Research Services Announcement

Dear Members of the Research Library community,

I am very pleased to announce two new appointments in the management of the Library’s Research Services department, following the retirement of Lois White, former Head of Research Services, after 32 years. While we have lost an excellent steward and tremendous institutional knowledge with Lois’ departure, we have taken the opportunity presented by this moment for some internal reorganization and promotions.

Sally McKay has been appointed to the newly configured position of Head, Research Services. In this new configuration, Research Services will include the following sections: Reference, Circulation, Interlibrary Loan, and the Special Collections Reading Room. Sally is exceptionally well-equipped to lead the department into a new era–throughout her nearly 23 years of experience in various positions in Research Services ranging from reference assistant to reference librarian and Head of Special Collections Services, she has solved countless problems with innovative solutions, always keeping service and the safety of our collections at the forefront of her mind. Her extensive knowledge of library operations and collections is impressive, and she is by now a respected member in her field of expertise in provenance research circles both within and outside of the Getty community. Sally’s positive and generous approach to working with staff and researchers alike will doubtless continue to be a major asset to the GRI as she moves into her new role.

Sarah Sherman has been appointed to the newly created position of Manager of Reference and User Engagement within the Research Services department. In this role, Sarah will supervise and oversee reference activity, and coordinate among the various sections providing reference and related services to researchers from all over in person and virtually. Sarah, who has worked at the Library as a reference librarian for 11 years, has been a driving force behind some of the reference team’s recent ventures–often with a focus on user engagement–from conceiving and maintaining the library blog to working with the web team on library web page changes and developments and serving on GRI and Getty-wide social media committees. In both her internal and external professional spheres, Sarah is known among her colleagues for the thoughtful, proactive, and thorough manner in which she approaches all of her work, attributes which she will now apply to her new role as a manager.

I know that Sally and Sarah are committed to working with our Research Library community to consider what we do and what we could be doing, how we do things now and how we might do them in the future, and to develop new opportunities for further engagement in person and virtually.

Feel free to contact them, or me, with your ideas, at reference@getty.edu.

-Kathleen Salomon, Associate Director, Chief Librarian, Getty Research Institute