Project Team
Principle Investigator: Darin Freeburg
Darin Freeburg is an associate professor in the iSchool @ USC, teaching and researching in the areas of leadership, information behavior, and knowledge management.
His most recent research has focused on public library workplaces, including the nature of staff autonomy, workplace complexity, and routine dynamics. His work has appeared in places like the Journal of Documentation, the Journal of Information Science, and the Journal of Librarianship & Information Science.
Research Assistant: Katie Klein
Katie Klein (she/her) is a Ph.D. student and adjunct instructor at USC. She holds an MLIS from Rutgers University and has worked in public and school libraries. Her research article “’What Library?’: A Survey of Charter School Leaders About School Library Services” is published in School Libraries Worldwide and won a 2023 AASL Research Grant.
She was also awarded the 2023 ALISE / University of Washington Information School Youth Services Graduate Student Travel Award.
Project Advisory Team
Jason K Alston
Jason K Alston is an assistant teaching professor for the University of Missouri’s School of Information Science and Learning Technologies. Alston holds a PhD in library and information science from the University of South Carolina, as well as a masters in library science from North Carolina Central University and a bachelors degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Alston originally hails from Soul City, North Carolina and has worked in both academic and public libraries throughout his career as a librarian.
Jaena Rae Cabrera
Jaena Rae Cabrera is a branch manager with the San Francisco Public Library. At SFPL, she is part of the library's Racial Equity Committee. Jaena is also active in the library world as president of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, editor-in-chief of WOC+Lib, member of the Digital Public Library of America's Curation Corps, and editor for In The Library With The Lead Pipe. Outside of library work, she enjoys walks, a good cup of coffee, and spending time with her three cats.
Nicollette Davis
Nicollette Davis (she/her) is a librarian who lives and works on Houma and Chahta Yakni land (Now known as Baton Rouge, Louisiana). She's an Assistant Librarian at Louisiana State University and is a liaison for Social Work, Kinesiology, and Health Sciences. Before moving to an academic library, she spent three years working in public libraries as a supervising librarian. Her interests include critical librarianship, BIPOC community building, community engagement, and person-centered practices in LIS. In 2023, she was selected as an Emerging Leader by the American Library Association.
Deborah Dutcher
Deborah relocated from Colebrook, NH to the state capital of Concord in 2014 where she has been the Library Services Consultant at the New Hampshire State Library for almost 6 years. Deborah holds an MLIS from Drexel University. She has decades of experience as a Library Director and Pre-K–12 Media Specialist. She has served as President of the Vermont Library Association and the New England Library Association. Currently she sits on the boards of the Collaborative Summer Library Program, Let’s Move in Libraries, New Hampshire Environmental Educators, and Partnership Committee of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries.
Rakisha Kearns-White
Rakisha Kearns-White is a 2023 Library Journal Mover and Shaker as well as the 2022 recipient of Brooklyn Public Library's Dr. Lucille C. Thomas Award for Excellence in Librarianship. She was a young adult librarian for 19 years at the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Branch before being promoted to manager of the library’s Kings Bay branch in February 2024. She is known for being her library's sex positive, BTS-loving, period equity advocate. Her focus over the past seven years has been facilitating sexuality education for teens; advocating for the prevention of compassion fatigue in library workers; and making the public library a welcoming space for all. She was elected recently to the executive board of the New York Library Association and as librarian vice president for the Brooklyn Library Guild, union Local 1482. Finally, Rakisha has spent the last two years speaking at various library conferences and panels on the importance of menstrual advocacy and sex education literacy in libraries; creating LGBTQ+ inclusive library spaces; and how library workers can stay motivated during tough times.
Roman Santillan
Roman Santillan is the Adult Librarian at the Montgomery Public Libraries in Maryland. He has been involved promoting collections and library programs and is currently the board treasurer of Montgomery County Sister Cities. He studied archaeology at the University of Yucatán, Mexico, before receiving a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Ohio. He also earned a MLIS at Rutgers University and did doctoral studies at City University of New York. His published works in English and Spanish include essays, short stories, and diverse articles that focus on academic librarianship and the history and literature of Latin America.
Elaine Tai
Elaine Tai is a Supervising Librarian at the Berkeley Public Library, where she helps guide and coordinate services and community engagement to serve local children and families. She’s greatly interested in the intersection of social justice and librarianship and the biases rooted throughout our profession, as well as issues like wayfinding and usability. She has various professional affiliations, including Youth Programming Advisory for the Bay Area Book Festival, Advisory Board for California Libraries Learn (a California State Library & CLA project), and Chair for the APALA Program Planning Committee, having previously worked on various other award and professional development committees. She is also the author of the picture book Yes Means Yes, illustrated by Kai Kwong, and now out from Ulysses Press. In her spare time she is a wannabe patron of the arts, mineral specimen addict, and a [very] amateur artist.