This interview is part of a new series introducing our graduate assistants to our online community. These are some of the people you will see when you visit our space, who will greet you with a smile and a willingness to help! Say hello to Kayla Abner!

What is your background education and work experience?

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Classical Humanities and French from Wright State University in Dayton (Go Raiders!). My original plan was to teach high school French or Latin, but after completing a student teaching practicum, I decided that wasn’t for me. During undergrad and after graduation, I always wound up in a job role that involved research or customer service in some capacity, which I really enjoyed.

What led you to your field?

Knowing that I enjoyed working on research, I considered going back to school for Library Science, but wanted to be sure before taking the jump. It was always interesting to see the results of the research I helped conduct, and I enjoyed helping people find answers, whether it was a coworker or a client. After a visit to an American Library Association conference in 2016,  I fell in love with the collaborative and share-alike nature of librarianship, and was accepted to this program the next year!

What are your research interests?

Library science has so many interesting topics, it’s hard to choose one. But, I like looking at how people seek information, and how libraries can use that knowledge to enhance their services and resources. I’m a browser when it comes to book shelves, and it’s interesting to see how libraries are succeeding/failing at bringing that experience to the digital realm.

What are your favorite projects you’ve worked on?

I have two positions here in the library, one in the Scholarly Commons, and one working with our (current) Digital Humanities librarian, Dan Tracy. In both roles, I’ve worn a lot of hats, so to speak. My favorites have been creating resources like library guides, and assisting with creating content for our Savvy Researcher workshop series. Maintaining our library guides requires some experience with the software, so I enjoy learning new cool things that our programs can do. I also do a lot of graphic design work, which is a lot of fun!

Completing some of these tasks let me use some Python knowledge from my coursework, which is sort of like a fun puzzle (how do I get this to work??). I’m really interested in using digital methods and tools in research, like text mining and data visualization. Coming from a humanities background, it is very exciting to see the cool things humanists can do beyond traditional scholarship. Digital humanities is a really interesting field that bridges the gap between computer science and the humanities.

What are some of your favorite underutilized resources that you would recommend?

Our people! They aren’t underutilized, but I love an opportunity to let campus know that we are an excellent point of contact between you and an expert. If you have a weird research question in one of our service areas, we can put in contact with the best person to help you.

When you graduate, what would your ideal job position look like?

I would love to work in an academic research library in a unit similar to the Scholarly Commons, where researchers can get the support they need to use digital methods and data in their research, especially in the humanities. There is a such a breadth of digital techniques that humanities researchers can utilize, that don’t necessarily replace traditional research methods. Distant reading a text puts forth different observations than traditional close reading, and both are equally useful.

What is the one thing you would want people to know about your field?

Librarians are happy to help you; don’t let a big desk intimidate you away from asking a question. That’s why we’re here!