Faculty Profile: Joanne Ziembo-Vogl
It didn’t take long after a selection of Joanne Ziembo-Vogl’s scholarly papers were posted on her SelectedWorks faculty profile within the ScholarWorks@GVSU Repository that she knew her research was reaching a much broader audience than just Grand Valley peers or students. It wasn’t the fact that one specific article by the associate professor of criminal justice was downloaded multiple times shortly after it was posted, but instead that it was written in Slovene. Ziembo-Vogl knew that there are an estimated 2.5 million speakers of the language worldwide, but the chances were these readers weren’t in Allendale or Grand Rapids.
“ScholarWorks@GVSU is great for Grand Valley in that it gets our scholarly works out there in another way,” she said. “Instead of [an article] just appearing in a printed journal, it’s available online. It really broadens our reputation around the world.”
But Ziembo-Vogl knows the success of the program is not because of her alone. She’s quick to credit the University Libraries for their work in helping her understand the value of posting to SelectedWorks and then helping make it happen. She gives special praise to Pat Bravender and Jodi Tyron, both of whom are liaison librarians to Grand Valley’s professional
programs. “The librarians are fantastic people to work with,” Ziembo-Vogl said. “They are truly a professional group.” She cited their collaboration in helping with acquisitions, incorporating library resources into the classroom, and developing a library information literacy program for criminal justice students.
Ziembo-Vogl has become such a fan of ScholarWorks@GVSU that she’s currently working with the College of Community and Public Service to include all faculty members in the Scholar Works Repository. She believes the repository is not only an important opportunity for faculty members as academicians, but that it’s valuable to their disciplines as well. “We’ve already become better connected with practitioners and local agencies”, due to the availability of faculty members’ research, she said. “Hopefully our research and scholarship will be of some use to students and scholars around the world.”
Whether those students, scholars, and practitioners are around the corner or as far away as Slovenia, it’s comforting to know they have open access to the scholarly work being done by people like Ziembo-Vogl and other faculty members at Grand Valley who are making their scholarship available to the world via the ScholarWorks@GVSU Repository.