Interview with Professor Steve Witt: Stay connected

As a Mortenson Associate, we each had to interview a librarian/professor/information specialist to learn about the work they are doing. For my interview, I had the great pleasure of meeting with Professor Steve Witt, head of the International and Area Studies Library at the Main Library of UIUC, to ask about his career and what it is like to work as a specialist in the field of international and area studies.

Tell me a little about yourself, and your career to date.

I am currently the head of the International and Area Studies (IAS) Library, and also a subject specialist for global studies. In addition, I work as the interim subject specialist for Japanese Studies. I have another job on campus as the director of the Center for Global Studies, which is a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Our work is to encourage students to study the less commonly taught languages. I have been in this position since 2011, when IAS was a new organization within the library. Previously we had many different libraries and reading rooms for the collections, and these were all combined into one department.
Before I joined UIUC, I worked for a small library at a liberal arts university in Illinois, and prior to that I was in Japan for five years. At first I worked at a university in Tokyo for their English language program, and after a few years I became the head of the library at the Southern Illinois University branch campus in Japan.

I want to learn more about the International and Area Studies Library. What are your main goals? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Are there any upcoming projects planned or in action?

Generally, within our library, we try to represent the international and area studies on campus and work with the students and faculty that are involved in those disciplines. They are very interdisciplinary, so it could be someone who is a historian, or someone who works in education, sociology, and so on. We focus more on resources coming from the countries and the cultures that we’re collecting in, as opposed to purchasing materials about those countries and cultures. We have books and journals in East Asian studies, with Chinese being the largest group in that collection. We also have a very strong collection on Russian and East European studies, and it is one of the largest Slavic collections in North America. We have many scholars visiting from around the world to use our resources. In the summer, we will have 50 or 60 scholars coming to our library to do research, have workshops and collaborate with our Slavic reference service, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State. They have funded the service for 50 years. It is a very important part of our university library in terms of identity, and it is our largest collection in international and area studies. We also have collections in Latin American studies, South Asian studies, African studies, Middle East studies, global studies and European Union studies. We have a specialist for each area, and for Russian studies, we have two faculty members and several other staff members funded by the Department of State to provide reference service. They provide reference service to people across the country and around the world doing research in this area. They receive around 2 to 3 thousand questions a year, so it is a very busy service.
– How many faculty and staff members do you have in this unit?
We have 13 and a half staff members in total, and the half is because some staff share their time with cataloging. Nine of them are faculty librarians; our unit has more librarians than most because they need to have the specialized language skills. Building collections is more difficult as well.
As for our strengths and weaknesses, our Slavic collection is a big strength. We also have a strong Latin American collection. In a more broader scale, one of our strengths collectively is that we do a lot of engagement activities with the university and the local community, and we offer many programs for the public. This past year, for example, we brought in the Chicago Immigrant Orchestra, made up of immigrants from all around the world who mix their traditional music together to create a new style. They had a concert in our library, teaching people about their instruments and cultures, and they also performed at the Krannert Center. We have musical events, poetry events, and host workshops or academic talks within our unit. We try to highlight not just the books but also the different cultures, politics or other relevant topics from the countries and regions we work on.
Our main weakness would be Southeast Asian studies. We currently do not have any collections focused on Southeast Asia or specialists, so it is an area we hope to work with the campus to rebuild. We are also trying to work on our Korean studies collection. The university is hiring a historian for Korean studies, and a faculty with a research focus on contemporary Korean culture and language recently joined us. Hopefully, that will enable us to build our collections and services on Korean studies.
– Do you see an increase in the interest of Korean studies on campus?
Yes, certainly. Among undergraduate students, especially, many of them are interested in learning the Korean language because of the popularity of Korean music, movies, and other media. They are much more aware of Korean culture, and I think K-POP had a big influence.

What do you think are the benefits and challenges of being an international/area studies specialist in academic libraries in the U.S.?

One of the major challenges would be staying current on what is happening in all the different countries, since we are so far away location wise. We would have to be able to travel to those places to maintain connections with book publishers and vendors, but also to know the academic issues in their universities. It is much easier now, with Zoom or other online tools, but it is still a challenge, especially for those of us that are not from those countries or that region. Maintaining our language skills is also important in that respect. Geopolitical issues could also cause problems. It is sometimes difficult for our Middle East studies librarian, for example, to acquire materials from those countries depending on what is happening politically when there is an unstable situation. In the case of our Russian studies collection, the situation surrounding Russia and Ukraine makes it very difficult to purchase materials from Russia, and to help scholars who are studying about Russia because they cannot travel and it is not easy for us to collaborate with Russian colleagues. During the pandemic, we were not able to receive mail shipment for a couple of years from some regions. For instance, the Japanese postal system stopped their international delivery for over a year. Another challenge is that our collections are still mainly print. Not every country has adopted digital platforms for the materials, and some that have adopted platforms have copyright restrictions, making it hard to import into the U.S. market. At a time when many academic libraries are trying to focus on digital collections, we are still very much tied to traditional print materials and we are not yet subject to change. The geographical tensions may also affect the use of licensed material. For example, if we only purchase an electronic version of licensed materials from China, and there is a shift in their politics, those materials may not be available or they could be used as leverage in regards to sharing information. If we have those materials in print, we would not have to worry about those issues on digital access.

As the head of the IAS Library, what do you think are the most important qualities of a leader or manager?

I believe my role is to enable people, and not to block ideas or initiatives. I want to facilitate new ideas and innovation. This is why I try to lead by supporting the people in our unit and making sure they have all the necessary resources. I want them to feel that they can try new things and fail without it causing trouble. They need to feel that they can take a chance to try something new or different, and they also should be able to work autonomously. I do not think I should be the one to constantly tell them what to do, or make a lot of rules for them to follow. My management philosophy is to try to set a vision, and provide all the tools to be successful.

Do you have any advice for students and librarians who wish to become an international/area studies specialist?

You would have to have knowledge of the language that you would be working with, of course, but what I think is very important in area studies librarianship is that the librarian has to be connected with the faculty and graduate students in that community. In area studies, the resources and the materials available in the library is crucial to the scholars and students, so the librarians in this field need to be embedded in the community and participate as academic colleagues. I believe this is one of the most important aspects of our library. We have seen the effects with the example of our strong Slavic collection. It has attracted faculty and students in the field to the university, but also has made the university a hub for the whole discipline in North America. Librarians in area studies should keep in mind that we play a different role than some other librarians do, in terms of what we can provide to the discipline and the scholars.

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