About Me

Contact info:

email: vforrestal{a}gmail
work email: valerie.forrestal{a}csi.cuny.edu
twitter: @vforrestal

Official blurb:

Valerie Forrestal is the Web Services Librarian and an Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Her education includes an MA in Media Production from Emerson College, an MLIS from Rutgers University, and an MS in Service-Oriented Computing from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Valerie specializes in web development, social media, technology planning, and innovation in libraries and higher ed. You can find her online at vforrestal.com, vforrestal.info, or on Twitter @vforrestal.


Writing:

Forrestal, Valerie, and Tinamarie Vella. (2018). Using Twitter to Build Communities: A Primer for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Forrestal, Valerie. (2015). Knowledge Management for Libraries. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Forrestal, Valerie. (2013). "Zen and the Art of the Conference Proposal", Letters to a Young Librarian (ISSN 2330-1171). November 21, 2013.

Forrestal, Valerie (2013). "The In Crowd, or Fear and Loathing in Library Land", The Journal of Creative Library Practice (ISSN 2330-4227). September 18, 2013.

Arnett, Barbara, and Valerie Forrestal (2012). "Bridging the Gap from Wikipedia to Scholarly Sources: a Simple Discovery Tool", College & Undergraduate Libraries, (ISSN 1069-1316). 19 (2-4), 176-188. (Full-text available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/18839)*

Forrestal, Valerie. (2012). "Hit the Ground Running: Some (Simple) Advice for Job-Hunters", Letters to a Young Librarian (ISSN 2330-1171). June 21, 2012.

Forrestal, Valerie. (2011). "Making Twitter Work: A Guide for the Uninitiated, the Skeptical, and the Pragmatic ", The Reference Librarian, (ISSN 0276-3877). 52 (1-2), 146-151. (Full-text available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/18839)*

*Peer-reviewed Article


Speaking:

May 2016: NJLA (New Jersey Library Association) Annual Conference - Presenter/Panelist, “Beyond the CE: Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network”

May 2016: NJLA Annual Conference - Presenter, “The Cats Are Herding Us: Neko Atsume and Mobile Usability”

September 2014: EDUCAUSE Annual Conference - Presenter, "Building Academic Websites (in the Real World)"

September 2014: SLA NY Conference and Expo - Presenter, "Google Drive for Libraries"

April 2014: Urban Librarians' Conference - Speaker/Facilitator, "Web Design for Librarians"

April 2014: New Directions in Information Fluency - Presenter, "Beyond the Citation: Introducing students to scholarly research and writing through strategic collaboration"

December 2013: CUNY IT Conference - Presenter, "Building a Better Website with Wordpress"

October 2013: ACRL NY Chapter Meeting - Invited Speaker, "(Realistic) Website Migration Planning"

October 2013: METRO Code4LibNYC SIG - Presenter, "The Anatomy of a Crash"

June 2013: NJLA Annual Conference - Presenter, “Should you friend your supervisor on Facebook?”

May 2013: Books Expo America Preconference (New York Library Association) - Invited Panelist, “Make Something New. Now.”

July 2012: Library Management Institute Annual Conference - Panelist, "Digital + Libraries | Connectivity, Convergence, Confluence"

October 2011: Metro Science Librarians SIG Research Forum – Invited Speaker, “Building a Simple Library Bookmarklet”

May 2011: NJLA Annual Conference - Presenter/Panelist, "Technology Innovation Forum" and "Web + Mobile Tools for Improving Library Services"

March 2011: Library Technology Conference (Macalester College, St. Paul, MN) - Presenter, "Bridging the gap from Wikipedia to scholarly sources: a simple discovery solution"

January 2011: VALE Annual Conference - Speaker, "Bridging the gap from Wikipedia to scholarly sources"

December 2010: METRO Webinar - Presenter, "Three Tech Tools, One Objective: Improving Library Services"

January 2010: VALE (Virtual Academic Library Environment) Annual Conference - Speaker, "Teaching the New Literacy"

December 2009: Yale Handheld Librarian (Lecture Series) - Speaker, "Twitter for Libraries"

October 2009: NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) Zone Conference - Speaker, "Internet Literacy and Online Networking"

July 2009: Handheld Librarian (Online Conference) - Speaker, "Twittering in Libraries"

June 2009: METRO Library 2.0 SIG - Featured Speaker, "Twitter for Libraries"

June 2009: LibraryCampNYC 2009 (UnConference) - Co-facilitator, "Social Media Marketing for libraries"

More info:
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar Profile
MSN Academic Profile
Slideshare (my presentations)
Twitter (vforrestal)
Facebook