Seneca College LIT/LITA Update – September 2020

There are a number of changes occurring in the Library and Information Technician (LIT) and Library and Information Technician Accelerated (LITA) programs at Seneca.  Starting at the end of March, the courses moved to online delivery as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Courses have continued online for the LITA students during the Summer semester with each course having live sessions (synchronous) and asynchronous components.  Online delivery will remain in effect for all LIT and LITA students during the Fall and Winter semesters.

Unfortunately, we cannot offer our field placements as normal during COVID.  A two- hour course per week that will include presentations from some of the field placement hosts and Seneca graduates, and completion of some of the typical activities performed by students during placements is temporarily replacing the in-library placements.

COVID surprising has not influenced our enrollments and the number of students in the LITA program for the Summer semester was slightly higher than last year.  The number of first semester students in the Fall semester also is following the same pattern.

There also are faculty changes. We are very pleased to announce the Manda Plavsa Barclay is joining the full-time faculty, filling a position that has been vacant since the retirement of Katherine More last year.  Manda is a graduate of Seneca’s LITA program and has a Master of Information Science degree from the University of Western Ontario (Western University).  She has worked for Seneca Libraries, YBP Library Services, OCAD University Library and Conestoga College Library and has taught part-time in the LIT/LITA programs at Seneca.  She joins the other full-time faculty, Delia Antonacci and Cynthea Penman.

We also have a faculty member departure, as long-time professor and program coordinator Deborah Kay retired at the end of June.  She leaves feeling very privileged to have worked with so many great students and very proud of the library technicians working in the field.  She has a new retirement email at Seneca: deborah.kay@senecaretirees.ca.  Cynthea Penman is the acting program coordinator and her email is cynthea.penman@senecacollege.ca.