The Library is pleased to announce that on January 9 April Baker joined the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library as the new desk manager; and that today, January 17, Drew MacQueen joins the Scholars’ Lab as a GIS specialist, and Amber Reichert joins Library User Experience as Content Manager.
April Baker is actually returning to UVA where she worked in Alderman circulation ten years ago. She has a B.F.A. in painting from the University of Oregon, and an M.A. and M.F.A. in painting from the University of Iowa.
During her time away from UVA, April has managed circulation in a public library and worked part-time at the library of Piedmont Community College. She’s also provided cover art for her husband’s book of poems. Her studio art experience—working in a variety of media such as fabrics, oils, beeswax and gouache—will be a wonderful addition to the Fine Arts Library.
Drew MacQueen is from West Virginia and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from West Virginia University. He moved to the Charlottesville area after a few years of doing GIS work in Utah. He started at UVA working in Student Financial Services on various information systems projects and administration. In 2011 he moved to the Facilities Management GIS group where he became the lead analyst for all their server applications, including public facing mapping sites, spatial data management, and mobile GIS user applications.
Drew will be working closely with Chris Gist to sustain the Library’s continuing GIS support across the University’s academic and administrative departments. His main focus in the Scholars’ Lab will be enhancing our online spatial data collections and mapping tools, as well as Esri software support for all users and faculty collaborations.
Amber Reichert comes to User Experience from the Miller Center where she was involved with web development, design, project management, UX research, photography, tech translation, desktop support, and editing, among other things. She’s played an integral part in the operations of the Miller Center and First Year 2017, and was a key member of the team executing the IMLS-funded Connecting Presidential Collections.
In her role as Content Manager for User Experience, Amber will create web content in a variety of formats—written, video, and images. She will assess web analytics and user studies to manage our information architecture, and will develop and execute content plans for our digital signage, and ensure that our content meets accessibility standards and that it’s maintained for use and reuse across our digital interfaces. She can also help with print work.
Originally from Roanoke, Amber studied Digital Interactive Multimedia at James Madison University where she co-founded a 501(c)(3) dedicated to fostering constructive dialogue around meaningful issues. Before settling into web work, she spent a few years in fundraising and publishing, experiences that she said “solidified my life-long curiosity about the challenges of communicating in the social world.”
Welcome, April, Drew, and Amber!