Today’s blog post is an interview with the Signal’s own Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez, here at the Library of Congress. You can read other interviews with digital collections staff here.
Carlyn: Hi Pedro, could you tell us a bit about what you do in the Digital Services Directorate? How would you explain your job to someone outside the Library of Congress? What do you like most about your job?
Pedro: Hi there! I’ll start with a job description for non-librarians. As a Digital Collections Specialist, I’m part of a team that manages how the Library acquires, preserves, and makes available digital content (e.g., documents, ebooks, datasets, audio files). It is highly collaborative work that relates to many parts of the Library. For example, I collaborated with the By the People team on developing a workflow for making full text transcriptions available as datasets and worked with Geography & Map Division staff on making geospatial datasets accessible. It’s not all processing digital content, though! I’m on the team responsible for developing the Digital Collections Management Compendium and planning/coordinating the internal Digital Library Practitioners group. This is important work that strengthens the Library’s foundation for managing digital collections and fosters a community of practice. On a similar note, I provide communications and administrative support for AI4LAM, an international participatory community focused on how artificial intelligence can help Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) organizations. This keeps me informed of recent developments in the rapidly developing world of AI in libraries.
C: Can you tell us a bit about your professional background and journey. In particular, what professional or educational experiences prepared you for your role?
P: Like many others in the field, I took a circuitous route to librarianship. I received a masters in musicology from University of Maryland and I gained familiarity with archives, special collections, and audiovisual digitization during my studies. Thanks to this exposure, I went on to get a masters in library and information science with a focus on digital curation. My first job in the field was as program associate for Recordings at Risk, an audiovisual digitization grant program offered by the Council on Library and Information Resources. I interfaced directly with a wide variety of applicants, often from under-resourced cultural heritage organizations, and helped them develop practical and sustainable digital preservation plans. Preserving digital Objects With Restricted Resources (Digital POWRR) was a major influence to me, as it demonstrated how to create an appropriate digital preservation plan without all the latest and greatest technological solutions. I frequently think back to the lessons learned during this time and apply them to digital content management projects at the Library, such as when developing new content workflows.
C: What part of your work do you find most meaningful or engaging?
P: The collaborative process is the most engaging aspect of digital collections management at the Library. This is a uniquely large organization with all manner of subject matter experts and I am constantly learning new things. I find this to be a regular source for inspiration.
C: What do you think is the biggest thing you’ve learned so far in working at the Library of Congress?
P: The value of using an agile framework to support iterative and incremental project planning. Earlier in my life, that sentence would have looked like a jumble of buzzwords, but working on large projects at the Library has shown me why these concepts are important. A team needs clear direction for a project/sprint and should be able to pivot when things don’t go according to plan. On a related note, you should maintain an awareness of other projects and initiatives because individual components developed for one project (e.g., scripts, workflows, policy) may be adapted for others. This is something that my colleagues and I hope to encourage by discussing a wide variety of projects in an internal meeting series called Digital Library Practitioners, in which staff do skill-sharing presentations.
C: Do you have any advice for people interested in getting into the kind of work you do? Are there any skills or competencies that you think are really important for folks that want to get into this field to develop?
P: If I may call back to my previous answer, I think that aspiring Digital Content Managers can benefit greatly from taking courses on agile/scrum and then working on growing their facilitation skills and grasp on product ownership. These are critical skills for anyone managing digital assets in a collaborative environment, particularly one as big as the Library of Congress. There aren’t many situations in which a single person can do everything, so it’s important that you know how to consult subject matter experts, create a work plan, delegate tasks, respond to blockers, and so on.
Of course, you should also work on your scripting skills. You don’t need to be a programming wiz, but you should know some basics so that you can at least read through, say, a Python script and understand what is happening. Similarly, you should be able to write pseudocode (i.e., use plain language to explain how code will work when executed). If you reach this level of understanding, you are essentially “conversant” and able to function in a collaborative GLAM environment.
C: Aside from work, what sorts of things are you passionate about? Do you have any hobbies or interests that you’re up for sharing out with folks?
P: In the past few years I have become very passionate about cooking. I don’t have a particular area of focus, but I’d like to up my game by learning to prepare more Indian dishes. Beyond that, I have been very involved with music for my entire life. I started out playing the piano and gradually moved into songwriting and recording. It’s all about the process for me. There is nothing more meditative than “woodshedding” in a practice room, and nothing more fun than conducting a Sgt. Pepper’s-esque recording experiment on my laptop in the living room.