FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
Meet Lauri Rebar, Instruction Coordinator in the Research and Instructional Services Department at FAU’s Wimberly Library on the Boca Raton campus. In her role, Lauri coordinates scheduling instructional sessions for faculty for their classes, with meetings taking place virtually or in person at the library’s Instruction Studio or in the course classroom. Her studies for her instructional technology degree are continually used in her work in the library.
Lauri also coordinates and works with students and faculty to arrange for them to meet with one of the department librarians for free reference consultations to assist them in finding resources for their research. In addition to the undergraduate students who meet with librarians, graduate students, and faculty members also schedule these consultations as they work on literature reviews and dissertations.
Another aspect of Lauri’s responsibilities is liaising with both the College of Nursing and the individual departments within the College of Education. In addition to attending some of their faculty meetings and answering individual faculty questions, Lauri works on library collections in those areas to include new book titles and trying to obtain some textbooks for the libraries’ Textbook Reserve collection.
Prior to being a librarian, Lauri worked in a variety of fields, including property and casualty insurance, medical transcription, and bookkeeping. In each of these, she was a “resource person” who was often asked research questions. She became a librarian after her children had grown, and loves it! A favorite part of her job as a librarian is supporting students so they are more confident and successful in their research, and that they are encouraged and supported in their learning. She sees each student as important and appreciates how difficult it is for some students to be studying, possibly working and having a family to care for at the same time, or just being away from their families or home countries during their time at Florida Atlantic University.
Lauri is the senior editor of a peer-reviewed journal, The Reference Librarian. She reads new submissions, requests that reviewers perform double-blind peer reviews of articles, corresponds with authors and reviewers through this process, and makes the final decision regarding publication of articles. The final publication is accomplished after she encourages the author to make all needed revisions and performs final proof editing. Lauri especially enjoys working with new authors, as she is able to walk beside them throughout the publication process and help them reach their goal of having their first article published. She also works with international authors, who bring a new perspective on their library operations, how reference librarians in those countries perform their jobs, and the barriers they face in providing needed services with sometimes very limited resources.
When not at work, Lauri enjoys making new bead and wire jewelry, as well as repairing and redesigning old jewelry into new creations. She is now learning to make quilts, in addition to her other hobbies of knitting, crocheting, doing crossword puzzles, and putting together jigsaw puzzles.
