Sabrina Hernandez
     Staff Writer

Rosann Bazirijian, dean of University Libraries, announced that her 11 years with UNCG will come to an end on April 1, 2016.

Bazirijian became dean in August 2004 after working at Penn State.

She is planning on retiring and moving to Myrtle Beach with her husband this spring and plans on taking long walks by the shore daily.

Bazirijian has been extremely active in the UNCG Library. Her emphasis on service to students has made a difference in the way students at UNCG learn and are engaged inside the Jackson library.

She believes her main accomplishment in the role is the dramatic enhancement of the library’s spaces. Bazirijian teamed up with staff to renovate the old basement of the Jackson Library into what the students now enjoy as the collaborative learning spaces inside the Digital Media Commons.

Bazirijian said she is amazed when she goes down there and witnesses the engagement of the students on a new level. A smile of satisfaction came over her face when describing the enthusiasm of the students using the resources in the basement. She is very passionate about serving the students.

“I find it shocking when I see the complexity of subjects mastered with the use of the large white boards,” said Bazirijian.

One struggle she mentioned is students requests for more white boards in the Digital Media Commons, but due to annual budget cuts for about six or seven years, Bazirijian found it very difficult to obtain access to new resources and growing technology for the students.

“By far, budget cuts has been the major obstacle I have had to deal with as a Dean,” said Bazirijian. She values all of her faculty, and takes pride in not ever letting anyone go. They have stuck together through the lack of incoming money to the library. The collection cuts have affected the amount of books, journals and electronic resources.

Regardless of budget issues, she says her supportive library staff has still taken the UNCG Library forward. “It is testament to the wonderful staff,” said Bazirijian.

Along with the Digital Media Commons, Bazirijian successfully worked towards the renovation space for Special Collections and University Archives, Electronic Resources and Information technology and the Music Library. UNCG Alumni contributed various donations to the library over the years, which has sustained the projects.

Dean Bazirijian holds a strong commitment to diversity. She created the Diversity Residency position, which is a program that has offered librarian positions to recent graduates of Master’s degree in Library science who have minority ethnic backgrounds. She believes that the librarian profession as a whole is not as diverse as it should be.

The program gives the new librarians two years to rotate within the library, learn speech skill sets and do some publishing so that when they leave the have the experience to discover a permanent librarian job. The dean of university libraries has a deep engagement in encouraging all of her colleagues to publish and serve in professional organizations and engage in community activities that resulted in dramatically increased scholarly and creative output for the library.

The UNCG library now holds a diversity committee and the development of a strategic plan for diversity. They have also worked with the LIS program to get a grant to also bring in diverse students. Dean Rosann Bazirijian is most proud of this accomplishment and is something UNCG campus works hard on. With a passion for innovation, the Dean created the librarian Entrepreneurial Conference, the Triad Area Library Associate’s Paraprofessional Conference and the Innovation and Program Enrichment Grant.

“I set the direction, and making sure everybody is on the same page. I like my position because I get to work for the big picture,” said Bazirijian.

There has been a renewed emphasis on the value of special collections and making them available to the research community through digitization and increased use in teaching students on how to search items in the library databases for research assignments.

Dean Bazirijian noted there was a rebirth and repositioning of the Jackson Society, which consists of UNCG alumni that support at least one thousand dollars to the University libraries annually. Private donations become essential due to budget cuts.

Bazirijian will be in Myrtle Beach after April 1, she states that the libraries will not be far away from her and plans on volunteering there and continue her passion for reading.