Steven Dunlap is the Head of the Technical Services and Systems at the Golden Gate University Library and represents academic libraries at BayNet. He received his M.S. from the School of Library Service at Columbia University in New York, N.Y. He reads and understands spoken Russian, German, Spanish, Cantonese and Uzbek.
Golden Gate University was founded more than 100 years ago in San Francisco and offers undergraduate and graduate programs in business and management, information technology, taxation, and law.
What is one thing your library is very good at?
Practical business research, such as actual businesses do.
Is there something else about your library that most people do not know?
There are two libraries, we’re not the Law Library.
Why did you become a librarian?
The setting: you meet far more interesting people than anywhere else I have worked.
What are your major responsibilities at the library?
I make order out of chaos.
What is it about your job that most people don’t realize that you do?
I make order out of chaos.
What do you like best or worst about your job?
Both: I make order out of chaos.
What was your most memorable experience at work?
At the New York Public Library one day a woman ran towards the reference desk screaming “would somebody please help me!” I ran around from behind the reference desk to come to her aid thinking she was in some life-threatening situation. Then she blurted out a reference question.
What’s one thing about you that few people know?
Once upon a time I wanted to be a violinist until an injury made that impossible.
If someone wrote a book about your life, what would be the title?
Kafka’s Step-son
What do you think will be the biggest change in libraries and information services in the future?
People used to have no choice but to come to us for information. Now we have to go to them or they’ll believe the stuff they find on Google.
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