Faculty Focus – Jane Verostek

01/28/2022

"Rolling soundtracks flow from kickers.

Everyone is listening to the hip hop transmitters.

This portable disco dance party just needs some glitter!"

This poem written by Associate Librarian Jane Verostek is among 10 poems selected for the 2022 annual Syracuse Poster Project Series. The poems will be featured on posters along with artwork by local illustrators.

"I have been writing haikus and written word for the Syracuse Poster Project for over 10 years," said Verostek. "This year was a game-changer for me as the project was looking for not only haikus but also three- to four-line poems, and provided poets with 'spirit' — topic categories that you had to choose from to write about."

The category of bike-borne boom boxes called to Verostek. "There was just something electrifying and exhilarating about this topic — as soon as I read it music was playing in my head, and my head was bobbing as words flowed from my pen."

Verostek is a 1992 environmental studies graduate. "While attending ESF I worked in Moon Library, and after graduating I decided to pursue a master's in library science." She returned to ESF as a librarian in 1998, having worked at several area libraries and for Gaylord Brothers.

Verostek has a reputation for seeing a need in the library and doing what she can to ensure the students' needs are being met. She created and taught the online version of ESF 200 Information Literacy. She teaches the course both in person and online.

In 2014, she lobbied — and volunteered — to reopen the ESF College Archives and Special Collections after it had been closed for three years. Verostek went back to school and earned a master's in museum studies.

"Every day at ESF, I have a focus on students with my teaching and being at our reference desk to help with any questions they have.

"I am passionate about our archives and special collections and work toward preserving our history and making it accessible," she said. "I work with numerous researchers and authors who use items from our archives and special collections and work with some specific classes and departments on campus as we have exceptional and outstanding collections dealing with papermaking and landscape architecture."