After more than 46 years of service, Education Resources Librarian Peggy Chalaron is retiring, April 1, 2013.

Chalaron began her library career at LSU even before she got her library degree, working as a Library Associate while a student in LSU’s School for Library & Information Science.  After completing her degree, she continued at LSU Libraries fulfilling a wide variety of job responsibilities as the Libraries’ needs changed, including Head of Newspapers and Microforms, Head of Acquisitions, Head of Instructional Materials, and Head of the School of Library & Information Science Library (before it was merged with the Middleton collection).  Most recently, in her role as Head of Education Resources and Distance Education Librarian, she has advanced library services for distance education students at LSU.

Along the way, Chalaron has held a variety of offices and committee memberships at the local, state, and national level, including serving on various American Library Association committees, twice president of the Louisiana chapter of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a member and chair of LSU’s Commission on the Status of Women, three separate terms on the LSU Faculty Senate, and a member and chair of the first LSU Library Faculty Policy Committee.  She has been especially concerned with intellectual freedom throughout her career, hosting regular displays in Education Resources commemorating “Banned Books Week” and winning the Louisiana Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Award.

Chalaron’s career has spanned a remarkable period in the history of academic libraries, going from the era of the card catalog to the age of online discovery, and it was partly the rapid advances in information technology that kept her interested in and part of the library profession.  In retirement, Chalaron will take on a new role as a children’s book author; she has already written two children’s books.

We salute Peggy Chalaron for her long years of outstanding service to LSU.