CHARLIE BENNET: If you're cornered at a party full of nonlibrary people, and someone says, technical services, what's that, what would you say?
I would say that we are the backbone of the library. We buy, we order, we describe, we make available the resources that our users are looking for.
And then one more question, and you only get a single sentence to answer. Do you have any idea why introversion and technical services seem to go together?
Introverts tend to want to be quiet, and technical services is generally a quiet place. Sorry, that was two sentences.
[LAUGHS]
No, I heard the semicolon.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett, in the studio with Marlee Givens, Fred Rascoe, and a guest to be named later. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you are here for, we hope you dig it.
Today's show is called-- and let me get the right tone for this-- Technical Services Represent!
Nice. To put it simply, library technical services are the crew that keeps the physical and electronic collections available, discoverable, and growing. They don't always get recognized for their work the way they should since they don't work directly with patrons, but they are essential.
And our guest today is the Resource Acquisitions Librarian at the Georgia Tech Library. She is the most recent librarian to join the Georgia Tech Library's Technical Services team. And we like to feature new library faculty on the show to talk about how they do their job and why.
Thus, Technical Services Represent!
Yes. I heard the exclamation point too.
[LAUGHS]
Our songs today are about building teams, acquiring the things you need, and working behind the scenes. And we start with a song about how tech services represent their library user community by helping to meet its information wants and needs.
Oh.
So let's kick off today's tunes with "Wants & Needs" by Thick right here on Lost in the Stacks.
[THICK, "WANTS & NEEDS]
(SINGING) I can't get what I want if I don't even know.
"Wants & Needs" by Thick. This is Lost in the Stacks, and our show today is called Technical Services Represent. Our guest is--
Hey, where's the exclamation point, Fred? FRED RASCOE: [CLEARS THROAT] Sorry. Our show today is called Technical Services Represent! There we go.
Our guest is Stephanie Galipeau, the Resource Acquisitions Librarian at the Georgia Tech Library and part of Technical Services.
Stephanie joined the GT Library earlier this year, coming to us with years of experience doing collection management and development in public libraries. Stephanie, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Glad to be here.
So how do you oversee the acquisition of resources at the Georgia Tech Library? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Well, essentially, my job entails working with a lot of Technical Services staff who handle the day-to-day ordering of materials and ensuring that that process is as efficient as possible. But before we get to actually paying for a resource, there's a little bit of legwork that's done. So knowing your vendors, finding out what your community actually needs, what would benefit them the most.
And so establishing relationships with vendor and with the faculty, with your users is really, really important as a first step. And once things are ordered, there's a little thing called payments and money. And so I just make sure that things are within our budget and we don't go over. So handling receipts and invoices is a big part of the job as well. It sounds like a blend of being a people person and also being a math person or a bean counter.
Like, having to deal with money is-- STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Absolutely, yeah. It's a really good description of the job. I tend to think of myself as a facilitator. So a lot of times it's, again, meeting with folks to find out what they need, refining that so that I can then take that to our vendors or to people who can procure those items, and making sure that we're getting exactly what we want.
And so it does involve coordinating with folks and just following through, so attention to detail is super important. But also, it can touch on things like marketing and troubleshooting and those types of things as well.
If the Georgia Tech Library buys access to a database, buys a book, an electronic book, a subscription to a journal, any of those kinds of purchases, do those come across your desk? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: They do, yes. A lot of the decision making can be handled by a committee. So overall, something will be purchased, but the actual making sure that that purchase is recorded is something that I would handle and make sure that that is taken care of.
And so I do work very closely with the electronic resources librarian to make sure that I can record exactly what we're getting in our system.
So is this what your job was like when you did public library collection, management, and development? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: My job now involves a lot more electronic resources, journal subscriptions. Obviously, it's a much larger community and a different focus, so that has been the substantial change. But even within working in public libraries, I did purchase digital platforms and negotiate with vendors to get things like the magazine platform.
But most of my selection decisions and acquisitions involved monograph titles. So someone who's listening now who does not work in libraries, magazine platform or digital platform might go over their head.
Sure. So a common one would be Flipster, which also has subscriptions for the public. But a lot of times, libraries are able to get a subscription to the platform and offer that to the student community and the users.
