If you have any questions or concerns, please contact one of the following members of ViMLoC:
*To post a position in the job advertisements section, please email Valentina (vimloc@gmail.com) with a Word doc or website link with the posting information.*
Committee Members
Yanli Li yli@wlu.ca Co-Chair – Internal Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Waterloo, ON Yanli Li, PhD Economics, MLIS, is the Business and Economics Librarian at Wilfrid Laurier University. Prior to working as a librarian, she was an associate professor in China where she taught courses and engaged in research focusing on privatization of public services and supply chain management. Her current research focuses on academic librarianship and information seeking behaviors of diverse library users. |
Naz Torabi naz.torabi@utoronto.ca Co-chair – External Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Toronto, ON Naz Torabi is the Collections Coordinator, Sciences at the University of Toronto. She oversees the collection development and management for the University of Toronto Libraries. Her responsibilities include the acquisition and management of electronic resources, negotiation of licenses with vendors and publishers, and collaboration with science librarians to address the information needs of students and faculty. |
Aditi Gupta aditig@uvic.ca Contact for Programming Contact for membership & outreach, programming Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Victoria, BC Aditi Gupta is the Engineering & Science Librarian at the University of Victoria Libraries. She received her Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of British Columbia in 2004 and has worked in libraries for over 16 years. Aditi’s research interests include diversity and inclusion in libraries, inclusive teaching practices, information literacy instruction, and information-seeking behaviors of visible minorities, international students and multicultural populations. Aditi is the past recipient of the ALA Diversity Grant (2015-2016), the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute’s Collaborative Research Grant (2018-2021), Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation’s Anti-Racism Strategic Grant Initiative (2021-2023), and the NSERC Science Communication Skills Grant (2021-2022). |
Cecilia Tellis cecilia.tellis@gmail.com Contact for internal coordination, programming Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Ottawa, ON Cecilia is the Head of Design and Outreach at the University of Ottawa. She’s a mid-career librarian with a passion for equity, diversity and inclusion issues, particularly in libraries and higher education settings. Cecilia works in a bilingual (French / English) environment, was born and raised in Canada and have mixed race heritage (Filipino / Pakistani). |
Valentina Ly vly@uottawa.ca Contact for mentorship, job postings, website Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Ottawa, ON Valentina Ly is a Research Librarian for HMSTEM disciplines at the University of Ottawa. She formerly worked at Sinai Health in Toronto, assisting research and managing the patient library. She is currently involved in many projects on diversity in librarianship through the Ontario Library Association’s Cultural Diversity & Inclusion Task Force and the Visible Minority Librarians of Canada network. |
Deks Gorecki deks.gorecki@gmail.com Contact for mentorship Pronouns: She/they Location: Edmonton, AB Deks Gorecki is the Communications Librarian at MacEwan University in Edmonton. She started her career as a Library Diversity Fellow in 2018, which sparked her interest in finding out whether library diversity residency programs are serving their stated purpose of diversifying academic librarianship. After co-editing Residencies Revisited, she concluded that library diversity residencies are falling short and the field needs to come up with long-term, sustainable solutions to recruit and retain marginalized librarians. She is currently focusing her research agenda on exploring how best to diversify academic librarianship through initiatives such as inclusive hiring, onboarding, and leadership. |
Allan Cho allan.cho@ubc.ca Contact for Resources Pronouns: He/him/his Location: Vancouver, BC Allan Cho is the Community Engagement Librarian at UBC Library. Allan’s work includes supporting ongoing community initiatives and leading new ones, focusing on community engagement with historically underrepresented groups. He manages the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Scholars-in-Residence program and is the subject liaison librarian to the UBC School of Information. Allan has published in the areas of diversity, technology, and publishing. He contributed a chapter to Aboriginal and visible minority librarians: Oral histories from Canada in 2012. He is currently a co-editor on a book project titled, “Global Perspectives on Anti-Racism and Anti-Colonial Library Management.” |
Mike Chee mchee@uwaterloo.ca Contact for resources Pronouns: He/him/his Location: Waterloo, ON Mike Chee, MA History, MEd, MLIS, is the Open Education Librarian at the University of Waterloo. His work focuses on faculty perception of OER, with the aim to encourage instructor use of OER in blended learning approaches. He has published on accessibility in libraries, and has research interest in open education, information literacy, collaborative teaching, and EDI. |
Savannah Li savannah.li@mail.utoronto.ca Contact for communications & social media Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Toronto, ON Savannah Li is an information professional passionate about transforming data into actionable knowledge. With global experience in taxonomy, digital content, and cross-sector collaboration, she specializes in knowledge and information management, inclusive learning, and strategic communication to support innovation and enterprise-wide knowledge sharing. |
Victoria Ho Victoria.ho@utoronto.ca Contact for communications & social media Pronouns: She/her/hers Location: Mississauga, ON Victoria Ho is the Science Liaison and Research Services Librarian at the University of Toronto Mississauga. She has experience in both academic and public libraries and has held a variety of roles across research services, digital scholarship, and liaison work in social sciences and health. Victoria is passionate about equity, diversity and inclusion and is always looking for ways to incorporate that into her role as a librarian – whether in teaching, collections, or research. She served as the Visiting Program Officer for EDI with CARL and is currently a member of ACRL’s EDI Committee. |
ViMLoC: Visible Minority Librarians of Canada 