As the Information School prepares to relocate to its new home in Morgridge Hall next year, a monumental project is underway to assess, catalog and preserve materials in the iSchool Library for the future. Long beloved as a study space for students across campus, the library is also home to an extensive collection of more than 60,000 items, “one of the few specialized library and information science collections in the United States,” according to Megan Adams, iSchool collections librarian & teaching faculty.
With the move on the horizon, a team of librarians and students is meticulously analyzing the unique collection, determining how to reimagine it for the new space and make it more accessible. “I really view this project as an amazing opportunity to make our collections more discoverable to patrons in Madison and around the world,” said Bronwen Masemann, who has led the project in her role as iSchool laboratory library collections project coordinator since October 2023.
Some of the iSchool Library’s current materials will be on-site at the Rebecca M. Blank Student Commons, the second-floor space in Morgridge Hall designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among students from all over campus. Other materials are being digitized and cataloged, ensuring they can be accessed by future generations of students and researchers. Still others are being relocated to a climate-controlled facility in Verona, ensuring proper preservation. As Masemann said, it’s “a big job.”
But it will bring huge benefits over the long term, Adams explained. “We get the opportunity to build a browsing and teaching collection for the future that will be very useful and accessible to students and faculty in the new space, while also reflecting on our rich history and improving the discoverability of our wide-ranging research collections in many formats.”
The team
Joining Masemann and Adams in this monumental endeavor is a team of staff members and graduate students, including Cataloging Librarian and MA alumna Greer Christensen-Gibbons, who is leading the cataloging efforts, and iSchool Library Manager Cassy Leeport. Christensen-Gibbons is working alongside 13 MA Library & Information Studies students, delegating slices of the collection to each of them for initial analysis.
“With an expanded staff, we can make sure that every catalog record for every item in our collection gives patrons the information they need to find and retrieve the item,” Masemann said. “We are also working hard to fully catalog materials that have never been included in the UW-Madison online catalog, particularly our collection of thousands of historical annual reports and newsletters published by libraries around the country and world between 1850 and 1990.”
Adams added, “The items in our historical collections hold enormous potential as objects of study, both as historical documents and as case studies for applied technical learning in digitization, text analysis, and more.”
The vision
The team agreed that the collection on-site in the Commons should be as useful for students as possible. Rebecca Millerjohn, who will oversee the new space in her role as CDIS Commons Director, emphasized the importance of serving all students in the space, many of whom will be studying computer science, data science or statistics, in addition to library and information science.
“The collection making its home in the Commons will center on current, high-use materials relevant to the study of libraries, archives and information science, but also to our expanding patron base in data science, statistics, and computer science,” Millerjohn said. “It is designed to be user-centered, approachable, inviting, and browsable—like a highly curated bookstore.” At the same time, she added, “We are also seeking ways to educate students about our historical collections, now infinitely more discoverable through online searching.”
The Commons will also be home to a dedicated collection supporting the Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums (TLAM) Program, selected and managed by Leeport, who directs the TLAM Program. Adams will continue to serve as Collections Librarian for the Commons collection.
Additionally, the team will be hiring new staff members, including students, to support learning, research and collaboration for everyone in the Commons. After all, the space will support more than the CDIS community—it will attract students, faculty and staff from across campus. Masemann said cross-campus collaboration has been front-of-mind for the team throughout the project. “Collaboration with campus partners like UW–Madison Libraries is crucial as we comply with standards for cataloging and preservation,” she noted, as well as for building lasting and mutually beneficial relationships.
Ultimately, the team envisions the Commons as a hub for cross-disciplinary learning at UW–Madison. “The iSchool library has a long history as a laboratory library—a place where our students can gain hands-on experience to enrich their classroom learning,” Adams said. “I’m incredibly excited by the range of applied, interdisciplinary opportunities this project opens up for students across our programs and majors: digitization projects on delicate historical materials, digital humanities inquiries into the roles of libraries in society, and so much more.”
As the team at the iSchool Library ushers in a new era for the space in Helen C. White Hall and its collection, they are doing more than organizing thousands of items. They are laying the groundwork for a new kind of library in the vibrant new space. Their work will empower the next generation of library and information professionals—alongside statisticians, computer scientists and students from across campus—to learn, grow, and thrive together.