Library Director Jessica Olin

Library Director Jessica Olin

By Alainna-Caitlyn Earl (Whetstone Staff Writer)

Jessica Olin is a self-proclaimed nerd.

But she’s a specific kind of nerd: She believes science-fiction is the best representation of humanity.

Her office is filled with science fiction dolls, phrases from Doctor Who and table-top board games, including Carcassonne.

“It’s imagination,” said Olin, director of the Robert H. Parker Library. “Sci-Fi is the best of us. It’s pure escapism.”

Olin enjoys reading escapist books that let her experience other worlds.

Her “quirky nerdiness” is what allows her to help make the library more attractive to students, said Charlene Stephens, executive director of Student Success & Retention.

“She is working very hard this year to get students to take advantage of our facilities and making the library accessible,” she said. “She has a true passion for libraries, books and students.”

Olin said the library, which is now under the Academic Support Services umbrella, is trying to get students to use the library as a crucial part of academic success.

“As of this year, she is a part of our Academic Support Success,” Stephens said. “The library is part of our student success and retention team and it is a large part of students being able to succeed.”

Olin began working at Wesley in 2013. She became a librarian more than a decade ago, long after she first decided to be a librarian in high school.

“I first thought of being a librarian after taking an aptitude test,” Olin said. “Those goofy ones that ask you ‘what do you like to do?’ and librarian stood out in the results list.”

As a child, Olin liked reading and libraries.

“The first job I had was at a bookstore,” Olin said. “I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger. Now I get to teach but I don’t just teach.”

Olin, 43, grew up in Massachusetts and went to college at Hood College in Frederick, Md. She studied American History but later switched to library and information science at Simmons College in Boston.

“The first major you study in college usually isn’t the one you’ll base your career on,” Olin said. “If you ask most people, they’ll say they went to college because that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Olin calls herself a “jack of all trades.”

“The thing about being a librarian, a professional generalist, is that I know a little about a lot,” Olin said.

There is more to being a librarian that books and databases, Olin said.

“We make decisions about what materials we need and want,” Olin said. “I make sure the bills are paid, I collaborate with people in different departments, some administration work as well as reaching out to faculty and students.”

Olin has made a specific changes so students and faculty get more involved in the library.

“We use name tags now, we’ve changed the furniture, I made sure we had a board game collection and we do constant bag days (when people can buy library books by the bag),” she said. “I want the library to be welcoming.”

“For students, she took part in coordinating Study Jam,” Stephen said. “She has board game events and has a ‘ask the librarian’ table out front to get students involved. She involves faculty by sending them information on purchasing requests, books the library is getting and new databases.”

Kyndal Showell, a work-study student, said that although she doesn’t personally work with Olin, she feels that she has a sense of who Olin is.

“I think she can relate to a lot of the people who go to Wesley,” Showell said. “Her spirit is very open, straightforward and unique.”

Olin said her ultimate goal is to instill critical thinking skills in the students.

“I have a bias toward students being well informed voters and consumers of medicine, health and of media,” Olin said. “Librarians call it ‘Information literacy,’ but it means teaching people to be effective, ethical, evaluative, consumers and producers of information.”