The Libraries Fellows Program turns 25

Former Fellows gathered recently to reflect upon the legacy of NC State’s commitment to early-career librarians.

How do you measure the Libraries’ legacy? Perhaps you might track the Libraries’ growth  alongside the growing success of NC State students, or compile the recognition given to the innovative Hunt Library or list the Libraries’ many awards. But one measure that’s particularly unique at NC State has been the far-reaching impact of the Libraries Fellows Program and its nearly 100 participants across the nation’s academic and research libraries, higher education, and beyond.

This year, the Libraries is celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Libraries Fellows Program. The program offers new librarians a three-year faculty appointment at NC State to start their careers. Straight out of graduate school, Fellows are positioned to develop expertise in two functional areas of the Libraries and contribute to an innovative initiative of strategic importance. The breadth and depth of responsibilities held by the Fellows help the Libraries to attract the best and brightest from library and information science degree programs nationwide.

Former Vice Provost & Director of Libraries Susan K. Nutter, former Associate Director for Organizational Design and Learning Wendy Scott, and Deputy Director of Libraries Carolyn Argentati worked with a team to develop and launch the program in 1999. Over its quarter-century, 98 early-career librarians have completed the program. Some of these Fellows have remained at NC State, while the majority have continued their professional careers in other libraries and museums, in higher education, the nonprofit sector, and in industries all across the country and internationally. 

Megan Oakleaf, for example, joined the third Fellows cohort in 2001 and is now Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies.

“As a Fellow, I was empowered to do transformative work from Day One. I had access to and conducted research for library leadership, was entrusted with spearheading an award-winning library tutorial, and was welcomed into a community of practice where ‘cutting-edge’ was the daily norm. I can’t imagine a better start to a career in academic librarianship. I still rely on connections I made as a Libraries Fellow to do my work today, more than 20 years later. I’m so grateful for the doors opened for me by my Libraries colleagues and the Fellows Program!” 

Jennifer Garrett, who started as a Fellow in 2012 and now oversees the administration of the program as Associate Director for Organizational Design, Culture, & Talent at the NC State University Libraries, shares that, “The Fellows Program gave me so much and really set the trajectory for my professional career and, in many ways, my life. It is hard to put into words what these last 13 years have been like; I dreamed of being a Fellow while in library school, and over the years, being able to supervise, recruit for, collaborate with and learn from dozens of Fellows and Fellows alumni has been beyond transformative for me. Moving into my current position and taking over the Fellows Program after Wendy Scott (one of my greatest mentors) retired has truly been the greatest honor of my career. This is such a special program with so many, many special people contributing to its success over the last 25 years.” 

“As a Fellow, I was empowered to do transformative work from Day One... I can’t imagine a better start to a career in academic librarianship.”

– Megan Oakleaf

To celebrate the program’s twenty-fifth anniversary, current and former Fellows reunited with current and former Libraries staff and administrators at the Hunt Library in May to reflect upon its legacy and celebrate its success. The gathering featured a keynote talk as well as a panel discussion with former Fellows who shared their experiences during and after their fellowships.

Senior Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Greg Raschke gave opening remarks at the event before several former Fellows took the podium. Director of Talent Management Tarida Anantachai, who currently directs the program, introduced keynote speaker Dr. Sandy Littletree (2007-2009), an Assistant Professor at the Information School at the University of Washington, past president of the American Indian Librarians Association, and one of Library Journal’s 2025 Movers & Shakers.

Littletree began her keynote with an appreciation for her first visit to the Hunt Library, which had only been in the planning stages when she was a Fellow. “The big thing I remember hearing about was the robots, the book machine,” she said of Hunt. “I finally got to see it today, so check that off my bucket list.” 

She shared her journey from a small town in New Mexico to library school in Austin to the fellowship at NC State. “I didn't really know what an academic librarian was, especially at this scale, so I went to library school at UT-Austin,” she said. “I think my family probably thought I was nuts, moving to Texas to go to grad school and then even more crazy to go even further east to North Carolina to Raleigh where none of us had really been. Raleigh was very far from our family story, but I've never regretted the decision.”

Littletree talked about coming to the Hill Library for her fellowship interview. She didn’t have much library experience—just the circulation desk and some odd jobs at different libraries around Austin—and doubted whether she would fit in here at NC State. But her fellowship information packet contained an article about then-Director of Libraries Susan K. Nutter being named 2005 Librarian of the Year by Library Journal, and that put her mind at ease.

“By the time I finished reading that article, I felt so comfortable coming here because I felt like I had a sense of who was in charge and her philosophy of making people feel welcomed,” Littletree said. “I read this quote from Susan in the article: ‘I always hire people who aren't quite ready for the job.’ And I thought, oh my gosh, this is me.”

“I feel like maybe I must have said some magical words that day in my interviews with Susan and all the librarians, because next thing I knew I was being offered the position. But as I think about it, it wasn't magical words. I think Susan saw some potential in me, and she created this space of helping everyone here to see potential in other people as well and creating that culture of support within the staff and the library leaders. I've always been very thankful for that.”

“I think Susan [Nutter] saw some potential in me, and she created this space of helping everyone here to see potential in other people as well and creating that culture of support within the staff and the library leaders.”

– Sandy Littletree

Littletree has carried this idea of a welcoming community of support forward throughout her career, with students who are following an educational and professional path similar to hers. She has remained committed to offering them the mentorship to move forward along that path.

