Timothy M. Schlak

At a small baccalaureate institution, I led the development of a new academic library and learning commons. The project offered an opportunity to consider how space, services, and relationships could come together to support the institution’s academic life.

That experience shaped my understanding of a building project as a decision about the future library itself: what it will make possible, how people will use it, and how its operating model will support those ambitions.

At an R3 university, I introduced greater automation and streamlined library operations in anticipation of a smaller physical footprint and staff.

The work required attention to how services were delivered, where processes could be simplified, and how professional capacity could be directed toward the work the institution most needed from its library. It reinforced the importance of designing an operating model deliberately as institutional circumstances change.

I voluntarily returned to the library faculty to deepen my understanding of academic libraries from within and sharpen my librarianship.

That counterintuitive move meant rethinking my own development: recognizing that serving the work I felt most called to required a different kind of growth.