Lorely Ambriz
Head Librarian/Assistant Professor, El Paso Community College
Lorely worked for almost 10 years (2005–2014) as the Alliances Development and Knowledge Management Specialist for the Pan American Health Organization/Regional Office of the World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) US–Mexico Border Office. At PAHO/WHO, Lorely was responsible for the coordination of the Knowledge Management and Communication Center and the US–Mexico Border Virtual Health Library (Border VHL), where she led initiatives related to information dissemination, communication technologies, multimedia, and mass media campaign development, and for border-wide research promotion. The Border VHL initiative was recognized in a supplement of The Lancet: Infectious Diseases in 2006 as the “first collaborative effort to make border health information available worldwide.” Lorely provided guidance to technical staff and external partners to promote research and knowledge generation, including co-producing two special issues of the PAHO regional journal (Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública – Pan American Journal of Public Health) on border-related issues: in September 2010, “Diabetes along the U.S.-Mexico Border,” and in May 2012, “Health and Human Security.”
In January 2014, Lorely started as a full-time tenured track faculty librarian for El Paso Community College, where she is currently the Head Librarian of a dual mission academic and public library—the Northwest Campus Library and the Jenna Welch Community Library. Simultaneously, Lorely serves remotely as an adjunct faculty for the Arizona State University/Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and its WHO Collaborating Centre to Advance the Policy on Research for Health.
In 2007, Lorely was profiled in the special “Movers & Shakers” edition of Library Journal, due to her outstanding achievements and commitment to the information sciences profession. Library Journal noted her as one of 50 librarians making a difference.
In 2017, she was recognized as the Librarian of the Year by the Border Regional Library Association (BRLA). And in 2018, she was named Bronze Winner by the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations for producing one of the best annual reports in higher education.
Lorely became an alternate delegate for the OCLC Americas Regional Council (ARC) in 2017 and currently serves as an ARC delegate on the ARC Executive Committee. The Americas Regional Council is one of three regional councils under the OCLC Global Council.