Staff Spotlight: Taylor Vanlandingham

What persuaded you to become a librarian?

My mom would take me to the library nearly every day. I considered myself a reader and told my mom I wanted to be a librarian. As a child, I volunteered in my elementary library; and as a teen, I volunteered every weekday at the Gentry Public Library. After graduating, I took some time off and worked as a preschool teaching assistant for several years. I heard about a children’s library assistant position and applied. With my ability to create lesson plans and work with children and my experience in a library setting, I got the job. I found that I loved what I was doing and needed a degree in library science to continue. Librarianship is helping people, and that is what I love about it. God has given me a talent to help people, which I use daily.

How did your time at Springdale Public Library prepare you for your job at Jbu?

My experience at Springdale Public Library helped me hone my customer service skills. I worked with a wide range of patrons – from the mom trying to apply for a job to the ESL parent working on learning English to the reluctant reader who needed a book for a report. Each interaction taught me essential skills. I learned to listen closely, communicate what I heard and seek the required information. I do the same with our students here at JBU.

What do you find most rewarding about your role as library director at JBU?

The moment a student takes on their research is the best. As students’ questions become more complex, I am proud of their growth. I have worked with all of our work-study students to teach them how to provide reference assistance, and the moment a student feels confident to help another student is so fulfilling.

How has adaptation to digital resources in the library helped serve students?

Let me first say I don’t believe books are going away; there are many benefits to reading from a hardcopy book. However, there are ways in which digital materials have genuinely helped our students. A digital resource does not need a physical footprint, so we can provide more resources than we have space for. In some select cases, the library can help with textbook costs by ordering unlimited digital copies of a required text; this is impossible with a physical book because of space and financial constraints. Lastly, during COVID, the embedded librarian program and access to digital materials enabled the library to provide comparable service to our students even though they were not on campus. Looking toward the renovation, the library will lean on these digital resources to provide students with research assistance without as large of a physical library.

What LRC enhancements excite you the most?

I’m excited to see how gathering all the academic resources at JBU in one space will benefit students. In bringing all the services together, we can quickly troubleshoot what assistance the students need; and instead of just pointing them in the right direction, we can walk them to the department they need. In the new library space, we are reorganizing our area with more room for all types of study — independent and collaborative. I look forward to giving students what they have been asking for — a higher-quality study space.

What are two things you love about working at JBU?

I love the students I work with and my library team. I have never worked with a more polite and caring population. I can see Christ working in our students’ lives through my interactions at the reference desk. Each day, my staff does not know what they will face, the questions asked of them, who may come up to the reference desk or what emails they may get. They consistently answer questions and meet our patrons’ needs with quick thinking and care. Librarians are in the customer service business; you must genuinely care to be good at our work. I know that all of my staff members care deeply for our community of students. We want our students to succeed in academics and life, and we all pray for that daily. John Brown University is an exceptional place to work, and I feel that our commitment to having Christ at the center allows for a focus on our students as a whole person, not just as students in a class

Back to feature stories