In October, the Libraries welcomed Alexia Hudson-Ward as the new associate director for Research and Learning. Previously the Azariah Smith Root Director of Libraries at Oberlin College, Hudson-Ward provides strategic leadership for the community-facing service portfolio of the Libraries. She recently talked to Bibliotech about the MIT Libraries’ vision, working through a pandemic, what “mind and hand” can mean for libraries.
From the Interview:
You’ve talked about your interest in “balancing a computational future and haptic traditions” in libraries. What does that mean to you?
I was very attracted to the motto of the Institute, “mind and hand,” and I think about the ways in which libraries have always represented that. After all, at one time in history, the book was considered new technology. One of the things I’ve learned in my career is that you can balance a computational present and future with a connection to the haptic. There is a lot of interesting dialogue, from a neurodiversity standpoint, around the differences between reading material electronically versus in print. We can have different types of learning labs that allow for creativity by mind and by hand. For me, that’s a way to wed our “digital first” vision with the ways in which we know people learn by touch, and the MIT Libraries is the best place to explore those dimensions.
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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