maria carpenter

Maria Carpenter to become Director of Somerville Public Library

Today I am saying goodbye to a friend and colleague, Maria Carpenter.  Maria is leaving Northeastern to become Director of Somerville Public Library.  Today is her last day at Snell. Maria arrived here 10 years ago as a reference and instruction librarian.  As soon as we met her we knew she was the one we wanted to hire for the position.  It was clear that her first priority as a librarian was attentive, compassionate communication between librarians and library users.  Her role has expanded over the years and as our Director of Advancement, Marketing and Communications (a position she created), she has become the ear and the voice of the library, coordinating all communications, from the suggestion box to press releases to Meet the Author programs. As the Library Web Manager, I have always looked to Maria for support and guidance.  She’s been able to give me advice on big picture communication priorities, and she’s been able to read over a sentence and tell me if the tone is right.  She’s happy to experiment with any technology that might help the library communicate, including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter, and she was the force behind the creation of this blog. Above all, Maria has always been a great bridge for me.  I think that’s because she makes a point of going outside the library.  She attends NU events and professional conferences, audits classes and has dinners with alumni.  Everywhere she goes, she listens to what people say about Snell Library and brings their perspectives back to me and my colleagues, asking us to look up from our books and our laptops and engage with what’s going on at Northeastern and beyond. Not content with the relentless pace of her professional library activities, Maria’s recently begun to take an interest in yoga, and has found it so satisfying that she’s become an instructor.  One of the things I will miss is being able to attend the occasional noon yoga class she leads for her friends in the seminar room at Snell, once again, getting us to lift our heads up from our laptops and stretch a little. In fact, stretching is what I expect Maria to continue to do, in who-knows-what unexpected directions, when she takes the reins at Somerville Public Library.  Back here at Snell, I shall follow her career with interest, and I hope that once in a while she’ll meet me for a Mark N Stormy at Highland Kitchen, so we can continue talking about the future of books, libraries and communities as we’ve been doing for the past ten years. Goodbye, Maria, and always when you stretch, don’t forget to breathe! To view the official press release of Maria’s departure, visit the Northeastern University Libraries’ News & Events page.

Using Power to Get Things Done

Snell Library’s own Maria Carpenter recently presented at the 2011 Academic Library Advancement and Development Network Annual Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. Maria, the Director of Advancement, Marketing, and Communications for Northeastern University Libraries, gave a presentation and a workshop on power theory and its use in different political and social organizations. Her sessions focused on examples of how leaders of organizations have successfully used power and how those examples can be applied to those in the library advancement field. Her presentation took place during a lunch session on May 17th where over 100 people were in attendance. The workshop that followed allowed attendees to take part in a more interactive q&a discussion about power and how to use it in the workplace. For more information or for questions about the topic please contact Maria Carpenter at m.carpenter@neu.edu.

Snell Represents at Research & Scholarship Expo

Congratulations to two Snell Library staff: Maria Carpenter, Director of Advancement & Marketing, and Hillary Corbett, Scholarly Communication Librarian, who presented their research at yesterday’s Research & Scholarship Expo. Maria presented her work, “Cheerleader, Opportunity Seeker, and Master Strategist: ARL Directors as Entrepreneurial Leaders,” which examines how entrepreneurial leadership can be used to generate income, build new partnerships, and improve services. This study examines how library directors who are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) define and engage in entrepreneurial leadership and suggests how entrepreneurial leadership can improve finances, foster innovation, and build prestige. Hillary presented the library’s vision for its researcher support services in her work titled, “Digital Solutions and Services to Support Research at the Northeastern University Libraries.” It describes Northeastern Libraries’ early project implementations and explores opportunities for future development and collaboration of its suite of researcher support services. The full suite of services discussed includes IRis (Northeastern’s Digital Archives), Digital Repository Service, and Data Curation Services. To see the full schedule of events and to read about other student, staff, and faculty research visit the Northeastern Research & Scholarship Expo website. You can also read today’s NU News which spotlights work from two Northeastern students.