{"id":11404,"date":"2014-01-07T09:06:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T14:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=11404"},"modified":"2019-01-01T19:48:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T01:48:14","slug":"11404","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=11404","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Sellar …of Librarians Without Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee\/interviewees’ positions<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"melanies\"<\/a>\u00a0My interview with Melanie Sellar, founder of Librarians Without Borders<\/a>, “a non-profit organization that strives to improve access to information resources regardless of language, geography, or religion, by forming partnerships with community organizations in developing regions.” \u00a0“Our vision is to build sustainable libraries and support their custodians and advocates \u2014 librarians.” (taken from here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Naomi:<\/strong> \u00a0How did you come to work for (or start) Librarians Without Borders<\/a>?
\nMelanie:<\/strong> \u00a0I founded it when I was an MLIS graduate student at the University of Western Ontario <\/a>(Canada).<\/p>\n

Naomi:<\/strong> \u00a0How can librarians help Librarians Without Borders?
\nMelanie:<\/strong> \u00a0Lots of ways! You can sign up as a member for free (can’t argue with that price) here.<\/a> As a member you’ll receive e-newsletters about our work, including any volunteer or donation opportunities. You can also like us on Facebook<\/a> to keep in the loop.<\/p>\n

Like any non-profit, we always welcome monetary donations<\/a> to help us run our programs. Right now, we have a donation drive to help fund a stipend for a librarian in Guatemala. Our team are all volunteers, so the money we raise is all for our work.<\/p>\n

Naomi:<\/strong> \u00a0Can you speak a little about your experiences with libraries? \u00a0Any favorite libraries or experiences with them?
\nMelanie:<\/strong>\u00a0 I’m the Education Services Librarian at Marymount College, a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles. \u00a0I’ve been here four years now, and spent my first two years post-MLIS at the University of California, Irvine. In my previous life I was a computational linguist and technical writer. I was converted when I met a really engaging librarian at a very wintery party in Ottawa, Canada. I had never considered the career before that day, although I had been searching for a new pathway. It really was an “aha” moment for me.<\/p>\n

Naomi: \u00a0<\/strong>Favorite book(s)?
\nMelanie: \u00a0<\/strong>I’m such a Canadian: I love Margaret Atwood<\/a>. I’ve also recently realized how much I enjoy the genre of magical realism.<\/p>\n

Naomi: \u00a0<\/strong>Favorite adaptation (book to film or even film to book)?
\nMelanie:<\/strong> \u00a0Lord of the Rings trilogy. (But I really wasn’t into The Hobbit).<\/p>\n

Naomi:<\/strong> \u00a0Are there any blogs or websites we should be following?
\nMelanie: \u00a0<\/strong>Well certainly Librarians Without Borders<\/a>! Other great organizations in the same space include IREX<\/a>, EIFL<\/a>, and Beyond Access<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previously published on 3\/1\/13 and 8\/18\/13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee\/interviewees’ positions \u00a0My interview with Melanie Sellar, founder of Librarians Without Borders, “a non-profit organization that strives to improve access to information resources regardless of language, geography, or religion, by forming partnerships with community organizations in developing…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[376,11],"tags":[3733,3732,390,13,216,3730,3735,3731,657,3734,3729,1485,3736],"class_list":["post-11404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-great-organizations","category-in-six","tag-beyond-access","tag-eifl","tag-great-organizations-2","tag-interview","tag-interviews","tag-irex","tag-irvine","tag-librarians-without-borders","tag-margaret-atwood","tag-marymount-college","tag-melanie-sellar","tag-university-of-california","tag-university-of-western-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/melanies1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1WoMK-11404","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}