June 7, 2023

Over the last year, the Drexel Libraries has been working hard to hire and on-board new staff, including seven new full-time staff members. In May, Communications Manager Stacy Stanislaw sat down with our new Curricula Support Librarian, Anna Harper, to learn more about her role and what it's like working for the Drexel Libraries. 

Q: Welcome to Drexel! Tell us a little bit about your career background – where did you work before coming to Drexel and how did you come to be a librarian?   

I’d like to answer the last part of the question as the first part is in my bio. I was lucky to have a wonderful elementary school librarian, Mr. Conway. This was back in the 1970s, just as computers were being introduced to the public and far before digital recording devices existed.

Mr. Conway was so innovative. He documented students on film, planting trees on Earth Day and filming “Spaghetti Westerns.” He would take us to tour his garden, which had all kinds of plants and sculptures. He designed a computer game we could play at school called “Mr. Conway’s Garden,” along with access to the original “Oregon Trail.”

One of my most formative childhood memories was a slideshow he presented on post-Impressionist painters. He was talking about Starry Night, and it was the first time I made the connection that art is a language—a way people communicate without using words. I knew art was important to me, even at nine years old, but that is the moment I discovered visual language and understood its impact. So, when I went to college, I studied studio and art history. I loved the research that went into art history and art making. Through my university research, I came to know the art librarian and learned it was a career. A master's in library and information science is a degree that could be completed in less than two years, and a PhD in Art History would have taken at least twice as long, so at the time it seemed a sensible career path. However, that was not the only reason.

Another compelling reason for my decision to become a librarian was the response of public librarians to the Patriot Act, which was to protect the privacy of their patrons’ borrowing records. Protecting and encouraging intellectual freedom is a core tenant of librarianship. I see my work in academia as continuing the tradition of upholding this tenant by providing access to information sources, guidance through expanding information systems, and training information consumers and creators to critically evaluate and ethically use and disseminate information.

In the tradition of Mr. Conway, my practice as a librarian has been experiential and student-focused. I have mentored undergraduates interested in art librarianship, created curriculum with faculty that contributed new knowledge, and presented on these partnerships at conferences. Finally, as a first generation, non-traditional student, I have a special focus in my practice of librarianship acknowledging the anxiety that can come from the unknown in academia and the process of learning with the goal of developing deeper understanding and agency in one's decision making.

Q: How would you explain what you do and the importance of your role to a Drexel student or faculty or staff member?

I have found that my background in art lends itself well to approaching library work creatively and responsively. People in creative fields are trained to respond to the time in which we live, and currently advancements in technology require us to develop literacies beyond the evaluation of text. Responding to change creatively in my role as a librarian necessitates that I identify the information needs of the Drexel community and address those needs with resources and curricular tools that build skills in the evaluation, use, and creation of information.

The terminal degree for a librarian is often a master's in library and information science; and as an information scientist, I want to make sure that my community, whether it is at Drexel or the broader Philadelphia area, is technologically resilient, able to recognize the potential applications of different information sources and creation tools, and to remain aware of the ethical distribution of access and use of these sources and tools.

Q: What is a particularly interesting project you are working on right now?  

Prior to my joining Drexel Libraries, the Dean here had created a unique program for Libraries student workers called “Information Explorers.” Recently I have started working with my colleagues who run the program to develop an experiential, constructive “curriculum” that provides students conceptual and applicable skills to find, evaluate, and create information.

My hope for the program is that through working with Drexel students, the Libraries will learn more about how our students use and understand information, and that we will be able to share this information with the broader Drexel community and build mini-lessons that faculty can plug into assignments that assist students in using and evaluating information. I have a particular interest in developing curriculum that explores advanced understanding of AI tools that are used to access, aggregate, and create unique information objects. This extends to ChatGPT and visual media such as works produced by Dall-E and deepfake videos that require critical analysis and an understanding of copyright law.

Q: What is the most unexpected (or exciting or maybe it’s both?) aspect of your job and working at Drexel?

After a decade of working in a liaison capacity to Fine and Performing Arts departments, I was not expecting how Drexel’s focus on industry would shape the curriculum. This has presented me with a learning curve I had not anticipated. This difference requires I evaluate how the critical analysis of information and implementation of information creation tools impacts our students beyond the academy and into their professions. I am excited to work with the Information Explorers and other campus partners to address Drexel’s unique needs as a school that values experiential learning and prepares students to directly contribute to their fields after graduation.

Q: You moved to Philadelphia from the West Coast. What is your favorite thing about Philadelphia so far?

I had never been to Philadelphia prior to moving here, and I am so pleased to experience life in this city. I find living in a city that has existed for so long, whose history shows a tradition of concern for equity and peace, creates—despite the tensions of our time—a place where a large, diverse community of people live among one another more easily than anywhere I have lived before, and I have lived a lot of places! There is an authenticity and lack of pretense that make Philadelphia a wonderful place to live.

Q: Now for the obvious question we have to ask every librarian: what is your favorite book and what are you reading right now?

You may have noticed I have not mentioned books much. Books as objects are wonderful to hold. However, to me a book is a way to access ideas, and I am interested in ideas in any form they are delivered and the intellectual freedom to explore those ideas. For that reason, I will say that there are two “books” everyone should read if they have not already and those are, 1984 by George Orwell and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky. However, I would be just as pleased were folks to watch the movie and a few YouTube videos on the topics. That said, I watch many YouTube videos and the books currently on my nightstand are about yoga, cooking, and walking Philadelphia.