“We provide leadership. PALNI is committed to being an advocate for supported organizations’ interests and values in state-wide collaborative ventures.”
– PALNI Shared Value
The Board of Directors elects a five-member Executive Committee (EC) with responsibility for operation of the organization.The PALNI Executive Director acts as an ex officio member of the EC and serves as the main point of contact for external organizations. The PALNI EC includes a rotating Chair, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, and Past-Chair, and the PALNI Executive Director, and meets in person approximately 6 times each year with additional virtual meetings.
The current EC positions are held by Janet Brewer (Chair), Karl Stutzman (Past Chair), Diane Randall (Chair Elect), Janet Brewer (Chair Elect), Jessica Trinoskey (Secretary), and Fritz Hartman (Treasurer). See Groups and Committees page for more details.
All staff can be reached using a single email: staff@palni.edu.
PALNI Staff
Kirsten Leonard
Executive Director (ED)
As Chief Operations officer, the Executive Director acts on behalf of the PALNI organization under the policy direction and program plan of the Board and reporting to the Executive Committee. She is responsible for the development and implementation of a strategic plan for the organization.
kleonard@palni.edu | 317-752-6831
Noah Brubaker
Associate Director (AD)
The Associate Director (AD) is responsible for advancing annually identified PALNI strategic objectives and reports to the Executive Director (ED). He provides creative leadership, management, and support for core library information systems and applications with the goals of increasing collaboration to expand services and reduce costs.
nbrubaker@palni.edu | 317-721-8198
Lisa Gonzalez
Knowledge Base and License Manager Librarian
The Knowledge Base and License Manager Librarian provides functional Knowledge Base and License Manager
Module implementation and management support for PALNI libraries. She manages subscription resources, electronic collections, and advances the overall PALNI shared collection management goals.
lgonzalez@palni.edu | 317-550-5229
Amanda Hurford
Scholarly Communications Director
The Scholarly Communications Director works to promote the development of a consortia-wide repository for institutional research and publications, faculty and student works, data sets, and emerging digital scholarship for the institutions. She
also leads the effort to raise awareness of scholarly communication issues, including open access
publishing and open educational resources, and leads the professional development of librarians and staff
assigned to scholarly communications work at each of the PALNI institutions.
amanda@palni.edu | (317) 747-0507
Megan West
Communications and Marketing Director
The Communications and Marketing Director works to identify, optimize, and manage PALNI communication systems. Her main responsibilities include, but are not limited to the website, internal and external PALNI communications, usability and user experience studies of products and services, and graphic design and marketing requests by any of PALNI’s institutions.
mwest@palni.edu | 317-752-6842
Lots of Coffee
Staff Assistant
Voted "Most Valuable Player" 25 years in a row, Sir Coffee is an office staple in PALNI. Every meeting begins with a fresh pot and ends with an empty cup.
"Elixir of life,
Potent force so thickly brewed,
Give me strength anew."
- David W.
"Elixir of life,
Potent force so thickly brewed,
Give me strength anew."
- David W.
PALNI Half/Quarter-time Coordinators/Consultants
(in partnership with PALNI institutions)
All staff can be reached using a single email: staff@palni.edu.
Barb Chen
Fulfillment Coordinator
Based out of University of Saint Francis.
She coordinates PALNI consortial borrowing efforts (PALShare) as part of the Admin team for that group as well as the managing the more broadly focused Fulfillment group. In each of these areas the fulfillment coordinator will serve to provide strategic project management, product communication at detailed level between PALNI organizations and vendors, and product advising.
Lauren Magnuson
Development Coordinator
Based out of California State University.
She coordinates PALNI development projects including scoping, defining acceptable use criteria, and developing necessary code or API integration. The focus for development is typically centered on enhancements to the ILS but other projects to meet the needs of the supported institutions are also undertaken.
Ruth Szpunar & Eric Bradley
Information Fluency Coordinators
They coordinate PALNI collaboration and communication on Reference, Instruction, and Outreach activities and develop best practices. They also assist libraries in providing support, services and product information for learning, teaching, and research and to assess and demonstrate that impact.
Eric Bradley is based out of Goshen College; Both Ruth and Eric are co-founders of Aestiva Solutions.
Heather Loehr
Analytics Coordinator
Based out of Hanover College.
She leads the creation of analytics, documentation, and reporting in support of the PALNI Analytics Admin Team. She serves to provide assistance and consultation on analytics and reporting processes/solutions in WMS (Report Designer, Collection Evaluation, and custom reports) and other associated tools.
Erin Milanese
Affordable Learning Project Coordinator
Based out of Goshen College.
She provides project support for the grant-based PALSave: PALNI Affordable Learning program, and serves on the Admin Team for that group. Working with the Scholarly Communications Director, she coordinates efforts to educate faculty about Open Educational Resources (OER) and supports the use of affordable alternatives to commercial textbooks.
Anna Shields
PALNI Developer Support
She develops software within scoped project needs and provides application maintenance, standardizes codebases, performs software upgrades, and creates technical documentation.
Joelle Orem
Communications & Support Coordinator
She coordinates PALNI in-person events as well as provides communication and member support for the consortia. Skilled in graphic design, web design, inter-personal communications, and photography she assists the Communication and Marketing Director with PALNI projects.