Joan Petit is the Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian at Portland State University. She holds BA (English and Women's Studies) and MSLS degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as an MA in English from Western Carolina University. Before entering librarianship, she worked in outdoor recreation at Nantahala Outdoor Center. She has worked at UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries, Duke University Library, and, more recently, the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where she and colleagues revamped LALT 101, the university's required information literacy course.