Category Archives: Strategy

Scholars Lab, Spaces, Strategy

Renovations Bring New Life to Perry-Castañeda Library

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The Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) is constantly in transformation, keeping speed with the needs of users by enhancing the library’s facilities, and recent renovations have been breathing new life into aging spaces to better serve students and staff alike.

From modernizing furniture, power, and whiteboards to carpet replacement and staff space rearrangement, renovations aim to create a more conducive environment for learning and collaboration.

Students don’t let a little construction get in the way.

Rehab efforts have seen significant changes to key areas such as the additions of the Scholars Lab and the Center for Teaching and Learning office space, and updates to the PCL lobby, with a focus on improving functionality and aesthetics. Additionally, new carpet will has been installed in the map room, replacing the well-worn flooring that dated the space to the previous century.

The fourth-floor quiet study has undergone significant renovations, with significant enhancements to its study areas aimed at elevating user experience and functionality. The notable update affects 6,800 square feet, which now boasts improved aesthetics and functionality. Featuring new accent colors, enhanced Wi-Fi capacity, and personal task lights, this space offers 138 seats, each equipped with enhanced electrical outlet access. Students can choose from a variety of seating options, including lounges, cubicles, and footrests, ensuring comfort and productivity.

The PCL lobby underwent a facelift in the wake of the Scholars Lab opening, covering 4,200 square feet and accommodating 66 seats with electrical outlet access. An added highlight is the inclusion of a 32-seat PC lab equipped with printers and scanners, catering to diverse academic needs. Moreover, the Scholars Lab renovation, spanning an impressive 16,250 square feet, provides an additional 256 seats with electrical outlet access, along with 10 new project rooms, fostering collaborative research endeavors. These renovations signify the library’s commitment to providing an enriching and conducive environment for academic pursuits.

Beyond physical enhancements, the library is also prioritizing the well-being of its staff with the addition of new massage chairs in the staff lounge, as well as in a dedicated wellness room on the fourth floor. These amenities underscore the university’s commitment to supporting the holistic well-being of its community members.

And additional upgrades and improvements are on the horizon. Shaded outdoor seating on the Plaza will provide students with a comfortable space to study and relax, while updates to collaborative spaces on the upper floors will encourage teamwork and innovation. An upcoming renovation of interior fixtures and finishes in the larger restrooms on the second floor will further enhance the library’s amenities, ensuring that students have access to modern and comfortable facilities.

The renovations to PCL reflect the Libraries’ dedication to providing students and staff with state-of-the-art facilities that foster learning, collaboration, and well-being. With substantial completion expected by January of next year, the university looks forward to unveiling a transformed library that will serve as a hub of academic excellence for years to come.

Ephemera, Fine Arts Library, Humanities & Liberal Arts, IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility), Read Hot and Digitized

Read Hot and Digitized: Preserving the Outcasts with The Queer Zine Archive Project

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Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the UT Libraries Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship. Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of, and future creative contributions to, the growing fields of digital scholarship.

Zines have long been a medium for weirdos, freaks, and outcasts on the margins, which means they’ve been a staple of queer expression. The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) has been digitizing and preserving queer zines for twenty years! 

First of all, what are zines? Zines are DIY publications, usually staple-bound and made with printer paper. They’re cheap and easy to produce, and most zine makers give them away for free or sell them at low prices to recoup costs. This allows them to bypass mainstream publishers, so zines are often a medium for marginalized and radical voices. 

Zines developed out of Science Fiction fan culture in the 1930s. In the 1970s, the onset of photocopying technology coincided with the rise of punk music. Punk fans (who often overlapped with Sci-fi fans) latched onto zines as a way to write about their favorite bands, share stories, and build community. As such, zines have always been a venue for outsider expression and radical politics. In the 1990s, feminist and queer zine makers really took hold of the medium. Punk communities might have been made up of outcasts, but they weren’t immune to misogyny and homophobia. Women and LGBTQ punks experienced marginalization and discrimination within their scenes, and zines provided a much-needed space to voice these experiences and find other like-minded queers. 

So a project like QZAP is pretty revolutionary! This searchable database is run by a collective based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it is and will remain free and open to use. QZAP’s goal is to create a “living history” so they continue to accept new submissions from contemporary queer zine makers. They hold a broad definition of “queer,” too, recognizing that identities and language change over time. Zine makers submit their physical zines to QZAP, and collective members, usually librarians, archivists, scholars, and graduate students, scan the zines and create the metadata. Like zines themselves, QZAP is a DIY enterprise!

QZAP’s homepage features a rotation of different zine covers. This featured zine is about the representation of Black Lesbians in the Lesbian Herstory Archives.

QZAP allows users to browse zines, which is one of my favorite ways to explore their collections. With so much interesting and obscure content, browsing QZAP’s collection is a fun, serendipitous experience. QZAP also has an Advanced Search option for users to find zines by author, place of publication, or year of publication. I’ve used QZAP when working with Women’s & Gender Studies classes so students can see a broad set of queer zines over time. While the website’s look and feel are pretty simple and the technology is a bit dated, students respond enthusiastically to the content. I think QZAP’s simple design and stable technology have made it a sustainable project, especially because it is run by a volunteer collective independent of a university or institution. 

Here’s a screenshot of a digitized zine and its metadata record in QZAP. I like that the metadata is so prominent next to the digital object.

One of my favorite things about QZAP is that it uses a specialized metadata schema just for zines called xZINECOREx, based on the more common DublinCore schema. Cataloging and describing zines are challenging. They often don’t have a title page with publication information. Sometimes no author or creator is listed, or the author goes by a pseudonym. Maybe they have a publication date, but often they do not.

A sample record using the xZINECOREx metadata schema.

Given these complexities, libraries and archives handle describing zines in all sorts of ways. The xZINECOREx schema provides a standard that can be used across institutions and by independent projects like QZAP. QZAP contributes metadata from its collection to the Zine Union Catalog, which aims to be a single place to search for zines across multiple libraries, archives, and independent collections. Because zines are ephemeral, this catalog is a great resource for scholars interested in the history of zines. 

