Column by Barret Havens
An Ode to our Professions: What Makes Being an Architecture Librarian or Archivist a Privilege
AASL name change: Association of Architecture Librarians and Archivists (AALA)
Approaching our 50th anniversary and guided by the , the Association of Architecture School Librarians has voted to adopt a new name. Since 1978, we have supported architectural teaching, research, and scholarship. Our growing membership of over 150 information professionals benefits from a name that better reflects our specialized expertise and strengthens our capacity to advocate for and partner with architectural educators.
On the historic occasion of the name change of our organization, let us celebrate what is special about being architecture librarians and archivists.
Our user group
Fortunately, in any archival or library setting, one is likely to encounter dedicated and inspiring users. However, our particular user group of architectural researchers, faculty, and students are exceptionally dedicated. What our users have in common is that they are drawn to their chosen pursuits by a deep sense of passion.
We see how hard they work! Students burn the midnight oil in studios, incorporating information gleaned through precedent research into their design work. We work with faculty members who explore their respective research agendas with relentless curiosity and determination. We assist architectural historians who dig deep into the past for nuggets of wisdom to apply to current design problems. The design disciplines are so rigorous and require such long hours of attending to meticulous details that passion is a prerequisite for success. 聽Working with passionate and genuinely curious users who share their infectious enthusiasm with us is an honor and a privilege.
Straddling the worlds of print and digital resources
Though recent conversations that have taken place on the AALA listserv indicate that some university administrators fail to understand that print resources are still indispensable in the world of design research, most of us need no convincing. The consistently high quality of architectural images in books and archival materials has extended the timeframe of the relevance of information in those formats. Likewise, a well-rounded collection of print-based architectural periodicals is critical for fulfilling our users鈥� information needs. Furthermore, print monographs and serials alike that are related to the design disciplines are of particularly high quality, considering that designers are involved in their production, and that designers and design researchers are their intended readership.
However, a robust collection of ebooks and databases is equally necessary to serve our users on a round-the-clock basis and to fill in gaps in our print collections. And slowly, over time, we have seen the quality of images in those digital resources improving.
Consequently, it is our privileged position to be able to engage in tactile, print-based research while staying on the cutting edge of the evolution of digital resources. Often, we witness the joy on our users鈥� faces as they discover items serendipitously while exploring the stacks or perusing archival collections or finding aids. And, likewise, we see them light up as we assist them with executing a well-constructed Boolean search in JSTOR that yields a list of highly relevant articles in full-text. We get to introduce them to the discipline-specific limiters of the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals that enable them to target precisely the articles that they are looking for. Those of us who engage in the digitization and description of archival materials master technologies that give our users a genuine sense of the physical characteristics of items in our archives while sparing those items from wear and tear.
Engaging in this wide variety of approaches to design research makes us more well-rounded and capable professionals. And, importantly, the fact that architectural research still has one foot planted in the realm of print-based sources and another in the realm of digital resources brings our users to the library and our archival spaces. Architectural archives and libraries are still the vibrant research hubs that they have always been, and we get to be there to see inspiration as it happens.
Solving real-world problems
Our work also has an ethical dimension that keeps us and our users inspired. We work directly with students, faculty, and other researchers who are devising solutions to the most critical problems facing humanity. It is our users who will discover, invent, and apply innovative, sustainable materials and processes. It is our users who will dig deep into the past to search for solutions that are still applicable today. They will need access to the resources that we provide. They will need our assistance. And in this way, we also contribute to solving the most critical problems facing humanity. What could be more rewarding for a librarian or archivist than that?