dec04b.indd

Steering
the
course

for
the
SUNY
Maritime
College
Library

If you’re the kind of librarian who will never
be too busy or too important to stop and
help a student, then directing the library for
the Maritime College of the State University
of New York (SUNY)
may be your job of
a lifetime. Constan-
tia Constantinou has
been library director
and department head
since 2001.

Bringing the library
to the students
As you walk into the
main hall of the Ste-
phen B. Luce Library,
you may notice a
student waving up
at a big window that
overlooks the entire
library. They are actu-
ally waving at the li-
brary’s director, who is on a fi rst-name basis
with many of the 1,300 cadets who make up
the student population. How is such famil-
iarity possible for a busy director?

“I have a routine in the morning when I
come in,” describes Constantinou. “We have
a little café, so students stop at the library to
fortify themselves with coffee before they go
off to their classes. I make my walk around
the library and talk with the students. You’d
be surprised how willing they are to express

Constantia Constantinou on the Fore
Deck of the Training Ship Empire State
VI with two SUNY Maritime College
Cadets.

themselves. This week and next they’re study-
ing for their coast guard license exams, so
they’re very excited about that. I pull up a
chair and sit with them, and we chat a little

bit. The last thing I
always say to them
before I walk away is,
‘Make sure you know
where my office is.’
They absolutely do
come and ask ques-
tions.”

Constantinou is pas-
sionate about bringing
the library to the stu-
dents. “To be success-
ful you have to be very
student-oriented, you
have to be part of the
students’ everyday life.
The librarians serve as
freshmen student advi-
sors. We assist them

during the registration period in choosing the
right courses for their majors, and this gives
us the opportunity to bond with them. We get
to see all freshmen through our information
literacy courses, and we continue to rein-
force our relationship with them through the
courses where we participate in teaching.

“It helps that they live on campus and that
we are in such close proximity throughout
the day. We sit and have lunch, participate in
campus-wide activities—like faculty-student

Danianne Mizzy is assistant head of the Engineering Library at the University of Pennsylvania. Have an idea for a “Job of a
Lifetime” story? E-mail: danianne@seas.upenn.edu

658 / C&RL News December 2004

mailto:danianne@seas.upenn.edu

softball games—serve on student-faculty
committees, and even [serve] as the advisors
for student clubs. Our goal is to be a part of
their ambitions and their aspirations, to be
there as a mentor and a teacher as well as
a librarian.

“We march with them every May at gradu-
ation, and it’s sad to see them go. On the
other hand, this is why we’re here—to help
them graduate and to see them become suc-
cessful leaders.”

Anchors aweigh
Another way the librarians get to know the
students so well is by spending the sum-
mer term at sea aboard the 565-foot Em-
pire State VI training ship. “The cruise lasts
about nine weeks during which they visit

turous ourselves. I have seen my librarians
come back different people, more confi dent,
more adventurous, and more fi t than when
they left.” In December, Constantinou will
be off on her own adventure, a two-month
leave working on a project at the University of
Cyprus Libraries as the recipient of a Fulbright
Senior Specialist grant (for more information,
see www.cies.org/specialists).

Not what you find on a job description
Constantinou characterized her job as “Not
the type of librarianship you find on a job
description. As a director you have your set
duties, but it’s what you continue to rein-
vent and what you create on a daily basis.
You get inspired by the students, you get
inspired by the faculty, and by the innova-

at least five ports, two
domestic and three Eu-

tions that happen on
campus.

ropean. The shipboard “Then you always
community consists of What: Stephen B. Luce Library think, ‘How could the
about 600 to 700 stu- library contribute to
dents, 100 faculty and Where: Maritime College of the SUNY this initiative? What
staff, and a librarian will be the library’s role
(in uniform) serving as For more information, visit: in making this project
their information spe- www.sunymaritime.edu/zpt/z02/z0200. successful? Is this a

Maritime library director

cialist. Besides helping makka?z=903
the students with ref-
erence questions and
supporting the courses, the librarian is re-
sponsible for preparing lectures for the stu-
dents pertaining to each port of call. These
cover social etiquette, customs, places to
see, and the librarians even arrange trips.
This expands the role of the librarian from
academics to an all-around information spe-
cialist. Being with them for two months at
sea in a very confined space, sleeping and
eating in the same environment, we can’t
help but become a part of their lives.”

Constantinou observed that “It requires
physical and mental discipline to do such an
assignment. You wonder, ‘How am I going
to manage at sea for two months without
my family or my TV or my cell phone?’ But
if we allow ourselves to remain in tune with
our students and share their excitement and
enthusiasm, that’s when we become adven-

new opportunity for
this library to extend
itself?’

“For example, last semester the faculty
voted for a new maritime history/maritime
museum studies program in the humanities.
I said, ‘Why not maritime library studies,
too, so that students who choose to major
in maritime history might become the future
directors of maritime museums or libraries.”

The adventure of a lifetime and a
lifetime of adventure
When I asked what the key to being suc-
cessful at this job was, Constantinou replied,
“Keeping my door open to anybody who
wants to walk in and have a little talk. Learn-
ing from the students—their enthusiasm,
their bravery, their sense of adventure, and
being a part of it.” Quite fitting at a college
whose creed is “the adventure of a lifetime
and a lifetime of adventure.” 

C&RL News December 2004 / 659