Biography

Janet Cottrell is the Sr. Director of Academic Resources and the Library at Champlain College in Burlington, VT, where she manages an innovative library on a forward-looking campus. In this role, which she has held since 2003, her interests and experience include the development of curriculum-embedded information literacy instruction with rubric-based assessment; thoughtful application of emerging technologies in a higher education information setting; development and management of an academic collection with an intentional focus on online resources; and the fostering of innovation and entrepreneurship. Most recently, she has begun to develop the Center for Learning and Technology, the College's new faculty development center.

Prior to joining Champlain, she served as a director of the merged library and computing services at Kenyon College, an innovative approach to unified student and faculty service. Before adding librarianship to her repertoire, she worked for many years in information technology and academic computing. Her early experience includes working at the University of Vermont as a university webmaster, technical writer, and co-director of a nascent teaching and learning center; she has also worked in the technology sector as a database programmer and principal of a small business. Cottrell has published on various computing and library topics, with articles appearing in Educause Quarterly, College & Research Libraries, Library Hi Tech, and Computers in Libraries, among others. Her presentations include half-day workshops and shorter sessions at ACM SIGUCCS, Association of College and Research Libraries, ALA (American Library Association) Conference, LILAC (Librarian's Information Literacy Annual Conference), The Dartmouth October Conference, and e-portfolio conferences. She holds a bachelors degree from Earlham College and a Masters of Library Science from Syracuse University.