With the almost paradoxical shift towards decreasing physical footprints and funding and increasing satellite campuses (and thus constituencies), academic libraries are facing pressure to - in any combination - consolidate, launch, or close physical spaces and move towards digital collections. In the health sciences, this situation is compounded by the rapidly rising cost and amount of electronic health information, the urgency to open academic medical centers in areas with needs for health professionals, and pressures of programs and their professional learners. Karina Kletscher was hired as the solo librarian charged with launching a satellite library on Creighton University’s new regional Health Sciences Campus in Arizona, several states away from Creighton's Nebraska campus. While solo and distance librarianship are not new, these models with various versions of their own aren’t well understood outside of librarianship, especially as they evolve alongside the rapidly changing environment. Kletscher will share her experience as a solo librarian through her journey developing a primarily digital library with a self-service model.

Speaker Information:

Karina Kletscher, MLIS, AHIP

Karina Kletscher, MLIS, AHIP, is the Reference and Instruction Librarian on the Creighton University Health Sciences Campus in Phoenix, Arizona. Karina earned her MLIS from the University of Maryland, College Park and a BA in Narrative Studies from the University of Southern California. Her research interests include critical pedagogies, the medical humanities, and the intersection of information literacy and cultural programming and its impact on belonging in the academic library. She has previously written and presented on gamified library instruction, spaces in the academic library, and librarians’ roles in adolescent sexual health literacy. When outside of the library, you can find Karina digging around a vintage market or trying a new DIY project.

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