Faculty Profile Kristin Hart

Building Futures

Kristin Hart: Creating New Roles for the 21st-Century Library

“Today, libraries are constantly changing and evolving. That’s the new normal,” says Kristin Hart, the college’s chief librarian and associate dean since September 1.

Hart’s own life is a study in adaptation. The Wisconsin native’s college career was completed in stages; at one point while attending class, she lived on a pig farm. Graduating from Western Michigan University unsaddled by debt–“a wonderful benefit of public colleges, including CUNY”–Hart had one ambition: to be a “literary novelist.” For nine years she waited on tables, traveled, and lived in Mexico where expenses were low, writing whenever possible.

The result: two finished novels and the acquisition of an agent, a real achievement for an untested fiction writer. But when a publishing contract didn’t materialize, Hart decided to transition into a new life phase: a career as a librarian. She moved to New York, got a job at the New York Public Library in the Bronx, and began work toward her MLS at Queens College. Happily, her employer paid for the courses. “It was a busy time for me,” she says. “I lived in Harlem, worked in the Bronx, and commuted to Flushing.”

Hart understands that a normal reaction to change, including change in the work environment, is a feeling of discomfort. “People need to feel safe and supported during a change process,” she says.

For libraries, transformation means becoming involved in the production of knowledge. “We should no longer function just as passive repositories of information,” she says. “While continuing to provide access to scholarship, libraries can play an active role in helping students and faculty create knowledge.”

One way to help achieve a library’s transformation is by offering users the right kind of physical environment. The phase one renovation of the Benjamin R. Rosenthal Library created “beautiful space,” Hart says. In phase two, the Center for Teaching and Learning, now in Razran Hall, will move to the first floor where periodicals are currently located. “We want to provide space to support innovation,” says Hart, who envisions a “maker space” with 3D printers for experimentation and invention and a Center for Data Visualization where information can be analyzed visually through computer graphics.

Scholars are now creating work whose publication goes beyond traditional, peer-reviewed academic journals, Hart observes. “Many of our faculty members across a variety of departments are using digital scholarship, producing new work on multimedia platforms. Funders such as the National Science Foundation have mandated that scholars provide open access to their work. The library can help them not only with copyright but also with putting their work into the public domain.”

The recipient of a second graduate degree–an MS in Educational Technology from Adelphi–Hart was library director at SUNY Maritime College for two years and in charge of the Manhattan Center Library at Adelphi from 2003 to 2015. She will draw on her successful experience at those libraries for her work at QC. For example, at SUNY Hart partnered with Student Affairs to design active learning areas. “One of QC’s strategic initiatives is to provide spaces for graduate students,” Hart says. “So we want to make available study and group work spaces and tap more into the talent of our library graduate students, perhaps through internships.”

Noting the library’s many archives and special collections including its renowned Civil Rights Collection, Hart wants to “get a better handle on what we have for pedagogical purposes, bring archives and rare books into a single, climate-controlled space, and hire a full-time archivist.” She believes that the archives are a great strength that should be prominently featured–along with the story behind the library’s clock tower, named to memorialize three murdered civil rights workers, including QC student Andrew Goodman.

A strong believer in community collaboration–Hart is an active president of her Bronx neighborhood association–she also wants to strengthen QC’s role with the Queens Public

Library, including its Queens Memory Project, which began at the college.

“The profession has changed tremendously since I earned my MLS in 2003,” says Hart. “Now that we are awash in a sea of information and claims of so-called fake news, being able to navigate and analyze is more important than ever.