06/30/2023
Meet Jordan Ruud! At the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Boreham Library students, faculty, and staff have access to many collections he has personally helped bring to campus. Outside of work, he is the president of the River Valley Equality Center
Hey Lions! We wrap up June with our spotlight on Jordan Ruud, a collection development librarian at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Boreham Library. Thanks to his work, students, faculty and staff can all benefit from the wide variety of books, magazines, journals, electronic content, movies, and games. Plus, he is the president of the River Valley Equality Center!
As Ruud began to sort out his future as a librarian, he earned his first masterās degree in English from the University of Tulsa in 2009 before moving to Illinois. He earned his second masterās degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Library and Information Science in 2012. Having familiarity with the area from his time in Tulsa, Ruud applied at UAFS, clicking with the āvibes of this being a place that truly wants to help students succeed.ā
In July, Ruud will celebrate 11 years with the university.
During Ruudās time at UAFS, he has witnessed many changes to the Boreham Library ā even being behind some of those changes. Most of which come by way of which collections he has brought to UAFS.
āThis fiscal year, we picked up a huge JSTOR package; thatās a huge deal,ā he said. āItās a permanent acquisition, so thatās good. Itās one of the gems in our collection at this point.ā
To put into context the significance of this, JSTOR is a digital library with access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and sources, all at the fingertips of UAFS researchers. The expansion brought 3,000 titles and 15 journal collections to UAFS.
Ruud was also behind starting a DVD and games collection. āWeāre trying to keep up with what people want, and we try to make our collections relevant and get stuff that people will check out.ā
He believes the educational and leisure value āhit all fronts with (the) collectionsā heās helped curate at UAFS. Outside of work, Ruud lives his life the same way, with academic and leisure activities.
The self-proclaimed bookworm starts every day by reading a few pages from each book in his stack ranging from a Joyce Carol Oates novel, a book about art, to a philosophy book. But his favorite is a volume of seven books by Marcel Proust titled āIn Search of Lost Timeā ā detailing the authorās life and society.
When he isnāt learning from the pages of his books, Ruud loves watching movies. In fact, he goes to the theater once a week. He is excited to talk to other movie buffs about the upcoming films āBarbieā and āOppenheimer.ā And his love of movies has transformed into a podcast with other UAFS faculty.
Ruud, along with Drs. Nicki Stancil and Bret Bowers work on "The Midnight Symposium," āwhere (they) critically analyze and sometimes screen horror movies.ā No episodes are currently live, but he says the team has several recorded and is excited to share their podcast soon.
But his busy life doesnāt stop there.
Ruud is the president of the River Valley Equality Center, a nonprofit working toward LGBTQ equality. Plus, he is editing a book about censoring LGBTQ materials in programming and libraries.
āItās really important work,ā Ruud said. āIf I can play my part in combating censorship, that will have been one of my proudest accomplishments.ā
Whether itās his passion for helping others, sharing his love of literature and film, or standing up for what he believes in, Ruudās door to Boreham Library office 121 is open to making a difference in someoneās day.
Read more about Jordan here: https://uafs.edu/news/2023-fv-jordan-ruud.php
