San Diego Literary Scene believes that libraries are an essential part of the communities they serve. Libraries play vital and varied roles, that go far beyond just being repositories of books, though this is important as well. In an effort to spread the word about what our San Diego libraries have available, we decided to launch a "Get To Know Our Local Libraries" feature, which will consist of interviews with library staff at various locations around the county.
Since some people may be less aware of our academic libraries, for our first interview, we chose the UC San Diego Library. The library is ranked among the top 25 public academic research libraries in the nation. It provides access to more than 7 million digital and print volumes, journals, and multimedia materials to meet the knowledge demands of scholars, students, and members of the public.
SDLS met with Tammy Nickelson Dearie, who is the interim University Librarian, Julie Sully, who is the Director of Development Library & Campus Initiatives, and Nikki Kolupailo, the interim Director of Communication & Engagement, for this interview. Scott Paulson gave me a tour of the library.
SDLS: The UC San Diego campus has 2 library buildings, the Geisel library, and the Biomedical library {the names reference the library buildings, but both are part of the one UC San Diego library system}. Are either of them accessible by the public? Who can use the libraries?
TAMMY: They are all mostly accessible to the general public. The Biomedical Library and the Geisel Library are both open to the public. We have thousands of visitors every week from the San Diego community. The Scripps Institute of Oceanography is available by appointment only for researchers doing work in the Scripps archives, and then we have an off-campus facility called The Annex, which is by appointment only as well. It is basically, a big book warehouse.
SDLS: Is the public able to check out materials?
TAMMY: If you are a member of the circuit library system, which is the San Diego County, the San Diego Public, USD, SDSU, & Cal State San Marcos, you can use your library card to request materials from the circuit system, and they can come from this library, or any of the other libraries in the system. Additionally, if members of the San Diego community want to purchase a library card {in order to have borrowing privileges at the UC San Diego Library}, you can do that as well. The cost is $100.00 for 12 months, and there are special rates for community students and seniors.
SDLS: So, when you say "the circuit", is that like inter-library loan?
TAMMY: It's a little different. It's like that, but it's one union catalog of all of those libraries, so you can go into and search for anything you want, request it, and then pick it up at any library location you want in the San Diego area, which is really convenient, so you don't actually have to come here to borrow the materials. And, it's through your library, so it's free. Of course, anyone can come in and use our materials here onsite as well. Most of our journals don't circulate, access to the data bases you can get only on campus.
SDLS: I read in your flyer that you have an "Ask A Librarian" service available, where people can call a librarian and get information on any topic. Is this also available to the general public?
TAMMY: Yes, absolutely.
SDLS: The flyer says "You're up late, and so are we", so how late is the service available until?
TAMMY: It's a shared service, so we partner with libraries all over the world, so you might get someone from Australia to answer your question.
SDLS: Really? Wow, that's interesting.
TAMMY: So, what they do is, they go onto our own website and look up the information if they don't know it off the top of their head. And the service operates 24 hours a day.
SDLS: How many people come into the library a day?
TAMMY: It's about 7,000 people on an average day.
SDLS: And are you seeing a lot of community people coming in?
TAMMY: I think so. The people who live in San Diego, around this area, {the campus} certainly know. The San Diego and North County transit systems all have buses that come to campus. We have a large bus depot here, and the trolley will be coming here soon, so we get a lot of walk-in traffic.
SDLS: What does a typical day in the library look like? What are people coming in for - current books, research materials, something else?
TAMMY: Most of our patrons are students. We open the front doors at 7:30 a.m., but the building on the east wing is open 24/5, so it opens Sunday morning and stays open until Friday night. So, students can be over in the east wing, there's a café over there, so they either come in at 7:30 in the morning, or they've been there all night. They are generally using the library either for research help/support, or for the cooperative learning spaces that we have.
We have 3D printers that they might use for class projects, we have resources that they might be using, we have a lot of computers that they might be using, so I would say that a common day would be students coming in at 7:30 in the morning. It picks up after 3. They take a break for dinner, and then come back and stay overnight. A lot of the materials that they use are on reserve, materials that faculty have said "read these resources". They might come in to listen to some audio, or watch a film that we stream for them at different viewing stations that we have.
JULIE: And some faculty even teach classes here, in some of the rooms we have here, and work with librarians in order to do that.
SDLS: I know that many writers and authors use libraries to do research for books they may be working on. Do you see that here as well? Are non-faculty writers coming in to use your resources?
JULIE: Our alum, Mark Johnson, he's around a lot.
NIKKI: He just wrote a book. It's called, Spitting in the Soup. It's about steroids and sports. He did an event here, and he said he spent a lot of time up on one of the floors here working on the book.
