Notes from the Chair
Hélène Huet, University of Florida, ESS Chair 2021-2022
Dear ESS Members,
What a(nother) crazy year this has been. By the time I chaired my first meetings for Midwinter in February 2022, it was very clear these meetings were going to be virtual. There was a new Covid variant spreading rapidly through the country and even ALA moved its LibLearnX conference to online.
I am so grateful for the support I have received from Past-Chair Thomas Keenan and Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect Brian Vetruba, who have not only been patient and kind with me as I pestered them with questions, but also from whom I learned so much about leadership and ESS more broadly. And I want to take this opportunity as well to thank our ESS Discussion Groups, Committees, and the ESS community at large, because since I started in my role at UF back in 2015, I have always found my fellow Essies to be incredibly generous and supportive. The pandemic only reinforced that feeling. So thank you for all the work that you do and for being such an amazing community.
Read my recap of the year (so far).
ESS Retirements
It is always bittersweet when a colleague retires. On the one hand, it is a terrible loss to the profession, and on the other we applaud their contributions and wish them much joy! This Newsletter issue has tributes to three long-time members of the ESS community : Dick Hacken, Sarah How and Rebecca Malek-Wiley. We thank them for their years of service; are grateful for the generosity of time, energy & effort they have given us; celebrate their many achievements; and send them off to new adventures with a resounding cheer.
Ukraine-Russia War Resources
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. This conflict has roots that can be traced back centuries to the Kyivan Rus’ of the late 9th Century, but is immediately linked to the Russian Invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in February 2014, which Russia had not returned to Ukraine prior to the 2022 invasion. The 2014 invasion was specifically related to the EuroMaidan Protests from November 2013 through to May 2014, and let to the capture of the entirety of the Crimean Peninsula and large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (states). Check out Research Guides & Online Resources
Photos by Richard D. Hacken