of professional organizations, Vale authored a number of publications and was frequently invited to present at such industry gatherings as the annual EDUCAUSE conference, including a panel presentation on 窶弩omen Disruptors in Academic Technology and IT,窶� and the NorthEast Regional Computing Program conference, presenting on 窶廝uilding a Culture of Educational Excellence,窶� both in 2015.

She was the co-author (with Allison Littlejohn) of the chapter 窶廴assive Open Online Courses: A Traditional or Transformative Approach to Learning?窶� in the book Reusing Open Resources: Learning in Open Networks for Work, Life and Education (Routledge, 2014).

Vale was a member of the Chief Information Officers of Liberal Arts Colleges group of the Council on Library and Information Services, representing ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ and its leadership in the art and science of merging library and information-technology functions.

Vale came to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ after seven years at Harvard University, where she had been director of academic technology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and, most recently, director of digital learning at Harvard窶冱 T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

At Harvard, Vale oversaw initiatives supporting teaching, learning, and academic workflow, and served as course development manager for Harvard窶冱 first offerings via the EdX platform. She supported faculty and students engaged in curricular and pedagogical innovation and worked with librarians on both e-research and larger organizational issues.

From 1992 to 2008, Vale held positions at MIT that supported faculty teaching and scholarship.

She was selected as a 2012 Frye Fellow for her leadership potential in higher education窶冱 rapidly changing IT landscape, and received an Award in 2014 for her record of collaborative leadership, her influential work on major educational technology projects at Harvard and MIT, and her 窶彿nnovative spirit窶� that has helped 窶徃row projects from their infancy to a point of wide dissemination.窶�

Vale earned a doctorate in educational media and technology from Boston University, using her dissertation to examine models of teaching and appropriate educational technologies as well as factors contributing to the longevity of online courseware. She earned dual A.B. degrees, in cognitive science and anthropology/archaeology, from Brown University.

ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ President Clayton Spencer announced today that Katie L. Vale, director of digital learning at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will become vice president for information and library services and librarian at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ effective Sept. 1, 2015.

窶廳atie Vale brings a remarkable breadth and depth of experience to this role,窶� Spencer said. 窶廣 leader in educational technology, she has played a shaping role at MIT and Harvard in exploring the uses of technology in teaching, learning, and research, in supporting faculty and students engaged in curricular and pedagogical innovation, and in working with librarians on both e-research and larger organizational issues. During her visit to campus, Katie impressed colleagues with her hands-on approach, her collaborative spirit, and her broad-ranging knowledge. I am thrilled to welcome Katie to the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ community.窶�

Katie L. Vale, director of digital learning at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will become vice president for information and library services and librarian at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ effective Sept. 1, 2015.

窶廬 am a strong believer in the mission of the liberal arts,窶� Vale said. 窶廬 feel that ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ is distinctively positioned to demonstrate how information technology and the library can support the value proposition of the liberal arts 窶� the lifetime reward of intellectual curiosity, academic rigor, and engaged citizenship. I look forward to the opportunity to join such a strong and vibrant community.窶�

As a member of Spencer窶冱 senior staff, Vale will work closely with faculty and staff across the college to align ILS priorities and resources with the college窶冱 larger institutional goals. An experienced organizational leader and manager, Vale will oversee 65 staff members in five library and IT departments at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ: Ladd Library, the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, User Services, Network and Infrastructure Services, and Systems Development and Integration.

窶廬 very much admire colleges that have merged their library and information technology organizations,窶� Vale said. 窶弩hat I see at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ are librarians and IT staff who are invested in helping to deliver a highly personal liberal arts education. I am excited to help this organization build on its strong reputation and support ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ as the roles of technology and libraries in higher education continue to evolve.窶�

Vale brings to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ almost 30 years of IT and library experience at Brown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, most recently, Harvard University, where she has held leadership roles since 2008.

In 2014, Vale received the Rising Star Award from EDUCAUSE, a national organization that advances higher education through the use of information technology, for work that 窶彳pitomizes service to the academy and leadership in the field of information technology窶� and for her contributions to 窶徭ome of the most influential educational technology projects of the past few decades, providing the critical roles of planning, launching, and providing dependable support for these initiatives.窶�

As director of digital learning at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health since 2014,
Vale manages a team of learning designers and educational technologists on academic support, curriculum design, assessment, e-learning materials, learning space design, and faculty development initiatives.

