Cerro Coso welcomes librarian Sharlene Paxton to the Ridgecrest Campus. Paxton has been an adjunct reference librarian for the college for two years and spent 18 years as an English teacher, a teacher librarian, and most recently a technology coach and grant lead on a Department of Defense (DOD) grant for SSUSD that supported teachers with in-class coaching and after-school professional development as they integrated new technologies into their curriculum.

Today’s librarians must be experts in dealing with both physical and digital information, as modern libraries are the center of creativity, research, and collaboration. Paxton says she loves a new challenge and is looking forward to expanding the embedded librarian services at the college as an effective means of applying the knowledge and skills of librarians towards the information challenges of the digital age. Embedded librarianship takes a librarian out of the context of the traditional library and places them into a new framework for providing library services in the classroom and in the online environment, expanding resources available to students and faculty. “It’s another layer of support for student success and it’s very innovative,” said Paxton.

Born and raised in Ridgecrest, Paxton loves to travel and explored both Canada and Alaska this summer. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from U.C. Irvine, a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University, and two California Teaching Credentials.

Welcome, Sharlene, to the CCCC Library where the journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page.