A digital collection like QZAP is vital to preserving the history of these rare, hard-to-find publications, yet there remains great value in studying physical zines. The physical objects provide the reader with a unique, tactile experience. This is especially important for LGBTQ+ history, which is so often erased or hidden. Reading a personal, first-hand account from a queer punk in the 90s – from the actual paper zine that person made by hand – is visceral and powerful. It’s an experience hard to replicate in an online setting. If you find QZAP intriguing, I encourage you to stop by our Zine Collection on the 5th floor of the Fine Arts Library. Our collection has many queer zines, including many published in Texas, and dates back to the 1990s.  

Want to learn more about zines? Check out these resources:

Black Diaspora Archive, Global Studies, IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility)

Librarians Contribute to New Podcast Series about Archival Materials and Counter Narratives

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On Wednesday, 29 March 2023, the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion, and Cultural Heritage at Rare Book School launched Counter Narratives in Practice, a podcast series about multicultural heritage collections, storytelling, and representation in galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and beyond. This podcast is part of a larger project that highlights the work of the RBS Cultural Heritage Fellows.

The Fellows, led by book historian Allie Alvis, worked together from across the U.S. to tell stories about the archival materials in their collections and how those stories can prompt thinking about counter narratives in professional practice.

The University of Texas Libraries’ Liaison for Middle Eastern Studies Dale Correa and Black Diaspora Archivist Rachel Winston are contributors to the project.

The podcast episodes, which are now all available, include:

Archiving Political Histories that Shape Education and Disconnection and Accessibility in the Archive
Guests highlight the roles of Indigenous advocacy, settler colonialism, disability, and accessibility in archival collections.

We Were Never Silent: Immigrant Narratives & Caribbean Print Culture as Counter Narrative and We Were Never Silent: Bilingual Text in the Ottoman Empire & Pidgin English in Chinese Text as Counter Narratives
Guests explore immigration, oral history, and music as they relate to formal and informal institutions of memory.

Hidden Histories: African American, Asian American, and Afro-Asian Relationality and Hidden Histories: Immigrant Farm Workers and Black Intellectual Histories
Guests discuss Florida Farmworkers, Covid-19, and the importance of documenting marginalized stories.

The Cultural Heritage Fellows Podcast Team are:

Ellen-Rae Cachola, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Law Library

Talea Anderson, Washington State University

Azalea Camacho, California State University, Los Angeles

Sandy Enriquez, University of California Riverside

Amalia Medina Castañeda, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Milton Machuca-Galvez, University of Kansas

Dale J. Correa, University of Texas at Austin

DeLisa Minor Harris, Fisk University

Rachel E. Winston, University of Texas at Austin

Suzanne Im, University of California, Irvine

Meaghan Alston, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, University of Florida

Jina DuVernay, Gwinnett County Public Library

Victor Betts, North Carolina State University Libraries

Patrice Green, Penn State University Libraries

Benson Latin American Collection, Collections Highlight, Diversity, Events, Exhibits, Humanities & Liberal Arts

Annual ¡A Viva Voz! Event to Feature Chicana / Tejana Artist Santa Barraza, Exhibition Opening

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The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is proud to host the 21st Annual ¡A Viva Voz! Celebration of U.S. Latino/a/x Culture, featuring a conversation with Chicana/Tejana artist Santa Barraza.

Santa Barraza, courtesy Juan Johnson Lopez

A native of Kingsville, Texas, Santa Barraza is a contemporary artist and founder of Barraza Fine Art, LLC, a gallery and studio committed to furthering the appreciation of the visual arts in the borderlands and among isolated, rural populations.

Barraza’s artwork is in the permanent collections of museums in Texas, California, and Maine; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; France; Germany; and Spain. Most recently, her work is on view in the art museums of Denver, Albuquerque, and San Antonio as part of Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche; the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin for Chicano/a Art, Movimiento y Más en Austen, Tejas, 1960s–1980s; and for the Art in Embassies exhibition organized in Mexico City by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar.

The ¡A Viva Voz! event also marks the opening of the exhibition Legacies of Nepantla: Artists Affirming Identity and Existence, curated by Maribel Falcón, the Benson’s U.S. Latina/o/x Studies Librarian. The exhibition showcases work that is part of the Benson’s archival holdings. It will be on view in the Benson’s Ann Hartness Reading Room through mid-August 2023.

“The exhibition showcases work from women whose myriad identities include Chicana, Native American, Tejana, and Latina, in addition to mothers, sisters, organizers, artists, activists, teachers, and students,” said Falcón. “Many of the featured artists are established as leaders in their communities and recognized as pillars of the Chicano/a art world, such as Santa Barraza, Carmen Lomas Garza, Patssi Valdez, Yreina D. Cervántez, Ester Hernandez, Irene Pérez, and Alma López.”

If You Go — ¡A Viva Voz! takes place in the Benson Latin American Collection (2300 Red River Street, SRH 1) on Thursday, April 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. Light refreshments provided by The Local Explorer Mezcal and La Cocina de Consuelo; vinyl sounds by Chulita Vinyl Club. 

Due to an event at the Moody Center, parking is limited. We encourage attendees to use alternative forms of transportation. City of Austin street parking is available on Dean Keaton and on Red River north of Clyde Littlefield.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Susanna Sharpe.

Image: Cihuateteo con Coyolxauhqui y La Guadalupana, Santa Barraza, 1996

Black Queer Studies, Collections, IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility)

Inaugural Black Queer Studies Award Winners

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On Friday, February 12, the Libraries announced the inaugural winners of the Black Queer Studies Student Awards! A true labor of love several years in the making, the Monica K. Roberts Graduate and the Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Awards recognize honor, and celebrate excellence in student scholarship and creative endeavors in the field of Black Queer Studies. Winning submissions directly engage with the Libraries’ groundbreaking Black Queer Studies Collection. 

