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Himmelfarb Headlines: Staff Profile - Joe McGraw, Serials Librarian

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Staff Profile - Introducing Joe McGraw, Serials Librarian

Director's Desk, Laura Abate

Learn more about Himmelfarb Library staff members. In this issue, we learn more about Joe McGraw, Serials Librarian.

Share your path to Himmelfarb Library.
I’ve been on a journey through a few academic libraries before landing at Himmelfarb. Most recently, I was the Interlibrary Loan Librarian at Fogler Library at the University of Maine. Also at U Maine, I worked in the Research and Instruction Department (confusingly similar to the Shakespeare library in DC so much that we got their emails sometimes). Before that I was the Student Employee Supervisor and Multimedia Manager at West Virginia University’s Downtown Campus Library, which was my first full time library job after graduate school. I graduated from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 2020 and graduated from the University of Virginia in 2014. In between, I managed KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in North Carolina.

Tell us about your position at Himmelfarb and what you do.
I am the new Serials Librarian at Himmelfarb, only starting at the beginning of September. I manage the library’s online journal collection, working with other librarians in making decisions on which journal resources to buy as well as troubleshooting any problems that patrons have accessing the material.

What do you enjoy most about your position?
I love being part of the academic life of a library at such a great university. Universities like this are where I feel at home. Since I’m so new to the position, I’m not sure what’s my favorite part of the job yet, but I’m looking forward to digging into projects at the library and becoming more familiar with the serials collection and all my great new coworkers.

What do you like to do in your time away from work?
I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, at least twice a week. I’ve also gotten back into golf this summer and I’ve been trying to play at least weekly this summer. I’m also a big sports fan and I could talk about the Celtics or Arsenal all day, if you let me.

Where are you from originally, and what brought you to the DC area?
Originally, I am from Tazewell, Virginia which is in very far Southwest Virginia along the border with West Virginia and close to Kentucky. I’ve moved around a fair bit, living in North Carolina, West Virginia, and Maine. I moved to the DC area in summer 2023 after my partner got a job in the area and I really love it so far!