Meet the Librarian

Roxana "Roxie" Ross

Roxana “Roxie” Ross has served as a librarian at Boyce Library at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California for 28 years, most notably in the areas of Reference, Bibliographic Instruction, Cataloging and Acquisitions.

Roxie earned her Masters of Library Science degree, with a concentration in special librarianship and library management, from Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest, Illinois. Prior to becoming an academic librarian, she was a special librarian, a research librarian with the Santiago Library System, and a public library branch manager. Roxie received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from UCLA and an Associates of Art degree from Victor Valley Junior College where she enjoyed being active in student government.

In Roxie's current position as Library Instruction Coordinator, she is responsible for instructing community college students on how to use the library’s databases and electronic books efficiently to select topics, find scholarly articles for research assignments, and create accurate citations. She also teaches students search strategies using the library’s OPAC in order to find and locate textbooks on reserve, reference, and circulating books for their assignments. The brand new college Learning Resources Center includes a library instructional classroom that seats 50, has student computers, and utilizes a SmartBoard with classroom management software to control what the students see on their screens. She truly enjoys working with patrons and assisting them with research projects.

As Cataloging Coordinator, Roxie uses her knowledge of reference services to provide patrons with more access points for online catalog searching. She adds content notes, local subject headings, and full table of contents for new books.

Roxie believes strongly in outreach to the campus faculty, administration and staff to promote library use. She uses email to create faculty subject area contact lists to notify them about new books and electronic resource materials as well as encourage communication between faculty and librarians. She has served on several campus accreditation teams and the college Curriculum Committee.

Five years ago, Boyce Library began incorporating Title Source ™ 3, Baker & Taylor’s online interface for searching, reviewing, ordering and reporting, into their cataloging and acquisitions workflow. As a result, processing each one of the approximately 800 books the library orders per year is as quick and efficient as possible. The real-time inventory in Title Source 3 allows their selectors to purchase in-stock titles quickly without having backorders. At the end of the fiscal year, staff reviews their invoice summary on TS3 to make budgetary decisions.

In addition to her library assignments, Roxie serves as a Faculty Advisor for the Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor Society on her campus. It gives her a chance to interact with the student body outside of the library and with faculty and students throughout the state.

In response to a question about her views on the future of community college libraries, Roxie emphasized the importance of the library integrating new technology and social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and the campus Blackboard, an online learning module, to connect with students using the online environment.

When Roxie is not busy working at the library, you can find her as a volunteer usher at the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts. She enjoys interacting with patrons and watching the musicals, opera, symphony and plays. Roxie has successfully balanced the challenges of being an academic librarian with also raising an accomplished family. Along with her husband of 35 years, they have raised two sons who are now starting their careers. One attended the US Air Force Academy and is a C-17 pilot and officer, and the other is a professional ballet dancer, model and actor. Roxie looks forward one day to retiring and traveling with her husband.