Our first cohort of winners are Allen Poterie, a graduate student from the Performance as Public Practice program in the Theater and Dance Department, and Jeremiah Baldwin, an undergraduate senior majoring in Government, Rhetoric and Writing, and African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS). 

Allen’s winning submission is entitled “And Don’t Let Go: Scenes of Holding as a Means of Emotional Exchange between Black Men.” Allen’s work is a scholarly literature review that contextualizes his creative work-in-progress – a television screenplay about the lives and relationships of Black Queer men. The selection committee was impressed with the quality of his literature review. Allen cited many books and films in the Libraries’ Black Queer Studies Collection, including literary work by Essex Hemphill, films directed by Marlon Riggs, and scholarship by E. Patrick Johnson. 

Jeremiah’s submission is “Caught At An Intersection The Podcast,” which examines Black Queer experiences through interviews and discussions, using Kimberlé Crenshaw’s watershed theory of intersectionality as a framework. In one episode about James Baldwin, Jeremiah interviews author Alejandro Heredia. Alejandro’s book You’re the Only Friend I Need is part of the Black Queer Studies Collection. 

Additionally, the selection committee was so impressed with two additional submissions that they awarded Honorable Mentions to Alexandria Cunningham, a graduate student in AADS, and Tolu Osunsade, a senior majoring in Public Health and AADS. Alexandria’s submission was a selection from her dissertation “The Black Freak Nasty Magic Project™ :: Choreographies of Play, Pleasure and Sexuality.” Tolu’s work was the research paper “The Harm in Reproductive Healthcare for Black Women and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals in The United States”. 

These four students were recognized at the Awards Ceremony, held on Zoom on Friday, February 12. The ceremony included several guest speakers, including two of the collection’s co-founders. Matt Richardson shared the story of how he founded the Black Queer Studies Collection with librarians Kristen Hogan and Lindsey Schell, and he read from his recent novel Black Canvas: A Campus Haunting. Lindsey Schell and Xavier Livermon discussed their contributions to the BQSC, and Dee Dee Watters and Jo Hsu spoke about the life and legacy of Monica K. Roberts. Monica was known as the TransGriot, and she was a Houston-based transgender rights activist and blogger. The graduate award is named for her. Alexis Pauline Gumbs closed the ceremony with her presentation on “Archive as Oracle”, which included creative divination readings based on the poetry of Audre Lorde. The Black Queer Studies Collection includes Alexis’s books, such as Undrowned and M Archive: After the End of the World. 

Many UT staff and faculty worked behind the scenes to make both the awards and the ceremony possible. Gina Bastone and Adriana Cásarez are the liaison librarians who curate and maintain the collection, and they partnered with professor Lyndon Gill from African and African Diaspora Studies to organize the awards and the event. The faculty selection committee included Hershini Young, Neville Hoad, and Nessette Falu. 

The Libraries would like to thank our campus partners for sponsoring the awards ceremony and providing annual funding for the Black Queer Studies Collection. They include the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the LGBTQ Studies Program, and the English Department. The prize money is dispersed through the UT Libraries, and primarily draws from the Black Queer Studies Collection Endowment, originally funded through a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign in 2021. To give to the Black Queer Studies Collection Endowment fund, please contact the UT Libraries Development Office. 

Assessment, Strategy

Climate Watch

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Library work involves simultaneously preserving the past, meeting needs in the present and trying to predict the future. Since there is no crystal ball, libraries rely on tools like surveys to help us monitor needs and make predictions. As previously noted, the Libraries conducted a campus-wide survey of students, faculty and staff in spring 2022. The results have now been analyzed, and largely reaffirm that we are serving campus needs while pointing us toward areas where we can do even better.

Link to full-size PDF.

Following trends from the past decade, faculty and staff rated access to online materials as their top library priority and undergraduates ranked library spaces as most important. Grad students have continued to prioritize online materials throughout the past decade, while library space has emerged as a secondary priority over the past 5 years. Throughout the past 10+ years, students and faculty have continued to display a shift in preferences toward digital materials. This shift, however, is not complete. While ranking online materials as being more important than physical materials, 48.5% of respondents still reported that they prefer print materials to electronic resources. This is despite the fact that 96% of faculty reported that online materials are “very important,” compared to only 50% who rated physical materials as “very important.” These somewhat contradictory results, combined with usage statistics, paint a complex picture in which users value physical materials, but are more and more likely to use digital materials to fulfill their information needs.

I use UT Libraries all the time to access materials for my work, it is invaluable. I could not do my work without UT Libraries, including the on-campus collections and materials available through Interlibrary loan. -College of Liberal Arts Graduate Student

Happily, since collections are of high importance to every user group, results show that users are largely satisfied with our library collections. In fact, about a quarter of the responses to an open-ended “What are we doing well?” question focused on collections and resources, the highest percentage of any topic areas mentioned. 87% of respondents agreed that “UT Libraries gives me access to the resources I need to achieve my academic goals.” A student from the College of Natural Sciences stated, “As a graduate student I am constantly searching for articles on my research topic. With so few journals being open access, I literally could not do my work without UT Libraries!” The Get a Scan service and Interlibrary Loan are also highly appreciated, ranking in the top three priorities for faculty, staff, and graduate students.

“They provided me with the space and kindhearted welcomes to come into the library and study for a huge test.” -Moody School of Communications Undergraduate Student

We were pleased to see that 87% of respondents agreed that they “feel safe from discrimination, harassment or harm in library spaces and when interacting with library staff.” This continues a trend of decreasing worries about safety following concerns seen in the 2012 campus survey. An undergraduate business student noted, “During finals season I needed a safe space to study when I could in my dorm room. The only place open closest to me was the PCL which was perfect that night.” Additionally, 86% of respondents agreed that UT Libraries is a welcoming place. Demographic breakdowns, however, show us that those who identify as black or African American, or nonbinary in gender identity, were slightly less likely to agree that they feel safe than the overall group. With the Libraries’ focus on IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) including a recently adapted IDEA Action Plan, we hope to close that gap so that everyone feels safe and welcome in library spaces.

