Lee Pedersen, scholarly resource librarian for physical sciences, holds office hours in the lobbies of MacMillan Hall and the Barus and Holley Building to serve as a resource for chemistry and engineering students. Pedersen said she relocated outside the Sciences Library in April 2005 because she wanted to form connections and interact with the community. Ever since, Pedersen has made herself available for eight hours per week to assist students in research.
Pedersen created a new role for herself as a librarian. Pedersen's position requires no additional cost from the University budget except for the price of a laptop computer to assist in database searches, Edwin Quist, music librarian and interim coordinator for scholarly research, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Pedersen's said her idea to hold office hours stems from the importance she places on forming personal connections. She said she wanted to distinguish her expertise in chemistry to students, because "librarians often get grouped together in clusters and do not get recognition" for their specialized knowledge. Pedersen has a PhD in chemistry.
Quist wrote that in addition to the eight hours per week Pedersen spends out of the office, she also "gives numerous in-class presentations, participates in our chat service, ... creates online resource guides and consults with students and faculty both in her office and elsewhere on campus." Quist wrote that Pedersen has been a trendsetter in her department, encouraging other library specialists to follow her lead.
Two years ago, Pedersen tried situating herself in the old mailroom in Faunce, but she did not interact with many students. She then relocated to the lobbies of MacMillan and Barus and Holley and said she has found more success. Pedersen performs traffic studies of student circulation to decide where to situate herself. Her transactions with students are splotchy, but she is especially busy during midterms and finals. On an average day, Pedersen will assist three to four students, she said. She also interacts with a consistent group of faculty members.
"Many of the subject specialists in the library do similar work in their assigned departments," Quist wrote. Pedersen assists all of the physical sciences, "which include several very large departments scattered over several buildings," he wrote.
Pedersen interacts extensively with students enrolled in Lecturer in Chemistry Kathleen Hess' organic and inorganic chemistry laboratory classes. "The fact that (Brown has) a librarian specialist to help with specific disciplines is a luxury that you will not find everywhere," Hess wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. In her classes, Hess emphasizes "the importance of using ‘authoritative' resources," she wrote.
One chemistry student, Alexa Steuer '14, said if Pedersen had not introduced herself during a class, she probably would have been unaware of her accessibility as a resource. Pedersen is "definitely helpful," Steuer said. "She has a chat function over the Internet for questions, which I used doing two of my chem assignments so far."
Hess wrote that Pedersen will most likely interact with more students in the coming semesters because of her exposure in Hess' chemistry labs.
