Rate My Professor Sylvia Ransom

Sylvia Ransom served as Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Education within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education at the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. She also worked as Faculty Librarian at UNE's Dixson Library, where she supported research through literature searches and reference location. Ransom collaborated on educational initiatives, including the 2006 Teaching Development Grant titled 'Embedded academic literacy support for first-year nursing students,' alongside colleagues Loretta Fitzgerald, Jan Brown, Julie Godwin, and Helen Pendreigh.

In 2010, Ransom completed a six-month consultancy contract with the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB), focusing on library development. She conducted a situational analysis across all ten RUB college libraries, assessing facilities, collections, staff practices, and training needs. Her efforts led to the design of Bhutan's first library qualification: a three-year part-time Diploma of Library Management (240 credits) at Samtse College of Education, delivered via mixed-mode (distance education with residential components). The program targeted untrained library assistants in schools, academic institutions, public libraries, and special collections, covering essential topics such as cataloging, classification, collection management, user education, and technology integration. Ransom benchmarked against Australian librarianship and library technician programs, delivered workshops, prepared proposals for RUB's Academic Planning and Resources Committee, drafted module descriptors and outlines, and developed plans for resources, staffing, and future online delivery using Moodle. Key outputs included an unpublished co-authored manuscript with Y. Dorji on the diploma and her report 'Report with Recommendations: the Result of Six Months Working for the Royal University of Bhutan.' Her scholarly contributions encompass 'Bhutan's first library qualification, background and development' (2011, Education for Information, 28(2–4), 165-173), 'Improving Bhutan's academic libraries, recommendations from a situational analysis' (2011, The International Information and Library Review, 43(4), 192-197), and book reviews in the Australian Library Journal.