“My classes that I take make access to technology a must. The libraries on campus provide me with access to tools I would never have to opportunity to own. Tools such as 3D printers, book scanners, adobe software, and much more. Without the library I would either had to have dropped out of college and be thousands of dollars in debt.” – College of Liberal Arts Undergraduate Student

            Results also showed how much library users value the expertise, kindness, and labor of library staff. Library staff are seen as friendly, approachable, and knowledgeable by all user groups. In fact, staff comprised the second largest category of “What are we doing well?” responses. “In my UGS, a librarian came to explain to us how to use the library website nad how to find the sources we would need to conduct academic research,” shared an undergraduate from the College of Communication. “It was extremely helpful and I have since used these tips and skills in all of my classes!” Faculty especially value staff expertise – research support from a librarian is ranked as the third most important service by faculty respondents. Library web pages (research guides) for a subject area or course, which are designed and curated by librarians, were ranked within the top five priorities by every user group.

“Our librarian helped us research resources to unpack racial bias in grading and writing and coordinated with us and the writing center and writing flag staff to hold faculty meetings around this topic, The resources our librarian found were immensely helpful as were their contributions to our conversations.” -School of Social Work Faculty Member

While it’s nice to receive confirmation of what we’re doing well, it’s also important to look for ways we can better serve the campus community. In an open-answer “What can we do better?” question, navigation and wayfinding were often mentioned as areas that the Libraries can improve. One example of a task that some users currently find difficult is the process of finding a book on our website and then locating it in the stacks. Under the guidance of our UX Designer, we’re working on a project to improve signage on the entry level of PCL and will eventually move toward improving navigation and wayfinding at large. We also noted that the increase in remote learning and work brought on by the pandemic has possibly introduced a new need, as 20% of undergraduates who reported visiting a UTL space did so in order to attend a Zoom meeting or class. Individual space to attend online meetings is consistently being mentioned as a recent desire both anecdotally and through more formal assessments.

“Essential in a chronic sort of way. No single event represents it. ” -College of Natural Sciences Faculty Member

            While survey results are useful for confirming suspicions, tracking trends, and uncovering areas of interest, they also raise further questions. Respondents frequently expressed a lack of awareness of the Libraries’ communication channels, and undergraduate responses showed that there is room for improvement in outreach. We will follow up on these findings by doing further research to untangle where the disconnects are and what we can do to better reach all users. The results will continue to provide rich fodder for ongoing planning, and rather than being satisfied with the positive findings, the Libraries will continue to strive toward continual improvement so that everyone on campus can succeed. An undergraduate student from the College of Liberal Arts summed up why we do what we do, stating that “UT Libraries are essential to the accomplishment of my academic work.”

Assessment, Behind the Numbers

Keeping Tabs on Campus Trends

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The only constant is change, as the old saying goes. As technological and social change affect how we interact and engage with one another, it’s critical that libraries continually seek information about the evolving expectations of our community. Observations and usage trends provide valuable data that help orient our direction, but sometimes the best way to surface user expectations is to just ask. 

At the end of February, the Libraries launched a campus-wide survey to a random sample of students, faculty, and—for the first time—staff. If you happened to be among those who received an invitation and responded, we offer our thanks. If you didn’t get an invite, maybe we’ll catch you next time. The Libraries typically undertake a survey every 2 or 3 years to make sure we’re keeping tabs on how we are doing—it’s a great way to see what’s working well, what we might consider changing and in some cases, what we might stop doing. 

The 2022 survey is particularly important because it is the Libraries’ first survey since prior to the pandemic. The original plan was to implement the survey in fall 2020, but things felt too different, too anomalous at that time to get an accurate picture. Many of us were not on campus, and many of our circumstances were strained or unusual. We wanted the survey to represent longer-term trends—inasmuch as those exist anymore—rather than a snapshot of perceptions during the campus’s most restrictive COVID-related policies. The last time we surveyed the campus was in spring 2018, so there’s an eagerness to see what has changed and what has stayed the same over the last four turbulent years. 

For the first time, we developed and wrote our own survey instrument. This has long been a goal of mine, not because there aren’t great survey instruments available to libraries, but because we wanted to be able to tailor our questions to our unique population and circumstances. Past industry-standard instruments that we’ve used such as those created by LibQUAL and Ithaka S+R allowed us to compare trends at UT to national trends—which is a valuable exercise—but this time we wanted to focus on the perceptions, experiences, and needs of the Longhorn community. With support from folks around campus (especially the staff in IRRIS) and a seasoned assessment team, we took on the challenge of writing, administering, and analyzing our own survey, designed to provide us with actionable feedback. 

In the coming months, we’ll be using this space to share some of the findings from the survey as we work through our analysis, and eventually, we will have full results to share with the public. Topics that you can expect to see addressed here include longitudinal insights (i.e., where we see trends and perceptions evolving over the long term), spotlights on insights gleaned about different demographic groups, and other interesting tidbits. We won’t just tell you what we find interesting, though—we want to highlight what we’re doing with the results. Expect to read about areas that we want to investigate further with focus groups and interviews, and changes that we’re putting in place based on what we learn. 

  • An overwhelming majority of respondents are somewhat or extremely satisfied with us!

A sneak peak of a survey item focused on satisfaction shows that for the most part, folks are pretty happy with us…in particular, happy with the Libraries’ services.  But there is more still to be learned from a thorough review of the data:

  • Does that hold true across all demographic groups?  
  • What can we learn about those who aren’t satisfied?  

These are the kinds of questions we’ll be asking ourselves and our users, as we sift through the results. We invite you participate in an ongoing exploration of the data we’ve collected so that we can learn even more from the process of analysis as we seek to improve the work of these Libraries.  

