This year, we here at the Leatherby Libraries are committed to using the blog to showing off more of what we have to offer, to students, faculty, staff, and visitors. Jimmy Elinski’s (’21) “Exploring the Magic of the Leatherby Libraries” blog series is taking readers on a virtual tour of the library’s places and spaces, and an upcoming series from student worker Ruby Blakesleay (’22) will focus on some of the different services the library offers. In this vein, I’ll be spending the next nine weeks diving into the nitty-gritty of what it is, exactly, that academic librarians do.

In four blog posts, spaced out every other Thursday, I’ll examine the four key components of academic librarianship: Instruction, Reference and Assessment, Subject Liaison Librarianship, and Collection Development. Each post will consist of an interview with one of our excellent librarians – Taylor Greene, Lauren Dubell, Ivan Portillo, and Kristin Laughtin-Dunker were all kind enough to meet with me to help educate everyone on what it means to be a librarian in a university library. As I conducted these interviews, I learned too – although I work in a library, and have made great use of academic libraries for well over a decade now, there were still some things I didn’t know about librarianship, and I’m looking forward to sharing with our readers.

Look out for the first post, coming on November 7th, where we’ll talk with Chair of Instructional Services Taylor Greene about the Instruction component of academic librarianship.