Biography

After receiving a degree in psychology from Cornell, Maira moved to Ohio to work in a psychiatric hospital, but ended up opening a small-town bookstore. Then, the Latvian Studies Center in Kalamazoo called with a job. Following her ethnic roots, she worked there for fifteen years and created the largest Latvian library in North America at that time. After Latvia regained its independence, she redistributed the collection and eventually became a faculty member at WMU Libraries.

She has been a reference librarian for many years, teaching students to use library resources. Currently, she is in the Research Services Department at the University Libraries. Main responsibilities include managing our institutional repository, ScholarWorks, and developing an Open Education Resources Initiative at WMU. Research interests have included web management, web archiving and institutional repositories with an ongoing interest in Baltic libraries and archives around the world, access to Baltic resources and the preservation of Baltic diaspora archival materials.

Biography adapted from text on the University Libraires directory page for Maira Bundza.