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On July 31, 2012, two longtime library employees are retiring. Joe Barnes, Professor and Dunwoody Library Director, and Dianne Gilmer, Acquisitions Assistant for Library Technical Services, have a combined 47 years of service to the library. Both are known for their knowledge, skills, and dedication to serving faculty, staff, and students. Read on to find out more about these remarkable individuals.
Joe Barnes’ career in librarianship began in 1987 with this attainment of the Master of Library Science degree from State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. His academic credentials are unparalleled at the GPC libraries: he holds two additional masters degrees (one in history and one in education), and a PhD in history. Before coming to GPC, he held positions as City Historian for the Rochester (NY) Public Library, Assistant Librarian at SUNY Buffalo, and as Library Director and Chairman of the library science program at Sheperd College (Sheperdstown, WV). Since starting at GPC in 1999, Joe contributed much to the college. He played an instrumental role in the Dunwoody library’s move to its current location in 2002, in establishing GPC’s LIST (Library and Information Science Technology Program) in 2006, and also in establishing the Alpharetta campus library in 2009. All the while, he built an outstanding staff at Dunwoody campus and maintained quality library services amidst increased enrollment. He has been active in state and national association work, and maintained a record of scholarly publication including collaboration on a collective biography, articles published in reference works, local history publications, and a long list of book reviews.
Dianne Gilmer began at DeKalb College in 1978 as a clerk/typist at the Clarkston library (then housed in C building on the Clarkston campus). She moved through the ranks during her career at the Clarkston library, District Processing, and Library Technical Services, serving as a Secretary, Records Coordinator, Staff Assistant, and finally Acquisitions Assistant. Dianne helped coordinate several library moves and aided the evolution of the library catalog at the college from card to fiche to online. One of her biggest contributions was her coordination of the schedules for the library’s retrospective conversion of cards to online catalog project, and the subsequent barcoding of every item in the collection before coming up on the DRA integrated library system in the late 1980s. She then had to assist with migration of data in 2000 when the libraries came up on the Voyager integrated library system. In most recent memory, she has led the acquisitions unit of the Library Technical Services Department, serving the libraries and library patrons by ordering library materials and managing the funds used to build and enhance the collections for all of the campus libraries.
Thank you, Joe Barnes and Dianne Gilmer, for your service to the college, and best wishes for your retirement!
~Amy Eklund, Director of Library Technical Services
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