Alicia Petersen Appointed Librarian for Special Collections
MALIBU, California (February 3, 2025) – Pepperdine Libraries is pleased to announce the appointment of Alicia Petersen to the position of librarian for Special Collections. In her role, Petersen will collaborate with faculty members to lead engaging classes for their students using objects of enduring historical value from Pepperdine Libraries’ Boone Special Collections and Archives. She’ll also promote the use of the collections within the Pepperdine community and the broader research community and work with dean of Libraries Mark Roosa on growing the collections in accordance with Pepperdine’s research, teaching, and collecting priorities.
Roosa shared his excitement about Petersen’s appointment. “The Special Collections librarian role at Pepperdine Libraries is significant in that it has a tangible impact on student learning. Alicia is the right person for the job, having the perfect blend of education, skills, and experience preserving and teaching with primary source materials.”
Petersen holds two master’s degrees and a PhD in history from Yale University, where she researched the history of medicine and book history. In addition to her coursework at Yale, she participated in prominent special collections and rare books classes with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and École Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de l'Information et des Bibliothèques in Villeurbanne, France. Originally from Tampa, she completed her undergraduate work at the University of South Florida.
“I’m looking forward to working with an amazing group of faculty members to provide dynamic learning opportunities for students using our collections,” Petersen stated.
For more information on the Libraries’ Boone Special Collections and Archives, visit https://library.pepperdine.edu/collections/special-collections/.
About Pepperdine Libraries
Inspired by the University’s mission, Pepperdine Libraries serves our learning community by facilitating exploration, discovery, and creativity through personalized service at our campus locations in Southern California and abroad and through rich computer-based resources. Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff have access to nearly 2 million items via our catalog and more than 3 billion items via interlibrary loan. Our community also has access to scores of electronic databases featuring tens of thousands of journals, more than a half million ebooks, and thousands of papers in Digital Commons, our institutional repository for Pepperdine scholarship. Boone Special Collections and Archives, located in our flagship Payson Library, provides access to historical primary source artifacts. Anyone from anywhere in the world doing primary source research can search 50,000 items – including photographs, documents, films, and recordings – in our Digital Collections. Payson’s Genesis Lab and the iLabs at the Drescher and West Los Angeles graduate campus libraries are state-of-the-art makerspaces with 3D printers, virtual reality rigs, and podcasting studios. To stay updated, sign up for email newsletters and follow Pepperdine Libraries on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook.
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