UCLA LISAAA Class Notes

Claude is a native of Southern California, specifically Beverly Hills, a veteran of a five year sojourn at UC Santa Cruz in the 70’s, culminating with a BA in American Film and Literature, and a 1998 alumnus (MLIS) of UCLA DLIS. Claude is University Archivist and Manuscripts Librarian in Special Collections of the University of Southern California Information Services Division. He practices in the fields of archival techniques, information access, and digital media. He is a member of numerous archival societies, ASIS, and the RBMS of the ACRL of the ALA. His areas of recreational interest include music and media of all kinds and Tibetan Buddhism and the psychology of meditation.

I spent two years as a reference/audiovisual librarian in Culver City, at the third-busiest library in the County of Los Angeles system. This was a great place for a new librarian and I got a lot of wonderful training and experience.  Since March 2006 I’ve been director of the California Center for the Book, a reading promotion agency housed at UCLA and affiliated with the California State Library.  Our mission is to help librarians and teachers get Californians reading — a big task, but we have a lot of fun.

I moved back to Los Angeles 2 years ago and am currently working as a senior product manager at social networking company Reunion.com.  It’s been quite a journey to get back to Los Angeles.  The route back has taken me through Virginia, North Carolina, northern California (San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley twice!), and Washington, D.C. and through a number of positions in ARL libraries, national public policy and the private sector.  I am happy to have the opportunity to get reconnected and help get this class notes blog off the ground with fellow alum Jonathan Fiencke (Class 2006).  I look forward to seeing many interesting posts!