The Libraries’ roadmap for success depends largely on hearing both the praise and criticism of our users, so take an opportunity to help improve your UT Libraries by providing your own input, feedback and observations as we plan together for the best possible future. 

IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility), Libraries History, Texas ScholarWorks

First Black Graduate Thesis Now Online

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Oscar Leonard Thompson

Though Heman Sweatt is the historical figure most associated with integration at The University of Texas at Austin, the first Black graduate to benefit from Sweatt’s efforts is getting a notable space in the university’s digital repository.

Thanks to a heads up from John Wallingford, professor in Molecular Biosciences, the thesis of Oscar Leonard Thompson is now available online.

Thompson became UT’s first black graduate in January 1952.

Born in 1907 and raised in Rosebud, near Waco, Thompson had his college career at Paul Quinn College in Dallas delayed by the Great Depression and further interrupted after a stint serving for three years in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. When he returned after the war, he used the GI Bill to complete his degree at Paul Quinn, then attended Tillotson College in Austin, and graduated magna cum laude from Samuel Huston College in 1949.

After the Sweatt v. Painter decision effectively integrated UT, Thompson came to the university in September 1950 to pursue a master’s degree in zoology, with an emphasis on genetics. He was 45 when he became the university’s first black graduate, and became a research scientist at the Human Genetic Foundation assisting UT geneticist C.P. Oliver investigate sickle cell anemia.

A mere four months after Thompson graduated, John Chase – who has previously been mistakenly identified as the university’s first black graduate – earned his Master’s of Architecture.

In 1956, UT admitted its first black undergraduates, of which there were about 75.

Thompson died in 1962 at 55, when he was working on his Ph.D. and teaching at Tillotson College in Austin. UT flew its flags at half-mast.

In a bit of irony, Thompson’s wife Irene – whom he met through his research and who typed his thesis for him – lived in a house designed by John Chase in East Austin.

Thompson’s thesis – “A study of phenyl-thio-carbamide taste deficiency in a Negro population and in family groups” – is now available online through Texas Scholar Works.

IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility), Interview

Meet the New Diversity Residents

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Established in 2018, the University of Texas Libraries’ Diversity Residency Librarian program offers entry-level librarians from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to develop skills and professional growth while gaining practical experience in an academic library setting. The program is designed to align with the professional goals and interests of the residents as well as the strategic priorities of the Libraries. The program supports the goals of the Association of College & Research Libraries Diversity Alliance program.

This term’s incoming librarians – Jeremy Thompson and Karina Sanchez – began their residencies over the summer remotely, but are now immersed with their initial rotations with significant time spent onsite at the various library locations. We sat down with the pair to get some personal insights and to learn about their expectations for the program.


Tex Libris: Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds – where you’re from, where you studied, what your interests are and what it’s like since you’ve come to the Libraries.

Jeremy Thompson: Well, I call Arizona home, but I’m originally from Indiana. But I moved to Arizona when I was nine and went to the University of Arizona where I did my undergrad. I was a history major and Information Science & eSociety major. And I got my master’s there, too, in library and information science. I have multiple backgrounds in library work. I worked for six years at the Arizona State Museum. Then during that time I also took internships. So, I worked a year and a half of the 390th Memorial Museum, which was a World War II Museum dedicated to the bomber group. Then I worked for two years for UArizona’s special collections and then I did it and I was a junior fellow at the Library of Congress. And when I was graduating I was looking for all kinds of jobs, this position popped up and I told myself digital archives has always been an interest of mine and I just thought of something I could learn on the job somewhere. The original plan was to get a traditional kind job and then just build and becoming a digital archivist. But if I could get into this program and actually focus on digital archives, then that would be great for my career and something I actually wanted to do. I got this career and I’m mainly focusing on when digital archives and digital processing. That’s my main focus and why I’m here.

Karina Sanchez: I’m from Los Angeles, California, and I was born and raised in the valley there. For my undergrad, I went to UC-Irvine, which was like an hour away, and I majored in English and education. And during my undergraduate career, I went to a special collection workshop and that’s where I became interested in working in libraries and specifically special collections. And remember before that I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a librarian – they just sit at the desk, you know?’ But then after that I realized that there’s so much to librarianship and archives and special collections, and there’s so many jobs related to that. Once I graduated from Irvine, I earned a Getty Multicultural Undergraduate internship, but it was at Olvera Street (El Pueblo Historical Monument), which is a historical Mexican monument. From there I went to the Huntington Library, and working there has really informed what I want to do for work. After the Huntington, I got my library information Masters at UCLA, and I thought I wanted to stick with reference. Working there my supervisor, allowed me to critically analyze our space and how it impacts people of color and how it impacts people who just don’t have the privilege to use these spaces. I think that’s where my specific interest is – working with students of color, researchers of color, people who come from low income areas, because their perspective is so important and how research is perceived.

TL: So what made you decide to settle on the residency instead of going directly into a professional career? Was it a learning learning opportunity or was it an experiential opportunity that you saw there?

JT: It was both. I saw this as an opportunity to actually branch out and explore – with it being a three year program, I knew I would be able to take my time. I know that both of us are younger people in the field, so we had time to explore, and I knew I would get the experience that I needed and also be able to explore what I wanted to.

KS: I think I found out about the diversity resident librarianship before I found out that UT Austin had it, and because I had a job, I was not going to stress out too much about it. I needed to focus on graduating. I was just casually looking for stuff, and in January I saw that North Carolina was advertising for a diversity resident librarian. When the UT Austin position popped up, I read the description. There were other positions and I compared it to the other ones, but this one sounded perfect. It was very focused on learning and teaching. I didn’t feel like I needed to know all this stuff before I got in, so it didn’t feel as intimidating as some of the others. And I remember talking to my supervisor at the Huntington – she’s a mentor for me – and she said, “You should apply for this, you’ll learn more than just special collections – you’ll be better, you’ll be rounded out.” And it’s an academic library so it’s really great experience. With her help I applied and I’m happy I was able to get it. 

