DIRECTOR OF ARCHIVES

Maya has run archives, their curation, and digitization for over a decade. With a background in interdisciplinary art and social practice, she has curated international archival exhibitions for the Sydney Biennale (Australia), the Kunstverein (Amsterdam), Badischer Kunstverein (Karlsruhe, Germany), La Filature (Mulhouse, France), Jerusalem Film Festival (Israel), and more. She has run the archives of the Center for Digital Art (Holon, Israel), the Center of Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv, Israel), and the Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation (Holon, Israel). With a Masters of Information from the University of Toronto in Archiving and User Experience Design, she cares passionately about the care and access of archival materials. On any given day at the JPL Archives, you might find her preserving fragile documents, migrating a website, fundraising for archives operations, accepting a new donation of materials, or shuffling bankers boxes in the stacks to make room to accommodate our communities' artefacts.

DIGITAL ARCHIVIST

Leah is currently coordinating the JPL Archives’ migration and digitization efforts. With a background in History and Classical Archaeology, she obtained the Master of Information Studies from McGill University in 2021 with a focus on engagement and accessibility in Special Collections and Archives. Prior to joining the team at the JPL Archives, she worked as a Reference Librarian at Concordia University and coordinated research for the Canadian Heritage Minute short-films. You will typically find her working away at a spreadsheet of data to migrate or digitizing interesting materials from our collections.

REFERENCE ARCHIVIST

With a Master of Information Studies from McGill University, Sam primarily works to connect researchers and other interested users with the JPL Archive’s materials. Sam previously worked at McGill's Archives and Special Collections, and at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. She then worked at her professor’s Disability Archives Lab, where she performed user-centered research about the accessibility of archival spaces and material – a cause which she has carried with her to the JPL-A, and whose research she co-presented at the 2023 ABQLA (Quebec Library Association) conference. You can usually find her in the Archive’s reading room fielding research questions, learning Yiddish on Duolingo, or digging through the stacks to look for an unlabeled record from the mid-20th century.

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF LIBRARY & LEARNING SERVICES

Oversees collections development, cataloguing, and reference services at the JPL and for the last few years, developed education outreach programming that includes the Michael D. Paul Rare Books Initiative, the “Where Do You Think You Come From” genealogy workshops for youth, and other projects designed to create convergences between the JPL’s Archives and Special Collections and the public through storytelling.
He has worked in various capacities at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at McGill University, Scott Library (York University), the Toronto Public Library, and Library & Archives Canada, and now continues to collaborate with these institutions and others across North America to host rare book workshops featuring important Judaica works.
In 2014, he curated the JPL’s first rare book exhibit and catalogue entitled “A Roomful of Dwellings”, in addition to having co-curated an exhibition in 2017 with the Jacob Lowy Collection (Library & Archives Canada) entitled “Decanting Memory: 500 Years of Jewish Printing”.

CATALOGUING & REFERENCE LIBRARIAN

Eddie attended and promptly forgot most of Montreal Jewish school system and McGill BA English education. Remnants, along with Concordia Graduate Library Studies Diploma training, led to over 25 years of experience as cataloguer, reference librarian and shelver. Researcher emeritus and eternally retiring workshop presenter for JPL Rare Books Collection. Co-writer and compiler of A Roomful of Dwellings: The Antiquarian Books of The Jewish Public Library (2014). On any given day at the JPL, Eddie can be found rummaging through literary detritus and occasionally finding a rough diamond, locating library materials long thought lost, and evoking the wit and wisdom of a Chelm resident.

EDUCATION OUTREACH COORDINATOR

With a background in art history, contemporary art curation and arts administration, Ellen completed their Masters of Information Studies at McGill University in 2022, focusing on archives and exhibitions. Ellen works alongside Ezell on a variety of outreach initiatives, such as photographing our Archival and Special Collections materials, meeting with other organizations to foster collaborations, or brainstorming new ideas with the team, such as our Digital Storytelling initiative.

DIGITAL OUTREACH COORDINATOR

Ezell is responsible for the digital side of outreach activities, namely photographing and promoting materials, facilitating virtual workshops, and the creation of JPL-Curates content. She has an art history and classics background and holds a master’s degree in Information Studies from McGill University. Ezell discovered her love of libraries while working as a middle school coordinator, and a guest curatorship with the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota introduced her to working with special collections, rare books, and artifacts. You can now find her working at the JPL alongside her Outreach colleague, Ellen, awkwardly stuffed inside a photo light box or basking in the glow of her laptop, dreaming up new online content for JPL’s Archive and Special Collections materials.