A whole bunch of e-magazines all at once.
Right.
And I think people listening might-- they're familiar with things like Netflix and Hulu and subscriptions like that. And do you ever get requests from people saying, well, can you just get us Netflix?
[LAUGHS]
Well, it wouldn't surprise me to get a request like that. And in some cases, the answer is very easy to say, that company or that vendor does not provide the services to libraries, unfortunately, at this time. And then the next step would be to direct them to other resources that might be helpful to them. So if they're interested in videos, there are platforms like Access Video on Demand that might have some films that they might be interested in, Digitalia for foreign films.
So there are other ways to maybe meet that need without going with the initial request.
And you have to keep up with all the vendors in the library world. Have you had to meet new vendors since coming to academic libraries? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: I have, yeah. In fact, I have a meeting set up next week because while there is some crossover-- I've had a lot of experience working with OverDrive, for example-- there are vendors that are specifically for academic-- providing academic content. So I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone as much as possible.
[SQUEAK]
CHARLIE BENNET: Sorry for the squeak. So who are some of the other folks in the team? I don't mean the individuals, but what are the roles that you have to work with every day in Technical Services?
Sure. Well, there's a team of Acquisitions Support Staff, and they handle placing orders on the vendor platforms, entering the purchase order information into our system. They will follow up if something doesn't arrive. We have catalogers that will catalog the material and some individuals that work on processing if it's a physical item. And as I mentioned earlier, there's an electronic resource librarian who I work with closely.
In a lot of places, our duties can overlap quite a bit, so it could be one person handling both those aspects. And then we typically have a cataloging lead person, a metadata librarian that can help us with ensuring that these items are discoverable to the community.
Are there any differences between public library and academic library work that were unexpected to you? I'm sure that you knew there'd be some differences, but how does the job change when it goes to academic? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: You know, I thought that there would be a lot more differences, making the switch to academic libraries. But in reality, I think it's really all about understanding who you're serving as a community and understanding who can provide those resources to you.
So it's really kind of the same approach, whether you're in a public library or an academic library when it comes to technical services. I admire you not comparing and contrasting the attitudes of faculty and patrons in a public library. Well done.
[LAUGHTER]
This is Lost in the Stacks. We'll be back with more with Stephanie Galipeau, the Resource Acquisitions Librarian at Georgia Tech after a music set.
File this set under HD66.P42.
[QUEEN, "'39"]
That was "'39" by Queen, and before that, "National Hum" by the Constantines. Those were songs about building teams.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called Technical Services Represent! And our guest is Stephanie Galipeau who is a member of the Technical Services team at the Georgia Tech Library. Stephanie has the role of Resource Acquisitions Librarian. So Stephanie, how would you say-- because you've been in technical services for a while. How have things changed in that realm since you've been a librarian?
It's changed substantially. When I was in technical services when I first moved to the Atlanta area, you know, I'd often get the question from the public about e-books and the existence of e-books meaning that libraries are no longer needed. And I always thought that that was super, super funny because I wanted to say, well, how are you going to access these e-books? Who's going to provide these e-books for you?
And so I think one obvious way that technical services has changed is that we're about expanding services and providing different types of resources, and that can include new technologies. At the time, probably e-books, but going forward it could be other things. So I think that we're always expected to be aware of things that are on the horizon and to-- if people are interested in it, have a duty to provide that type of resource.
Do you get those questions that I've certainly got-- I know that y'all have got them too. It starts in library school when people say, oh, you're in library school? You need a degree to do that? There's always some kind of questioning about librarianship and the credentials, and it continues when you have a professional job. I've gotten questions about it. Do you get questions like, why do you need to be a librarian with a librarian degree to buy the stuff for the library?
I do get that question when people hear that there is a master's in library science, and that it is at a level-- a master's degree level. I mean, I'd like to say that within libraries, so much of the work is handled by library workers that may or may not have a master's in library science degree, and they are providing resources just as well as a degreed librarian.
I think the advantage of having a degree can be that you learn-- you go a little more in depth into the profession and you have the ability to maybe specialize in different aspects of librarianship, because I think a lot of people don't understand that there are-- there's quite an array of different types of jobs within libraries.
