The faculty and staff of the IU South Bend Libraries hope you will join us on Zoom, Thursday December 10 at 2 p.m. for a virtual retirement party for Dean Vicki Bloom.
During Dean Bloom’s tenure here, the IU South Bend Libraries have made great progress in many different areas; most notably, in technology, digital archives, scholarly communication/open access, and community outreach.
She is especially proud that student success has been at the forefront of the IU South Bend Libraries’ mission and strategic goals. Now students can book study and Zoom rooms in advance, schedule research consultations with subject librarians, search across databases, use more makerspace technologies, read their research publications online, and connect with us through social media. Moreover, faculty (and students) are able to widen the distribution and impact of their scholarship through the open access repository IU Scholarworks, retrieve Academic Senate minutes online through Archives of Institutional Memory, view and hear digitized media at Media Collections Online, increase their knowledge about open educational resources, and access a much larger collection of electronic journals, databases, ebooks, and streaming films.
Since joining IU South Bend in 2010, Dean Bloom oversaw the move of the Dorothy J. Wiekamp Educational Resource Commons into the E & A Building, worked with UITS to expand computer availability, and added 3D and wide format printing services. At the campus level, she collaborated with several departments and units to expand community engagement. A few examples include the Race Card Project and Bedrooms of the Fallen exhibits, Math camp, Veterans Book Club, Digital Learning Day, and others. Dean Bloom’s contributions extend beyond IU South Bend, having served in leadership roles in Academic Libraries of Indiana, a mentor for the College Library Directors Mentors program, a member of several American Library Association (ALA) committees, and long-standing reviewer for the ALA Resume Reviewing Service
We wish her a happy and fulfilling retirement. Please join us in thanking her for years of service to IU South Bend. An invitation with a Zoom link will be sent out at a later date.