GPO Staff Visit ULM

On February 28th, ULM Library faculty and staff welcomed visitors Joe Paskoski and George Barnum from the Government Printing Office (GPO) in Washington, D.C. The GPO is a federal agency that publishes government information both online and in print, distributing it to libraries across the country through the Federal Depository Library Program. Our library is a depository for both federal and state documents, which can be found in print on the 4th floor or online through our catalog.

Paskoski and Barnum were also joined by Louisiana Tech librarian and ULM alumna Abigail Desoto, who oversees the depository programs for our region. The visitors toured the library building and met with administrators as well as faculty and staff in Government Publications. Finally, Paskoski presented an informative training session on “Basic Government Resources for Reference”. We were very happy to have them here, and hope to see them again soon!

George Barnum, Thomas Hoover, Joe Paskoski, Megan Lowe, and Maren Williams.

New Books in February

ULM Hires New CIO/Dean of the Library

ULM Library is proud to announce the hiring of Thomas Hoover who will serve as the Chief Information Officer and Dean of the Library at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. (ULM). In his last position, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). He is the university's highest-ranking technology executive, responsible for creating and implementing the technology vision at ULM. Hoover has worked in Information Technology in higher education since 1999. Prior to his appointment at ULM and UTC, he served as the Director of Instructional Technology Support at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He was born in southern California and has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History from the University of California at Davis and a Master's in Public Policy from Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy. He is married and has five children. He enjoys golfing and traveling.

“Greetings!  We are excited for this spring semester.  There is a lot happening at the library.  We will be rolling out some study resources throughout the semester so stay tuned.       Please let us know any suggestions you might have”. 

Thomas Hoover, CIO and Dean of the Library

Megan Lowe Promoted to ULM Library Director

Megan Lowe started at ULM in 2003 as a tenure-track Reference/Instructional Librarian. Since then, she obtained tenure and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. In 2012, she became the Coordinator of Public Services and in 2016 became the Interim Assistant Director of the Library.  Lowe was promoted to Director of the ULM Library in February of 2018.

In 2010, Lowe founded Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL, an open access, peer-reviewed journal focused on academic librarianship and still serves as editor. Megan published several articles on various topics, co-authored a book chapter on the statewide library consortium LOUIS, another on the emotional impact of the deselection process on librarians, and co-authored a full-length book on that same topic. She frequently presents at conferences on a variety of topics and is a huge supporter of information literacy, open access, digital textbooks, institutional repositories, and digital humanities. 

Megan is married to Eric and has several cats with definitive (and sometimes infuriating) personalities. In her spare time, she reads; writes poetry; freelance edits; and enjoys making jewelry, soap, and candles; putting together puzzles; and playing videogames. Lowe also likes to travel, especially to attend heavy metal concerts, and sends letters and cards to family and friends all over the world.

New Library Improvements Coming

Administration at ULM Library has been hard at work securing improvements to our facility for our campus community. The water fountain on the first floor of the Library building was updated to include a bottle filler. This will help our community reduce their carbon footprint and faculty, staff, and students may refill their own bottles with filtered water. Other changes include the addition of 10 rolling whiteboards to be dispersed between the 2nd and 3rd floors of the library.