So someone can be very much interested in accounting, in managing resources and go into technical services, or someone may be interested in education and learning and might want to become a children's librarian. So I tend to try to answer those questions with a little bit of information about the specialization that can happen in a degree program.
It's the story of librarianship-- age-old story of librarianship, justifying our profession up and down the organization chart from top to bottom.
Yeah. And it feels-- it feels doubly-- I don't want to use the word insulting, but that's the only one I can think of. It feels doubly insulting to have someone who is in technical services be told, well, why do we need you, and why do we need libraries? Because it's like, the library can't function without tech services. And then a lot of what people want to do with electronic resources can't happen without libraries.
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think the feeling is pretty similar to someone who works in IT. When everything is going great, we're not going around thanking IT for all that they do. But when things go down or there is a barrier, there's a problem, you know, I certainly feel like the job is rewarding when I can help somebody find a book or get access to something as a librarian.
Is that one of the main problems that you have to solve at work is if something is unavailable? What are some of the challenges? What are some of the fires you have to put out as Resource Acquisitions Librarian? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Well, I think the main one would be if somebody is interested in something very specific and we don't have access to it, you know? Then my job will be to evaluate and see if there is enough of a need and a budget to support acquiring that material.
But in other ways, if it's something we already own and there's an access issue, obviously there's electronic resources staff that handle it. But if they have a question as to, well, this is accessing this particular year of something, did we in fact buy that, then an acquisitions staff person would be able to say, yes. Here's the invoice. We have purchased these years of the material. So I'm doing a donation assessment, and the donation is from an entire school--
Wow.
--moving out of their offices. So they've kind of sent everything over.
Right. CHARLIE BENNET: And it's very easy to say, oh, we don't need this textbook from 2002 about a programming language, or we don't need this pamphlet on how to be a good teacher from 20 years ago. But then I get into the more careful distinctions, and I'm starting to struggle. I'm like, am I judging these books by their cover? Is that what I'm doing now? And I am kind of.
And it put me in the mind, especially because the things that I vet in this donation are going to go to you and technical services. Is it quantitative or qualitative when you're deciding whether we need a resource at the library? I feel like I'm going to go down a rabbit hole of what's necessary in the collection, and I feel like you've already been down that rabbit hole. Yeah. No, that's a really excellent question. It's really a mixture of the two.
It's a little bit of an art when it comes to collection management. There are some hard figures that you can use, especially if it's something that already exists in the collection circulation figures, if it's been used in programming. But when you are evaluating something brand new for the library, it can be more of a qualitative assessment. You know, it really helps to have a collection development policy to guide you in that respect.
There are some things that would fall out of scope, and that makes that decision easier to make. But within the things that you can buy, yeah, you just-- there are a lot of factors that can come into play. It can be, is this-- how many people is this going to serve? Is this a special type of collection that we're trying to develop? Is this type of information already duplicated in some other way? Is there something that makes this super distinct?
And so some of the stuff that you're talking about, I imagine particularly in archives or even in just buying-- selecting a book for the popular reading collection, you need to make-- you need to make those evaluations the best way that you can. And if something doesn't play out the way that you thought, then you have other options then as well.
How quickly were you able to get up to speed with the landscape here at Georgia Tech? What we buy, what we need to buy. STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Well, I wouldn't say that I'm up to speed quite as yet. I mean, it's quite a large collection. But I do think that it's a process, and I have gotten a sense of most of it. CHARLIE BENNET: You are listening to Lost in the Stacks, and we'll talk more about resource acquisitions on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Matt Chapman.
This is Mike Chapman.
And we one time made this thing called Homestar Runner.
You're going to get lost in the stacks on WREK Atlanta.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If I can find my playlist.
Let's get a--
Where's the--
I need a jewel case.
To clack on the floor.
Student-- student government announcement? Follow the blue light trail.
Today's show is called Technical Services Represent, and so we feel like we ought to represent technical services in our mid-show segment. Katina Strauch is the Founder of the Charleston Conference, an acquisitions-focused gathering of librarians, vendors, and publishers that started in 1980.
