March 22, 2007
Prof Lois Cherepon, who on September 1, 2007 will mark her 20th
anniversary on the faculty of the University Libraries, is a
veteran librarian and member of the University community.
Prof. Cherepon earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature
with a minor in secondary education from Rutgers College, Rutgers
University. She went on to earn a master’s degree in English
literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton and
a second master’s degree in Library Science (MLS) from the School
of Communications, Information, and Library Science, Rutgers
University. After receiving her MLS, she accepted a
post-graduate internship in government documents from the
University of Illinois at Chicago, after which she took a position
as a law librarian for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and New
Jersey District Court in Newark, NJ, which she held for two
years.
Arriving at St. John’s University in 1987, Prof. Cherepon began
work as the Head of Access Services in the Loretto Memorial Library
on the Staten Island Campus. She held this position for 3
years before being appointed as the Head of Reference Services at
the Staten Island Campus Library. As the Head of Reference
Services, she develops and coordinates the print and online
reference collections for the Staten Island Campus Library,
conducts One-on-One reference appointments with faculty and
students, and plans and implements reference-related workshops for
faculty and students. In 1999, Prof Cherepon assumed the
responsibilities of Coordinator of Instructional Services, a
position she previously held when first employed with the
University Libraries. In this capacity, she coordinates the
instructional sessions and workshops for the Staten Island Campus
Library, including the Discover New York library sessions and
subject-specific sessions upon request. Prof. Cherepon also
serves as a subject-specialist for education and law, performing
collection development duties in these areas for the Staten Island
Campus Library; she is the coordinator of the law and criminal
justice “Subject Guide to Resources” guides on the University
Libraries’ webpage.
Prof. Cherepon works closely with the faculty of the School of
Education, selecting and maintaining the Education Materials
Collection at the Staten Island Campus Library. She also
coordinates the campus library’s Lincoln Center collection, the
University Libraries’ component of the
Lincoln Center Institute for Arts in Education, a program of
the School of Education designed to teach education students how to
incorporate the arts into their teaching curriculum. Prof.
Cherepon selects and orders all materials for this program at the
Staten Island Campus Library, including books, CDs, and
videos. These materials are kept in the Reserve department
for the semester the program is in session, after which they are
incorporated into the permanent collection.
Beyond her departmental responsibilities, Prof. Cherepon teaches
a computer applications course through the College of Professional
Studies. This course, “Computer Applications in the Law
Office”, is a required course for all Legal Studies majors at the
University. She has also served as a member of the University
Libraries’ Personnel Committee, the Library Liaison Committee, and
the LIEF Committee.
Prof Cherepon is very active in regional and national professional
committees. She is a member of the Association of College and
Research Libraries (ACRL), both on the national and local level,
serving on the national ACRL Board of Directors from 1999 to
2004. She served as the president of ACRL/NY in 1995 and as
the Chapter’s Council President in 1999. Additionally, Prof.
Cherepon chaired the New York Chapter’s Annual Symposium in 1995
and 1996, and hosted the ACRL/NY’s “Ice Cream Social” at the ALA
Annual Conference in July 1996, sponsored by McGraw Hill Publishers
at their New York City corporate offices. Prof. Cherepon is
an active member of the Catholic Library Association (CLA),
currently serving as a member of their Web Advisory Board.
Further, she is involved in the local chapter of CLA, the
Metropolitan Catholic College Librarians’ Chapter (MCCLC), serving
as president and webmaster from 2003 to the present.
Prof. Cherepon has contributed to the professional literature,
including numerous book reviews. She co-authored the chapter
“Collection Development at SJU Libraries: Compromises, Missions and
Transitions” in the book Collection Development Policies: New
Directions for Changing Collections (Haworth Press: New York,
2003). She has also presented many papers, including “The
Voice of the Foundress: The Origins of Women’s Catholic Colleges in
New Jersey and New York” at the Biennial Symposium of the National
Association of Women in Catholic Higher Education, 1996
(co-presented by Barbara Peltzman); “The Bottom Line: Expenses
Involved in Electronic Scholarship” at Harvard University’s
“Finding Common Ground Conference: Creating the Library of the
Future without Diminishing the Library of the Past”, 1996
(co-authored by Karen Svenningsen, CUNY College of Staten Island);
“The Stories of the Foundresses: A History of Catholic Women’s
Colleges in New Jersey and New York” at the Fall Conference of the
New England Historical Association, 2000; and “Not Another
$#&%@* Law Question! Reference Strategies for Business
Librarians” at the Annual Conference for the American Library
Association for BRASS (Business, Reference, and Adult Services
Section of the ALA Reference and Adult Services Association),
2000.
In her free time, Prof. Cherepon enjoys traveling, handicrafts and
antiquing.