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May/June 2017: Ed Warga

TDL Member Profile: Ed Wargaphoto of Sean Buckner

The May/June TDL Member Profile features Ed Warga, Reference and Scholarly Communication Librarian at the Bell Library at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Below is the full member profile with background information and a question and answer session with Ed.

Background

Education

  • 2002 BA Curriculum and Instruction/English: Long Island University – CW Post in New York
  • 2011 MS Library Science: College of Information at the University of North Texas
  • 2011 Graduate Academic Certificate in Digital Content Management: University of North Texas

Professional Experience

  • October 2016 – present: Reference and Scholarly Communication Librarian, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
    • Provide reference and instruction services
    • Library liaison to the College of Education and Human Development
    • Implement and maintain Scholarly Communication services
    • Administrate the TAMU-CC Repository
  • August 2013 – September 2016: Institutional Repository Coordinator, Heard Library at Vanderbilt University
  • January 2013 – June 2013: Program Coordinator, Office of Institutional Assessment, Texas A&M University
    • Assisted in coordination of the Annual Assessment Conference
    • Assisted in management of assessment data system
  • April 2010 – December 2012: Research Assistant, Texas Center for Digital Knowledge, College of Information, University of North Texas
  • September 2009 – May 2011: Teaching Assistant, College of Information, University of North Texas
    • Provided support for two graduate level metadata courses

Publications

  • Kim, J., Warga, E., and Moen, W. (2013). Competencies Required for Digital Curation: An Analysis of Job Advertisements. International Journal of Digital Curation, 8:1. DOI: 10.2218/ijdc.v8i1.242

Selected Presentations

  • Anderson, C. B., Lew, C., and Warga, E. (2016). Building institutional repositories in theological libraries. In Burgress, T. (Ed.), Summary of Proceedings. Paper presented at the Seventieth Annual Conference of the American Theological Library Association, Long Beach, CA (pp. 153-163). Chicago, IL: American Theological Library Association
  • Anderson, C. B., Warga, E., and Stringer-Hye, S. (2015). Graphs Without Ontologies. 2015 VIVO Conference. https://github.com/HeardLibrary/graphs-without-ontologies
  • Warga, E., and Sowards, J. (2015). Conference Session: “Management of Repositories: Issues and Concerns”. Law Repositories Shaping the Future conference. http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/lawrepositories/2015/
  • Warga, E., Kennedy, J., and Von Ehr, C. (2012). A collaborative effort to digitize the freshwater mussels of Texas. Poster presentation. 2012 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries.
  • Moen, W., Kim, J., Warga, E., Wakefield, J. S., and Halbert, M. (2012). iCAMP: Building digital information curation curriculum. Poster presentation. iConference 2012.

Involvement with TDL

  • Current member of the Texas Data Repository Steering Committee.

Questions and Answer

1) Why did you choose to work in libraries? 

I enjoy working with data, and I have a personality suited to teaching. Librarianship allows me to make use of these talents. I’ve always been enamored of libraries and library catalogs. I have fond memories of using the card catalog and the OPAC at the Seaford Public Library. It was empowering as a child to be able to search for and access information on my own. In college I spent a lot of time at the library not only studying and doing assignments but pursuing other interests like photocopying fine arts books to make collages. The first time I thought of librarianship as a career option was in college when I met a Library Science graduate student working on the reference desk. I thought – if he can do it, I can do it!

It took me a few years to get serious about starting a career, but then I discovered digital libraries. I stumbled on a digital collection at the University of Washington while searching for pictures of reindeer on the Internet. This was a pivotal moment. I decided I wanted to work at a university putting content like this online.

I started the graduate program in Information and Library Science at the University of North Texas. There I worked at the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge working a digitization project at the Elm Fork Natural Heritage Museum. I also gained experience with repositories working as a TA for the networked metadata course. Now it’s my job to help increase access to scholarship on the Internet by growing the TAMU-CC Repository. I’ve realized my dream of contributing university collections to the public Web!

2) What projects or initiatives are you most excited about at your library? 

Currently I am working on starting a Scholarly Communication program at the Bell Library. As the first Scholarly Communication librarian in this position, I am building up services and resources for the campus community. This is a big challenge, but I’m excited for the opportunity to create and implement strategies to support student and faculty creators and help raise the profile of University research, scholarship, and creative works.

I’m also working with Jennifer Anderson, our Marketing & User Engagement Librarian, on the annual faculty publications bibliography. I hope to use the bibliographic data we collect to add works to the TAMU-CC repository, explore impact and alternative metrics reporting, and help populate faculty profiles with publication lists.

3) What is your most memorable TDL experience? 

As a graduate student, I presented a poster at the 2012 TCDL conference in Austin, TX. The poster described the work I did on the freshwater mussels of Texas digitization project. It was a proud day for me to present at a professional conference on the project that helped get me started in digital libraries.