Interview with Mr. Kendall Crilly: Associate University Librarian, Program Development and Research, Yale University.

This was a 35 minute interview; I have edited portions for clarity.

What led you to pursue a profession in an academic library and how did you enter the Yale University library system?

 Well, as an undergraduate, I never used the library system.  In 1985, when I started a Master’s degree in the Yale School of Music, I worked on a project inventorying 150 musical scores.  That summer I continued working in the Sterling Library on a project inventorying the old card catalogues.  In the spring of 1986, I was taking a class with Harold Samuel called, “Research in Additions” taught at the School of Music.  This professor was exciting, leading me to rethink my future career as an organist.  So, I took a year off from my studies and worked in the Sterling Library, mostly in clerical functions.  I began a MS.LIS. Degree at Southern Connecticut State University, taking courses at night.  In 1988, I began working full-time in the Sterling Library at the Circulations Desk.

What are your core responsibilities and how many support staff report to you?

I have direct line reports of 8, with a total of 69 staff.  The lines which report directly to me are 1) Access Services, 2) Document Delivery with is an inter-Ivy League direct borrowing program, 3) Half of the technology unit, 4) Director of Research Education, 5) Usability and Assessment, 6) Historical Sound Archives, 7) Oral History of American Music, and 8) Broader circulation and access for other libraries, such as Bass Library (undergraduate library).

Here is the University Library Org Chart:

www.library.yale.edu/lhr/aboutus/orgchart1.doc

President Levin stated "When we did our first-phase renovations of the Payne Whitney Gym and Sterling Library more than a decade ago, it was very important to me [laughs] that the budget for the library be just a little more than the budget for the gym! And today, the library budget remains more than double that of the athletics department." (Lassila, K. D. (2010).  q&a: rick levin. Yale Alumni Magazine 74(1),  29.).  How do President's Levin's recent comments support the strategic goal of Yale's libraries?

President Levin’s statement confirms that our Libraries are held in high esteem.  Our University Librarian, Frank Turner, defines our mission as to be “the #1 service institution to support the teaching and research mission of Yale University”.  This places the Library in an enviable position.  A breakdown of the library budget shows 47% comes directly from the University, 45% comes from endowments and historical funding, the remainder, 8% comes from grants and contracts.

What are some of the challenges you face at the Sterling Library?

The Sterling Library is a Gothic structure, built in 1931.  Our biggest challenge is to get the students back into the library.  We have remodeled the main reading room, moved out all of the card catalogues and opened up some really beautiful spaces within the alcoves and reading rooms in the library.  We have fashioned a committee to re-purpose the space so that it will be found attractive to our students.

What do you think is the future of digital libraries?

All of our libraries have electronic databases.  We are in the process of digitizing the works housed in the Beinecke Library, which houses our rare collections.  We have a committee working on integrating the libraries into the broader community.  I’ll give you an example.  If was teaching a course on 17^th Century Western music and I wanted a real cool audio-visual presentation, I could go to the Beinecke, take some images of old sheet music, then I could go to the Music Library and get some images of old instruments, and then go to the Sterling databases to find collections of different texts used. However, as you know, the campus is so spread out that this would discourage most Professors from engaging in this exhausting activity.  So, we are working on integrating our collections to be accessible from disparate locations within the University Library System. 

When assessing candidates to join the library system, what skills, capabilities and core competencies do you look for in an individual?

This is a question that if you asked five of our librarians, you would get six different answers (laughs).  For me, I look for someone with an MLS degree, understands the technology and would preferably have a second advanced degree.  This person must possess excellent interpersonal communication skills, have upside potential, is intellectually curious, is passionate about a subject and has managerial ambition.  For a level 3, 4 or 5 librarian, I would need to see managerial experience and excellent writing skills.

Other than having the second largest academic collection of volumes (~12.5M), what do you like most about being a Yale University librarian?

This is easy, my colleagues.  When I started in the library, my colleagues were helpful.  When I would call them for help, they would say, “I haven’t met you yet, but how can I help you?”  This atmosphere is pervasive throughout our library system.  If I may add, I love the buildings, the rarity of the collections (sometimes Beinecke houses the only copy of a particular book in existence!), but the colleagues are what I like the most.

