Spring Vol. 25 No. 2, 2009

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News From the Field

University of South Florida

Dean Arsenault to Retire from Poynter

Dean Kathleen Hardee Arsenault has announced her retirement at the end of the 2009 spring semester. Kathy joined the faculty in 1982 as a collection development librarian. She also established the first special collections area in the former library building. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Wellesley College and her master’s degree in library science from Simmons College. Prior to her tenure at USF St. Petersburg, Arsenault worked in academic libraries at Princeton, Brandeis, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

During her first two decades at the Poynter Library, she coordinated all aspects of collection development and played a pivotal role in building research collections that support USF St. Petersburg’s academic programs. In addition to the general circulating collection that has tripled in size since her arrival, Kathy negotiated the successful donation of numerous archival, monographic, manuscript special collections in the areas of local and regional studies, journalism, ichthyology, and literature. She secured donations that have allowed the Poynter Library to claim ownership of original documents signed by forty of the forty-three Presidents of the United States, as well as outstanding collections of Twainiana and pre-Darwinian natural histories. Pinellas County’s premiere academic library provides the USF community and outside researchers with a wealth of academic material obtained through Dean Arsenault’s vision and leadership.

In 1999, after the retirement of F. Landon “Lanny” Greaves, Kathy served as interim director. She became permanent director in August 2001, and became the first appointed (and longest tenured) dean of a stand-alone academic unit at USF St. Petersburg in May 2002. Her leadership ushered in the wireless network, important reconfigurations of library space to support collaborative learning (including a recently created group presentation area), and an emphasis on research and scholarship by library faculty. Despite her many duties (at one time she served as director and handled collection development and special collections management concurrently), Kathy has regularly contributed book reviews in the areas of public health and medicine to Library Journal and other publications. She has also conducted notable research on Lois Lenski and Francis Goulding, leading to publications that include a chapter in the 2003 anthology, Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida. She recently authored an article about the Florida Humanities Council in Florida Libraries. Her leadership activities include service as past-president of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium, as well as involvement with a variety of scholarly and cultural organizations, including the Florida Historical Society’s board of directors.

News from the Tampa Library

USF Library News is mostly centered around the recent creation of a Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center. The University Beat Video about it is on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuI-2vI-In8&eur.

We have been building our collection with materials devoted to this area and have sponsored a Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center Speaker Series with Human Rights advocate Rebecca Tinsley, the Director of Waging Peace, an organization that campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights abuses around the world. A video of her talk is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQo4uGM3G1c&eurl. Other speakers scheduled in the series included Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the Divinity School, University of Chicago, who talked about Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Dr. Edward Kissi who will be talking about the Obama Presidency & Genocide Prevention, and Dr. Fabian Klose who will talk about Colonial Violence in Kenya and Algeria.