New Directors of Human Resources and Branches East Appointed at VPL

For Immediate Release, February 7, 2007

(Vancouver, British Columbia) -- Brenda Prosken has joined Vancouver Public Library (VPL) as the new Director of Human Resources, and Diana Guinn has been appointed as VPL's new Director of Branches East.

Brenda Prosken comes to VPL with a wealth of human resources experience and a record of strong community involvement. From 2001 to 2006, Ms. Prosken was the Director of Human Resources at MTS/ALLSTREAM, an IT business solutions company with over 700 employees. She began her career as a social worker and was the Social Work Supervisor for the City of Winnipeg. Ms. Prosken was later promoted to the position of Manager of Human Resource Services for the City of Winnipeg.

Ms Prosken has also served as the Vice Chair of the Board of Regents of the University of Winnipeg, President of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and President of the Manitoba Association of Social Workers. Ms. Prosken joined VPL in October 2006.

Diana Guinn has joined VPL after eight years as Chief Librarian at Port Moody Public Library (PMPL), where she skillfully led PMPL through a period of significant growth a new initiatives, including implementation of year-round Sunday openings. Guinn also lead the federated searching project, Smart Choices Two Libraries One Search for Port Moody and Coquitlam libraries, and worked on a committee for building expansion. Prior to PMPL, Ms. Guinn was the Director of Systems & Technical Services at Fraser Valley Regional Library for seven years.

Ms. Guinn has also served as Vice President, President, and Past President of the British Columbia Library Association (BCLA) between 2003-2006, and is a respected speaker, presenting at several conferences in BC, Alberta, and Washington State. As Director of Branches East, Ms. Guinn will be overseeing ten library branches in South and East Vancouver as well as VPL's Outreach Services, which provides library services to library patrons with visual or physical disabilities. Ms. Guinn's first day with VPL was February 5, 2007.

Founded in 1869, the Vancouver Public Library is one of Canada's largest library systems, dedicated to meeting the lifelong learning, reading, recreation, and information needs of the people of Vancouver. Each year, the Library's 22 branches serve over 370,000 patrons, offer over 2.5 million items and countless online resources to the public, and answer more than one million reference questions. In 2006, a record 10 million items were circulated.