EDWARDSVILLE — The Edwardsville Public Library has a new board member with a strong connection to the library, the community and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Dr. Jessica DeSpain, who teaches English at SIUE, was appointed to the library board last month by Edwardsville Mayor Art Risavy at a city council meeting.
DeSpain teaches courses in 19th century literature and book history at SIUE. She is also the co-founder of SIUE’s Interdisciplinary Research and Informatics Scholarship (IRIS) Center, which offers faculty and students a collaborative, technical meeting space to explore their digital research interests.
“Libraries are really important to me,” she said. “I’m an English professor and my area of research is in book history and digital humanities, which has to do with reading and our relationship to technology.
“I use the library a lot and I’m happy that Edwardsville has such a strong library,” she said. “It was something I wanted to be a part of. Thinking about the ways that we can use libraries in the 21st century made me excited to take on this role.”
Library Director Jill Schardt is pleased to welcome DeSpain to the board, she said.
“While she certainly appreciates books, she recognizes that public libraries are about more than books,” Schardt said. “Our mission includes opening minds, connecting people, and engaging our community, and Jessica’s experience will support us in these goals.
“As a professor of English and co-founder of the IRIS Center for the Digital Humanities, Jessica supports storytelling and lifelong learning,” she noted. “She is also currently President of the Goshen Market Foundation, which demonstrates her commitment to serving this community.”
DeSpain believes that her experiences at SIUE will be beneficial to her as a library board member.
“I think physical books are still really important, and people like to read digital books, too,” DeSpain said. “What I think the library can do is to imagine how digital programming intersects with the joy of reading, and the ways they can gain audiences through those avenues.”
As a board member, DeSpain attended her first library meeting last month and was encouraged by what she saw and heard.
“It was really exciting, and I got to see all of the renovations that the library has underway,” she said. “Jill Schardt gave me a good tour and I got to meet everybody on the board.
“Before I came on board, I had a really good conversation with Jill and with Bob LaRose, who is the president of the board. I learned more about what the role will entail and more about the finances,” she recalled. “I’m happy to be a support for Jill, because she is doing so many exciting things with the library.”
Adult Services head librarian Jacob Del Rio has collaborated with DeSpain on several projects.
“Dr. DeSpain and her team at the IRIS Center have all been very helpful, patient and kind,” Del Rio said. “With their help, Edwardsville Public Library was able to have reading programs funded through state and federal grants.
“Edwardsville Public Library is just one of many community organizations that have benefited from Dr. DeSpain’s time and energy spent building bridges from the SIUE campus to the Metro East,” he noted. “I’m excited to see her put these same bridge-building skills to work as a member of the library board.”
DeSpain sees her new role as a long-term opportunity to help the library meet the challenges it will face over the next few years, she said.
“Bob LaRose joked that it’s kind of an appointment-for-life type of thing, because they have a lot of people who have been board members for a very long time,” DeSpain said. “I think this is something that can benefit both the Edwardsville Public Library and SIUE.
“My work with the IRIS Center has us collaborating with the library a lot,” she said. “We have a digital humanities lab on campus, and we’ve talked about doing some workshops with the library in the summer. I think it will be a good partnership going forward.”
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