Georgianna Ziegler, Folger Shakespeare Library

The following is an electronic tour of the Folger Shakespeare Library completed in the spring of 2000. Our tour guide is Dr. Georgianna Ziegler, Reference Librarian.

Questions

  1. Describe the organization/corporate culture and political climate.

    2. The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library. Opened in 1932, the Folger was a gift to the American people from Henry Clay Folger and his wife Emily Jordan Folger. Coming from a modest background, Mr. Folger made his fortune as President of Standard Oil of New York in the late nineteenth century. He worked with the designers of the library building before he died in 1930, and left his estate to be administered for the library by Amherst College, his alma mater. A major center for scholarly research, the Folger houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, in addition to a magnificent collection of other rare Renaissance books and manuscripts on all disciplines--history and politics, theology and exploration, law and the arts. The collection, astonishing in its range and variety, consists of approximatel 256,000 books, 55,000 manuscripts; 27,000 paintings, drawings, engravings and prints; and musical instruments, costumes and films. As an institution, the Folger is politically neutral; we welcome all scholars of the early modern period. The Reading Room is open to scholars and graduate students for research. It is open to the public during the Folger's annual celebration of Shakespeare's birthday in April. The Folger is also a museum devoted to Shakespeare's legacy, a lively center for the literary and performing arts, and a center for the revitalization of humanities education in our schools. Throughout the year exhibitions <../public/exhibit/menu.htm> of the Folger's treasures and special events draw visitors into the Great Hall.

  2. 2. Discuss the availability and use of information technology in general, with particular attention to internet/intranet applications.

    3. The Folger instituted an online catalog in the winter of 1996/97. We now also have a web-based version, available to registered Folger readers by password, but soon to be available to everyone this summer. The catalog provides records for all of our modern books (post 1800) and portions of our rare materials, including all copies of the Shakespeare folios. Several grant project are enabling us to re-catalog our collection of 55,000 early English imprints (1475-1700), and to provide searchable finding aids for a number of our large collections of manuscripts.

  3. How do you align your information services with strategic planning or your organizations?

    4. The institution now has a Technology Endowment Fund, and plans for hard and software are part of Central Library's annual budget. In addition, as noted above, we receive a number of grants from various sources, both public (NEH) and private (Marpat, Delmos, etc.)

  4. Describe your responsibilities, with emphasis on those areas in which library school did not prepare you for.

    5. As the Reference Librarian, my responsibilities involve answering the majority of queries that come from scholars working here, from our staff, and from outside sources, whether by phone, fax, letter, or e-mail. I answer roughly 800 - 900 queries a year. I also curate exhibitions, write catalog material, lead tours, and design special presentations for Folger seminars. My background includes a PhD in English (Medieval/Renaissance specialist), plus about 15 years of teaching full or part-time in colleges and universities. While working in the Dept. of Special Collections at the U of Penna., I got my library degree at Drexel U. I took several reference courses in library school, but the majority of skills I need on the job come from my academic background in the early modern period in which the Folger specializes, as well as on-the-job honing of computer search skills.

  5. Are you or your organization affected by copyright and intellectual property rights issues? How so?

    6. We've been particularly aware of these issues in our ongoing discussions of digitizing. We are now putting copyright statements on digitized images saying that permission is needed to reproduce. All of these questions are handled by our inhouse Photography Dept. You can e-mail them at: photo@folger.edu

  6. How do you market yourself and the services of your unit to the organization? Describe successes and failures.

    7. Not really applicable - we're a small institution. The other divisions of the Folger--Academic and Public Programs--come to the library for all sorts of resources including images, and presentations of books and manuscripts in seminars.

  7. How much resource sharing do you use? Describe ILL and other activities which help you to meet the information needs of your users when resources are not locally available.

    8. The Folger Library does not participate in ILL per se. All of our books may be used only in the library, so readers keep modern books on their shelves while they are here. Requests from other libraries for our materials are filled by microfilming or scanning.

  8. Do you have experience with outsourcing? Please describe the details in depth.

    9. Our main outsourcing projects have involved: retrospective conversion of our card records; digitizing of inhouse photographs of a manuscript by Luna Imaging in California; and EAD markup by RLG on several large finding aids for our manuscript collections.

  9. What changes or projects have you or are you implementing? How have you approached the management and users about these changes?

    10. You have to understand that like many small research libraries, the Folger's biggest challenge was going online! As I said above, we didn't do that until 1996-97 and that was a large change, both for staff and for our readers. The move went smoothly because we involved all members of the staff from the beginning in selecting vendors and in setting up the system. We also invited members of our readership to do tryouts on the system, and we continue to do so as we develop our web catalog.

  10. How did you get/keep your job? Any job hunting tips or advice?

    11. I found out about my current position through a former colleague who saw it posted on Ex Libris! People looking for jobs now out of library school should check all possible resources from Ex Libris and the Chronicle of Higher Education to the various ALA-based magazines and their bulletin boards. Keeping a job involves being attentive, innovative, willing to volunteer, willing to do "other duties as assigned," and willing to put in extra time.

  11. What can be realistically expected from new graduates in terms of specific skills and orientation? How important is previous experience prior to the MLS degree? How important is subject specialization? How can deficiencies be compensated for? For example, do you look for students who have had practicums in relevant areas?

    12. A lot depends on which kind of librarianship you want to enter. Whatever you do, though, you need good computer skills, and if you're going to work in any academic library, it helps to have at least an MA in another field so that you have had the kinds of research experiences your clientele will be involved in.

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