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Stanley Wilder briskly walks into his second floor office, energized with talk about the challenges of managing the J. Murrey Atkins Library financial budget. Some of the day’s pressure hangs in the air, but Wilder shows only pure confidence as he places a trendy new iPhone on the table. Wilder is not your stereotypical librarian.
Combining his Master of Library Science degree with a Master of Business Administration, Wilder is handling the management of UNC Charlotte’s library in an entirely new and refreshing way. Hired at UNC Charlotte in August of 2009, Wilder has some ambitious plans for Atkins Library in order to make student and faculty life better.
“It is nobody’s fault that the library has sort of floundered recently with a lack of leadership, and there are a whole set of circumstances surrounding that, but it’s something that happens,” says Wilder. Among the various hurdles Wilder must climb is giving proper direction to the library and reconnecting with the university community.
Even students who casually use Atkins Library may notice the increased efforts that library staff is making to learn their concerns and needs. Several oversized notepads placed on easels are on the first floor where students and faculty may write suggestions for the library. No matter how big or small these suggestions, Wilder sees them all and he is listening. Atkins’ website also contains a link to a suggestion box for the same purpose.
A common complaint on these suggestion boxes is noise, according to Wilder. “What we want to do, and it would be really simple to say to students, that the third floor is a quiet only floor… and then we will be able to police that floor so that we make sure that the people who are up there are respectful,” says Wilder. Students such as Patrick Schallenkamp have already noticed some of these differences since Wilder took the reins. “Certain areas in the library were pretty noisy in the past, but there has been a noticeable difference in noise reduction,” says Schallenkamp, a history major who frequents Atkins Library.
A large element of Wilder’s approach is simply listening to students and having a staff that pays attention. “I think there is a kind of on-going conversation with students that is a natural part of a healthy relationship between a library and its student body,” says Wilder. But this simplistic approach of listening and learning is considerably harder than it appears. The need to understand how students and faculty use the library lead him to hire Dr. Donna Lanclos, who has a PhD in anthropology.
“If we librarians were to rely on what we remember of our college experience, we can forget it,” says Wilder.” Your experience is totally different. The only way that I know of to actually learn this kind of thing is through ethnography, and the kind of toolkit that this kind of person bring.” Dr. Lanclos observes student usage of the library and conducts studies to gather input on how students would arrange an ideal library setup, according to Wilder.
“I think that Stanley's approach to library policy is wonderful. Using research that tells what members of the UNC Charlotte community are actually doing will allow the library to avoid making assumptions about what is going on,” says Dr. Lanclos. By knowing how students use the library allows the staff to be more effective in determining their needs and correct any mistakes that may come from misinterpretation, according to Dr. Lanclos.
While gathering feedback from students and faculty certainly occupies a good deal of Wilder’s time, he also places a large emphasis on building the library’s collection. “The library’s collections budget has suffered to such a degree that when we started this school year we did not have a book budget,” says Wilder. The library was able to come up with the money, but not until October of the Fall semester, according to Wilder. The fact that Atkins Library trails behind several other state universities, such as East Carolina University, largely concerns Wilder, but he notes the amount of support the UNC Charlotte administration gives to the library.
In addition to building Atkins Library’s collection size, Wilder also realizes that the library has fallen behind in regard to technology in recent years. Last week the library launched a new application that the university community may access using the iPhone, iPod Touch or Android. The application provides students and faculty with pertinent information for using the library, such as the number and location of available computers by visiting http://library.uncc.edu using their mobile browser. “Maybe you are at your dorm and want to know whether or not you can find a machine here. You don’t have to guess,” says Wilder.
There are also eventual plans for an overhaul to the library’s homepage that places more emphasis on accessing information, according to Wilder. “I use the library’s website quite often, but it has always seemed cluttered and slightly confusing to navigate,” says Jamey Anderson, a UNC Charlotte marketing student.
Wilder also hopes to solve a common complaint many students mention about the lack of Wi-Fi access in the tower, but has not determined the amount of time it will take. Among the other ambitions to improve technology resources within the library, growing the stock of available laptops is a priority, as well as expanding networking on some of the floors. ““It just takes knowing what to fix and setting out and fixing it. For now, all people are going to see that we have all these complain boards, but you are actually going to see results and it won’t be long before you do,” says Wilder.
Students can expect to start seeing major changes to the library within the next 12 months. According to Wilder, most of the concerns students have voiced do not involve much money and are often relatively simple to fix. A free DVD rental service, called Green Box, becomes available in March and the logistics of 24/7 library access are being researched and coordinated by the library staff.
Wilder says, “It's not whether the university needs a library. It’s whether it needs a great one. I'm totally committed to that!”
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