Biography

Jill Ellern has a BS in Library and Computer Science from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her master’s in Library Science from Louisiana State University. Jill is currently the systems librarian at Western Carolina University. In the almost 30 years at WCU, she has been responsible for all aspects of library automation activities including planning, consulting, budgeting, designing, developing, implementing, training, and problem-solving assistance in mainframe, microcomputer, and telecommunications areas. With the help of her assistant, they have completed many automation projects including as chair of the selection and implementation committees of an ILS system for the WNCLN network (Innopac in 1993), implementation of a Pay for Print system (Pharos) for the just the library and IT, and later a member of the campus wide Pay for Print systems (Equatrac, and Pharos), a lending laptop service in the WCU Library, installation and several upgrades of the Library's Electronic Classroom and numerous staff computer upgrades, several network cabling and wireless installation projects, to name just a few. An active member of Innovative User's Group, she has presented many times at their annual conference, as well as for the local Carolina Innovative User's Group, UNCCause, and North Carolina Library Association on a variety of library IT topics. Jill has done extensive research into the Wireless technologies in library electronic classrooms, Facebook Likes in NC Libraries, authentication practices in the public area of academic libraries and Boyer's model of scholarship in librarianship. She has published in Library Hi Tech, Computers In Libraries Magazine, Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL), and NC Libraries Magazine.  She  has recently expended her library’s offerings in makerspace technologies including Virtual Reality.