Acquisitions librarians and their colleagues are able to keep up with what's happening in their corner of library land, largely thanks to Katina and her dedication to keeping these lines of communication open.
In a 2011 interview when asked about key developments in the profession, Katina listed--
The rise of e-book publishing and marketing, the reassessment of the big deal, the cutting of library budgets, including materials and staffing budgets, e-book-- e-textbook developments, course management software integration, the rise of discovery systems, new integrated library system development, and open source initiatives.
Wow.
Evergreen. And when she retired from the College of Charleston in 2016, she mused that her acquisitions budget had increased by a factor of 20 in 37 years, and now included--
Much more than books and journals. We are talking DVDs, streaming media, PDFs, graphic novels, blogs, discovery services, institutional repositories, and more, and more new formats.
And libraries not only buy all this stuff. They help their users find their way through it. As Katina put it--
Students, faculty, and the general public need help navigating through the constantly changing quagmire of resources that are available everywhere. CHARLIE BENNET: Quagmire of resources. New band name.
I love it.
File this set under HF5437.H25. [NEONATES, "PLACE IN SPACE"] [INAUDIBLE]..
[NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE, "SEDAN DELIVERY"]
"Sedan Delivery" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and before that, "Place in Space" by the Neonates. That's a weird set of kind of rhymes. Those are songs about the process of acquiring the things you need.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called Technical Services Represent! Could you hear the exclamation point that time?
Sure could.
OK, good. We're speaking with Stephanie Galipeau, the Resource Acquisitions Librarian at the Georgia Tech Library. And so Stephanie, when you tell people about your job, do you use an exclamation point? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Not typically.
[LAUGHTER]
That's a pretty standard librarian answer. Yeah, me either.
She said not typically, though, which means that sometimes--
Sometimes. There might be a case. Maybe we can create that environment, create-- if the conditions are just right here in the studio, we might get that exclamation point. CHARLIE BENNET: Challenge accepted. OK. But for now, so resource acquisitions. You just started a few months ago. And in the last segment, we talked about getting used to the landscape here. Maybe you felt like you're not quite used to it, although I'm sure you've got the hang of it. But what about the future?
Now that you're kind of in it and you're working here and you're integrated into technical services, what do you want to accomplish in the future? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: That's a good question. You know, I started at the end of the spring semester, so I've seen what campus is like during the summer. So I'm super excited to have the fall start and just be part of that community, that academic community with all those students.
And so I think for me, getting to know a little bit more about textbook affordability and figuring out ways to make it easier for faculty to use our library materials is going to be something that I want to focus on this year. CHARLIE BENNET: Do you feel like-- we've talked about technical services being sort of behind the scenes. But you also have to talk to all these people, right? You have to find out what they need and what they want. I mean, are you going to be in offices?
Are you going to be doing surveys? Like, how is that going to develop, you think?
I think a lot of that information is going to be transferred through a lot of the other library faculty that exist, so they will interface directly with a lot of the faculty and colleges and provide that information and feedback to Technical Services and to myself.
But there are some sort of direct ways that we can learn about what is needed for the community through online forums for course reserves or just suggestions for the collection where someone could just enter a title or a resource, and we can start looking at it.
Do you get every purchase request? Do those pop up in your feed?
I have access to them, but fortunately there's a team that will field those.
So if it's like, buy Netflix, it gets shuffled off into the Delete folder before it gets to you.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, we would include a response and keep track of the types of requests that we do get, so yeah.
And since a lot of what we're getting now is electronic, I mean, how much are the resources themselves telling you about how much they get used and maybe what we should be getting more of?
Yeah, that's a really intricate sort of side of collection development. You can have staff dedicated to just doing assessment of resources. It really requires having access to the statistics. And sometimes that information is available within our library systems, but sometimes it's going to be information that we have to get from the vendor site. So ensuring that we have up-to-date information is kind of a job in and of itself.
Well, and you mentioned vendors. And I know this is not talking about the future. It's still talking about the present. But you know, I mean, you're doing a lot of work with vendors. How do you discern between recommendations that really suit our institution versus vendors just trying to sell us something? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: I think there's a little bit of name recognition that obviously happens. It's part of the comment about getting to know what the landscape is for academic libraries.
