Mary Lynne’s role involves strategizing, creating, and consulting in order to deliver engaging and educational content about the Library for students. To do this, she develops content for social media and for in-person and online events/activities for students. This means that Mary Lynne is busy year-round as there’s at least one major event every term: new students and Library Week in the fall, Library Love week in the Winter, and Goose Week in the Spring. Spring is especially busy given that it’s when preparation of content and materials for the rush of new students in Fall happens.
Mary Lynne also runs the Library Ambassador program, which involves hiring and mentoring students with limited previous work experience to represent the Library to other students. Mary Lynne really enjoys being able to watch students grow into their roles and helping them develop their skills for the working world.
Mary Lynne’s work revolves around finding ways to make educational content about the Library fun for students; in line with the Serious Fun! brand she, Rose Koebel, and Sara Perkins created. What often gets lost in translation is that just because her role is about creating fun for students that doesn’t mean that the work that goes into making that happen is easy or she doesn’t take it seriously. In fact, Mary Lynne brings her knowledge and experience from writing and researching her master’s thesis in Recreation and Leisure to the fore when thinking about how to engage students. She says, “I wrote my MA thesis on sense of belonging, sense of self, and community, and I incorporate that into SE programming and social media. I want to give students the best possible experience with the Library and make it an approachable place where they feel comfortable coming to seek assistance when they need it.”
To ensure that the Library is in the loop on new developments with other units and well connected to campus-wide activities, Mary Lynne maintains a wide range of campus partnerships. She has worked with Academic Integrity, the Student Success Office, the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association, and even the President’s Office to bring programming and fun to students. These kinds of partnerships ensure that the Library has a presence at things like the Campus Life Fair, the Thrive Week Walk for Mental Health, and in United Way activities. More regularly, Mary Lynne works with Rose Koebel (Communications Design Specialist) and the members of the Library Student Engagement Committee to create and plan content.
Mary Lynne is currently working on:
Library Week! The theme is Schitt's Creek, and Mary Lynne has hinted at some exciting programming that will happen. She’s also working on 1400 Welcome Back packages that will be given out mid-September, and on organizing/coordinating content for the Virtual Library Fair, Science Literacy Week, International Education Week, and the return to campus social media content.
How you can help Mary Lynne out:
The best way to help Mary Lynne out is by using the Communication Request Form to request social media posts (though the form covers all kinds of communications items, like promoting a new service, announcing a service disruption, or help with preparing a report or presentation). This form goes to all of the members of the Communication Team so that they can work collaboratively on requests as necessary.
Something fun about Mary Lynne
Mary Lynne has worked for three different Library departments in her 11 years with the Library. She started in Circulation as Lending Supervisor, stayed in Circulation to become Resource Sharing Supervisor, then moved to Information Services and Resources (ISR) as Library Associate, and finally into her current role. Mary Lynne met her significant other, Patrick, in the Library when he was working as a Library Associate in ISR. Their first interaction ended with him saying "I have tea in my office, you should stop by sometime" and her response was "ya well, I have dinosaurs in my office…” and this is still true today. Mary Lynne still doesn’t like hot beverages so clearly the dinosaurs won.
