VRA Board Appointments: President-Elect and Junior Director for Events and Initiatives
The VRA Executive Board is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Board members. The appointments were approved by the Board last week following an interview process during which multiple candidates were considered for each role. The Board would like to thank everyone who participated in the new process. We found ourselves inspired by the candidates’ commitment to the organization and the visions for the VRA’s future that they shared with us.
Please join us in welcoming these incoming Board members and applauding their contributions to our community!
VRA President-Elect Xiaoli Ma
Xiaoli Ma has been appointed President-Elect. She will serve as President-Elect until March 2024, at which time she will become President and serve in that role until March 2026.
Xiaoli is the Metadata Librarian and Head of the Metadata Unit at the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. She develops metadata guidelines and implements workflows to enhance the usability and searchability of the content held by large-scale digital libraries. Currently, she explores the use of AI technology to automate the subject-indexing process. She studied Information Science, Art History, and American Literature at the University of Michigan, the University of South Florida, and Sichuan University, mainland China. Previously, she worked at ITHAKA as Metadata Specialist – Technical Lead, collaborating with developers and interface designers to create tools for Shared Shelf, now known as JSTOR Forum.
Xiaoli has been an active member of the VRA since around 2005, when she started as an Art History graduate assistant working in her department’s slide library. The VRA listserv became her go-to resource, providing guidance on essential aspects of her work, such as cataloging systems and scanner selections. Many of the mentors who helped shape her career path were once leaders in the VRA community. Xiaoli has served terms as Co-chair of the Core Oversight Committee and Co-chair of the Cataloging and Metadata Standards Committee. Most recently, she organized and led the VRA Core Element Description English to Chinese translation project, an experience she wrote about for the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of the VRA Bulletin.
Junior Director for Events and Initiatives Maria Nuccilli
Maria Nuccilli has been appointed Junior Director for Events and Initiatives. She will serve as Junior Director until March 2024, at which time she will become Senior Director for Events and Initiatives and serve in that role until March 2025.
Maria is Digital Collections Librarian II in the Wayne State University Library System, where she supports the access and discovery of digital collections across units by developing and maintaining user interfaces, identifying potential collection additions and collaborators, and managing projects such as a recent migration of 50,000 images to CONTENTdm from a Fedora-based legacy system. She studied Library and Information Science, Information Management, and English at Wayne State University. Outside of her work in Information Science, Maria is a professional musician and band manager, planning national and regional tours, collaborating with agencies on promotional campaigns, and negotiating booking and licensing contracts.
Maria joined the VRA in 2017, during her MLIS studies. That year she won the Internship Award, proposing an internship project to assess and create a digitization plan and interactive virtual exhibition for a collection of images and other materials relating to Detroit’s cultural heritage owned by the Scarab Club, a non-profit dedicated to the cultivation and celebration of the visual, literary, and performing arts in Detroit. She is currently serving as Secretary/Treasurer for the VRA’s Great Lakes chapter.