This month’s featured trainer, Jessica Barnes, has spent her career working in and for Indiana public libraries. After receiving her MSLIS from the University of Illinois in 2004, she worked in and managed reference, circulation, teen, and technical services departments in three northern Indiana public libraries. As the northern Indiana regional coordinator for the Indiana State Library, Jessica created and presented continuing education programs, and was involved in the Evergreen Indiana shared catalog project. She has spoken at countless staff days, webinars, and conferences. Jessica now lives in the south suburbs of Chicago, and is currently perfecting her children’s librarianship skills with the help of her two-year-old daughter, Audrey.

Some fun facts about Jessica:

• Jessica not only loves libraries, but she also found love in one. She met her husband, Greg, while they were both working at La Porte County Public Library.
• Jessica spent five weeks shadowing librarians in Australia as part of Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange for young professionals.
• She is an avid tennis player and the self-proclaimed “world’s okayest runner.” She also enjoys cooking, board games, card-making, and watching Chicago and Big Ten sports.
• Favorite authors include Maeve Binchy and Nick Hornby and she will read just about any celebrity memoir.
• She’s recently binged-watched The Crown, Grace and Frankie, and Anne with an E on Netflix.

This is Jessica’s second semester teaching for MCLS, and she currently teaches three workshops for us: Copy cataloging of sound recordings using RDA, Copy cataloging of videos & DVDs using RDA, and Writing for the web. We’re so pleased to have Jessica on our roster of MCLS instructors!