Charla Lancaster, Rebecca Miller join University Libraries

23 Jul 2010

Charla Lancaster (left) and Rebecca Miller

The University Libraries at Virginia Tech has named Charla Lancaster as director of assessment and library access services and Rebecca Miller as the college librarian for science, life sciences, and engineering.

Charla Lancaster is the director of assessment and library access services, a new position for the libraries. In this role, she will oversee the library circulation department, shelving, storage and courier services, and inter-library loan, in addition to assessment duties.

Assessment is a growing field in libraries, and allows librarians to measure their contribution to research, scholarship, and learn how to create libraries that better meet the needs of their communities. “So many things depend upon assessment,” Lancaster said. “Assessment helps us improve services, meet needs of patrons now, and greet the future.”

An Indiana native, Lancaster earned her bachelor’s degree in business process management and operations management with a concentration in computer science and her master’s degree in library information science at Indiana University at Bloomington. She also worked at the Indiana University Libraries in collection development. Lancaster now lives in Dublin, Va., with her family.

Rebecca Miller joins the libraries as the college librarian for science, life sciences, and engineering. She will be assisting the departments of human nutrition, foods and exercise science, computer science, math, and engineering education. A native of Radford, Va., Miller earned her undergraduate degree at The College of William and Mary and her master’s in library science at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where she also worked at the UNC Health Sciences Library. Miller also worked at Louisiana State University before coming to Virginia Tech.

Miller looks forward to working with faculty and students and providing support for their research. She uses a variety of social media tools, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, to connect to library users. “I try to use a variety of different ways to provide support and make users’ library experiences better,” Miller said.