VALA Committee Members 2024

The VALA Committee provides governance, policy and strategic direction for the Association and is made up of a President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and up to 6 general committee members.

Executive | General Committee | VALA Secretariat


Executive

President – Sae Ra Germaine
CAVAL

Bio: Sae Ra is the Manager of Member Services and Digital Platforms for CAVAL and has over 15 years working with high profile systems companies from a diverse range of fields including IBM and Federation University. Sae Ra is an all things open, tech evangelist with a focus on leveraging user experiences and open standards as a driver for innovation and change. She is an active advocate of free and open source initiatives and is currently the President of the Linux Australia board and Vice-Chair of Internet Australia. Sae Ra is also on the Technical and General Advisory Standing committees for auDA (.au Domain Administration).

Vice President – Michelle McLean
Public Libraries Victoria

Bio: Michelle is passionate about professional development, libraries and technology.  She is able to work with these, both in her role as Lead Shared Services with Public Libraries Victoria and in her work on the VALA Committee. Michelle previously worked in Information Services and Technology positions in Victorian public libraries for over 37 years and has been part of the massive development of technology in all our library sectors.  She is a past-recipient of a Ramsay Reid Scholarship (State Library of Victoria), alumni of the Aurora Institute, is a published author and has presented at many conferences and seminars around Australia, as well as in the US. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Arts (Librarianship) and a Master of Business (Information Technology).

Treasurer – Andrew Iacuone

Bio: Andrew has over 25 years’ experience in the university and not for profit sectors including his more than seven years at La Trobe University Library as Associate University Librarian, Planning and Environments. Andrew’s experience in infrastructure and project planning, finance, resources and HR management together with strategic and business planning led him to the library world eight years ago. His interests are in delivering an outstanding digital and place based library environment to the student cohorts within a challenging and changing academic library space. His achievements include the development of Digital Learning Labs across all five Library campuses and the new La Trobe Library, Bendigo Campus which received a Commendation at the 2021 Australian Interior Design Awards.

 

Secretary – Keren Moskal
Monash Health

Photo & Bio: Keren is a clinical librarian at Monash Health committed to delivering high quality health information to support patient care, research and education. She is focused on delivering user centred training and education programs in evidence-based practice, information and digital literacy. Keren is the recipient of the 2022 ALIA HLA Anne Harrison Award and co-founder of the Hospital Librarians’ Community of Practice, which has grown to over 90 members across Australasia.


 

General Committee

Monica Williams
Star of the Sea, Brighton

Bio: Monica is a freelance consultant and the Digital Literacy Specialist at Star of the Sea College, Brighton. Monica has a passion for e-learning and technology. Monica has over 10 years experience working as a Multimedia Technician within the corporate and education sectors. She also works as an IT consultant for the School Library Association of Victoria.

Kat Cain
Deakin University Library

Photo & Bio: Coming soon

Shelley Carroll
Geelong Regional Libraries

Photo & Bio: Coming soon

Craig Patterson
Deakin University Library

Photo & Bio: Coming soon

Mary Filsell

Photo & Bio:Research librarian & futurist focused on providing academic library research services for researchers, staff, masters by research and PHD students at Flinders University, South Australia. Personal research interests include: The Carpentries, Open Access Research & Data, FAIR, AI, XR, TDM, GLAMR, DH, UI, UX, CX.