There are some key players, obviously, and so seeing an email from them might carry a little bit more weight. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I wouldn't look at any type of email or suggestion from any other type of vendor. You obviously want to do your homework when it comes to acquisitions, so you can ask other libraries if they have experience working with them. You can look more closely at their website, take a look at the resources they're offering, and make a determination then.
You know, we just read that long list that Katina Strauch came up with, the founder of the Charleston Conference, about how the more things change in resource acquisitions, the more they stay the same. But what do you see as the biggest change or just a change to how you do your job or how Technical Services does its job that's coming down the pike? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: I think that there are going to be some sort of refinements to how we're doing technical services.
So an example would be course reserves. It's existed for a long time, and there's a well-established process for that. But one of the really exciting things is that the library will be rolling out this integration software called Leganto, which will make it a lot easier for faculty to find resources and include it in their syllabi. And then it would make it a lot easier for them to also request material that we don't currently have.
And so I think that's going to be really beneficial to the student community to be able to see those resources and maybe save some money by either accessing the course reserves or online. I think I heard an exclamation point in there, Charlie.
Oh, I like it. Marlee, did you have a last question? I started to take the mic from you, but it looks like you had something. Go for it.
Well, just because we've been on this kick on the show lately, any AI disruptions--
Oh, no!
[LAUGHS]
--that you anticipate?
Any-- any--
Take the mic away from Marlee.
Any AI--
AI disruptions? STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Oh, you know, that's an interesting question. I think that there is a possibility for AI to be a helpful tool, but I still think that you need people to evaluate what the AI is returning, so-- That's the correct answer.
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
This is Lost in the Stacks, and our guest today is Stephanie Galipeau, Resource Acquisitions Librarian at the Georgia Tech Library. Technical Services Represent!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
File this set under Z665.T28.
[THE DELMONAS, "I'VE GOT EVERYTHING I NEED"]
[MIAOW, "FOLLOWING THROUGH"]
That was "Following Through" by Miaow, and before that, "I've Got Everything I Need" by The Delmonas, Songs about the work behind the scenes that makes things go smoothly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today's show is called Technical Services Represent! featuring our new Resource Acquisitions Librarian Stephanie Galipeau. I want to take a step away from Technical Services, or perhaps a right side redirect. Stephanie, one of your hobbies is West Coast swing. STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: That's right. And when you told me about it, you described it as an activity that-- and I quote-- "encourages self-expression but also relies on connection."
Mm-hmm.
I feel like maybe that's librarianship. STEPHANIE GALIPEAU: Yeah, that could be very apt for librarianship. So tell me a little bit about self-expression and connection.
Well, when it comes to dancing, I mean, we all heard that refrain, dance like no one's watching. So it's a lot about giving in to the joy of expressing yourself. But when it comes to partner dancing, I think that it's really important that you're connecting to the other individual so that you can play off of each other and have a shared experience. CHARLIE BENNET: So I don't dance, and I certainly don't swing. I-- do you just have to kind of know what's coming?
Are there forms, or is it kind of an improv where the moves arrive and you have to follow through on them? There are some standard patterns that you would learn as a beginner, so to speak. But there's always sort of twists to that that you can do. And the dance is really improvisational. So you can either pick up what somebody's laying down, or you can do your own thing. But as long as you're sort of working in tandem, it'll look great.
OK. Well, I'm totally clipping that soundbite out and using it in the future. And thank you for that. OK, Fred.
Yes.
Roll those credits, man.
Will do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
Legal counsel and a lifetime subscription to an unnamed streaming video service were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
Special thanks to acquisitions professionals and library folk everywhere working against the grain, and thanks as always to each and every one of you for listening.
I heard what you did there.
Uh-huh.
Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us.
Next week on Lost in the Stacks, we learn a bit more about our democracy and the process of vetting a Supreme Court justice. And we promise, there's a library side to that too.
It's time for our last song today. The work of technical services is crucial to the library, but that work is often invisible to the users of the library. So let's close with a song about the most important people being a mystery to us. This is "Nobody Knows" by Destroy All Monsters. Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, "NOBODY KNOWS"]