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Emma Giles, Copyright and Open Access Librarian

Tell us about what you do at ZSR Library?

I support faculty and students by providing education on copyright as it relates to their teaching and scholarship. This can include consultations, instruction sessions, workshops, educational resources, and more. I also support open access scholarship from an educational standpoint, which may look like consulting on our read and publish agreements, journal selection, authors’ rights, or ETDs. My role also focuses on documenting Wake Forest University’s OA output and celebrating our scholars who make an effort to openly share their work!

What is your favorite book/podcast/movie?

I’ll give you two podcasts – one wholesome and one for my fellow haters. My wholesome pick is the Just Getting Good series on TFD. The host invites women over 50 to share their stories, and it’s lovely to see their wisdom and vibrance spotlighted. The hater in me adores If Books Could Kill, which critically picks on “airport bestsellers.”

What is your favorite library story?

While I was studying abroad in my senior year of undergrad, I took a solo trip to Geneva, Switzerland. Mostly, I wanted to eat delicious cheese and chocolate, but Geneva is also home to the United Nations and the UN Library. The library is not open to the public, but I was able to squeeze in under the guise of being a student with a research agenda. At the time, I was also working on my library school applications, so I was really after an opportunity to learn from librarians who worked in a unique place.

I was so eager that I showed up at the library before any of the librarians had arrived for the day, which was good because it gave me time to explore the collections relevant to the actual research that I was about to do. Eventually, a librarian came over and invited me to chat over lunch! She bought me lunch at the cafeteria, let me ask as many questions as I wanted, and expressed a genuine interest in my ambitions. I honestly remember very few details from our conversation other than she was from Italy and her husband was from Montana. What I clearly remember from that experience was the warmth and generosity that I received as a curious stranger. Now I know that’s the disposition of librarians everywhere, but I still look back and think about what a wonderful introduction that was to this world.

How did you start working in libraries?

I always thought I would be a lawyer until I started asking lawyers about their jobs. They all suggested I think long and hard about whether I really wanted to go to law school, so I did. I thought about what I was good at and what I would like to do at work, and I landed on problem-solving, researching, and helping. That sounded like what I thought librarians do, so I asked the Social Sciences Librarian at school about her job. She sounded much happier with her career path than the lawyers, so I decided to quit studying for the LSAT and start applying to library school (no GRE required, yay!).

I started at UNC Chapel Hill the following year with no experience working in libraries. I had written my undergraduate capstone on academic freedom and open access, but I didn’t know what those concepts meant to librarianship yet. That first year of grad school, I applied to everything from graduate assistantships to volunteer opportunities to no avail. Finally, I got a part-time summer position in ILL at the Health Sciences Library that was only available because the undergraduate student who usually held the position went home for the summer. At this point, I was grateful to have an opportunity to do anything at all in an academic library, but ILL was an especially great place for me to begin understanding how copyright operates in the library. That experience absolutely solidified my path and gave me the experience I needed to find my subsequent library gigs.

What is something we can’t know by looking at you?

I love to travel! I come from what I like to call a travel-infected family. I have three airline pilot parents (you read that right – dad, mom, and stepdad), my aunt and grandmother ran an international tour company for several years together, and my parents also have an RV glamping business. I didn’t catch the travel bug so bad to end up with a full-blown career in the travel industry, but I am constantly planning my next adventure and I always love to hear where others are exploring!