TL: What are your expectations coming into the program?

KS: I guess my expectations coming in were very much about learning. I had to tell myself, ‘Don’t worry about going in there and feeling like you need to know everything because there’s just so much and this institution is so big.’ The first week of doing my informational interviews I realized that there are librarians for a lot of subject areas that I didn’t even consider. I realized quickly that it is okay to ask questions and learn. And I think that’s the mentality I’ve had – it’s an expectation to learn and to gain skills that I don’t have. Once I’m done with the program, hopefully it will be a bit easier to apply for the ideal librarian job.

JT: I came in wanting to be a digital archivist and that’s my expectation. I remember when I was interviewing for this position, I wanted to make sure it was worth my time because I am experienced. And while I was interviewing for here, I was also interviewing LSU for a manuscript processing possession, which I didn’t get – so (laughing) luckily I got this one. I just wanted to make sure that I that I came in expecting to come out a digital archivist, and making sure that I was going to learn something new. And so far I’ve learned a lot of things, and I’m only five months in.

TL: You both had previous experience in special archives. UT has a depth in special collections, so was there something about the special collections at the university that compelled you to apply here?

KS: Yeah, I remember when I was at UCLA, there’s a librarian there now, T-Kay Sangwand, and I remember seeing one of her presentations about a digitization process at the Benson (Latin American Collection) and the outreach the Libraries did in other countries, and I thought that was really cool. I remember seeing this position open and wondered if I might get the chance to work with the digital initiatives group or to work where T-Kay was working. And then when I reviewed our rotation options, I saw that digital initiative was part of the rotation, and it’s just perfect that it worked out somehow. I’m really excited to work with them and to understand more about the digital initiative outreach that they do. Also the Benson is Latinx-focused, so I’m really excited just to get that perspective because the Huntington was a very European-focused collection, while this collection has more diversity, even though there is still some intrinsic whiteness and colonization.


JT: Coming into it just finding the job posting, I was like, ‘Oh yeah…the University of Texas – that seems like a good place to work.’ Getting into the interview process and doing the research about the Libraries, one of the things I was impressed with is the Black Diaspora Archive (BDA), which I’ll be working on in my next rotation. Being in Arizona and working for their special collections and the Arizona State Museum, I’ve worked with Latinx collections and Native American collections, but I’ve never had the opportunity to work with a Black collection. And for my project at the Library of Congress, I was supposed to work on the African American Collection but it was right as the pandemic started, so they had to go virtual, so I worked in a different collection. Having the opportunity to actually work with a Black collection and learning in my interview from (Black Diaspora Archivist) Rachel Winston that the BDA is new and it doesn’t have a lot of digital components –  just being able to be in on the ground floor for the collection and add in my own piece and my own work to the is to the archives something that I’m excited about.

TL: What are the what are the other areas of interests for you each here? 

JT: Teaching services. One of the things that I’m impressed with again – going back to special collections – is Theresa Polk’s post-custodial, but also teaching what we’re doing. One of the things that I like about archives is the problems encountered and the solutions that come from those, but also having to not only find a solution but also adapt it so it doesn’t just stay with the institution. One of the things that we typically do when we find the solution is create a workflow so that we can inform others how we went about that process, and it can be reverse engineered. That’s one of the things that I enjoy and I plan on focusing on is teaching what we do so that outside communities can do the work, decentralizing the archival process.

TL: So if they are working on a post custodial project and you had the chance to go and do fieldwork with them where they’re teaching folks how to use technology in the field to digitally-preserve resources, would that be something you might jump at?

JT: Yeah, I’ve worked on a similar project in the past. In Tucson, there’s the Dunbar Pavilion school. The Dunbar was the first segregated school for African Americans in Tucson – they were having a reunion – and special collections were on hand with portable scanners to digitize photographs and put them on USB drives. And it wasn’t a requirement that they had to give us a copy, but we asked. It was a process to show people that you can do this yourself, you can preserve your own history. So, yeah, if there was an opportunity to go out in the field and actually do that work and produce onsite metadata, it is something that I would be interested in.

KS: Right now I’m working on an assessment with (Assessment Librarian) Maria Chiochios learning the assessment process and the survey process, and what to assess. There was a lot of assessment that we probably should’ve done at the Huntington, but we didn’t have the time or the staff.  And going back to the Huntington, as with many museums and academic institutions, there are issues with how people use space. I’ve gotten to talk to (User Experience Designer) Melody Ethley about the user experience process and how people use space, how it impacts the research – especially if you’re a person of color. I am interested in understanding how people of color use special collections, since these spaces are not built for them and many haven’t encountered these resources can be a whole new world thus being scary.  Also, at the Huntington, we didn’t have a lot of outreach. I think one of the rotations I’ll be doing is with Teaching and Learning, and I’m excited to work with undergrad students because I never had that chance before. I’ve always worked with professors and PhD students, who already knew exactly what they were doing. I’m excited to work with undergrads who are still trying to figure out what they’re doing and exploring the space. At the Huntington to I was able to develop a virtual reading room during the pandemic, which is basically a service where researchers – whether they’re local or out of the country – able to see our materials virtually through a document camera. In doing that, I realized how important the technology and the digital aspect of special collections are. I’m excited to work with (Benson Digital Scholarship Coordinator) Albert Palacios because he does the Latin American Digital Initiatives, but he also does the outreach and public facing work. I feel like it’s something I don’t know much about and something I’m really interested in and combining those two is exciting. 

TL: You mention people who have traditionally experienced barriers to accessing special collections. What can you hope to gain from your experience here that might help inform improving the situation for people who experience barriers when it comes to special collections? You’re talking about working with researchers – they come in with a very much different attitude than students. If you layer on top of that, these sorts of barriers that affect underrepresented communities, how how do you expect your time here to inform how you might address that in your future work, especially if you’re planning on going back to special collections or spaces where those barriers still exist?

