Our Spotlight Award winner for November 2012 is Dorothy Carner!

Dorothy Carner is the Head of the Journalism Libraries and Adjunct Professor of Journalism at the University of Missouri- Columbia.  She has been with MU in her current position for five and a half years.

Dorothy originally hails from Springfield, Missouri, where she graduated with her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Biology/Education.  She completed her Master of Library and Information Science degree at the University of Texas at Austin.

I have reinvented myself a few times.  I’ve been a secondary school life sciences teacher, an anatomy and physiology instructor at a parochial college and nursing school, an office manager for a financial marketing publisher, a business/reference librarian and now a journalism librarian.  I loved each of these jobs, but I cannot imagine a more rewarding job than the one I now have at Mizzou.

In her leisure time, Dorothy watches college and professional sports including football, basketball, and baseball.  She follows the teams from places she has worked as well as the teams with players from her children’s high school and colleges.  This includes UT, UVA, USC, and MU.  She is a fan of Cardinals baseball!  Dorothy also enjoys reading (mostly nonfiction, but she says she splurges on good mystery now and then), listening to and playing music, walking, working with the Daniel Boone Regional Library Board, and vegging out in front of the TV with Masterpiece Theatre.

In addition to a cat named Fuzz, Dorothy has a husband and two children.  Her husband, Bill, is a professor at Westminster College.  Her son John (28) is in the American Film Institute’s Master of Arts program, and her daughter Kim (30) is a lawyer in the Master’s in Strategic Public Relations program at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.

What’s the coolest place you’ve ever visited?

That’s a really hard choice, because almost every place that I’ve visited had something “cool” about it.  For this moment, I’ll say Vienna because it has everything that I love in a city.  Its historical treasures have been beautifully preserved.  It is a classical cultural center with many wonderful art museums (home of Klimt and the Secessionists), theatres, cathedrals, palaces, Lipizzaner horses, and coffee houses serving mélange and Sacher Tortes, but it also has it’s funky side with Hundertwasserhaus and Der Weiner Prater, the park with the huge Riesenrad (Giant Ferris Wheel). It isalso home to the United Nations’ Vienna office and the International Atomic Energy Agency.  It’s both beautiful and complex.

What fictional or real person would you enjoy having a drink with, and what drink?

I would love to have a Margarita with Molly Ivins, Ann Richards and Liz Carpenter, now all deceased.  These three bigger-than-life Texas women (journalists and politicians) embodied the strong, tart-tongued and humorous women who broke twentieth century glass ceilings while skewering pompous politicians with incredible humor.  They were friends and contemporaries and whenever they were together incredibly funny stories would emerge.

Congratulations, Dorothy!

Our Spotlight Award winner for September 2012 is Michaelle Dorsey!

Michaelle Elizabeth Dorsey is a Library Information Specialist II with the Physical Processing/Preservation Unit in the Acquisitions Department, located in Ellis Library.  Michaelle has been in her position with the Libraries for 18.5 years.  She originally hails from Jefferson City, and has both a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting.

Michaelle’s favorite snack is a vanilla iced latte, and she has one cat, a 15-year-old domestic short hair tabby named Glass.  In her free time, Michaelle likes gardening, role-playing games (AKA “nerd sport”), drawing, crochet, and sewing.

In a movie of her life, the soundtrack would include “People are Strange” by the Doors, “These Boots are Made for Walking” by Nancy Sinatra, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by the Smashing Pumpkins, “What’s New Pussycat” by Tom Jones, “Hold On” by Alabama Shakes, “Milk and Sugar” by G Love & Special Sauce, “I’m Shakin'” by Jack White, “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin, and “Senses Working Overtime” by XTC.  In this movie, Janeane Garofalo would play Michaelle.

What real or fictional person would she enjoy having a drink with, and what drink?

Leonardo Da Vinci, the drink: a tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte with whip.  OK, so I cheated and tried to come up with the most complicated coffee drink I could find because I thought Leo would enjoy “dissecting” the recipe.

Michaelle’s favorite shoes were a pair of ox blood colored Doc Martens and a pair of teal Converse, which she says took her through her college years and beyond.

Thanks Michaelle, and congratulations!