From 2008 to 2014, as director of academic technology for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, Vale provided vision and strategy for in-person and online teaching and learning across the undergraduate and graduate programs. She led major instructional design projects and directed IT efforts in areas including scholarly technology, academic platforms, academic administration, curriculum support, video production, and software development, and she oversaw budgeting and a number of administrative technology projects, including the creation of a Harvard College committee to prioritize IT projects.

Vale also played a key role in the planning and launching of the Harvard Initiative on Learning and Teaching and HarvardX, and served on numerous committees focused on the work of the libraries, including the planning group that led a major reorganization and new strategic direction for the Harvard Library.

From 1992 to 2008, Vale held positions at MIT that supported faculty teaching and scholarship. As assistant director of the office of educational innovation and technology, she led the university窶冱 Educational Technology Consulting group, which included specialists in geographic information systems, software development, instructional technologies, and multimedia development.

Active in professional organizations, Vale has authored a number of publications and been a frequent presenter at the EDUCAUSE, SXSWedu, and NMC conferences, among other invited venues.

Vale received A.B. degrees in cognitive science and anthropology/archaeology from Brown University. She earned master窶冱 and doctoral degrees from Boston University in education.

Vale窶冱 appointment follows a national search overseen by a committee consisting of faculty, students, and staff that was chaired by Associate Professor of History Karen Melvin. Vale succeeds Eugene Wiemers, who retired on June 30.

A comprehensive remodel of the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ website set to debut on Nov. 3 reflects the continuing sea change in how people are using the college website in 2014.

More and more, they’re going mobile, using smartphones or tablets.

The remodeled ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ home page as it will appear to a desktop user. The remodel team’s use of “personas” inspired the creation of the four Audience Message Boxes geared to specific constituencies.

Two years ago, one in six visitors to bates.edu viewed the site on a mobile device. Now it’s nearly one in three.

While “mobile drove this remodel,窶� says Jeremy Cluchey, director of creative design for the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ Communications Office, “the fact is, the trend toward greater mobile traffic is a worldwide reality.”

All about making a website that窶冱 easier to use.

Ensuring that every website feature and piece of content renders well on tiny screens as well as big desktop monitors is as much a design and architectural challenge as it is a technical one, Cluchey says.

In that spirit, the new bates.edu incorporates a major homepage redesign and a new site-wide navigation menu, among other changes that, in the end, are all about making a website that窶冱 easier to use for all visitors.

When it comes to website redesign, you need to know your users. And while 2.5 billion people worldwide are online, the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ team zeroed in on just 12 users during the remodel process.

The 12 users, however, represent a conceptual twist: They’re “personas,” fictional people who represent the major public user groups of bates.edu.

To create the personas, a 12-person Usability Group, comprising staff from BCO and Information and Library Services, interviewed 50 ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ stakeholders from 16 college offices that communicate with various external audiences.

Their expertise informed the group窶冱 understanding of the college窶冱 many audiences and fueled the creation of the personas, the use of which is standard for usability projects, Cluchey explains.

As an example of the site’s responsiveness, the new home page will look like this to a tablet user.

“We窶况e given each ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ persona a photo, a name, a hometown, and a set of specific attributes, including preferences, goals and top tasks for using the website,窶� Cluchey says. 窶弩e窶况e created a list of do窶冱 and don窶冲s for communicating with them. While they窶决e not real users, they could be.窶�

Diverse across gender, age, geography and race, and featuring various levels of engagement with ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, the personas include prospective students and parents, current parents, alumni and non-ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ users such as a prospective staff member and a journalist.

For example, a persona representing an accepted student from Portland, Ore., wants to understand her financial aid package. The persona of a young alumna wants to network with other alumni and wants her opinion about ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ issues heard, while the ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ alumnus who窶冱 also a ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ parent wants coordinated parent-alumni communications.

With this gallery of personas in hand, the BCO remodel team 窶� Cluchey, Web Designer Barry Costa, Senior Digital Analyst Nicholas O窶傳rien and Web Designer/Developer Jake Paris 窶� examined existing metrics and other user information, conducted campus listening sessions and implemented a website survey tool to “home in on the key concerns and priorities of our users,” Cluchey says.

Armed with a feedbag full of feedback, the group identified several major goals and set out to create solutions to meet them. Goals such as:

• Make the site fully usable to visitors regardless of one窶冱 device, screen size or other technology, including Internet connection speed. The new site is fully responsive, featuring appropriate “break points” where the layout changes to meet the need of users’ various screen sizes.
  

  The remodeled ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ home page as it will appear to a mobile user.