Oh, and one of the things we forgot to mention is the tech lending program. People normally come to the library to check out books, but now they can check out tech items. So, if they forget their iPhone charger, or their computer charger, or even their computer. Even non-tech items, like wrist pads, or mouses, lots of other stuff, they can check those out.
SDLS: Does the library have any unique collections?
TAMMY: Well, the Dr. Seuss collection is pretty unique. It's the majority of his materials, it's his hand drawings, his book layouts, etc., and we do an exhibit of that several times a year, so you can come and see that. We have a lot of the cartoons that he did, a lot of propaganda cartoons, and you can see all of that. We have the Hill Collection Of Pacific Voyages, which is a collection of books from the 16 & 1700's, all about people who went on voyages, who travelled across the ocean. We also have the History of Contemporary Science And Technology collection.
JULIE: It tries to mirror what has been going on in San Diego, and is pretty much a history of San Diego itself. We have the Archive Of New Poetry. All of this is in special collections. So that area is really what distinguishes us from other libraries
TAMMY: Another collection that is available to the public, is the Melanesian collection. We probably have the largest collection of Melanesian materials in the world, even more than what they have in Melanesia itself. And then we also have a very large Latin American studies collection as well, which is probably the largest in San Diego county, maybe even in Southern California. Berkeley has the next largest collection.
SDLS: You partner with other libraries for the "Ask A Librarian" program, and with the circuit lending program. Do you do any joint events with any local San Diego libraries?
TAMMY: We're doing the One Book, One San Diego event with the San Diego public library. We will be doing events here based around the selected book.
NIKKI: Last year it was their 10th anniversary, so there were 10 separate books & events, and we ended up hosting one of them. We partnered with KPBS on that. We hosted an event here, had a couple of spokespeople come and introduce the author, as well as we had the library bring in catered Persian food because the book was about a woman with a Persian background.
For this year, it will be a little more challenging because there is only 1 author, who is only in town for a short time, so what we might do is partner with the Cross Cultural Center here on campus, as well as our Armenian student group, and maybe work with one of our film curators at the library and maybe show a film, have a professor come and discuss the film, and how it ties in with the book. Otherwise, we might also have an exhibit about the One Book program, and encourage people to participate. Also, we partnered with KPBS for the Dinner In The Library. They've been our media sponsor for the last 3 years.
TAMMY: Last year, our keynote speaker {at the Dinner In The Library} was Ari Shapiro.
JULIE: It's not always an author, but we often do have them.
SDLS: In looking back at earlier Dinner In The Library events, it seems that the keynote speaker was usually a faculty member, or someone from the community that you wanted to pay tribute to. When was the decision made to choose broader appealing, bigger names?
JULIE: Maybe when I got here. (laughter) We needed to up the caliber. We wanted to draw more attention, and get more people in, because it's a fundraising event. And, I think we have been successful in doing that. We have 130 RSVPs to date, so it's going well
SDLS: Does the money raised from the Dinner in the Library go to a specific thing, like a building fund, or to get a piece of equipment, or acquisition for a collection? Or does it go to a general fund?
Julie: This is the first year that the money will be going to something specific. In earlier years, the funds were unrestricted - used to enhance our spaces, collections, & services - but this year, with our priority being the renovation of the Geisel Library, we are directing the funds to the Geisel Library Revitalization Initiative. We have a $1,000,000 challenge grant we are trying to fulfill that our Chancellor has given us, so with that impetus, we decided to direct these funds to what we call the GLRI. One of the objectives of that is to renovate the 8th floor into a study space, a modern reading room, but also a space that can be converted into a marquee event space where we would hold the Dinner In The Library when its finished, and who knows? This year's theme is "Going to the Top", so we're planning to be on the top floor of the Geisel Library next year.
This concludes the interview. I want to thank Tammy, Julie, Nikki, and Scott for taking the time to speak with me, and for giving me a tour of the library. It was a pleasure to meet with you all, and to learn about all you have that is available to the students, faculty, and community at large.
The 2017 Dinner In The Library will be held on Friday, September 8th, in the Geisel Library, from 6pm - 9:30pm. This year's keynote speaker is acclaimed author, Ann Patchett. Tickets are still available for purchase. See links below.
Additional information here:
https://library.ucsd.edu/about/campaign-for-the-library/dinner/
http://sandiegoliteraryscene.blogspot.com/2017/07/ann-patchett-is-featured-speaker-at.html
https://library.ucsd.edu/about/who-we-are/index.html
https://library.ucsd.edu/borrow-and-request/get-a-library-card/index.html
