Aestiva Solutions was founded by Eric Bradley and Ruth Szpunar. Learn more about them below.
Eric Bradley is a Research and Instruction Librarian for Goshen College who works with college students and their professors to locate and evaluate quality resources, as well as an Information Fluency Coordinator for the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) who supports college librarians in their work of teaching. Eric believes that twenty-first century college librarians play a critical role in the student learning process. While he continues to value the library as a place, he invests a great deal of his time outside of the library teaching research sessions, as well as one credit-bearing course each semester.
Eric has secured a staying place for the library reference desk by expanding services to include drop-in writing assistance, and has expanded library instruction beyond the traditional college classroom to Goshen Health and Elkhart General hospitals. He has assisted teaching librarians through interactive workshops including the biennial Camp RIO, and has coordinated on-site ethnographic and user experience research at libraries across Indiana. He is a member of the PALNI Hall of Fame.
Eric holds a MLS from Indiana University, and a BA in Biblical studies from Grace College.
View Eric’s CV.
Ruth Szpunar is passionate about hands-on learning, collaboration, editing, LibGuides, usability, and milk chocolate. She’s organized, fun, energetic, great with technology, thorough, and works with excellence. She loves working on projects (especially event planning!) and seeing them through to completion. She’s an engaging speaker, and intentionally works to put her audiences at ease.
In 2014, Ruth excitedly became an Information Fluency Coordinator for the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI). Through that role, Ruth has experience in planning professional development events for librarians, creating and implementing Usability and User Needs Studies, and generally facilitating collaboration among librarians. Working with PALNI librarians gave Ruth the desire to open Aestiva and partner with other librarians in a similar capacity.
Ruth served as a part-time Instruction and Reference Librarian with rank of part-time Associate Professor at DePauw University from 2005-2019. She worked closely with DePauw students, staff, and faculty to assist them in locating quality sources. She also met with several classes per semester to provide specialized instruction on library resources available for their specific assignments. Additionally, she was responsible for compiling database usage statistics and managing the reference, campus life, and test prep book collections. Working in academia allowed her to connect students to resources for their research, work with scholarly information, and help to further the pursuit of knowledge.
Ruth has a BA in English from Bethel College and a MLS from Indiana University.
View Ruth’s CV.