Howdy! My name is Joan Stringfellow and I am the Head of Technical & Electronic Services at the Dee J. Kelly Law Library, Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas. Remotely coming to you today from my home office in lovely Bedford, Texas. I have been at the law school (then Texas Wesleyan) since 1993 where I was the receptionist for the school. About six months later, I was hired into the library as the serials assistant. I have worked in every aspect of the law library with the exception of ILL. I received my MLS from the University of North Texas in 2002 and was then promoted to Catalog Librarian.
2.Does your job title actually describe what you do? Why/why not?
Well, broadly speaking, yes and no. Since our library is a smaller one, this is probably true for many of us! As for the Technical Services part of the title, yes. I have a wonderful assistant, Sharon Jefferson, who does our copy cataloging and adding our new print materials to our collection. She does many other special TS projects as they come up. I am our library system administrator. I do the original cataloging although it is not a very significant amount, it does challenge me at times. Probably for lack of practice! As for the electronic services part of the title, I do it all. I take care of our electronic subscriptions from top to bottom. I perform most steps in acquiring our subscriptions. This includes setting up trials, demos, licensing, ensuring they are complying with state and federal accessibility laws, adding them to our catalog and A-Z list, invoicing, statistics retrieval, and making sure all of our students get their Westlaw and Lexis access set up! We also have an electronic sign in our lobby that I manage. I work with the director and collections librarian to create and manage the budget annually for our electronic resources of the library’s budget. Finally, I am the website editor for the law library’s pages.
Since I have been here so long, I have also acquired some facilities tasks. I am the liaison for the library working with the IT department, when there are any technical problems within the library public spaces. Specifically, if the library student or staff printers go down, I am the one who coordinates with IT to get those back up and running. The same goes for the public catalogs. We also have electronic compact shelving and I am the point person for any maintenance issues that come up. I will trouble-shoot the issues and, when necessary, work with the vendor for any repairs needed.
3.What are you reading right now?
So, I really hate to admit this, but I am not an avid reader, though I grew one in my daughter, who cannot get enough! She even became a writing and reading teacher. Makes total sense! When I do read, I love true crime. Way back when I was around 11-12, I remember finding Helter Skelter in my aunt’s room and was just fascinated! I am still fascinated with all things true crime. I also enjoy Steven King. I am amazed at his ability to describe what is going on in the story that I find myself deep in the story like I am really there in the room. I have recently received a couple new books that I am very much looking forward to. Becoming by Michelle Obama and, for Christmas, I received a book on decluttering. Hmmm…was that a hint?
4.If you could work in any library (either a type of library or a specific one), what would it be? Why?
I have always thought it would be so much fun to work at a specialized library. I love to watch movies and television, so I would love to work at the Disney film or animation library, network library, or other television or movie studio library. When I was in library school we had to apply for our dream job and I chose the MTV Library.
5.[Imagine the world before the pandemic] You suddenly have a free day at work, what project would you work on?
Well, since we are a smaller library, there are always projects to work on. I would love to be able to clean up our catalog from the past migrations and record loads and deletions. I would love to work on making sure all the records are clean, fix any call number problems, and make sure everything is as good as could be. That is the Virgo in me. While I am pretty good at our ILS, I would really love to become an expert!
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