Joan Petit is an Associate Professor and the Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian at the Portland State University Library. Since joining the PSU faculty in 2009, she has become an essential resource for the campus, serving as the library liaison to the departments of English, History, Judaic Studies, and the University Honors College. Beyond her subject expertise, Joan manages the library’s reference services, ensuring that the entire PSU community has access to high-quality research assistance. Her leadership was instrumental in a major project to relocate the library’s primary service point to the first floor, significantly increasing visibility and accessibility for everyone entering the building.
Joan’s expertise is informed by a global perspective on information science. During a sabbatical in 2016-17, she served as a Fulbright Scholar in Ethiopia, where she taught graduate-level classes at Jimma University. During her time abroad, she worked with faculty across multiple campuses to promote the use of open-access resources, championing the idea that information should be freely available to scholars everywhere.
At the heart of Joan’s work is a passion for student success. Her favorite aspect of her role is helping students navigate complex databases and archives to find the research materials they need, whether primary sources from an archive, digital library, or books or articles from the library’s collections. She finds great joy in seeing a student’s project come together through the discovery of new evidence. Joan holds a Master of Science in Library Science (MSLS) and a Bachelor of Arts in English and Women’s Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a Master of Arts in English from Western Carolina University.