HSL Celebrates Retirements of Four Long-Time Employees
Christie Call Silbajoris, AHIP, Consumer Health and Patient Education Librarian at the Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, retired at the end of December 2016 after a seventeen-year career at HSL. Silbajoris came to HSL in 1999 as a graduate student to help develop the Go Local initiative in collaboration with NLM and the UNC School of Information and Library Sciences. In 2003, Silbajoris became the director of NC Health Info, the country’s first Go Local site. Over the years, Silbajoris has worked to grow NC Health Info into HSL’s primary consumer health service.
Silbajoris has collaborated with several organizations over the years to teach, provide health information, and increase awareness of the importance of quality information for the public. In 2008-2011, she served on the Governor’s Task force for Returning Combat Veterans and their Families and worked with the Citizen Soldier Support Program to build one of the first collections of health information for military families. In the last several years, she has consulted with NC Live (North Carolina’s digital library) to recommend resources and assist them with the redesign of their health information portal. Silbajoris’ interests include health literacy, e-health and doctor-patient communication. She co-chaired the UNC Medical Center Patient Education Committee from 2013-2015.
Silbajoris has been active in several professional organizations: Association of North Carolina Health and Science Libraries, Mid Atlantic Chapter of MLA, Consumer Health Regional Advisory Committee of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), and MLA where she was a member of the Consumer Health and Patient Information Section. Silbajoris retires as a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals of MLA and member of Beta Phi Mu.
Her retirement plans include traveling, working with pet therapy programs, helping to care for her grandchildren and maybe getting back into singing and music.
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Karen Crowell, Clinical Librarian at the Health Sciences Library, retired at the end of January 2017. Crowell came to UNC to accept a fellowship in Health Informatics. Her interest in consumer health led to her work on an HSL guide to consumer health resources. She also collaborated on a consumer health project led by two Department of Family Medicine physicians who host a radio talk show called Your Health.
Crowell’s role as a liaison to clinical departments in the UNC Hospitals began when she started attending the “Morning Report” for the Infectious Diseases (ID) department. She continued in this role for several years, during which time she helped coordinate support for establishing a medical library in a UNC clinic in Llongwe, Malawi. Crowell officially became a clinical liaison when the Department of Surgery approached the library with a request for a librarian to round with Gastrointestinal Surgery hospital residents. She later participated in Surgical Oncology team meetings as well.
Crowell has been active in several organizations over the years, such as the Medical Library Association (MLA), the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of the MLA, and the Association of North Carolina Health and Sciences Librarians (ANCHASL). She was Secretary of MAC in 2002/2003 and chaired the ANCHASL Ad Hoc Scholarship Committee in 2003. She was a member of the Professional Development Committee of the Library Association of UNC (LAUNC-CH) in 2003/2004 and the Professional Welfare Committee in 2006/2007. She also served as LAUNC-CH’s Secretary in 2005/2006. Crowell served as Associate Editor of Education in the Medical Literature for the eFACS Medical Student Community of the American College of Surgeons from 2008 to2011. She was appointed Archivist of MAC in 2010, and served on the Hospitality Committee for the 2010 Annual MAC Meeting in Chapel Hill. She served as a member of the Library Community Build-A-Block Task Force, for which she received a University Library Spotlight Award in 2012. She once again served as Archivist of MAC in 2014, and served as a member of the Chapter’s Task Force for Communication Planning. Her long-standing service to MAC was honored when the Mid-Atlantic Chapter Honors and Awards Committee (MAC/MLA) selected her as the recipient of the 2016 Marguerite Abel Service Recognition Award.
Crowell’s retirement plans include serving as an advisory member of the Board of the Chatham Artists Guild, supporting the arts and local artists. She will continue work on three artists’ exhibits at the HSL this spring. Crowell also hopes to spend time in Cody, Wyoming.
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Pam Roberts, executive assistant to the Office of the Director, retired effective February 1, 2017. Roberts has been an integral member of the HSL team for 26 years.
Roberts began working at the HSL in 1991 as the administrative assistant to the then-assistant director, Jim Curtis. She advanced to the position of executive assistant to the director in 1995, lending her invaluable support to two directors (Carol Jenkins and Nandita Mani) and two interim directors (Jim Curtis and Christie Degener). When asked what attracted her to UNC, Roberts said, “The people; it seemed like a great place to work.” In fact, she enjoyed the people she worked with so much that she didn’t mind her 45 minute daily commute. Although Roberts misses her HSL family, she says she looks forward to spending more time with family and friends.
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Steve Squires retired from University Libraries effective February 1. Squires joined the HSL staff at the end of 1986, and served here as cataloger, then head of cataloging, until 1998. He then was appointed research librarian for HSL in 1998, holding that position until 2015 when he was appointed assessment librarian for University Libraries.
During the cataloging years, Squires participated in or led many projects: transition to DRA online catalog, completion of retrospective conversion, collection barcoding, implementation of holdings records, implementation of automated authority control, and establishing HSL as an Enhance and NACO library.
As research librarian, in addition to his main task of collecting library data for external reporting and internal management and planning, Squires led HSL’s participation in many broad-based user surveys, including LibQual in 1998, 2002, and 2004; Ithaka S & R faculty and student surveys; the national multi-site Value of Library and Information Services in Patient Care study; and two F & A Cost Studies requested by the Office of Sponsored Research.
He also led participation in many smaller-scale studies including student public computing use, journal availability, staff development attitudes and practices, and many early studies of e-resource use during the development and enhancement of UNCLE. He directed HSL’s participation in the School of Medicine’s LCME accreditation study in 2004-05.
During HSL’s renovation, 2003-06, Squires served as assistant project manager, attending all construction meetings, and, after the project manager’s departure, brought the final process of construction acceptance, punch list review and correction, and final inspections to a successful conclusion. He then worked with a landscape architect and UNC facilities to design, construct, and populate the HSL Medicinal Gardens. He also helped plan and implement many smaller-scale renovations, upgrades, re-furnishings, and repairs during the years following the renovation.
Squires’s professional activity has included serving as chair of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association; proceedings editor and member of the editorial board of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association; MLA’s representative on ALA’s Committee on Cataloging – Description and Access; and, for the past five years, editor and survey manager of the Annual Statistics of Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada under the auspices of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. For UNC-Chapel Hill, Squires served as seminar leader for the Summer Reading Program for thirteen consecutive years.
