Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to work here at Andrews?
I'm the new Digital Librarian at the James White Library, where I manage the Adventist Digital Library project. I arrived here at Andrews University a few months ago with my husband, Bill, and our two cats. I came from Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, where I worked for over six years as the Special Collections Librarian. For me, it's exciting to be back at AU, because I went to school here and graduated in 2009 with a B.A. in English Literature. It's neat to be working at my alma mater, and it's good to be in Michigan again. I don't even mind the snow. The weather in California was always warm, and I actually missed the winters. My husband was born in SoCal and lived his whole life in California, so he's been a really good sport about moving to a place with lake effect snow.
What kind of work will you be doing with the James White library?
I'm the librarian in charge of managing, marketing, and growing the Adventist Digital Library (ADL) and SDA Periodical index (SDAPI). The digital library and index are a collaborative project that brings together digitized Adventist resources from several institutions into a single, free, full-text, online database. Our major partners include the General Conference, the Association of SDA Librarians, Loma Linda University, and of course Andrews University, where the Center for Adventist Research contributes much of the incredible content we're able to provide. On ADL, you can find a growing collection of digitized Adventist books and periodicals alongside unique material like historic photographs, diaries, letters, and other special items. Our digital library features a lot of content published before 1926, which is in the public domain and free to share online.
One of my jobs is to collaborate with Adventist publishers to bring new, recently published content to ADL, and especially to SDAPI. The SDA Periodical Index is a part of our digital library where you can search by keyword for articles published in Adventist magazines and journals. With our growing number of publishing partners, we are able to provide more and more links to full text articles every day. It is my goal and dream to push the Adventist Digital Library and SDA Periodical Index to grow into a robust website that supports research of all kinds, from historical to theological to just-for-fun exploration or even genealogical research. This summer we will be moving to a new web platform that will give us more room to grow and add features that add value to our digital library and index, like the ability to filter search results for peer-reviewed articles. I'm really excited about the upcoming peer review feature, because I can imagine how helpful our database will be for students doing research in religion classes.
How can students at Andrews use this digital resource?
Andrews students can find our website at https://adventistdigitallibrary.org/, or you can find us through the James White Library site under the "Research Help" tab. The Adventist Digital Library and the SDA Periodical Index are both linked in the "Adventist Resources" guide you'll find there. You can also Google "Adventist Digital Library," and our site will come up.
What are some of your favorite things about your job?
I love helping people find exactly what they need to answer their questions, whether it's a big academic research question or just curiosity about a topic. That desire to help people and support their research led me to become a librarian. Actually, it was my academic advisor here at Andrews, Dr. Beverly Matiko, who realized I would love this field, and she was the first one to suggest librarianship to me. What drew me to digital librarianship was the way that digitization allows libraries to preserve their rare and special collections while sharing them with people all over the world–which was never possible in the past! I love being part of making collections available to as many people as possible, while also preserving the original items and their digital surrogates for the researchers of the future.
How did you become interested in digital multimedia, and what do you like about it?
I discovered the satisfaction of digitizing collections and making them available online during my first full-time library job. I worked in the Garden Archives at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard library located in Washington, D.C. The Garden Archives contain a wonderful collection by and about Beatrix Farrand, a talented landscape architect who pioneered her field when it was unusual for women to work, let alone become famous for their skill. I was part of a team that helped build the website that houses the digitized Garden Archives collection today, and in the course of that project, I learned a lot and became fascinated with digital collections. I like the challenge of using technology to capture the best image you can from a historic document. I also became invested in the collection we were digitizing and sharing because Beatrix Farrand was such a ground-breaking professional woman and artist. I felt honored to be part of preserving and sharing her story and the collection she left behind. I feel the same way here at Andrews where we are digitizing and sharing Adventist resources in the Adventist Digital Library. I love being a part of digitizing and sharing the books, periodicals, photographs, letters, diaries, and more that make up ADL's collections–it's a way to preserve and spread the story of the Adventist Church and all the unique and interesting individuals who make up our history.
Do you have any advice for someone who might be interested in a career in this field?
If you're interested in working in libraries, you can enter this profession from any undergraduate program. It's a flexible profession with a lot of variety; most people figure out what kind of librarian they want to be during graduate school when they earn their Masters of Library Science (a two-year program). I love working in libraries, so I'd be happy to talk to anyone who is thinking about pursuing this career. In fact, my biggest advice to any student weighing their future career options is to talk to your professors here at Andrews. That's how I found my path to where I am today.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.