JT: I was a diversity scholar with the Association of Research Libraries. During my time in library school, I was put together with a group of other people from underrepresented groups. And one of the things I enjoy about about digital archives is that it’s new. It’s everyone’s starting from the same starting place. Everyone has photographs, everyone has videos, everyone has that. So where traditional archives are behind the paywall, with digital archives, we’re all starting from the same place. While I’m building the skills, I also have to learn how to adapt them so that people who are not traditionally trained in archives – because one of my focus is while I was in library school was in community archives and the techniques that they use – will have the access and skills to use these resources. Since digital archives is still a fairly new practice, it’s a starting place for everyone and you can gear an approach towards underrepresented groups, so that they can have this new tool to tell their stories and they’re not starting at such a distinct disadvantage.

TL: That’s a really interesting perspective. I hadn’t thought about that, but thinking about the difference between trained scholars and researchers versus students who may be digital native. The new digital landscape might actually start to tip that balance a little bit toward people who haven’t had experience in archives previously. 

KS: I think for me, what I hope to gain from my time in terms of the way I approach librarianship when it comes to working with low income or underprivileged students is through my experience working with undergraduate students. That’s what I’m most excited about. I am first generation college student, I was the first one to go to a university, so it was an unfamiliar experience. Working with students and seeing how they think and how they perceive not only their library space, but their academic career, and being able to empathize – hopefully I can gain some understanding of how they use the space and use that knowledge to make the space for them. From personal experience, I went to one workshop as a first year in an archive that affected my whole career and that showed me that I could be a librarian, and then every time I meet other librarians of color who are ahead in their careers – like Rachel or like Albert – it’s like, ‘Oh, there are people of color and their doing really well in their field. I could do that, too, and hopefully I could have some type of impact.’

TL: Move ahead in time two years, what are you hoping to look back and have gained from your residency? What are some of the other intangible benefits that you want to gain from you experience here? 

KS: I went back home for Thanksgiving, and I was thinking about what I’ve learned so far in the little time I’ve been here, and I realized I’ve been able to work really closely with Maria and I’ve learned so much just working the last few weeks with her. I’ve learned so much about how she carries herself as an assessment librarian. Also as being a co-chair of the Diversity Action Committee and how strong she is. I really admire that and working with (Digital Scholarship Librarian) Allyssa Guzman, and meeting (U.S. Studies Liaison and former diversity resident) Adriana Casarez and the previous diversity residents. I have been able to speak to them about my experience and learn from their own experience working at UT. Their advice has been very helpful in learning how to navigate my role. It really makes me excited to work closely with other people throughout my rotation because I’ve learned so much already, and I’ll be able to learn more and create fruitful relationships that I’ll be able to keep. I’m really excited to create those relationships and to understand how a bigger academic place like this works. Being here, learning about the organization and understanding that will benefit me once I move to a permanent professional position. Talking to Allyssa about people’s positions and how everything is structured has been really helpful because I feel like if I came in here as a librarian, I would feel intimidated to even ask those questions because I would feel like I should know this already, but as a resident, I get the opportunity to ask question and to learn how this library works.

TL: You’ve been working in academic libraries, and you’ve had some experience there. So how is it different for you then?

JT: Well, I’m not a student anymore (laughing). One of the things that Karina hit on that I’ve also noticed is that while doing these interviews, one of the things that – for lack of a better word – has been contagious is that everyone is so energized by the work and that’s one of the things I want to take away from this is not being the student actually but actually being treated as a professional. I want to come out of this feeling like a professional and that I have this subject knowledge, and that I’m able to apply that to other places. In most of the groups that I’ve interacted with, I’ve been a student and someone who’s preparing to be in the in the career. So now when I’m networking, I can talk as a professional and I have contributions to the conversation. That’s one of the things that I want to carry with me when I’m out of this residency program. I think that this is a great incubator for that because it’s a program that’s made to made to support you and make sure that you’re getting what you need. And I think that I think that we will be successful once we’re out of this program, but we’re also given time to explore, to realize what kind of information professional we wouldn’t want to be. 

TL: Why is this program and programs like it important? Is it important at all? 

JT: Yeah. I think, I think it’s really, really important. First, you’re able to rotate different areas, which something that I really like about. I don’t know if other diversity programs do the same way, how Austin does it. And I think it specifically focuses on people of color. I feel like when you see positions like that, you feel more motivated and you feel like you have more of a chance to succeed. And also it’s for people who have just gotten their Master’s and just graduated. So that’s another thing that makes you feel like you have more of a chance to hopefully get this than another librarian job where it might require at least 2-3 years of professional setting and you’re competing with people who have like many more years than you. It’s very important in that aspect. And it’s also important, in a critical sense, to think about the way you are perceived in this type of space, the type of impact you have. As people of color coming from a low income area, it’s not our responsibility to create the change, but if you want to, you have that power, and it feels a little less intimidating being in this position. It gives you a bit more sense of having a voice.

I think it’s important that we recognize that we are the two individuals in this position, out of all the people who applied. We were privileged to be in this position and that in some way we’re flag bearers. There’s a lot of talk in this field about the need for diversity and the need to have diverse perspectives and that as the two individuals in this position and also the other individuals who are in similar programs that it’s our responsibility to no bring the change, but to be the change. The point of being the flagbearer is to make sure in the future that there’s no need for a flagbearer, is that there’s no need for programs like this. So, the point of this program is to make sure that there is no need for programs like this in the future. We kind of have the responsibility to be the best professionals that we can and advocate where we can, because we are the we are the two individuals representing this program. We have to interlink with the other individuals who are in similar programs to make sure that there’s no need for programs like this in the future, because the field will already be diversified.

KS: And to piggyback on Jeremy’s thoughts – not to seem negative – but programs like this do have a performative activism to them, which is an issue. So, I totally agree with Jeremy that hopefully in the future we don’t need these kinds of programs because libraries are diverse enough or we don’t have to have this type of performative work to show that we’re diverse. 