• Update the site’s visual presentation in light of current industry trends and standards. That meant eliminating the old rotation of five full-screen images. 窶弋here’s reason to believe most users tune out those animations,” Cluchey says. “Metrics tell us that users don’t click on them as much as you think they might.” The new homepage features six major stories at all times, and the featured story changes randomly each time a user lands on the site. The new site also features an improved presentation of the ever-popular ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ slideshows.

• Use data to streamline the site’s navigation and to create clear and intuitive pathways to content. Here, the use of personas inspired the creation of “Audience Message Boxes” on the homepage, four differently hued rectangles geared to specific audiences and messages.

• Improve the site search so that it better serves users. Last summer, the Google-driven search function was improved so that results pages look more familiar and display much better on mobile devices.

Mobile behavior drove most of the other changes in the site’s navigation and architecture, says Cluchey. The old home page had a confusing tangle of menus that totaled 159 links. Of all those links, 20 received 80 percent of the click action.

To be sure, the number and placement of hyperlinks, especially in a site窶冱 main navigation in prime real estate at the top of a page, is as much a political question as a web architecture one.

To answer those political questions in an apolitical way, the BCO remodel team asked four questions:

1. What is being clicked? The top clicks included, for example, the course catalog, so it and other popular links stayed.
2. What are visitors viewing that’s not in the menu? The popular 窶廣bout Us窶� and ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College Store are among those added to the new menu.
3. What are the top tasks each persona needs to execute? Tasks like making a gift, knowing about campus events, using the alumni directory and finding admission information 窶� ﾂ�top needs for many of the personas 窶� continue to be doable in the new menu.
4. Finally, what links should appear because they reflect institutional importance and values? Answering this question meant adding a link to the president’s office, among others.

After all was said and answered, the team was able to reduce the number of links in the new “drawer” navigation at the top of the page to just 30.

An early conceptual sketch of the remodeled home page suggests that when it comes to communications technology, paper still has its place!

While perhaps not within a single click from any given page, the rest of the site’s content is still easily findable.

As the group tweaked the site, they tested new features in various ways, including with students in Commons and usability tests with alumni and other stakeholders.

That provided “great actionable feedback,” Cluchey says. “For example, it led to us to increase the size of the new menu bar and add clear headings to the new homepage elements.”

The remodeled website, still using WordPress for its content management, offers a freshened version of the award-winning major site redesign from 2011.

That redesign was a complete razing of the prior site and delivered vastly improved site-wide consistency, a better ability to track metrics and higher participation by campus offices, Cluchey says.

After 20 years of service to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College, Vice President for Information and Library Services Eugene Wiemers will retire on June 30, 2015.

Vice President for Information and Library Services Eugene Wiemers will retire from the college on June 30, 2015. (Mike Bradley/ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College)

In sharing the news with the college community, President Clayton Spencer said that “it is difficult to imagine running the college without Gene Wiemers. He is the consummate institutional leader 窶� he sets clear goals and objectives and works collaboratively across the college to achieve them. The results speak for themselves. Our integrated library and information services organization is regarded as a national model among liberal arts colleges.

窶廬 am enormously grateful for Gene窶冱 long and distinguished service to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ and for his wise counsel in my first years on campus.窶�

Reflecting on his two decades of service to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, Wiemers said, “It is a clichﾃｩ to say that our greatest asset is our staff, but it is true. My finest accomplishment has been to surround myself with people in libraries, archives and IT who are younger, smarter and faster than I am, and to learn from them every day.

窶廬t has been a honor to work with them as we set very ambitious goals for ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ and work toward continuously doing better.”

An emphasis on aligning IT and library operations to meet the goals of the college.

Wiemers came to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ in 1994 as librarian of the college, serving as a member of the college窶冱 information services management team. He assumed leadership of all information and technology operations in 2000, bringing into a single organization the operations of the George and Helen Ladd Library, information technology, archives, media and telecommunications services. Wiemers became vice president in 2005.

He emphasized aligning IT and library operations to meet the goals of the college with uniformly high expectations of service. He organized the college窶冱 first dedicated academic technology and Web services units, and worked to adapt the structure and function of all ILS operations to continuous changes in technology.

ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ Professor of Sociology Sawyer Sylvester, who has worked closely with Wiemers as a longtime member of the faculty’s Library Committee, believes ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ is fortunate to have had Wiemers as librarian during the library窶冱 most expansive period.

“Part of his genius has been to join the traditional library with computing and improve each by that marriage,窶� Sylvester said. 窶弩ithal, his skill as an administrator is unparalleled, hiring a superb staff of librarians and giving them his full support.”

