Every month, we are spotlighting an amazing member of our library staff. This month meet Alex DelPriore, our Metadata Transformation Librarian.
Meet Your Lane Library Staff: Alex DelPriore
What do you do at the library?
Most of my work is behind-the-scenes on our library catalog, both making manual changes and writing automated programs to do things like keep the medical subject terminology we use up to date, ensure that all the people and concepts associated with the resources we have access to are properly credited and linked, and that the links to our digital resources stay active when publishers make changes to their platforms. It’s important to make sure the information on our existing resources is as comprehensive as possible, both for our users’ ease of access, and when our staff needs to survey it to make collection development decisions. I’m also particularly interested in experimenting with new methods to use and transform our metadata, to take advantage of the wealth of medical bibliographic information Lane has built up and curated across many decades.
What do you like best about the people who use Lane Library?
The students, faculty, and other patrons of Lane know that access to the information they need to succeed in their work doesn’t come without effort on the part of our staff. They appreciate that Lane librarians are here to help and represent their interests, and we appreciate them in return!
What is the most rewarding (or favorite) part of your job?
Getting to know all the older historical materials that Lane has collected has been fascinating! Also knowing that the maintenance and progress I make on our data not only helps in the short term, but also carries forward years of work on our collection, makes me glad to be a part of its history. Beyond that, I enjoy completing big data changes and cleanups; it’s satisfying to know that things should run that much more smoothly for the user.
How long have you worked at Lane?
A bit over 3 years now.
What do you do in your spare time?
I suffer from having too many hobbies and interests and having trouble choosing which to work on at any given time! Game and software programming projects, reading, language learning, electronics, crafting, cooking…
Do you prefer…
Coffee or tea? Tea
Cats or dogs? Cats
Candy or cake? Candy
Salty or sweet? Salty
Print or digital books? Digital for quick or on-the-go reading, print for deeper and immersive reading.
Nonfiction or fiction? Both!
Summer or winter? Winter
