Merriman Winner Interview: Clint Chamberlain
Interview with Clint Chamberlain, the 2016 Merriman Award Winner
0 My current title is educational resource support officer, which makes me feel as if I should be wearing a uniform with epaulets. Title aside, I'm basically the head of Technical Services for the Dallas County Community College District. There are seven colleges within the district, each with its own library; some of the colleges have satellite campuses with their own libraries as well. We have a centralized tech services operation for all of them. I got my start on this path to technical services years ago prior to going to library school, but I didn't really discover my love for serials until 1997 or so in the Boston University (BU) School of Theology Library, where I was a student worker while working on a graduate degree in archaeology
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What initially led you to NASIG and why you continue
to stay involved?
It was while I was working with serials at the BU School
of Theology Library that two friends and former
coworkers, Beverley Geer and Bea Caraway,
encouraged me to apply for one of the student travel
grants. They were both involved in NASIG at the time; I
think Beverley was currently the president or the past
president. I applied and was lucky enough to be
selected for one of the travel grants, which took me to
the conference in San Diego, where I met some folks
who are now friends for life. I continued to be involved
through my time as a serials librarian and into roles in
which I am not directly involved with managing serials
or e-resources, but I manage folks who do work directly
with serials and e-resources – I like to stay involved with
What prompted you to apply for the Merriman award?
In a nutshell, I really wanted to go to UKSG again. I’d
been fortunate enough to have presented there once,
ten years ago, with Jill Emery and Dana Walker. It was
an excellent conference, and I wanted to experience it
again.
How did you react when you found out that you were
the recipient?
I was thrilled. Then I immediately went into a panic
because I realized that my passport had recently
expired and I had only a few weeks in which to get it
renewed. Fortunately passport renewal is a lot faster
these days than it used to be.
What were your first impressions of the UKSG
conference?
I felt very well cared-for as an award winner. On the day
the folks with UKSG were told that I had been selected
as the recipient of the award, they contacted me and
made sure I had everything I needed to make my hotel
reservations and begin planning for the conference.
Then, when I got there, the hospitality was wonderful.
Everyone I met and spoke with was so kind and
welcoming. The members of the Education
Subcommittee invited me to dinner the night before the
conference started, but I wasn’t able to attend due to
having already made dinner plans with a friend; even
so, it was nice to know that they were looking out for a
newcomer like me. That set the tone for the rest of the
conference.
communication for the better, and I left there with a lot
of food for thought.
How do you think the experience of attending the
UKSG will affect your career?
What are the differences between the two
organizations, USKG and NASIG?
I’m not sure. I do know that after I attended UKSG ten
years ago, it opened my eyes to the different ways in
which our colleagues in other countries work together
to solve problems, and it made me aware of some of
the great things that have come out of the UK in terms
of dealing with scholarly communication issues.
Although the community college setting I’m in doesn’t
lend itself to much work with those same issues, it’s
inspiring to see what’s going on in the wider world of
scholarly communication in all its forms.
How was the UKSG conference different from the
NASIG conferences that you’ve attended?
One thing that stood out at UKSG were the sessions
focused on research (e.g., on user behavior and user
experience; use of hard and soft metrics in library
decision-making) and what might be called, for lack of a
better term, theory (the psychogeography of libraries).
Whereas, in my experience, a lot of NASIG sessions are
more about day-to-day practical or hands-on stuff that
attendees can replicate at their home libraries. It also
seemed like there may have been more sessions at
UKSG focused on scholarly communication issues, which
I know NASIG is actively encouraging as well.
What was your favorite USKG session and why was it
your favorite?
It’s hard to pick a favorite because there were so many
good sessions. One that particularly stands out in my
memory was the first plenary session, which was
presented by Ann Rossiter, the executive director of
SCONUL. It was entitled “Managing relationships
between libraries and publishers for greater impact.”
Her presentation identified key areas in which effective
collaboration between librarians and publishers could
effectively change the landscape of scholarly
The two organizations are obviously similar in many (...truncated)