Participant Bios / Fall 2021 Joint Meeting Atlantic/Texas/New England

Jessica M. Abbazio holds a Ph.D. in Musicology and an M.A. in Music History & Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, an M.L.S. in Music Librarianship from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a B.M. in Music Education from George Mason University. She is an Assistant Librarian at the University of Minnesota, and her research in the fields of librarianship and information science has centered on public engagement, outreach, information literacy, and collection development. 

Donna Arnold came to the University of North Texas to get her Ph.D. in musicology years ago. She started working in the Music Library while still a student, liked it very much, and would go on to become UNT’s first-ever music reference librarian. Her experiences brought her into close contact with the library’s special collections

Karen I. Berry serves as an Instruction Librarian, Instructor, and the Liaison to the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Radford University, as well as the Assistant Web Manager for the Music Library Association.  She holds an MA in Musicology and an MLIS from The Catholic University of America, as well as a BS in Music Education from Towson University.  Her research interests include music therapy librarianship, DEI in libraries, information literacy instruction, and reference/student staff training.

Blaine Brubaker, Kristin Wolski, and Sabino Fernandez are staff at the University of North Texas Music Library. Blaine is the Music Access Services Manager and has a love for late-twentieth-century opera and crocheting; Kristin is the Music information Literacy and Outreach Librarian with a focus on creating the ideal user experience at the Music Library by day and reads cryptocurrency charts by night; Sabino Fernandez is the Manager of Music Processing and enjoys playing video games, baking, and reading.

Alastair Canavan currently works at Alexandria Public Library after receiving an MLIS from the University of Maryland and a BA in Music from Skidmore College. His undergraduate work on the ornamentation of Irish sean-nós singing led to an interest in how oral traditions can be preserved. His current research combines ethnomusicology and cataloging by exploring the challenges faced by institutions attempting to add music outside the western classical tradition to their collections.

Maristella Feustle is the Music Special Collections Librarian at the University of North Texas. She currently serves as chair of MLA’s Archives and Special Collections Committee,  as editor of the Index and Bibliography monographic series, and as MLA’s alternate member on the National Recording Preservation Board. She also remains active as a jazz guitarist and pit orchestra musician in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Francesca Giannetti is the Digital Humanities Librarian at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, and subject liaison to the departments of Classics, French, and Italian, and the program in Comparative Literature. In her research activities, she pursues topics at the intersection of information studies, digital humanities, and music in support of the activities of emerging interdisciplinary communities. She earned an MS in Information Studies from UT Austin, a degree in vocal performance from the École Normale de Musique de Paris, and a BA in art history and French from Case Western Reserve University.

Brendan Higgins is the Faculty Liaison and Outreach Librarian at Berklee College of Music, where he provides instruction and reference services for both Berklee College and the Boston Conservatory communities. In addition to facilitating faculty engagement for all departments, he serves as a subject specialist for the departments of music history, music education, and music therapy. Brendan holds an MM in musicology from Tufts University and received his MLIS from Simmons University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in music education from Berklee.

Anna E. Kijas is Head of Lilly Music Library at Tufts University. She is an active member of the Music Library Association (MLA) and was recently appointed as Editor for the Technical Reports & Monographs in Music Librarianship series. Anna also serves on the Executive Council of the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) and co-chairs the Digital Pedagogy Interest Group for the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI).

Tim Sestrick is Music Librarian and Associate Professor at the Presser Music Library, West Chester University. He holds an MLS from the University at Buffalo and a master’s in percussion performance from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has published in Notes, Percussive Notes, and Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice, and is currently researching the intersection of music, Sabbatarianism and blue laws at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.