As information technology has changed the concept of libraries and the types of resources they should provide, Wiemers has been instrumental in keeping the college窶冱 library and technology services current and relevant.

Recognizing that students were coming to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ with increasing expectations from academic and communications technology, he has welcomed their input, even as staff and faculty members worked to hone students窶� skills. He has worked to infuse and upgrade technology in all the teaching, learning and office spaces on campus, providing uniformly high quality technology in all classrooms and meeting rooms, and has championed the automation of business processes throughout the college.

Wiemers oversaw the merger of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and the library窶冱 Special Collections department in 2000, in the process creating the first ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College Archives. With colleagues at Colby and Bowdoin, Wiemers and his ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ team helped to build the CBB Library consortium into one of the nation’s most successful collaborations of small college libraries.

From 2002 to 2004, he led the team that comprehensively reviewed ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ operations, practices and systems in the Department of Security and Campus Safety and led the effort to support their work with new technologies. He has served on a dozen external review or New England Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation teams for liberal arts colleges in the Northeast.

Wiemers has served on multiple search committees at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, including three vice presidential and one presidential search committee. He has also chaired or served on dozens of institutional committees, including the Facilities Master Planning Steering Committee: and all the college窶冱 strategic planning committees since 1995.

“The dean of those of us who manage merged organizations.”

Wiemers has been an active member of his professional community nationally as a presenter at conferences and member of committees and review boards.

窶扎e is the dean of those of us who manage merged organizations, the person we have turned to for advice and guidance,窶� said Elliott Shore, executive director of the Association of Research Libraries and former head of libraries and IT at Bryn Mawr College.

Before coming to ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ, Wiemers held leadership positions at a number of university libraries, including those at Northwestern, Michigan State and the University of Minnesota. He also served as lecturer in Latin American studies at Minnesota and the University of Chicago.

Wiemers graduated summa cum laude from Macalester College in 1970 with a B.A. in history, pursued Latin American studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and received a master窶冱 degree and doctorate in Latin American history from the University of Chicago. In 1979, he earned a master窶冱 degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Wiemers plans to continue enjoying life in the beautiful state of Maine, to travel with his wife, Nancy Jennings, and to 窶很eep up with our two daughters and their families and careers.窶�

As the culmination of a three-day Tolkien Film Festival at ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College from Monday, Oct. 22, through Wednesday, Oct. 24, leading Tolkien scholar Thomas Shippey delivers a lecture titled “Filming the Lord of the Rings: How Peter Jackson Coped with J.R.R. Tolkien,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.ﾂ� The public is invited to attend the talk, followed by reception in the Olin lobby, free of charge. For more information, contact 207-786-6135 or thisﾂ� olinarts@bates.edu.

Walter J. Ong chair of humanities at St. Louis University, Shippey received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Shippey’s primary areas of focus are medieval literature, especially the earliest literature of Anglo-Saxon England, and modern fantasy and science fiction. These interests merge in his two much-reprinted and translated books on J.R.R. Tolkien, The Road to Middle Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Houghton-Mifflin, 1982) and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (Harper Collins, 2000).

Both Shippey and Tolkien attended King Edward’s School, Birmingham, as schoolboys, and each played rugby for Old Edwardians. The two men both taught at Oxford University. As an English professor at Leeds University, Shippey inherited Tolkien’s chair and syllabus.

President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, Shippey’s most recent publications is The Shadow-walkers: Jacob Grimm’s Mythology of the Monstrous (Brepols, 2005) and Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien (Walking Tree Press, 2007). His numerous books include The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (Oxford University Press), The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories (Oxford University Press) and Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative (University of Georgia Press).

All three film screenings begin at 7 p.m. and are held in the Filene Room of Pettigrew Hall, 75 College St., ﾀﾖｲ･ｴｫﾃｽ College. The public is invited to attend at no cost. For more information about the screenings, please call 207-786-8294.

• Day One of the Tolkien Film Festival, Monday, Oct. 22, features Fellowship of the Ring (2001, 178 min.), the first of director Peter Jackson’s three films based on Tolkien’s epic “The Lord of the Rings.”
• Day Two, Tuesday, Oct. 23, features The Two Towers (2002, 179 min.).
• Day Three, Wednesday, Oct. 24, features The Return of the King (2003, 201 min.), the final installment in Jackson’s trilogy.

Shippey’s talk is sponsored by the English department, the college lectures committee, the interdisciplinary studies program and the humanities division. The Tolkien Film Festival is sponsored by the college’s information and library services.