Candidate for President Elect

Lisa O'Connor
Chair and Associate Professor
University of North Carolina Greensboro

Candidate's Statement:
ALISE has benefited from exceptionally strong leadership in recent years, and I would continue to build on those successes.  We should always aim to assemble a bigger and more inclusive table, so, I would search for innovative ways to attract new members and increase participation, particularly from underrepresented groups and international LIS communities. I began my association with ALISE as a practicing librarian and Ph.D. student, and it was an essential component of my growth as LIS educator and administrator. We must continue to provide development opportunities that will empower the next generation, particularly to meet the need for innovative leadership in this rapidly changing discipline. Collaborating with ALA’s Committee on Accreditation to ensure meaningful, fair and efficient accreditation procedures is also vital. Finally, all good work requires resources. Again, thanks to sound leadership, we have achieved financial solvency, and I would like to build on that by exploring new revenue streams to support a growing organization.

Biography:
Lisa O’Connor is Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her three-year tenure as Chair has been marked by innovation, including the funding, design and creation of a polysynchronous classroom, the establishment of a general education information literacy course and a new undergraduate and graduate degree programs, and a study abroad program. She has also significantly increased both faculty size and revenue. She would bring the same energy and creativity to an ALISE presidency. 

Previously, she taught at the University of Kentucky in the LIS program. She was an academic librarian for nearly a decade, serving as both an information literacy education coordinator and business librarian. O’Connor served in various leadership positions for ALA’s Business Reference and User Services Section. She has served ALISE in various capacities, most recently as a co-coordinator for the ALISE Webinars, as a member of the ALISE Statistics Revision Task Force and as a presenter at the ALISE Leadership Academy. She served as the editor in chief for the Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship and co-founded Project SAILS with her research partners at Kent State University. She continues to be an active researcher in the area of information seeking for personal financial management.

After raising two amazing daughters, she lives in Greensboro with her husband and two fat cats, one of whom sleeps in a pasta bowl every night.

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