After reflecting upon my experience with Mr. Crilly, I saw three opportunities in the interview, one of them being the problem with "re-purposing" the space in the Gothic cathedral and the second being the "interoperability" issue with the digital libraries. The third opportunity, I left out of the transcript because I hope to use it as a carrot for getting an internship. 

The ship has left it's moorings...

In our latest class, Prof. Lankes left the realm of deconstruction and allowed this mangled piece of library science to begin it's maiden voyage into the ports of actual librarianships.  He brought in two librarians working in the public school system who shared their experiences with the class:  Sue, a Syracuse alumnus and Buffy, a recognized pioneer in the Georgia school system.   The overwhelming theme of both presentations was 'collaborative environments'.  

Being so far removed from these educational environments, I was surprised to see just how advanced the library has become.  I have attached Buffy's blog link so that folks can get a flavour of the potential each librarian possesses!

http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/feed/

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Librarians as Problem Solvers

Public libraries were founded to support the information needs of the community, they are funded by tax money and owned by the public.  Lankes focused on the role of the library in an expanded definition, librarians as probem solvers.  That is, if there was an ecological disaster, librarians could be part of the 'first responder team'.  This makes perfect sense. 

In arguably the greatest Science Fiction trilogy of all time, Issac Asimov's Foundation, the story starts with a prediction that the Galactic Empire would come to an end.  To prevent the destruction of the human race, an Encyclopedia is created to capture the knoweldge needed to re-create the Empire.  In a very similar fashion, librarians capture and catalogue existing knowledge that could be used in addressing potential human disasters, including the possible extinction of human knowledge.

Enter Ed Nanno, first year LIS student: The first question I was asked while using one of the iSchool's computer labs was, "Why would anyone want to be a librarian?".  I thought that this was an odd question considering the amount of time I had spent discussing this new career path with family, friends, and confidants.  So I retorted, "why wouldn't someone choose this as a career?" The answer came back as, "it's so boring, just you and all those books!"  So, this made me think about what was in fact, attractive, about being a librarian. 

Going back through my past education, I choose philosophy as my undergraduate major.  I believe that this was due to my "love of wisdom" (the meaning of the Greek words 'philos' and 'sophia').  As I continued to mull over the reasons, I decided that I needed to admit that I was a bibliophile as well as a lover of architecture.  The combination of all those books housed in such beautiful buildings was appealing to me both professionally and aesthetically.  This seemed to assuage my feelings of anxiety regarding my newly chosen profession.

Enter Dave Lankes, destroyer of worlds (actually of worldviews, but I rather like the Oppenheimer connection):  The first impression is of a man wearing jeans and crocs, cracking jokes.  As his lecture ensued, we gathered that he would break all "standardized" conventions regarding teaching, lecturing and directing (being the Director of the program, that is).   As he engaged the lecture hall, he jokes, used props (a left behind hair extension), and remembered specifics about the students in the room.  Then he lowered the boom.  In a discussion about the cultural differences in the philosophy of the library, he recounted a visit to Italy for the opening of a library.  Libraries in Italy are built as monuments of culture whereas in the United States, they are buildings which provide open access to professionals. 

So, I must say that I love this class.  It is helping the librarians of the future to focus, not on the next iteration of  the 'private language' MARCS system (classification system within libraries which is not compatible with other programming languages), but rather within their roles of shaping and creating the future that we are obligated to build.

Lankes not being Habermas

Lankes being Kuhn

So, we have all been asked to post some thougts about our first class. I must say that I was impressed that the first slide mentioned Thomas Kuhn. My pulse quickened, the signal distorted and I knew immediately that this was going to be a transformative class. Kuhn, being the author of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", was interested in how scientific knowledge progressed. He created a model called "paradigm shifts" which describes how science comes to accept new theories.

I realized that this course was going to be a new direction within our epistemological frameworks. Not only was Prof. Lankes interested in advancing the study of library science, but he was advocating a whole new hermeneutical turn for the semantic structures we had grown accustomed to hearing about regarding librarianship.

Blog Title

So... this being the first post on the blog, any die-hard RUSH fan out there knows that I have nicked a line from the song  Grand Designs to be the title.  In fact, I am going to my 21st RUSH concert tonight, the second time I have seen them in Syracuse.  The first time was back in high school and it was also my first RUSH show.