Taneya
MORE ABOUT ME , MY INTERESTS & MY WORK
GENEALOGY — I research my family history as well as help others find clues to their ancestry. I started this hobby in 2006 and have a website with our own family tree, as well as a genealogy blog dedicated to my own research and various family history-related items. I coordinate six websites at a county level that are part of a national network of genealogy websites – Blount County, TN – Martin County, NC – Jones County, NC – Onslow County, NC, Wake County, NC & Washington County, NC. I am also one of the Assistant State Coordinators and webmaster for the statewide NCGenWeb project and through this work I’ve gotten to know many more fellow genealogists and have a greater appreciation and understanding of the state of North Carolina. In June 2010, I joined the Florida GenWeb Project as an Assistant Coordinator for Hillsborough County. I also have blogs dedicated to sharing information from old newspapers and other genealogical information for the Plymouth, NC area, the Kinston, NC area and Nashville, TN. Furthermore, I have two surname projects; my Koonce Genealogy site because I ”collect Koonces” & my Vanderbilt Family Genealogy site which came about given my interest in the Vanderbilt family. Through my genealogy work I’ve made connections with many other researchers, and even extended family members.
COMPUTERS – I love ‘em. I’m big into technology and love to experiment with most things Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Social Networking in general. After I first learned HTML in library school in 1999, I was forever hooked with all things web-related. I’ve maintained a strong online prescence since then, with my website evolving over time – first it was on the servers at the University of North Carolina @ Chapel Hill, then I secured www.taneyakoonce.com, and after getting married, changed it to www.taneya-kalonji.com. I started blogging in 2003. With this current iteration, I’m very thankful to have WordPress so that I can focus less on HTML and more on content.
CROSS-STITCHING — I started cross-stitching after I graduated high school in 1993. From then until 1997, I stitched occasionally, mostly during the summers. Graduate school marked the beginning of my working on projects during the school year, and once I was out of school in 1999, it became a full-on obession. From 99 until I had Kaleya, I worked on so many projects and would easily stitch 24-40+ hours a week – that’s another job! Since 2005, I have not stitched very frequently, but it remains close to my heart and I’m sure I’ll pick it back up again. You can see some of my completed projects here and some of the projects hanging in limbo until I return to them here. While avid into this hobby, I once had a site that served as a gallery to showing off stitcher’s versions of designs created by Mirabilia, Lavender & Lace, and Told in a Garden. I created a database of designs that appeared in various cross-stitch magazines, and even hosted stitcher galleries online. I’ve since disbanded these two sites (the magazine database was transferred to Anita in 2009) as my time efforts& interests eventually just went elsewhere.
MY JOB – I am the Associate Director for Research with the Eskind Biomedical Library & Knowledge Management teams at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. We are associated with the Informatics Center. What does that mean? Essentially it means that we help our users (providers & patients in the medical center) access and manage information. We collaborate on multidisciplinary teams to impact information acquisition and use. We help match health care providers and patients with information when and where they need it. I’m fortunate to work in an exciting environment with a very supportive supervisor and I love what I do. From helping patients locate medical information when looking at their electonric medical records online to helping in efforts our team undertakes to capture the knowledge that various people have in a way that can be reused, I have opportunities to participate in many, many different types of projects. It’s great! In September 2008, I began another masters degree to pursue a Masters in Public Health – this matches well with what I currently do and I hope to become a better researcher after all is said in done in May 2010. To help support my continued growth, I also have a blog that is more oriented to issues we come across at work.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and they may not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. (Added April 23, 2010)