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Non-Librarian Professionals Making A
Difference
May 8, 2006 Administration/Leadership, Technology Issues StevenB
1
The first night of class I tell my academic librarianship students that the key to learning about
academic libraries is getting out and going to academic libraries and talking to the people who work
there. I learned how true that is last week when I visited two di섉闕erent academic libraries. On
Wednesday I was treated to a guided tour of the library at Wright State University by Stephen Foster,
University Librarian. The full-scale replica of the Kitty Hawk hanging in the library’s atrium is certainly
unique, but that wasn’t the highlight of the tour. While there are lots of great folks working at the WSU
library one of their stars isn’t a librarian at all. Vishwam Annam is a web developer for the library, and
I was duly impressed by some of the innovative work for which he’s responsible.
The next night I visited the library at the University of Pennsylvania. I always take my students there
for the grand tour. It gives them an opportunity to see some of the behind the scenes action, and get
to know a few more library practitioners. I’ve been at Penn’s Van Pelt Library many times, but this was
my first chance to see their new information commons which was smaller than I expected, but
impressive none the less. I think what my students enjoyed most was our post-tour demonstration of
and discussion about Penn Tags. This innovation would probably be impossible if not for the non-
library professionals who do the web programming. We learned that the Penn Tagging that’s
integrated into the catalog isn’t actually in the catalog, but is just a layer on top of it that’s the result
of AJAX programming. Pretty amazing stu섉闕. We also learned Penn’s Library is unveiling a new look
home page next week that appears to be heavily influenced by a company whose name begins with a
“G” – take a look.
You probably read Jim Neal’s article about “feral professionals” that points out that it’s increasingly
becoming a necessity, not a luxury, to have non-librarian professionals within the academic library
organization. Based on the experiences of the two libraries I visited last week I can clearly see the
importance of having web programmers on sta섉闕. The real problem is that the vast majority of
academic libraries won’t be able to a섉闕ord it – or be willing to commit to the change. The large and
mid-sized university libraries seem to have the sta섉闕ing flexibilities to add a range on non-librarian
professionals to their sta섉闕. Small universities and colleges will be hard pressed to do the same, but
perhaps they can develop some strategies to share ideas and resources for utilizing the talents of our
non-librarian colleagues.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to spend a few days each month just visiting di섉闕erent academic
libraries. It’s always a learning experience.
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