Catherine Lavallée-Welch
Candidate for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect
Catherine Lavallée-Welch has been working at the University of South Florida Polytechnic (USFP) since May 2005. A solo librarian for five years, she created the first USFP campus library before being named its director. Active in campus governance, she serves in and chairs various committees, councils and the USFP Faculty Senate. Her current campus library projects include the planning and design of a learning commons for the new USFP campus and the growth of the library's services and collections.
After earning her MBSI (MLIS) from the Université de Montréal in 1995, Catherine developed Internet projects for the non-profit, co-op and higher education sectors in her native province of Québec, Canada, and in French-speaking areas of Europe. As an entrepreneur, Catherine created an information services co-operative in the burgeoning Internet marketplace. Moving to the United States in 2000, Catherine honed her academic librarian skills at the University of Louisville until 2005 before joining USFP. With Catherine's background, it's no wonder that she values SLA's international reach and diverse mix of information professionals and environments.
Active in SLA since 2000, Catherine is a member of the Academic Division, the Information Technology Division, the Science-Technology Division and the Baseball Caucus. Her home chapter is the Florida and Caribbean Chapter.
Currently the awards committee chair for the Academic Division and the communications editor for the Florida and Caribbean Chapter, Catherine held several different board positions in the Information Technology Division, including chair (2009) and founding chair of the division's Blogging Section (2005). She also served as secretary of the Science-Technology Division (2006-07) and was Webmaster and Awards Committee Chair for the Kentucky Chapter over several years.
In addition, Catherine served on association-wide task forces such as the Chapter Modeling Task Force in 2005 and the Division Idea Bank Workgroup in 2008. She also served on the organizing committee for the 4th South Atlantic Regional Conference (SARC4) in 2008.
When not working with SLA, Catherine held committee positions for the Florida Council of State University Libraries and the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. Additionally, she served as a mentor for the State Library and Archives of Florida's Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute.
Catherine has a keen interest in the use of social media tools by libraries and is a frequent presenter on the topic. One of the field's early bloggers, she received the Sci-Tech Division Achievement Award in 2005 for one of her sites, EngLib.info.
Catherine strives to fit within her model of the successful librarian: curious, creative, tenacious and global. Her literary interests include 1930's pulp and crime magazines.
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