In recognition of National Library Week (April 6-12), we’re highlighting just a few of the librarians that make up a fantastic team of staff who keep our libraries running. Katherine Prater, Digital Project & Outreach Librarian, plays a vital role in expanding online access to Avery Library’s special collections and is currently project-managing the Frank Lloyd Wright Digital Archive.

Q: What is your role in the Libraries?
Katherine: I am the Digital Project & Outreach Librarian at Avery Library, Columbia’s library for art and architecture collections. My almost seven years so far at Avery has centered around expanding online access to the library’s special collections, which involves digitizing, describing, and publishing materials online. Right now, I’m project-managing the Frank Lloyd Wright Digital Archive, a multi-year effort to make our holdings of about 28,000 drawings by architect Frank Lloyd Wright freely accessible online.

Q: What does your typical day entail?
Katherine: While there’s no typical day in my role, if we expand the sample size to a week, you’d find me variously in our archival storage assessing and preparing materials for digitization, in our imaging studio problem-solving ways to represent physical objects in digital space, in my office supporting researcher inquiries and editing images and data for publication and preservation, or perhaps deep in the stacks or archives in search of information to enrich and contextualize our collections.

Q: What originally inspired you to become a librarian?
Katherine: I had a few very perceptive and generous librarian mentors in graduate school who opened my eyes to the wide range of possible roles in libraries and archives. I found library work refreshing for its insistence on the big picture: supporting inquiry across geography, subject, time period, and format means there’s always more to learn and share. Library work is a cumulative team sport, and while some of your teammates may be just down the hall, others may be in another time zone, at another institution, or even in another decade or century, past or future.

Q: What is the most rewarding part of working at the Libraries?
Katherine: Expanding online access to our special collections is incredibly rewarding, particularly given the challenges of in-person research in recent years. It’s gratifying to see active use of our collections around the world, from Albania and Argentina to Vietnam and Zambia. In some cases, digital resources support users in preparing for and maximizing their on-site library visits; other times, they enable connections between people and collections that wouldn’t otherwise be as possible.

Q: What’s the best kept secret about Columbia’s libraries?
Katherine: Columbia Libraries’ staff contain multitudes! In addition to being information workers, my colleagues here are accomplished artists, athletes, novelists, cooks, teachers, travelers, gardeners, philosophers, caregivers, poets, collectors, musicians, and community leaders. Ask questions and you won’t be disappointed.

Q: Give a shout-out to a fellow librarian for National Library Week! Which Columbia librarian(s) help make your day-to-day work enjoyable?
Katherine: Well, I generally don’t encourage shouting in the library, but if I made an exception, it would be to shout out librarians like Amanda Bielskas, Kaoukab Chebaro, and Yuusuf Caruso! I’m grateful for committee work with them and others as a chance to learn from and build community with colleagues whose work might not otherwise directly intersect with mine. The variety of skills, lived experiences, and ideas tend to dovetail in unexpected and fruitful ways.