Hello, my name is Sarah. I’ve worked in academic libraries in a variety of roles for more than 15 years. Before discovering librarianship, I worked in audio production for educational non-profits.
My interests are wide and include patron services and reference, with an emphasis on accessibility, patron rights, technology support, and materials conservation – particularly multimedia conservation and digitization. I like helping people and troubleshooting systems when they don’t work as desired or expected.
Starting a blog has been a “maybe someday” project at the back of my mind for years. Inspired to librarianship by Jessamyn West, I’ve always admired her diligence and consistency in maintaining her writing over such a long time. In my first professional role I didn’t have a lot of authority, and most of my interactions were niche and disjointed enough that I never knew how to present my work to someone else in a way that made sense.
Now I’m in a role with greater autonomy, more project-based assignments, and leeway to consider and experiment with problem-solving. I figure that documenting this work will be helpful to me personally, and if anyone else finds my ideas or discoveries useful or interesting, that’s a bonus.
I’ve worked in libraries long enough to see iterations of trends and technologies and to have opinions about certain approaches to service. So I’ll be writing about a mix of things here, from nitty-gritty troubleshooting of specialized software, to more philosophical topics like patron support, outreach, and user rights. Posts will be published when I have something to write about, and not necessarily on any kind of schedule. All opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer.