Persona: Librarian or Curator

Owned by Rain Michaels (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 13, 2015 by Maura Carbone (Unlicensed)
4 min read

The following personas seem to group together under the category of "librarian" or "curator" – please consolidate into one or two personas with very specific stories.

schwrtzse (Unlicensed) has taken responsibility for consolidating and refining these personas by . 

Academic Librarian

  • Sue is 58 years old, and an Associate University Librarian for User Services who holds a joint position in both the University Library and Graduate School of Information and Library Science.  She has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, a Doctoral degree in theoretical physics, and an MLS degree with an archives administration focus.  Prior to becoming the Associate University Librarian for User Services, she worked ten years in both her institution's special collections and university archives.  She is very knowledgeable of the holdings of both the University Archives and Special Collections units, and plays the lead role in coordinating the work of the University's librarians with the university's faculty as they identify primary and secondary content for inclusion in both undergraduate and graduate courses taught her institution.
    • Sue's responsibilities include the creation library subject guides for undergraduate students, the management of her institution's Savy Researcher online and chat service that is used by all students and faculty seeking information about the library's and archives collections, and establishing reasonable instructional service policies to help manage both faculty and student expectations for these services.
    • Sue has little tolerance for unnecessary bureaucratic processes and complicated online access tools that hinder users' access to both her institution's library and archival holdings.
    • Sue expects all archival collections to have at least a collection-level record, and some type of on-line collection finding aid.  She also expects some digital surrogates of archival collections' content will always be linked to its associated online finding to help researchers better understand the types of physical documentation that is typically found within each collection.  In addition when new digital content is created from a physical collection for a particular course, this digital content will be linked directly to the collection, box, and folder listing of that collection finding aid.
    • Sue expects her institution's collections information system to provide:
      • the ability to easily sort search results by collection identifier, title, creator, subject, and begin and end dates
      • the ability to easily view search results by both collection-level and digital object content, and always having that content presented within the archival context it comes from
      • the ability to easily identify the archival repository that is responsible for access of specific archival content
      • the ability to control the output of the scrolling navigation bar to either present infinite scrolling of search results or collapsing the search results into broader subject and document type classes
      • the language used to describe types of archival content doesn't utilize archival nomenclature that is meaningless to non-archives specialist

 

Special Collections/Museum Curator

  • John is 63 years old and is the Chief Archivist and Curator for the Archives Center for the National Museum of American History.  He has PhD degrees in American social history and advertising, and archives and museum administration.  He has worked at the American History Museum for over 35 years, has extensive experience working with archival records, special collections, and museum objects, and teaches courses in archives and museum administration for American University. 
  • John would need:
    • To be able to limit results to the collections he 'owns' for use in his classes
    • To have his collections be easily discover-able in the library's single search
  • Note from Scott: I'm out of time, but who ever follows up with this persona should be sure to understand that access to museum objects associated with archival collections follows museum object descriptive practices that are slightly different from archival descriptive practices, and the descriptive practice is always at the item level rather than the collection level.
    • Maura's Note: Would John need the option for different entry fields? Or have his information displayed differently to the public? Perhaps a separate Museum Object versus an Archival Object?


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Academic Library/Special Collections Personas (added by Matt).

  • Gracie, Curator in Special Collections Library, 55 years old.
    • When desired, wants to be able to limit search results to "her" collections.
    • Wants collections data to also be discoverable through the libraries Summon search interface.
  • Anne, Research Services worker in Special Collections Library, 26 years old.
    • Wants a scrolling navigation bar and infinite scrolling for search results pages.
    • Wants to easily sort search results by title, creator, begin date, and end date.
    • Would like to easily be able to toggle search results between just collections and collections plus archival objects and digital objects.
    • When scrolling through inventories would like a horizontal ribbon that carries the relevant hierarchy information (for example series, sub-series).

Academic Research Library/Special Collections/University Archives (added by Sue)

  • Andrea, Public Services Reference and Instruction Librarian, subject specialist in American History and American Studies, frequent collaborator on instruction projects with Special Collections librarians
    • Needs to quickly locate collections and items she knows are held in Special Collections in order to assist faculty in preparing classes
    • Needs to be able to identify appropriate primary sources for graduate students
    • Would like to be able to do both authorized subject and keyword searches to return collection results, rather than just narrowing down by the lists that currently appear at the left hand side of the screen
    • Needs natural language options (what is an "archival object"?)
    • Needs explanations for the icons that show up next to the search results in the returned results list
  • Monique, Special Collections Reference and Instruction Librarian
    • Regularly acquires collections in her subject area and supervises student workers processing these collections
    • Needs to be able to quickly locate "her" collections
    • Needs to be able to quickly identify relevant collections for instruction sessions