Bozeman Magazine

Libraries are often regarded mainly as buildings, but the real value of a library is in its resources, services and people who work to meet a variety of information needs, according to Montana State University professor Doralyn Rossmann, head of digital library initiatives at the MSU Library.

“Information needs include, of course, traditional expectations around books, journals and more, but we also have experts in the world of information and how it’s structured, how it’s findable, how it’s stored, how it can be discovered,” Rossmann said. “So much of our work is around trying to describe the information we have and also in helping people describe the information they have and store it securely in a way that will live for future generations.”

Rossmann will discuss these observations and more when she delivers the third lecture in this year’s Provost’s Distinguished Lecturer Series, which recognizes outstanding MSU faculty. The lecture, “Library and Information Science Today: Meeting Researchers at Their Point of Need,” is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the Hager Auditorium of the Museum of the Rockies. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow at 8 p.m.

Rossmann said she hopes her lecture will offer those who attend some surprising ideas about modern libraries, including how they have changed over the years due to advances in how resources are accessed and the influence of social media on our information society.

For example, Rossmann said, one of her scholarly publications suggests that the structure and language of library budgets should be changed to focus on access rather than on collections. The MSU Library, for instance, provides access to thousands of theses and dissertations published by MSU authors. It provides data management for individuals writing grants, and access to funding to help authors get work published in open access settings, as well as access to thousands of electronic journals.

“Access is not just a single type of resources,” Rossmann said. “These resources are elements across a full spectrum.”

She added that libraries – and more specifically the people who work in them – offer information expertise from the time information is born throughout its whole life.

“You don’t have to be an expert in every field, but an expert in the information access arena,” Rossmann said. “All my colleagues, I think, would agree that connecting people with information is pretty rewarding.”

Rossmann continues a tradition of librarianship in her family. Her aunt Doralyn, for whom she is named, was a library science professor and served as dean of the School of Library Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her father became a librarian after an earlier career as a Presbyterian minister. Rossmann, who was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, initially planned to go to law school after completing her undergraduate degree in English and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but later reconsidered after deciding that law school didn’t match what she had initially thought it would be. Instead, she decided to enroll in a master’s program in library and information science, also at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Still, it was important to Rossmann that she forge a path different from that of her aunt and her father, and early on, she began focusing on technology in libraries, which was, then, still a nascent field.

After earning a master’s degree, Rossmann began her career as an academic librarian at the University of Illinois - Chicago. After two years there, she headed to Rice University for four and a half years, then to the University of Wyoming. She came to MSU in 2001 as a library systems analyst and was promoted to assistant director of systems. After earning a second master’s degree in public administration, she entered a tenure-track faculty position in 2008 as head of collection development. In 2018, she became head of digital library initiatives.

Her research focuses on public budgeting, scholarly communication, open access publishing, search engine and social media optimization, and virtual reality – all threads that link back to meeting researchers at their point of need, Rossmann said.  

As a professor, Rossmann regularly teaches courses on social media practices and tools of public administration.

In 2007, Rossmann completed the Higher Education Resource Services Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration. The program’s curriculum included analysis of political and economic trends affecting higher education, skills in managing projects and conflict resolution, and strategic planning for academic excellence and resource management.

Inspired by the experience and grateful that MSU had invested in her in that way, Rossmann – along with several other women from MSU who had completed the institute – went to then-President Geoff Gamble and suggested creating an MSU program that taps into local leadership resources. In 2009, they founded the DEAL program, which stands for Developing Excellence in Academic Leadership. Since then, approximately 175 MSU deans, department and center heads, emerging leaders and others have completed the local leadership program, which still exists today.

Some of her more recent work includes helping search engines build a more nuanced view of libraries.

“If you look at Wikipedia, the definition of libraries is very building-centric,” she said. “We’re adding coding to our web pages to help search engines better understand the relationship of our resources, people and our building.”

In turn, she said, she and a team of colleagues are expanding those efforts to other parts of campus, helping researchers describe themselves effectively through websites.

She has also worked to transform a space in the library into a virtual discovery space. There, virtual reality equipment offers another way for students to understand concepts they’re learning about in class or to gain a different perspective.

Just as any individual is invited to explore the virtual discovery space, Rossmann said one of the things she loves most about libraries at public institutions is that they’re open to everyone.

“Our library is in the center of campus, and hopefully people realize anybody has access to it,” she said. “It doesn’t belong to one person more than another person. I think of libraries as trying to be very inclusive and very representative of everybody’s needs.”

The best part of her work, Rossmann said, is the satisfaction that comes from connecting someone with information they need.

“You’re helping them take (their work) a step further,” she said. “You are a facilitator or a conduit – not a roadblock. Whether it’s providing information resources or a particular skill or a body of knowledge, librarians have the ability to make research and learning better.”

The Provost’s Distinguished Lecturer Series features free, public talks that recognize outstanding MSU faculty for their creative scholarship and leadership. Faculty presenting in the series speak on the inspirations for their work in talks aimed at both professionals and the public. A full schedule of lectures for the 2021-2022 academic year is available at montana.edu/news/21447.