Four faculty members from the University Libraries will be retiring by the start of the fall 2024 semester. Each has given valuable service to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and they will be sorely missed as they embark on the next phase of their lives. In the following sections brief summaries describe the impressive careers of these four faculty members. Students, faculty, staff and colleagues are invited to leave a message for the retirees at:
Dana W.R. Boden: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/q3tdWLJn
Anita Breckbill: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/kGxbhzg7
Judy Diamond: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/cSnAxjw2
Joan Latta Konecky: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/hctkxSBH
Dana W.R. Boden
Dana W.R. Boden began her career at the C. Y. Thompson Library in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries in 1982 and has worked as a liaison librarian with 16 different East Campus units over the years, mostly in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) and some in what is now the College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS).
Boden received her doctorate degree while here at UNL in administration, curriculum, and instruction with an emphasis in post-secondary administration in 2002. Her B.S. in agriculture and master’s in education were awarded from Western Kentucky University and her MSLS from the University of Kentucky.
She has a deep commitment to outreach and service to the Libraries, the university, and the statewide community. Boden supported the Libraries shared governance, serving as appointed parliamentarian for 17 years and leading in the positions of chair, vice chair, and secretary of the Libraries Faculty. She has served on numerous committees in the Libraries and for the university, including two terms on the University Conduct Board as secretary and chair for the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, and on the Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee as cochair and chair.
She serves on the board of the Friends of the Larsen Tractor Museum and will continue doing so into retirement. Boden also has been, and plans to remain, involved with the Nebraska chapter of the Honor Society of Agriculture, Gamma Sigma Delta, since election to membership in 1984. Professionally, Boden spent 34 years as a member of the United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) and was elected a director on its Executive Council and president.
Other honors Boden has received include being the recipient of the outstanding science librarian award from the University of Nebraska chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society in 2007 as well as the distinguished service award from the Nebraska Library Association, College and University Section, in 2005.
Boden has published many papers. One of her most popular papers—with more than 21,000 downloads from the Libraries Digital Commons and numerous citations—is “Miniature Cattle: For Real, for Pets, for Production.”
Boden’s plans for retirement include travel, spending more time with family, genealogy research, and continuing service with the Tractor Museum and Gamma Sigma Delta. She has many photographs and family materials for projects and always Nebraska sports events to attend!
Anita Breckbill
Anita Breckbill began her career at Nebraska in 1989 as a music cataloger, which was her role until being appointed the head of the Music Library in 1994. She served as the liaison librarian to the Glenn Korff School of Music for many years. She earned her doctorate in flute from the University of Iowa and her MLIS degree from the University of California, Berkeley, after receiving her B.A. from Goshen College.
Breckbill has been awarded professional development research leaves for a cataloging project in Wales, research in Paris and London, and consulting with a library in Pune, India. She has more than 25 publications and over 35 presentations in her portfolio. Her research runs the gamut from French music circulating libraries to flutes to birds. A selection of her research output titles includes “Circulating Libraries in France: An Overview and a Preliminary List,” “Dismal Sounds: Flute-playing in the Fiction of Charles Dickens,” and “A Bird in Iowa, A Bird in Bohemia: Dvořák and Birdsong.”
A project to return some World War II loot—a baton Richard Wagner used to conduct Siegfried Idyll—to the Richard Wagner Museum in Germany engendered lots of hoopla, with an entertaining paper presented multiple times; a trip to Bayreuth, Germany; an opera; and a reception in the Richard Wagner House. In a show broadcast by Nebraska Public Television, Breckbill and Hannah Jo Smith, the owner of the baton, were interviewed about the baton and the experience. The show aired on February 8, 2019.
Breckbill supported her library and faculty colleagues by serving on many committees in the Libraries and for the university. From 2002 to 2003 Breckbill served as chair of the Libraries Faculty, and from 2004 to 2007 she was a member of the Academic Senate. She was an enthusiastic member of several music library associations, including the Mountain Plains Music Library Association, for which she served as secretary/treasurer, chair-elect, and chair, and was five times voted “Best of Chapter” for her presentation at the annual conference.
