Download a copy of PTPL 2022 Board Candidates 

Biographies:

Vice Chair/Chair/Past Chair

Elizabeth Hensley

During her 34 years of experience working in libraries, Elizabeth Hensley has held a variety of positions in both public and support services. She received the Virginia Library Association George Mason Award for her work in developing and launching the Virginia Library Leadership Academy (VALLA) in 2010, a biennial training with nearly 200 graduates to date. The initial VALLA tagline of “Learn. Lead. Serve.” sums up Elizabeth’s philosophy that leadership positions are not an end in and of themselves but opportunities for serving the profession and applying what we have learned along the way in order to make a better and brighter future for our colleagues and successors. In her current role as the Materials Services Assistant Division Chief at Prince William Public Libraries, she oversees selection and is responsible for digital resources.

Treasurer

Linda Wirth (Retired)

Linda is a retired librarian with a varied career.  Her first position was in reference in a public library.  Her second position was her first major change, working in the library of the office of the Ohio State Attorney General.  With her 3^rd position as a law cataloger for the University of Akron Law Library, she began a career as a cataloger and has been a one ever since.  In her cataloging career she has worked in a variety of organizations: academic, the Urban Institute, private law firms, and Washington National Cathedral.  In these positions she has cataloged legal materials, economic materials on microfiche/film, Slavic language periodicals, and electronic journals. She retired from George Washington University in 2005.  She is a long-time member of Potomac Technical Processing Librarians.

DC Representative

Brook Darnell

Brook Darnell currently serves as the Head of the History and Military Science Section at the Library of Congress. There she leads a team of librarians and technicians creating bibliographic access and standards for Copyright and Cataloging in Publication materials. Formerly, she was the Head of the Inventory Management and Document Fulfillment Section where she led the Library’s circulation program and provided service to Congress, Government Agencies, and other Libraries.

Prior to working at the Library, Ms. Darnell held the position of Integrated Resources Librarian at the House of Representatives Library. In this role, she was the Voyager System Administrator and oversaw the migration to OCLC’s WorldShare Management Services (WMS) System. Additionally, she worked with the Library of Congress on the transfer of House inventory and metadata to the Fort Meade Offsite Facility. As Project Manager at the Department of Labor’s Library, she initiated and implemented a digitization project to preserve old and rare special collections. At the Patent and Trademark Office, she supervised the cataloging, acquisitions, and electronic services departments.

In her various roles, Ms. Darnell has forged relationships and worked collaboratively with professional and paraprofessional library staff, contractors, information networks, and research groups. She holds a MLIS from the University of Alabama and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Birmingham-Southern College.

Maryland Representative

Nirmal Gomes

Nirmal L. Gomes originally from Bangladesh currently a graduate student in Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.), class of 2022 concentration in Community Service Librarianship and Digital Libraries/Academic Library Specialization at the Catholic University of America (CUA). Mr. Gomes earned advanced degrees in Master of Science in Management (M.S.M.), with a specialty in Human Resources, Master of Arts (M.A.) in Higher Education, and Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Social Sciences from CUA, Washington, DC. He has an advanced B.A. in Social Sciences degree from Tejgaon College & University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been working in Resource Management (Acquisition and Cataloging) department in Mullen Library, CUA for 24 years.

Beside his studies and work he has been volunteering for 30 years with government and non- government organizations include church, county, schools, and socioeconomic organizations in Bangladesh and United States, such as past President and Vice-President of Association of Graduate Library and Information Science Students (AGLISS) and current Students Ambassador, LIS Department, CUA. He also serves as the Committee Associate Member, Chapter Relations Committee (2021-2023), ALA. Mr. Gomes is the member of professional organizations include American Library Association (ALA); member, Potomac Technical Processing Librarians (PTPL), Washington, DC; International Cultural Representative, Bangladesh Christian Association, Bangladesh; Member of Friends of St. John Paul II Foundation, Washington, DC, and St. Camillus Church, Silver Spring, MD.

As an educator, motivational speaker, and freelance researcher and writer, he is committed to promote library services that serves for all and accessible information for all users, and help in the developing nations in the field of human resource management and education include PreK to higher education- policy, curriculum, research, teachers training and development, community library development, and instruction literacy development.

Mr. Gomes is the award recipient of the 2020 Gordon M. Conable Conference Scholarship, ALA, an International Scholar winner, April 2008, recognized by the Catholic University of America's Center for Global Education. In 2003, he awarded “Archbishop Gangly Literature Award” a national award distributes by the Weekly Pratibeshi (only a Catholic national publication), Bangladesh. His hobby is to play music (Bengali), exercise, sports, reading, researching, and writing articles and poems. He lives in Beltsville, Maryland

Virginia Representative

Andrea Britten

Andrea Britten earned her MLIS degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2017 after realizing that technical services librarianship was a great second career. She is currently the Sr. Electronic Resources Coordinator at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace primarily working with electronic resources. Previously she held a position at Marymount University in its Resources and Systems department.  She has completed one term as the Virginia representative on the executive board of the Potomac Technical and Processing Librarians and is hoping to continue learning from her PTPL colleagues as they share their diverse knowledge and wisdom.