2019 Real Talk Panelists

Suzanne has held a variety of positions at the Toronto Public Library. She is currently a Services Specialist in the Children’s Services Department looking after system-wide initiatives. She also co-chairs the Equity and Diversity Group for Employees and writes for the library’s New to Canada blog. She was a contributing author for the 2014 publication, “Aboriginal and Visible Minority Librarians: Oral Histories from Canada,” a collection of chapters written by librarians of colour about their experiences working in libraries across Canada. She loves to advocate for the public library and has a special interest in raising awareness of the role of libraries in international contexts. In 2013 and 2018 she was a volunteer trip participant on the Librarians Without Borders service trip to a school library in Guatemala, where she was involved with collection development, programming and teacher training. She holds an MEd in Community Development from the University of Toronto and an MLIS from Western University. She loves sushi, spoken word poetry, live music and connecting with fellow library lovers!

Erin spent over a decade in academic health libraries before transitioning to a role in health policy with the Ontario government. Her research interests involve 1) the provision of health information services to disparate and culturally unique communities, 2) strategic planning for specialized libraries, and 3) how resiliency narratives can damage library culture and morale.

Erin holds graduate degrees in Information and Library Studies (’09) and Educational Technology (’17), is an accredited health information professional (’17) and holds a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (19).

Zack has a diverse background of work experience in libraries, and is endlessly fascinated with all aspects of library work. He recently joined CAMH as the Library & Archives Manager, and previously enjoyed working in other special and academic library environments such as St. Michael’s Hospital, OCLS (Ontario Colleges Library Service), the Textile Museum of Canada, and Toronto Botanical Garden. In these settings he held leadership and technology-related positions where he undertook catalogue/ILS migration projects with open source software, led metadata management initiatives, and worked collaboratively with teams to update and streamline library processes. He is passionate about connecting libraries with their communities, change management strategies, and advocating for the professional development of library workers. He is actively involved in library associations as the President of the Toronto Health Libraries Association, Co-Chair of the Ontario Library Association Super Conference 2020, and Programming Co-Chair of the 2020 Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA/ABSC) Conference. Zack is a dog person, enjoys cycling around the city, cooking and eating, and loves coffee. He can be found posting Drag Race GIFs on Twitter @zackosborne.

Mita is the Scholarly Communications Librarian of the Leddy Library at the University of Windsor. The Leddy Library provides publishing support and hosting services for academic journals, monographs, and conferences, and she helps facilitate and manage their process from submission to publication. Mita also promotes Open Access and the role of the University of Windsor’s Institutional Repository in the scholarly communication ecosystem. She has been blogging for over 20 years, first on Geocities and now at Librarian of Things. Mita also has a newsletter called University of Winds that she shamelessly promotes at any given opportunity (like this one). She can be found on Twitter @copystar.