As recently as five years ago, Emily McElroy said, librarians might have been discussing whether libraries should order hardback or paperback books.
“Well, that’s not even a conversation we’re having now,” she said.
But McElroy is participating in plenty of other conversations these days. She arrived at UNMC in December to become the new director of the McGoogan Library of Medicine, and she’s been excited by the energy surrounding the library and its future.
Moving forward
“I’ve worked in a lot of libraries where change takes a long time to happen,” she said. “What I’ve seen here is that people are really excited about moving forward and implementing new services, taking a look at what we’ve traditionally done and saying, ‘Let’s rethink this.'”
An anatomy cafe with 3D and virtual technology? A “learning commons” space where students can come in for group things and move furniture around? Embedding librarians at the colleges and schools to better help faculty and students? It’s all on the table.
“We’ve been receiving a lot of ideas from people that are exciting,” McElroy said. “We have a space-planning team that is developing some ideas and plans on meeting with different groups on campus.”
McElroy came to UNMC from the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), where she was the associate university librarian for content management and systems. She also has worked at New York University, University of Oregon and Loyola University of Chicago’s Health Sciences Division.
Exciting collaborations
Among her first projects at UNMC is supporting the development of an institutional repository for e-learning modules, items from special collections and articles for faculty, an initiative that was conceived shortly before her arrival.
“It is a perfect example of how staff realized the need on the UNMC campus and thoughtfully moved forward with an aggressive timeline on a new service,” she said. “They gathered support from key stakeholders in a very short time period.”
“There are a lot of other possibilities for growing that,” she said.
The library also is developing an assessment team, creating evaluations for its programs and services that will allow for better comparison with peer institutions.
The goal is to strengthen the bond between the library and the university’s researchers, faculty and students.
“That’s been the most exciting thing here — how many people want to work with the library and are excited about the collaboration,” she said. “They’re including us in their plans, and that’s not very common. The library seems to be very central in people’s thinking about the future.”