Event: Comp O with Guest Speaker Melanie Sellar

Join us on October 3rd for a presentation on international librarianship with Librarians Without Borders founder Melanie Sellar. Our guest speaker’s presentation will begin promptly at 7:30pm (Pacific Time), but please pop in early for some virtual mingling beforehand (our “social half-hour” will be starting at 7pm).

Here is a link for the Collaborate room where the event will be held: https://sas.elluminate.com/d. jnlp?sid=2011274&password=D. 10CD983E2C411007F77A54FF505C43

We hope to see you there! Until then, we wanted to share some details about the event and the speaker.

Melanie will be discussing Comp O and what it means to “do” international librarianship. It’s a huge concept, and this guest lecture will explore how a closer examination of the term “international librarianship” (IL) yields a much sharper definition than you might initially think possible.

Given that higher education institutions are increasingly formalizing internationalization into their strategic plans and that LIS programs (like the SJSU School of Information) are responding by encouraging the inclusion of more international perspectives throughout the curriculum, it is useful to look at the who, why, and how of international librarianship.

IL is indeed a relatively small field that is not understood well. In order for IL to be studied, practiced, and funded in ways that are appropriate to its potential, this guest lecture will discuss some common misconceptions, and advocate for more intentional, reciprocal, and reflective applications.

Melanie Sellar began cultivating her teaching practice as the Community Outreach and then later eLearning Librarian at the University of California, Irvine. She then moved on to architect the next iteration of the information literacy program at Marymount California University in her role as the Education Services Librarian.

Most recently Melanie has been further deepening her teaching praxis and pedagogical foundations in her work as Senior Instructional Designer at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Education, where she develops online learning experiences and professional development programs for education faculty and graduate students.

In 2005 as an MLIS graduate student at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), Melanie founded the non-profit organization Librarians Without Borders (LWB); she has served as its Co-Executive Director nearly continuously from that time. This LWB work led Melanie to the opportunity to teach international librarianship at the San Jose State University iSchool, where she has been an adjunct faculty member since 2015.

In addition to her MLIS, Melanie has a BA in Linguistics from McMaster University and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Ottawa.