Christina Riehman-Murphy, left, and Ruth Kitchin Tillman, right, have been named Sally W. Kalin Early Career Librarians for 2021-2024.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Christina Riehman-Murphy, reference and instruction librarian at Penn State Abington Library, has accepted the Sally W. Kalin Early Career Librarianship for Learning Innovations, and Ruth Tillman, cataloging systems and linked data strategist in Cataloging and Metadata Services, has accepted the Sally W. Kalin Early Career Librarianship for Technological Innovations at Penn State. The three-year awards will fund the efforts of Riehman-Murphy and Tillman in the first decade of their careers as they develop new resources and services for Penn State students and faculty.
“Open education is an area that can directly impact student access, agency, and equity — work that I care deeply about,” said Riehman-Murphy. “I plan to use the librarianship to increase the number of OAER adoption grants, scale faculty development, train additional librarians and students to lead OAER initiatives, develop research projects around open education's impact on student learning, and build additional partnerships.”
“I'm excited by this opportunity to expand on the work I've already been doing and collaborate with others to spotlight our fantastic resources,” said Tillman. “The librarianship will allow me to develop tools which use linked data technology to enhance discovery and context for unique materials, such as archival collections and research data, stewarded by Penn State Libraries. I'll also be capturing the history of technological innovation at Penn State Libraries by conducting an oral history of the Library Information Access System (LIAS), an early integrated library system developed and used by the Libraries in the 1980s and 1990s.”
Sally Kalin retired in summer 2011 from the post of associate dean for University Park Libraries after more than three decades of service to Penn State. In 2012 Sally and Rich Kalin established two early career librarianships with Penn State University Libraries. These librarianships allow the recipients to explore innovative approaches to services and collections and support new initiatives. The Kalin Early Career Librarianships are the first positions of their kind at any U.S. research library. Past recipients include Dawn Childress, Emily Rimland, Ben Goldman, Lauren Reiter, Carmen Cole and Nathan Piekielek.
“I’ve always believed that it is important to invest in individuals who demonstrate the potential to be future leaders in their chosen fields,” said Kalin. “Providing them with support and financial resources enables them to learn, to experiment, to generate campus partnerships, and to create transformative change. I am especially pleased to learn that, for the first time, one is from a Commonwealth Campus library because smaller campuses provide an ideal venue for innovation.”
The librarianships will commence on July 1, 2021, and include endowment funding to support individual career growth and initiatives advancing the Libraries.
“I’m looking forward to meeting the newly selected Kalin Librarians and will enjoy watching their progress,” said Kalin.
