News & Blog

UCF Libraries is proud to welcome two new librarians to the Knighthood starting on August 8. Rachel Vacek is the new Associate Dean of Technology & Digital Strategies, and Stephanie Bertone is the new Monographs Cataloging librarian.

Rachel Vacek

The University of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries is excited to announce the appointment of the new Associate Dean of technology and digital strategies, Rachel Vacek, effective August 8, 2023. Vacek is currently head of design and discovery at the University of Michigan.

In her role at UCF, Vacek will lead the library’s re-envisioned technology and digital strategies division and build on its strong foundation to bolster technology lending services, library and institutional repositories, scholarly communication, web services, and public technologies. She’ll also work closely with campus partners and stakeholders to implement technology-enhanced spaces and services throughout the John C. Hitt Library.

“UCF is an amazing, diverse, innovative, and rapidly growing campus full of opportunities and a history of impact,” Vacek said. “The Libraries are equally as impressive and offer cutting-edge services and beautiful, functional spaces for faculty, staff, and students to learn, grow, and be inspired.”

“I am honored to join the UCF Libraries in this new role, and excited about the opportunity to lead and grow the division with a user-centered and inclusive approach in areas that support digital scholarship and the evolving technological needs of researchers, instructors, and students,” Vacek said.

As an accomplished and nationally recognized library leader, Vacek has experience in building collaborative partnerships, leading technology initiatives, and creating strategic plans. She has over 20 years of experience working in large academic libraries, including seven years in her current role at the University of Michigan where she works in partnership with library IT leadership to manage the highly complex and diverse library technology portfolio of the U-M Library. She also provides vision and direction for website and application development, user experience design and research, and digital accessibility across the library’s numerous platforms.

Prior to her work at the University of Michigan, Vacek served for nine years at the University of Houston Libraries as a web coordinator and then as the head of web services. She also worked at Vanderbilt University and Miami University of Ohio.

Vacek is a former president of the Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association (ALA) that has since merged with two others to become ALA’s newest division, Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures.

Vacek is an accomplished scholar with a wide range of publications, and she speaks regularly at regional and national conferences on topics such as service design, user experience strategy, web technologies, digital accessibility, and the intersection of these with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

She holds a Master of Arts degree in library and information science from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Dayton.

Stephanie Bertone

The University of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries is pleased to welcome Stephanie Bertone ‘11 back to the Knight Nation. Stephanie will join the Libraries on August 8, 2023 as the Monograph Cataloging Librarian. 

Ms. Bertone earned a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Studies from UCF in 2011 before moving forward to compete a Master of Science in Library & Information Studies at Florida State University in 2012. She has worked for Barry University School of Law Library since 2015 where she gained experience as an Electronic Resources Librarian cataloging and managing access to online resources and print materials for students and staff. Her collaborative experience with projects involving the Florida Academic Repository (FLARE) and other collection management projects will be a great asset to the Libraries. 

It is time to get creative! The UCF Libraries is sponsoring a “Love your Libraries” sticker contest! UCF Students are invited to submit original design entries no larger than 4” x 3”. The contest closes on March 31st at 5PM.

The library will select one winning design that reflects the library to print and distribute during Finals Week (April 25 – May 2, 2023). A winner will be announced through library social media and digital signs in the library. The winner will receive 25 printed stickers and an LED light displaying their design!

Full contest rules and the submission form are available at https://stars.library.ucf.edu/stickercontest

Four of our UCF Librarians were recently honored with awards for their publications at this year’s Author’s Celebration held earlier this month in the Live Oak Room. The event recognizes faculty who have published books recently.

Among this year’s 47 honorees were the following librarians and their works:

Sara Duff and Tina Buck

Guidance for Librarians Transitioning to a New Environment

Cynthia Kisby

100 Books to Think About

Peggy Nuhn

Supporting transfer student success: The essential role of college and university libraries 

For more on this story, check out https://www.ucf.edu/news/faculty-honored-at-ucfs-3rd-authors-celebration/ 

Congratulations to Ven Basco!

The UCF Libraries is proud to announce that the 2021 Jean Key Gates Distinguished Alumni Award of the USF School of Information has been awarded to our own Ven Basco! This award is given in honor of USF Professor Emerita of the same name. The award is presented annually to an alumnus whose outstanding professional career achievements serve as a role model for all information science graduates.

Many of our knights have benefitted from Ven’s expertise in his role as the Engineering and Computer Science Librarian at UCF where he has been serving the UCF community for over two decades. Either via a one on one science consultation session with him, attending one of his library instruction sessions, utilizing one of his many online research guides, or just having access to the many books he has helped procure for our collection.  Ven has held may many titles and responsibilities over the years. In addition to being a subject librarian, he also coordinates the library’s research consultation services and Ask a Librarian service, two of the services that the library provides that made a tremendous impact to the type of services that the library offered during the pandemic. His interest and many years of involvement with international aspects of libraries through ALA’s International Relations Committee, and ALA’s International Relations Roundtable committees made him aware of the various opportunities to meet and network with a lot of librarians here and in Asia. He was the past president and Executive Director of the: Asian Pacific American Librarians Association for seven years. He was also the 2019 recipient of the Excellence in Librarianship Award at UCF and the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) Distinguished Service Award.

Congratulations to Lee Dotson for being named an Institutional Repository All-Star during the Digital Commons North American Conference 2021! Ms. Dotson is the interim department head for Technology Solutions & Digital Initiatives and has been the Repository Manager for STARS since it launched in 2015.

UCF’s Lee Dotson was one of four 2021 IR All Stars!

Ms. Dotson was introduced by Benjamin Gaunt, Digital Commons customer service representative, who described her as “…perhaps the busiest and most effective IR manager I’ve worked with — her repository contains literally hundreds of collections and has received over 5 MILLION downloads to date. This all-star leads the University of Central Florida’s STARS repository with extraordinary vision and collaboration — her tight-knit team at the library is known for bringing diverse, innovative collections on board and working closely with us here in Consulting Services to meet each collection’s individualized needs. As a result, I believe she may be one of the most knowledgeable and cutting-edge users of Digital Commons to date.”

UCF content creators, authors, and the community are the heart of STARS, UCF’s Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship, which exists to collect, share, and provide ready access to works by, for, and about the University of Central Florida. Explore the collections at stars.library.ucf.edu. For more information about how STARS can help you share your work with a worldwide audience, visit our STARS Digital Repository page or contact stars@ucf.edu