Have you ever wondered what your librarian does after work? If all they do is read? Well, say no more! I interviewed Tiffany Raymond, the Wells College Reference, and Instruction librarian. Tiffany received her Bachelor’s Degree at Wells College in History with a minor in Religion. She went on to get her Master’s at the University of Buffalo in Library and Information Science.
Her job passion is “working with students and making sure that they are on a good solid academic path.” Surprisingly there are no typical days in Tiffany’s workday, but she usually answers or sends emails about campus events, questions from students, faculty or community, she also answers emails about Wells archives. She also attends her meetings, provides academic workshops to classes, and works on archival projects.
Tiffany’s job responsibilities include: providing reference services for the students and community members, she assists in finding and locating materials hidden in the library, provides instructional services such as teaching a class in research tools and skills. Additionally, Tiffany helps with one on one workshops for classes, library outreach, library program, archivist, and social media coordinator (follow us on our Facebook). Although Tiffany enjoys her job, her biggest challenge is that there is a small number of staff members. Tiffany loves the fact that she works at her Alma Mater. She says her four years at Wells was great, she valued the education she received from Wells so it was exciting to come back and apart of the organization puts out wonderful students and to experience life from another perspective. She loves when students talk about various traditions and she feels as though she can relate despite the changes.
She is currently working on an archives projects to digitize archives, she is the third stage of her project. She took three of the school’s major collections that they get a lot of questions on and digitized select items from the archives. The Wells archives are a combination of financial records, general interest items, information on college and surrounding areas, history of famous alums and professors, and historical facts.
Tiffany’s current project involves scanning the archives and then uploads them to a website where people outside the organization can see what they have and access them without having to physically go into the library. She took prints and pictures from Victor Hammer, a famous book artist who worked at Wells in the 1940s. Another collection was the Frances Folsom archives and right now she and other librarians are working on journals from Albert Leffingwell archives. The journals are more time consuming because they have to go through each text and translate them page by page by reading them and typing out what each page says before they can scan them. Another project Tiffany is working on is the first Wells College Human Library. The Human Library is a worldwide movement, to break down stereotypes and promote inclusion through conversation. You have people volunteer as human “books” who share their experiences with “readers” in an effort to break down whatever stereotypes people may have about them. It’s a program that has been spreading around libraries throughout the country. Tiffany chose to do it at Wells because of the college’s dedication to inclusion and diversity, as well as the willingness of our community members to open up to one another, made it exciting for me to try and bring it to Wells.
Tiffany feels like she can empower women both on and off campus. She is in a professional position and she feels as though she can be a mentor to women who are looking for assistance.“Women in male-dominant professions may struggle with finding females who are relatable and knowledge about the field. They may need someone who understands what they are going through and can provide advice.” Tiffany also notes that the benefits of working in a library are that a lot of librarians are women, and she had female mentors. Tiffany aims to provide that for the next generation of women whether they are in library science or a similar field.