Radio Interview: “Keeping the Lights on at the Library of Congress” (Interview with LC’s April Slayton)
It’s name conjures up quiet corridors, dim light, and a slow pace. But the Library of Congress is a busy place, performing a lot of the research and providing much of the insight sought by members. So how is this old institution faring in the great crisis? Here to take listeners behind the scenes, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to the LOC’s director of communications, April Slayton.
From a Text Transcript of the Interview:
Tom Temin [Federal News Network]: How many people do you think are teleworking for the LOC and the CRS altogether?
April Slayton: Right now, we’ve had as many as 4,000 concurrent users on our VPN network, which allows our employees to connect to the library’s email and other file servers. So while we probably don’t have 4,000 users at a time, it may be multiple devices. I’d say we have several thousand employees at any given time who are working remotely during this period.
Tom Temin: And did you have a continuity of operations plan that would anticipate possibly everybody not being able to get in?
April Slayton: We did. There’s definitely a very solid continuity of operations plan for the library. However, it’s not a one size fits all in this case where we’re not in an emergency that requires only critical operations. Our goal with this period was really not just to complete the essential work, but also to allow employees who are doing other really important things that are not considered critical under a continuity of operation plan to have access and availability. And the opportunity is so large to invite the public to enjoy some of our research and resources during this period, that it was really important that we not think of this purely as a continuity of operations situation.
Direct to Audio and Complete Text Transcript
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Interviews, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Profiles, Reports
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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