JT: Yeah. Speaking to the performative, I don’t really like public speaking, or, you know, talking to anyone – I would be more than happy to be in my dungeon doing my archival work, just be in this position. But I have to stand up, be counted. Like: Hey, I’m Jeremy Thompson. I’m the diversity resident and I’m in this position and I’m showing you my face. And that’s important.

IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility), Interview, Staff, Website

Focusing on User Experience with Melody Ethley

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The lion’s share of what libraries do requires a fundamental attention to the experience of the researcher, scholar, student, faculty or patron who engages either in-person or online with resources, services, spaces and expertise. That experience of the user can have a profound effect on the quality and efficacy of the work being pursued. With the growth of personal technologies and the development of user-centered design, there’s been a growing movement to place a greater emphasis on user and customer experience in all manner of industry, and libraries have begun to incorporate this strategy into their own operations with the enlistment of User Experience and Content Management experts.

The UT Libraries recently hired its first User Experience Designer, and we sat down with Melody Ethley to learn a bit more about what she will bring to improve the experience of all who enter the Libraries, be that through a door or a browser.

Tex Libris: What’s your background, and how did you get into user experience (UX)?

Melody Ethley: My background is in computer information systems. I was first exposed to User Experience design during my undergrad years. I was still trying to figure out what I’d like to do. After graduation, I had an opportunity to intern at the Library of Congress (LOC) and that was really such an invaluable experience. It was so hands-on, and I learned from a lot of well-versed UX professionals. And I also appreciated having that exposure in the library, which I had never even known about as an option for a career. After my time at LOC, I did some independent work and sought out small business owners to help them develop their websites with a UX focus. I tried to implement my processes while also considering that they don’t really know much about UX. I was eager to continue to follow the path that I was on in pursuing a career in this field and making sure that I was still moving forward while the world was kind of falling apart. I started at UTL in the summer, so I’ve been here for a few months now.

  • User Experience Designer Melody Ethley

TL: Tell me a little bit about the law.gov project that you worked on at the Library of Congress (LOC). What was it like being involved in a project that big coming fresh out of out of college into this internship?

ME: It was very intimidating, I will say. And didn’t realize how big the project was until I was working on it. I was on a team of about 12 people all doing UX within their own projects at the library. My direct supervisor was the lead experience designer on law.gov at the time. I was brought in as a user researcher and content strategist to help facilitate usability studies and synthesize data from our findings. My integration into the project was very quick, you know. I did a lot of research on how various topics were found on the law.gov landing page, because there was a concern with important content being buried under the menus. And if you have ever visited the law.gov website – like many library websites – there’s a lot of content to sift through. We wanted to figure out how our novice and power users were navigating the Law.gov website and organize the content in a way that everybody could find the information that they needed.

It was a fun project. I got to sit in the Law Library and recruit participants to do our study, which was really interesting. I had to be very strategic in when and how I approached people. At first, it was a little nerve-wracking, because I didn’t want to interrupt their studies, but I was also motivated to gather as many participants as I could. I am a people person, and I’m comfortable with approaching people I don’t know, so it was right up my alley to just go in there and recruit folks for our study.

Later in the project, I inherited the content inventory, which was a big undertaking. I didn’t even realize until after I was finished with this internship that there were over 30,000 items that I helped to capture for the law.gov redesign. I spent weeks revising the existing content inventory and while it was a tedious task, I found a lot of interest in the artifacts that I uncovered while I was working on it. I captured every piece of content that I encountered – any internal and external pages, pdfs, collections, events, you name it. The Type A personality in me had to make sure any and everything was in that spreadsheet. So, at times it was like, ‘oh man, this is a lot, this is a lot.’ But I feel like I was able to kind of truncate it and break it down in a way that wasn’t too overwhelming. And then I realized that I enjoyed working within the realm of content strategy and it became an area that I wanted to explore more about in UX. It’s just another element under the big umbrella of things that you can do in this industry. 

TL: Do you think the LOC experience provided any preparation for coming to work at the UT Libraries?

ME: Oh, definitely. I didn’t have that experience working in a library coming into the UX profession. That was one thing that I was excited about when I applied here. My previous experience in a library helped me realize how meaningful my work could be in this space, and the idea of impacting so many people who are striving to reach their educational goals brings me so much purpose. And having that hands-on experience in a larger organization was great, because if I hadn’t had that experience then I would have been mostly relying on my independent projects with the smaller organizations which might not have served me as well in this role. I think that my experience at LOC gave me the reassurance and confidence in my capability to do the work at the caliber that it needs to be done.

TL: Does the approach to UX differ for an organization like a library?

ME: I would say that UX is fairly the same across all industries. Of course, there are nuances, but the core concept and idea remain the same – to deliver a delightful experience to the user. UX in the library is going to be very similar to UX in a private organization. When I think of UX, I think of how I can bring together the needs of the user, the needs of the organization, and the constraints of a specific product that I’m working on. And when I say users, I’m thinking of all my users – so here at the Libraries that is staff, leadership, our patrons. Then how can the organization benefit from the work that I’m doing, even if it’s just in the smallest way? I think all three of those components are what embody UX at its core. And of course, considering that there are nuances in everything it’s difficult for me to pinpoint right now, but I’m sure I will gather these things as I navigate my first few projects.

I’m excited to spread UX around the organization and to inform everybody about all the possibilities of UX. I feel like there’s still kind of like a foggy notion about it, you know. I’m going to be working a lot on the library website and to make sure that our resources and services are useful, and accessible for not only our patrons but for our staff too, because as I see my role, everybody is my user, not just the students – it’s also my colleagues, leadership, and really anybody who has a stake in the Libraries. I think about how I can make each person or group of people’s lives a little bit easier with the work that I do.

TL: That’s good because I generally just make their lives more complicated with what I’m asking them to do – kind of like this right now.

ME: That’s why we’re on a team. Hot and cold.

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