EAST PROVIDENCE — East Providence Public Library Digital Services Librarian Catherine Damiani has been named a 2016 American Library Association (ALA) Emerging Leader. She has also been awarded a sponsorship from the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

Every year ALA selects 50 librarians for this prestigious program in order to help new professionals develop leadership skills and work with other librarians from around the country on projects benefitting ALA. Two-thirds of the selected leaders are awarded sponsorships.

Ms. Damiani earned her Master of Library and Information Studies degree at the University of Rhode Island. She will be inducted into the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society in April at the University of Rhode Island.

"I was speechless when I received the email that I had been named an Emerging Leader. This program is a wonderful chance to be able to work with new library professionals from both the United States and Canada so I feel incredibly honored," Ms. Damiani said.

The Emerging Leaders program enables newer librarians from across the country to participate in workgroups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA's structure and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. Emerging Leaders receive $1,000 each to participate in the Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference, and each participant is expected to provide service to ALA or one of its units.

As RUSA’s representative for the 2016 Emerging Leader program, Damiani kicked off her tenure at the 2016 Midwinter Meeting in Boston and will end with a presentation and a poster session, at the Annual Conference in Orlando, Fla. in June.

Though Ms. Damiani is new to librarianship, she has already made an impact on the library profession. Just recently, she was the award recipient of the EBSCO ALA Annual Conference Sponsorship, at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference, San Francisco (CA) and has participated in a variety of RUSA committees for several years.

"Right now I am working with four other Emerging Leader participants to develop a publishing resource toolkit for libraries. We will get to present this project to ALA leaders and library professionals in June in Orlando, Florida at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference which is a bit intimidating," Ms. Damiani added. "The most important aspect of this project for me is that it will benefit libraries, library professionals, and library users across the country. Working with other new leaders has also given me fresh ideas and perspectives that I can put into action at East Providence Public Library."

The Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers’ advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need.