“I've worked with MLIS students at two different information schools, one at the University of Arizona and now at the University of Washington, with Master's students and now with Ph.D. students doing research,” she said. “It's because people supported me even though I wasn't ready and that allowed me to become a supporter. Of these up-and-coming professionals and scholars, many of them are also first-generation students and first-generation professionals who I think might have given up if they hadn't had someone there to help them along the way.”

Littletree spoke about how her Libraries Fellows experience helped inform her work as the director of the Knowledge River Scholars Program at the University of Arizona College of Information Science. Integrated into the school’s MILS degree program, Knowledge River originally focused on taking a holistic approach to support Hispanic, Native American and other underrepresented students. Littletree helped expand it over the years to include similar components to the Libraries Fellows Program: financial support, a cohort model, and mentorship and professional development.

Summing up her studies and her career to this point, Littletree touched back upon Susan Nutter’s words and the welcoming design of the Libraries Fellows Program.

“It's important for us to think about, in our talks about the future of libraries, going back to the original lesson of supporting people who aren't quite ready and who aren't always invited to these tables,” she said. “I think it's maybe a silver lining, as we're starting to rethink library systems and as funding is threatened—thinking about how we move forward based on what we've learned from the past to include people who maybe weren't included in the beginning.”

After Littletree’s keynote, a panel of former Fellows convened for a discussion and to take questions. Virginia Ferris (2014-2016), Lead Librarian for Outreach and Engagement in the Libraries Special Collections Research Center, moderated the panel, which included H.D. McKay (2007-2009), Librarian for Business, Walker Management Library, Vanderbilt University; James Jackson Sanborn (2000-2002), Executive Director, Maine InfoNet; and Alex Valencia (2018-2020), Student Success Librarian, NC State University Libraries.

Each Fellow introduced themself and described their work and initiative during their fellowship. These ranged from Valencia developing a video game collection to McKay digitizing collections through the Internet Archive. The panelists then echoed Littletree’s points about how inspiring they found the community of support built into the Fellows Program to be.

“One of the things that I think was really special about this program was, as a brand-new, untested, untried librarian who really didn't know what they were going to do, and who probably had a bit of imposter syndrome, it was really great to have the opportunity to just talk to somebody like Susan [Nutter] or Carolyn [Argentati, the Libraries’ current Deputy Director of Libraries] who've been around for that time,” Sanborn said. “The amount of access you got to all these different people was really impressive.”

Asked to talk about their favorite or proudest moments as Fellows, Sanborn recalled a road trip to a book conservation facility near Greensboro and McKay remembered a community engagement program called Hexapod Haiku—a poetry contest focused on haiku about arthropods. Valencia talked about getting involved with the “State of Sound: Stories” project and interviewing the MC Gift of Gab from the hip-hop duo Blackalicious.

McKay credited the structure of the Fellows Program for teaching her to make time for futures thinking even in the midst of one’s busy day-to-day schedule.

“What I liked about the Fellows experience was that it was structured around the work as it is today, and then there's this project which allows you to work on something that's more emergent,” McKay said. “I feel like that stayed with me and that's still the mode that I operate in because it was sort of embedded into me as my first profession—this idea of futures thinking about what libraries could be, should be. When I didn't see it at other libraries, I was like, ‘What's going on?’”

“As a brand-new, untested, untried librarian who really didn’t know what they were going to do, and who probably had a bit of imposter syndrome, it was really great to have the opportunity to just talk to somebody like Susan [Nutter] or Carolyn [Argentati].”

– James Jackson Sanborn

The panel talk concluded with a consideration of what the Fellows Program might emphasize in the future. McKay and Sanborn both felt that there could be a more explicit connection between former Fellows with the Libraries and across the academic library and professional world. Valencia felt that the Libraries should remain unwavering in its support of early-career librarians and make sure that they feel confident and secure in the work that they're doing.

“What I've seen in my time as a Fellow, and especially learning from the newer Fellows that have come through after me and that I've worked with and even supervised, is that there's so much learning that we should be doing continually,” Ferris said in conclusion. “We always need to be actively seeking to hold ourselves accountable for this. It's been amazing to see a positive kind of evolution of work-life balance and awareness of the real issues and real actions that we can take on campus—at the Libraries and across the broader profession.”

The Libraries’ donors and Friends have played a key role in developing and sustaining the Fellows Program over the years through their interest, encouragement and generous support. Currently there are five named, endowed Fellows positions, which is an excellent way for donors to engage with the program and help a talented librarian launch their career.  

• Cyma Rubin, past president of the Friends of the Libraries and holder of an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from NC State, is an award-winning producer of musicals, documentaries and exhibitions whose endowment helps support recruitment and professional development for the named Fellow.
• Dr. Donald E. Moreland, an alumnus and former professor at NC State, established the  Donald E. Moreland Library Faculty Fellows endowment to help support recruitment and professional development for the program.
• Established by Hope Tate, former President of the Friends of the Libraries, the Henry McDonald Tate Memorial Fellows endowment serves as a tribute to her late husband, who was a graduate of NC State in Computer Science.
• Lois Madden Todd was the first woman graduate in chemical engineering at NC State. The Lois Madden Todd Fellows endowment helps support recruitment and professional development for the named Fellow and for the program.
• The Bret D. Davidson Libraries Fellowship honors Davidson’s life and outstanding professional contributions as a Fellow and then a Libraries faculty member in Digital Library Initiatives until his death in 2020. 

You can read more about the Fellows Program on our website at: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/fellows. To learn about how you can support the program and other Libraries initiatives, please contact Jeremy Allen, Executive Director of Central Major Gifts and Interim Executive Director of Philanthropy for Libraries and Parent Giving, at jnallen4@ncsu.edu, or see our website at: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/support/giving/how.