Nicholas Baker is Reference and Web Services Librarian at Williams College Libraries in Williamstown, MA. Nicholas has been an ACRL member since 2005 and is your ACRL Member of the Week.
1. Describe yourself in three words: Creative, outgoing, bibliophile.
2. What are you reading/ listening to on your iPod? Right now I’m reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris and listening to “Cowboy Jubilee” by Riders in the Sky.
3. Describe ACRL in three words: Collegial, focused, useful.
4. Why did you join ACRL? I wanted more of an emphasis on small academic libraries than I was getting from ALA. ACRL helps me stay focused on the niche I’m in. ACRL conferences are small enough to get from one session to another easily, big enough to attract all my friends from library school, and focused on the issues that I really care about.
5. What do you value about academic or research librarianship? I value my interactions with people the most, whether it’s with my colleagues who share my intellectual curiosity, with faculty who need help finding the source of an obscure quote, or with students discovering the research process. The human interaction is what makes this job interesting.
6. In your own words: I worked at a series of dot coms around the turn of the century, and they gave me an appreciation for the durability of libraries. Libraries need the agility of a technology start-up, while staying faithful to their mission of protecting and providing access to information for the very distant future. At an academic institution with centuries of history, we must consider not only our users today, but the users of 2100 and 2200. That long view gives my work a greater purpose.
Editor’s Note: Are you an ACRL member? Would you like to be featured as ACRL Member of the Week? Contact David Free at dfree{at}ala{dot}org for more information.