Willie Wallace

Background

About Willie Wallace

When I learned that “Library Science” is a thing, I was intrigued. When I learned that it’s actually “Library and Information Science,” I knew I couldn’t do anything else. My whole life I’ve seen the world in data and their connections with each other and the lives of the people around me. As a child, I kept notebook “databases” with relevant information about the people around me so that I could make sure they got the things they truly needed in life: perfectly tailored mixtapes, birthday presents they didn’t know they even wanted, and recommendations for any and all media before Netflix was a thing—data is interesting, but only if it can enrich our lives. Combine that with my poor, rural family’s reliance on the public library and you have the perfect recipe for an aspiring librarian who specializes in Technical Services, Metadata, and Collections (i.e. me). What I love most about my job is getting to work with data and metadata to make sure that every patron gets what they need. That can look like an effective bibliographic record for searching or faceted browsing on the patron’s end, or it can be using these data to track circulation and budgetary statistics to guide purchasing decisions. As I continue working in public libraries, I’m looking forward to using my skills in materials processing, digitization, and data analysis to ensure that they are growing in ways that make sense to the communities they serve.