What does your job entail?
I am the point person for all teaching that happens at Rauner Library. In any given year, we have classes visiting from about 75 percent of the programs and departments on campus. About 2,000 students come through every year for hands-on exploration of primary sources. 

What’s the best part of your work?
I get to go dig around and find cool stuff and then share it with other people and watch them get excited too. And then I get to learn from them. Students are always upping the stakes because they’re responding with insights and observations I hadn’t considered.

How did you become a librarian?
I liked academia, but I wondered: What kind of job would let me stay in the academic environment and be able to engage with people, learn about their ideas and help them, but not as a member of the faculty? I finished my Ph.D. in medieval English literature while working an entry-level job at the Beinecke Library at Yale. Then I worked there while I did my library degree online.

What’s unusual about Dartmouth’s special collections library?
We create a lot more access to our collections for anyone, not just students, faculty, and staff but also the community. We’re open to the public, so anyone can walk in and say, “I want to see something cool.”

Does the public take advantage of this?
We’ve had assisted living facilities, middle schools, high schools, and regional colleges come in to work with our materials. If your parents visit and you need a break, or you need to go to class or something, drop them off with us. We'll show them all kinds of stuff. I sometimes joke that we’re excellent parental daycare.

What’s your favorite artifact?
One that always gives me chills and goosebumps is in the Robert Frost correspondence folders, where there’s a plain blue paper postcard with a tiny map drawn on it of Euston, England, with little landmarks. There’s a house and street number and the name, “W.B. Yeats.” Ezra Pound drew it for Frost so that he could visit Yeats.

What’s the most-viewed item in the collection?
The first edition of The Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born in Sharon, Vermont, and nearby there’s a memorial and visitors center. The people there tell visitors that if they come to the library, we’ll let them touch it. And we love that.