Librarians have long been the stewards of human knowledge. Their trade dates all the way back to eighth-century Assyria. Throughout history, the roles and duties involved in keeping this knowledge have evolved. Librarians have acted as teachers, historians, researchers, archivists and living databases. More recently, they have acted as agents of the vast expanse of digital data proliferating both on and off the web: managing, categorizing and optimizing computer records.
At Brandeis, librarians and other information-keepers fall under the purview of University Librarian, Chief Information Officer and Vice Provost for Library and Technology Services John Unsworth. In these capacities, Unsworth is the lead for campus-level information technology, the lead for library information and resources, and maintains a close relationship with the university provost. Unsworth also participates on a number of advisement teams and committees relative to the university, the president and other senior management.
Born and raised in Northampton, Massachusetts, Unsworth graduated from Amherst College before receiving his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia. After serving for four years in his first faculty position at North Carolina State’s English department, he returned to UVA for 10 years to serve as the director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, receiving tenure in 1996. After his time at UVA, Unsworth moved on to serve as the dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois for nine years before arriving at Brandeis in 2012.
One of the things that had attracted Unsworth to Brandeis was the merged nature of the library and information technology departments. The two had been combined into Library and Technology Services, otherwise referred to as LTS, making the previously separate divisions into a single budget item. “The intersection of those two things means that it’s easier in a lot of ways for the library to collaborate with IT,” said Unsworth. Under this large umbrella is archives and special collections, library collections, research and instructional services, academic services and technological user support, networks and systems support and information security.
LTS runs huge aspects of the university behind-the-scenes that many may not even realize, such as human resources, finances and student informational services. LTS also runs academic infrastructure such as LATTE, the library’s catalog system, backend systems for managing and procuring information resources and managing student data—some of which is still kept in paper records.
LTS is also responsible for the university’s cybersecurity. According to Unsworth, there are hundreds of thousands of cyberattacks on Brandeis’ network per month, and this rate of attacks is a common challenge in university environments. He explains that hackers target universities to be able to launch DOS (denial of service) attacks on third parties, and increasingly hackers (who might be state actors) are looking to steal intellectual data arising from university research.
Another important aspect of LTS is managing archives and special collections. Special collections are, by definition, the kinds of things that can be found in them are consistently unique to the world, such as Shakespeare’s folios, Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” drafts and storyboards, and Lenny Bruce papers.
When asked about the greatest challenges facing LTS, Unsworth responded that the challenge of deferred maintenance is huge. The main portion of the library was constructed in 1958, and Farber was constructed in 1980—57 and 35 years ago, respectively. “We’ve been chipping away at that, but we need to chip away at it faster to make sure it stays away,” Unsworth said of the damages. “The roof probably needed to be replaced ten years ago … and in every rain or snow melt, it leaks in the archives and special collections, and that’s been a difficult problem to address.”
LTS also faces budgetary dilemmas. Unsworth noted that the library has the same budget for acquisition in unadjusted dollars now as it did in 1989—that is, unadjusted for inflation, it’s the same amount of money. “During that period of 25 years, library materials have increased in cost of up to seven percent per year, so buying power is effectively half of what it was 25 years ago,” he commented. “The answer isn’t just to pour more money into that, because that much money isn’t just floating around. We also have to put a lot of time and effort into developing and participating in consortia to help expand our effective collections.”
“Every aspect of the job is interesting,” Unsworth went on, explaining how throughout the day he was to, among other things, meet with a group of library and IT specialists regarding projects pertaining to delivery of faculty and student information, followed by a meeting with a social science researcher looking to discuss reengineering a database, followed by this very interview. After the interview, Unsworth was headed to meet with a biology professor to talk about a research problem and meet with students regarding the annual “library party,” which will be ticketed this year.
Thinking about projects he intends to work on, Unsworth spoke about wanting to start a campus conversation regarding information privacy, saying, “This is a huge issue that students should be more aware of and more concerned about than they are. Faculty, too.” He recognizes that one of the unique things that LTS has is the data regarding what people do with LTS resources. This data goes beyond library books to network traffic, information logs and other digital fingerprints.
“We don’t use those records, we don’t surveil, but I don’t think people are even aware of what kind of footprint they leave when using anyone’s network,” Unsworth commented. “We can’t not keep those records, but we don’t keep them any longer than we need to. I think it would be great to have a broader conversation about what privacy means in a network world, what you can do to maintain privacy, and what kind of tradeoffs you are asked to make in exchange for convenience.”
“What can we do with that information that’s constructive?” Unsworth asked. “If we could put together that information with your permission, perhaps we’d be better at predicting the needs you might have in the future.”
When asked about the most valuable aspect of libraries, however, Unsworth doesn’t speak of special collections or digital data troves. He spoke instead of the most ancient aspect of collecting and maintaining the human knowledge base: librarians themselves. This year, he launched an initiative of having librarians wear orange lanyards so that library visitors could recognize them. These librarians are resources to go to and ask for help in almost any study area. “We’d love to answer more questions and be perceived of as a resource by students,” extolled Unsworth. “The librarians have lots of expertise in discovering and using information resources, they teach in various ways … I think once students have spent some time sitting with a librarian who has expertise in their area, they’ll realize that it is quite useful.”
