2015 VLACRL Election of Officers
Candidates Biographies and Statements
Brian Burns
Media Librarian
Hampden-Sydney College
Biography: - Spent 12 years as an assistant in media services in the U. of Florida Law Library.
- Media Librarian at H-SC since 2003.
- Earned MLIS from U. of South Florida in 1998.
- Earned M.Ed in Communications Media from IUP in 1991.
- Served on governing board of the Consortium of College & University Media Centers 2007-2011.
- Chair of CCUMC Government Regulations & Public Policy Committee 2004-2008.
- Served on various H-SC faculty committees including Benefits, Budget Audit, Student Affairs, Athletics,
Lectures & Programs.
- Selected to attend Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians in 2014.
Candidate Statement: I see great potential in the VLACRL organization. We have some very talented
members both within and outside the leadership positions. There is much we can learn from others,
though. How can we grow our organization, not only with regard to members, but in relationships with
other organizations. Could we possibly work cooperatively with the North Carolina ACRL group,
perhaps? What events/ideas might we glean from the Maryland state organization? Can these
interstate relationship s benefit our members both directly and indirectly? These are some of the issues
I would like to work on, if elected, to the betterment of our state chapter and our individual members.
Past Association Experience: - Active member of VLACRL for the past three years.
- Helped make various useful versions of the VLACRL logo available to the leadership.
- Currently on the VLA Program Committee as the UC (UnConference) Coordinator, attempting to
expand this new aspect of the VLA annual conference.
2015 VLACRL Election of Officers
Candidates Biographies and Statements
Rory Patterson
Coordinator, Undergraduate & Online Research Assistance
Liberty University
Biography: I have been an academic librarian for more than 10 years. I started as User Education
Librarian in a small college in Ohio (Cedarville University, about 2,500 FTE) for six years.
I came to Virginia 5 year ago to be in the research assistance department at a large university (Liberty
University, over 50,000 FTE).
Before coming to academic librarianship, I worked for a year in a federal research library.
Candidate Statement: I have been involved with national and state academic library organization
committees for the last 10 years and I would like to use what I have learned in those positions to
continue the auspicious beginnings VLACRL has had. As Co-chair, I would focus on two areas. First, I
would build on the regional sessions so VLACRL can reach those who cannot travel to Williamsburg. I
would do this by increasing the number of locations for our sessions, and by evaluating adding online
components to the sessions.
I would also like to apply my by-laws and governance experience to build a solid structure that will
continue growing VLACRL into an organization that represents how great Virginia’s academic institutions
are to internal constituents and to the nation. VLACRL is young and not very large, so we do not need
large governance structures, but having some ways to capture institutional knowledge and guide future
VLACRL leaders will allow us to grow as a professional organization that supports the development of
librarians, advocates for academic libraries, and recruits excellent librarians to our state. Virginia has a
wide range of excellent academic libraries. We should continue to learn from each other, and
demonstrate to those outside of Virginia how we in VLACRL are leading academic libraries into the
future.
Thank you for your consideration.
Past Association Experience: I have been a member of ACRL since 1999, and served on the University
Libraries Section’s Organization and By-laws Committee from 2003 to 2008.
I joined VLA in 2009 and have been serving on the Awards Committee since 2012.
I attended ACRL conference in 2011 and VLA conference in 2013. I have attend and participated in
several regional VLA and VLACRL events each year since 2012.