Library Newsletter

Tell us about your role here at the Library. You started in December 2023 - how are you liking IU Southeast so far?

• I work in the Access Services Department at the Library as a Library Services Coordinator, focusing primarily on managing our interlibrary loan service and supervising our work-study students. For interlibrary loan, I monitor our lending system to make sure all the requests that our patrons create pass through the system smoothly so they get information resources as quickly and accurately as possible. I also share information resources that the Library already has access to with libraries all over the world to support knowledge sharing and lifelong learning globally. As a supervisor, I help train our student workers and ensure that they have the skills and knowledge necessary to support our patrons with any of their information needs. I love both of these roles; I entered librarianship because I am passionate about connecting people to information resources and providing them with a third space to gather and collaborate. My role helps me facilitate both important library functions. Also, as a former student of IU Southeast, it has been very fun to be on the flip side of the service desk and see many familiar faces during my shifts!

You previously worked at the Floyd County Public Library. Tell us a bit about that. What are some of the ways that various libraries support their communities?

• Before coming to the IU Southeast Library, I worked as an Adult Services Librarian at the Floyd County Library. I helped with circulation, reference, genealogy research in the Indiana Room, programming for our adult patrons, creating book displays, directing patrons to social services, providing reader’s advisory, and partnering with local organizations. One of my favorite programs that I created was “This Is What Democracy Looks Like,” a civic engagement program in which a series of presenters like professors and elected officials helped us teach the community how they can make an impact on the world around them through volunteering, building connections, contacting their elected officials, voting, and more. The IU Southeast School of Social Sciences provided us with a lot of support for that program! The Floyd County Library, like most public libraries, provides so many resources and services to the community that I enjoyed experiencing. These include reading challenges like the summer reading program, book discussion groups for all ages, computer skills courses, an abundance of story times that help our youngest residents build literacy skills, safe spaces to discuss important but challenging topics like race relations and poverty, access to archival collections, access to equipment to digitize and preserve various forms of media, a food pantry for the significant portion of our community that experiences food insecurity, access to electronic devices like hotspots and laptops to bridge the digital divide, book deliveries to individuals in residential centers, and so much more! Libraries of all types provide not just books to communities, but computers and internet access, safe spaces to gather, and access to resources that are often difficult to find and access independently.

You're also an IUS Alumna! What are some of your favorite memories of being a student here?

• I have loved being back at IUS because it reminds me of so many good times that I had as a student! I spent so many lunches in the Commons with my friends, and we had a great time going to the Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner two years in a row. I got to learn about the history of the campus by conducting oral history interviews for the IU Bicentennial Oral History Project. One of my favorite parts of being back is seeing some of my former professors from the History and French Departments who mentored me and helped me in so many ways. I took some of my graduation pictures in the library, so I often think of those pictures when I am up in the Stacks. (That’s the picture I’ve attached).  

Read anything good lately?

• I recently read all 30 volumes of the manga series Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me to You, and it made me feel a lot of things. It was super sweet (and you can read them all on Libby through the Floyd County Library). I’ve been curating a collection of picture books for my friends’ baby, and my favorite so far has been Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, though Sitti’s Secrets by Naomi Shihab Nye has been a close second. I read probably about three-fourths of everything author Annette Marie has written at the beginning of the year, and I had a blast with The Guild Codex: Demonized series. And I’m always going to recommend my favorites, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly.

Tell us about your hobbies - outside the library, how do you like to spend your time?

• I spend a lot of time reading (clearly), but I also love baking, spending time with my family, getting ice cream with my friends, snuggling with my cats (of which I own 6 and am fostering an additional 14 right now), watching Korean dramas or crime shows, and feeding my newly formed obsession with BTS.

How can people reach you if they have questions?

• You can reach me at alestepp@iu.edu or (812) 941-2487 with questions. Feel free to stop by at the Library service desk and ask for me, too!