Welcome to the new Associate Dean of Resources for the University Libraries, Brenda Linares!
Brenda (pronouns she/her/ella) began at UMKC on November 1st, 2022. Her degrees come from California State University Northridge, the University of California Los Angeles, and North Carolina State University. She has a wide range of library experience from working at the National Library of Medicine, to Louis Calder Memorial Library in Florida, to her most recent previous appointment as the School of Nursing Liaison and Health Sciences Librarian at A.R. Dykes Library at the University of Kansas Medical Center here in Kansas City. Brenda’s skills, experience, and expertise make her a great asset to the UMKC Libraries.
The Associate Dean of Resources is primarily responsible for the operations of UMKC’s Miller Nichols Library and Health Sciences Library. The Associate Dean provides leadership and oversight on the collections, teaching, learning and research mission of the libraries in support of the UMKC curriculum and research agenda. They directly supervise department heads for three service point operations (Circulation, Health Sciences Library, and Music/Media Library), three collections departments (Electronic Resources & Acquisitions, Resource Sharing, and Scholarly Communications/Collection Development), and two teaching departments (Clinical Support, and Teaching & Learning). In this role, Brenda joins the library leadership team: Dr. Cindy Thompson, Dean of Libraries, Sandy Rodriguez, Associate Dean of Special Collections & Archives, Tracey Hughes, Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and relieves Nara Newcomer, Head of Music/Media Library, who has been serving as the Interim Director of Libraries Operations.
Brenda was awarded the Network of the National Library of Medicine Emerging Leader Award for 2022, designed to prepare a librarian for a position of leadership in an academic health sciences library. Throughout her career, Brenda has received grants for outreach projects to promote patient and consumer health education resources, held key leadership roles in the Medical Library Association, and led collaborations in support of open educational resources. She has worked with diverse populations promoting health literacy and consumer health education. She served as a principal investigator on an outreach project with the director of KU Medical Center’s JUNTOS – Center for Advancing Latino Health to promote credible health information. The project involved partnering with Spanish-speaking professionals to record Spanish podcasts on health topics relevant to the Latinx community. Brenda is actively engaged in the library profession through work as a mentor, researcher, leader, and more. She is certainly a collaborative, creative person with broad experience and expertise.
We look forward to working with you, Brenda, and welcome!