Michelle Boule has been named Director of Library Services at Sheridan College’s Mary Brown Kooi Library.
“I’ve worked in and for all different kinds of libraries and I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to put some of that knowledge to work,” she said. “While I can be a great follower and cheerleader, I like being in the front of the pack and being a change agent. What better way to do that than as a director?”
Michelle has been a librarian at the college since August 2017. Prior to coming to Sheridan, she served as a Social Sciences Librarian at the University of Houston Libraries as the Ethnic Studies liaison and was an active member of the Instruction Team. She has a B.A. in English with minors in Women’s Studies and Anthropology from Texas A&M and a Master’s in Library Science from Texas Woman’s University.
“I wanted to find a profession that would let me be as geeky as I wanted and read more than is probably healthy,” she said. “I think I made a wise choice.”
Michelle has been involved nationally with the American Library Association, serving in the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) within that organization. In 2008, she was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker for her work in online learning environments and technology training, including being part of a team that created a free, grassroots course for librarians to learn about social software and libraries. She speaks and writes nationally about technology, education, publishing, and libraries. Michelle has written a book on group learning and training called Mob Rule Learning: camps, unconferences, and trashing the talking head. In the Fall, Michelle will be an adjunct at the University of Nebraska Omaha teaching Digital Citizenship.
She sees the Sheridan College Library “as a welcoming space where students can come to study or relax. The faculty, staff, and community already see us as a positive force in our community. I’d like to build on that by reaching outside our walls to do some new things while expanding our services to the campus.”
Michelle is also active in the writing and publishing community. She writes a historical fantasy series and is the chair of a group called Romance Sparks Joy which promotes romance by underrepresented authors. In her spare time, she is an officer in the BigHorn Homebrew Club and enjoys reading with a view of the mountains in front of her.