Libraries’ David Luftig, Sam Lohmann Earn Tenure, Promotion
WSU Libraries’ faculty members David Luftig and Sam Lohmann received their tenure and promotion to Librarian 3 earlier this year.
According to WSU Provost Chris Riley-Tillman, “the granting of tenure and promotion is the strongest possible statement that can be made of the confidence your colleagues, the college, and the university administration have in your potential to grow and contribute as a faculty member at Washington State University.”
Luftig, agriculture librarian on the Pullman campus, conducts library-centric research such as evaluating how patrons use library services and how libraries can best serve patrons with regard to achieving their information needs. He also studies the cross section of agriculture, history, cultural heritage, and colonialism.
“Issues regarding the history of agriculture and land use span across virtually all disciplines, and I enjoy exploring those intersections as I believe it provides a rich context to many different topics and histories,” he said.
Luftig helps researchers within WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, various Extension programs, and researchers/practitioners spread throughout the state and beyond. He works with a wide scope of researchers, farmers, gardeners, and individuals seeking to understand how land in Washington has been utilized over the years and how it can best be used now.
Luftig also works closely with the WSU archives to digitize content and make it discoverable. Over the century, Washington State College/WSU has produced countless agricultural resources (such as Extension documents) over an extremely wide range of topics.
“Since joining WSU, I am proud that we have digitized tens of thousands of pages of materials and uploaded them into our institutional repository, Research Exchange,” he said. “This process makes important resources freely available to all.”
Lohmann is the reference coordinator and information access librarian at WSU Vancouver. His research subjects are diverse; most recently, he published a collaborative article with the WSU Vancouver Library’s Sam Buechler and Carol Fisher on their reflective community of practice as teachers, as well as an article on copyright law, accessibility, and closed captioning in higher education. Lohmann has also published on the use of streaming media for teaching and on information literacy assessment and given conference presentations on interlibrary loan topics.
“I have a longstanding interest in poetry, literary theory, and small-press publishing and published essays and reviews on these topics as well as my own poetry,” he said. “I especially enjoy projects where I can combine my interests in poetry and in library and information sciences.”
Lohmann coordinates and leads the reference team that provides research help to students, faculty, staff, and community members on the WSU Vancouver campus. He serves as a subject librarian for First-Year Experience programs and for the departments of Anthropology, English, Fine Arts, Public Affairs, and Sociology.
He regularly teaches the one-credit “Foundations of Academic Research” course (UNIV 198), which he developed with Buechler. He also consults on copyright, open access, media collections, and accessibility issues throughout the campus and libraries and provides technical support for interlibrary loan and resource sharing.
“I enjoy working in a small library where all team members play many roles and where I can contribute to collection development, library displays, and library instruction,” Lohmann said.