Breckbill’s plans for retirement include a part-time job for six months at the Boston University School of Theology Library cataloging hymnals that are part of its impressive hymnal collection. Breckbill looks forward to getting to know Boston and spending some time on the east coast.
Judy Diamond
Judy Diamond’s career at Nebraska began in 1990 and has been dedicated to creating innovative informal science education outreach programs and conducting research on the behavior of wild birds. During her three decades as curator of informal science education at the University of Nebraska State Museum (Morrill Hall), Diamond served as principal investigator or coinvestigator in more than $21 million in grants to support science outreach projects. Her initiatives have fostered public education and learning research about cutting-edge scientific research through innovative museum exhibits, a NOVA documentary, comics, computer applications, and out-of-school youth activities.
Since joining the Libraries faculty in 2020, Diamond has focused on science outreach to libraries and youth. Her 2020 National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project created comics about the pandemic virus that were distributed to youth in rural and tribal communities. Her 2021 NSF-funded paleontology grant partnered with 30 tribal and rural libraries to enhance their collections of current books on deep time and climate change. As part of her 2022 Grand Challenge award, Diamond worked with the Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte Center in Walthill to strengthen its resources about One Health. Her 2023 NSF grant involving librarians Erica DeFrain and Gabriel Bruguier, Nebraska 4-H, and others is partnering with tribal libraries to enhance their biodiversity resources. Diamond published a chapter about science outreach by libraries in a book she coedited, Amplifying Informal Science Learning: Rethinking Research, Design, and Engagement (Routledge, 2023).
At the museum, Diamond led development of the Mesozoic and Explore Evolution galleries and funded them with her NSF grants. She coordinated the redesign of Elephant Hall (1993) and renovated dioramas in the Hall of Nebraska Wildlife (1996–2003) and Charles Darwin exhibits (1998). She coordinated 26 temporary exhibits produced in-house at Morrill Hall. With the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, she developed educational loan kits about each of the four Nebraska tribes. At UNL, Diamond taught graduate courses in children’s literature, exhibit design, communicating science, and informal learning. She also served for 15 years on the Faculty Senate’s Academic Rights and Responsibilities Committee, serving as chair and vice-chair.
Diamond’s research on the behavior of wild parrots was funded by the National Geographic Society, and she is an authority on comparative studies of bird play. She has published 13 books, 14 book chapters, and 54 peer-reviewed journal articles. In 2024 she served as executive coeditor of The Nebraska Sandhills (University of Nebraska Press). In 2014 she was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Diamond’s plans for retirement include serving on NSF’s STEM Directorate Advisory Committee and on the university president’s Innovation, Development, and Engagement Award (IDEA) selection committee for the next three years. She is working on books about nematodes and deep time as well as a “User’s Manual for the 21st Century.” She will continue to play a supportive role with her current NSF projects, particularly those that involve her library colleagues.
Joan Latta Konecky
Joan Latta Konecky started at UNL in 1990, coming from the library at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). She received tenure from UNMC in 1990 and UNL in 1996. From 2011 until her retirement, Konecky served as both a life sciences and biomedical librarian at UNL and a medical librarian for the Leon S. McGoogan Health Science Library at UNMC through a courtesy appointment. She has served as a liaison librarian at UNL for the School of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Resources, and Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences and at UNMC for the Colleges of Dentistry and Nursing.
Konecky spent her career dedicated to library instruction and teaching students. A selection of classes she supported with library instruction include fundamentals of biology (two semesters), general biology, human biology, invertebrate zoology, parasitology, vertebrate zoology, and molecular biology.
Konecky holds an incredible record of leadership service and active involvement with colleagues from different areas across campus. She represented the Libraries faculty as a senator on the Faculty Senate and served on a wide range of Senate committees over her career, including the Executive Committee (secretary), Committee on Committees (chair), Parking Advisory Committee (chair), Academic Standards Committee, Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, University Student Judicial Board, Academic Rights and Responsibilities (member of panels) and the Academic Planning Committee.
Konecky’s retirement plans include spending more time with family, house projects, and travel.