Space Showcase: Special Collections Public Services Desk

A lot of Special Collections Research Center operations occur behind-the-scenes (either on D. H. Hill Jr. Library’s ground floor or offsite at the Libraries Satellite Shelving facility), but there’s always a lot of activity at our public services desk, too. Anyone, whether or not they are affiliated with NC State, is welcome to visit us on the first floor of D. H. Hill Jr. Library within the quiet reading room in the library’s east wing. We have four tables that are reserved while we are open so that our researchers will always have space to work.

When visitors enter our reading room, they are greeted by an undergraduate or graduate student at the desk, who guides their access to our materials. These students maintain a welcoming environment conducive for research while also ensuring the safety and security of our collections.

The student at the desk will most likely also be rehousing archival materials or entering data for collections. Students produce many of our preliminary inventories when we acquire new collections. Graduate students sometimes process collections in further detail, by adding descriptive elements and making arrangement decisions.

Jennifer Baker, Library Technician, manages the public services desk and supervises students. A plethora of student processing projects and researcher requests means there is always plenty of work going on behind the desk.

SCRC’s public services desk mainly functions as our space for providing access to collections, but there’s a lot of other work that happens there as well. Baker and her students work hard to maintain an excellent research environment and process new collections for researchers to access.

This post is part of a series of posts about SCRC spaces. Check out this previous post about the Libraries Satellite Shelving facility to learn more about where we store and process collections.