Library staff bring deep expertise, dedication to customer service and a passion for improving the user experience to their day-to-day work. Meet Jason Schulz ’93 and Ingred Mogilner Chamberlin, two employees whose innovative ideas and leadership have helped transform the Library’s spaces and services, thereby facilitating academic success for UC San Diego students, faculty and researchers.
Jason Schulz ’93 (he/him/his)
Director of Library Facilities Services
You were a UC San Diego student. What does it mean to you to work for the Library? I started at Geisel Library (then Central Library) in November 1989 as a student employee in the circulation department where I helped check out items to users and answer account questions. Through the years, I have been continually impressed by the ongoing commitment of my Library colleagues to provide the best information and the highest level of service to the campus population.
What excites you most about the work that you do? I love that my work not only has a direct impact on the current cohort of students, but also creates infrastructure for the success of the future campus community. This involves coordinating closely with campus facilities management for maintenance, custodial and landscaping at both Geisel Library and WongAvery Library, while working with Library administration to develop timelines and details for space improvements. While there are consistent themes of managing existing spaces and planning for future ones, every day is different.
What are you most proud to have accomplished within the Geisel Library Revitalization Initiative? I am thrilled to see students embrace the new spaces throughout Geisel Library. The intent of the initiative was to create new, vibrant spaces suited to the needs of 21st century students and scholars. The Library is able to provide a palette of spaces — collaborative, silent, comfortable, tech-enabled — so that users can choose the best location to meet their study, learning or social needs.
Tell us about a collaboration you are proud to have worked on and why? I am most proud of the work I did adding accessible/gender-neutral bathrooms on Floors 4-7 in Geisel Library. Libraries have a long history of being inclusive spaces, so the project aligned well with our goals and values.
What is one thing about you that might surprise people? My background is not in the trades but customer service. I was the front desk manager at Geisel Library for more than 12 years. However, I think a large part of facilities management is customer service: understanding needs and finding solutions.
Contact Jason: jtschulz@ucsd.edu
Ingred Mogilner Chamberlin (she/her/hers)
Circulation Operations Specialist
How long have you worked in libraries? I have worked for the Library since June 2018. Previously, I worked in the library at San Francisco State University, and my husband was a librarian, so I have been involved with library work for a while.
Describe your role at the Library. As a member of the Library’s Spaces, Lending and Access program, I provide paging and delivery services for user-requested physical materials. When people request books and other items from us or other libraries, we make sure those requests are filled and ready for pickup at the requested location. Sometimes filling requests can be challenging, due to the nature of materials or time constraints, but it is very satisfying to get these items to the requester quickly.
How does your work help facilitate academic success for students and faculty? The Library’s paging and delivery services allow students and researchers to request library materials 24/7, wherever they are. We make those items available for pickup at four different locations on campus, whichever is most convenient for our users.
You helped to relaunch the Library as a participating member in the San Diego Circuit libraries consortium. What is the impact of this work on library users? San Diego Circuit is a service that allows users to quickly borrow books we do not own, or are out on loan, from other San Diego libraries for check out and pick up on campus. After the launch of UC Library Search, we had to reestablish our ability to participate as a member of Circuit. We are one of the first libraries to use this combination of software and it has been a learning experience for everyone involved. It required a lot of collaboration between Library programs, the Circuit libraries and the developers to make everything run smoothly.
Tell us about a collaboration you are proud to have worked on and why. During the Library’s pandemic closure, we launched a Curbside Pickup service in collaboration with Transportation Services. Since our users weren’t able to visit the Library, this new service made our print collections available to them. The delivery methods went through a few iterations, requiring some creative thinking, collaboration and process improvements to get to where we are now.
What is one thing about you that might surprise people? I come from a family of creative people, and you can find quite a few of their works in our Library. Thanks to UC Library Search, I have even found a copy of my dad’s patent for a tensegrity puzzle he invented in the ’70s called the Philosopher’s Knot.
Contact Ingred: imogilnerchamberlin@ucsd.edu
The article above originally appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Explore magazine, the Library’s signature publication. Read the full issue online here.