Learning More About the Library

 Log 3

Student: Austen Esch

Supervisor: Shelley Barba

 

February 12, 2025

I continue to work on improving the subject headings in my workspace. I have decided to move to the other side of the room, closer to the window. I plan to sit in different places every session to keep things interesting.

              Today, I continue my work on the subject headings in the Excel sheet. I am becoming very familiar with Excel, and I feel I can advertise myself as competent in using it when applying for jobs. Shelley has told me that I need to ensure that potential employers know all my technical abilities because they are frequently used to decide who is hired. After working for a while, Shelley decided we should have a serious conversation about the state of librarianship. She and I talk about the current political situation of being a librarian and how the landscape is rapidly evolving. For the most part, we do not discuss specific politicians who are responsible for this growing problem. However, we both still acknowledge that Trump’s re-election is not going to lower the temperature and make librarianship easier. On the contrary, we both agree that it will most likely be a bleak future four years for librarians, which makes me sad to think about.

Shelly also discusses the importance of honoring the wishes of theses and dissertation authors. Specifically, she tells me that their requests to delay the availability of their documents on the library database are something she takes very seriously. She shares some specific examples of theses and dissertations that the authors requested a delay in publication. In one particular case, a graduate student had written a dissertation on the treatment of LGBT people in the Rio Grande region of Southern Texas. This student had traveled there and interviewed many members of the LGBT community and documented their experiences. Although pseudonyms were used for the interviewees, the students still requested that Shelley delay public access to the dissertation because they feared for the safety of some of the people they had interviewed. Shelley explained that even if the public cannot access a thesis or dissertation, it is still vital that it is present in the collection for preservation. I was really moved by this story, and I got a glimpse into Shelley’s dedication to her job and the responsibility that librarians have in protecting communities.

 

February 14, 2025

I am sitting at one of the many tables in the computer lab where I work on subject headings. This one has a TV at the head of it that I can connect my computer to.

              I continue to make progress in converting the subject headings on the Excel sheet to Library of Congress Subject Headings. Shelley comes to me to tell me that there is still more of the library she wants to show me that we hadn’t had enough time to get to during the earlier library tour. She informs me that the main Texas Tech library is only one of the several libraries on the campus. While I did attend Texas Tech University, I had no idea that there were libraries other than the one I am currently interning at. So, we began our second tour of the campus’s libraries. First, we went to the special collections library, which is actually right next door to the main library but behind it. It is a beautiful building and is one of the newer additions to the campus from the 90s. We entered and viewed their set-up display cases to showcase little snippets of their collections. Most of the current collection is dedicated to the Southwest United States and Texas Tech history. I personally really love history, so this was genuinely an amazing experience to see my two passions, librarianship and history, so beautifully united. I briefly met with the head of this library before Shelley and I were off to the next library.

            While walking across campus to the architecture library, Shelley shares some information about the buildings on the Texas Tech campus. She, too, attended the university and then got her master’s degree at UNT before returning to Tech to work as a librarian. I hope that I am able to work at an academic library for many years and learn about the history of its college or university like Shelley has. We arrive at the architecture library, which is located in a brutalist-looking building that does not resemble the other buildings on the campus, which are Mediterranean-inspired. We ride the elevator to the top floor, and there, I see the architecture school’s personal library. Shelley explains that, historically, every graduate school had their own library. However, now most subjects have been consolidated into the main library to accommodate more classrooms, except for the architecture school. I meet with several of the librarians who manage the architecture collection and find it fascinating that they are entirely focused on maintaining material for one subject.

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