Sarah Tischer Scully – musings on library work and librarianship

Evaluation of DSpace as a Digital Preservation Platform

Updated May 12, 2026

At Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS), the library hosts two archival collections: our institutional archive, with materials relating to the history of the school, and a faculty scholarship collection, consisting of books, articles and other scholarly publications. We would like to digitize these materials for preservation and access, and I wanted to evaluate one potential platform to use in this work.

Technology Tools

Why Slack Sucks as a Learning Management Platform

Updated May 5, 2026

I am just wrapping up the second of 5 courses for the Digital Curation Certificate at the University of Maine. For some reason, the faculty of this program do not use the university’s official course management platform, Brightspace. Instead, both have been conducted within Slack. I wanted to share what makes this choice so problematic […]

Screen shot of a php-generated page displaying recipe entries from a database

Tools Review: GitHub, WordPress, Omeka-S

Updated May 1, 2026

Part of my motivation for enrolling in a digital curation program was to learn new-to-me tools, and so far my first class has provided several opportunities in this area. Here are some thoughts on each one: GitHub – I was familiar with the concept of a collaborative version control system, but hadn’t actually found a […]

Technology Tools

Advice for would-be librarians

Updated September 10, 2025

Based on a recent conversation with a student, here is the advice I offer for someone wanting to become a librarian in 2025.

Philosophical

Recent acquisitions to the archive include: 16mm film, 3/4" video tape, student handbook from 2019-2020, a publication on environmental topics in Vermont, a PowerPoint presentation from the South Royalton Legal Clinic, burned onto CD, and a brochure from Alumni Weekend 2025.

An accidental archivist returns to school

Updated August 27, 2025

When my current position opened up, I noticed the job description included this nugget: This position manages the library’s archives collections while also participating in the library’s reference and faculty liaison program. It was an interesting footnote.

Philosophical

Well, how did I get here?

Updated August 25, 2025

The world of librarianship is filled with interesting origin stories: second careers, third careers, accidental librarianship; some folks even choose this path early in life out of a love of reading, or a deep bond with their childhood librarian. Here is my version. I did not have a deep bond with my childhood librarian, nor […]

Philosophical

The opening keynote at the AALL annual meeting. A ballroom lit up in bright orange, red and yellow lights. Attendees are seated at round tables. the AALL President, Cornell Winston, is on stage in front of a projector with the conference theme, Be Bold in large letters.

Reflections on AALL 2025

Updated August 27, 2025

Sharing details about my first time attending the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting in Portland, Oregon.

Events