june09b.indd


The user experience librarian 
As human beings we consistently seek better 
experiences. We travel ten more miles to reach a 
grocery store where we can browse wide aisles 
in peace. We search for the laundromat with 
the most comfortable seating, the best­stocked 
vending machine. We pay more for better 
customer service and are still surprised when 
a company makes an extra gesture to keep us 
satisfi ed. What is life, if not the 
search for a day more fulfi lling 
than the last? 

So what type of experience 
are academic library users 
searching for? As college and 
university libraries across the 
nation continue their search for 
a readjusted mission and future 
outlook, the user experience is 
something that can weigh heav­
ily on both real and perceived 
value. As the User Experience 
Librarian at Georgia Tech, Brian 
Mathews has spent the last two 
years investigating user needs and the library’s 
effectiveness in meeting those needs. “My job 
is to look at the big picture and then to help 
design a better overall library experience for 
our users,” he says. 

Academic librarianship has been a pas­
sion for Mathews ever since he worked as an 
undergraduate book­shelver at the University 
of Central Florida (UCF). After earning a dual 
degree in English and History, he took a para­
professional position at UCF and began the 
distance graduate program at the University of 
South Florida­Tampa one year later. Drawn to 
the thought of publishing, presenting, working 
in an academic setting, and providing access 
to mass collections of information, Mathews 

Brian Mathews, user experience 
librarian at Georgia Tech. 

found his niche. “What appealed to me about 
librarianship was that it allowed me to work 
and contribute to an academic purpose,” he 
says, citing his initial love for journalism as the 
impetus for his interest in research and data. 

After the completion of a library­wide strate­
gic plan, the need for a dedicated point­person 
for assessment and communications at the 

Georgia Tech Library became 
clear. With a personal interest 
in user­experience philosophy, 
design­thinking, and empathic 
design (emotional aspects of 
user­product relationships), 
Mathews transitioned from the 
Information Services Depart­
ment to this newly created 
position reporting directly to 
the associate director for public 
and administrative services. 
Supervising one full time staff 
member and one student as­
sistant, Mathews describes 

his unit as a start­up company or design fi rm. 
“We’re very project­oriented,” he says, “There 
is a definite ebb and flow to the work as the 
semester unfolds.” 

Some recent projects include a study re­
garding student laptop usage, a furniture expo 
to gather feedback on potential renovation 
furnishings, prototyping the library’s visual 
identity, and studying students as they prepare 
for finals. “With my job, each week is something 
different—that’s what fuels me and that’s what 
I love about it,” Mathews confesses. 

Erin Dorney is outreach librarian at Millersville University 
of Pennsylvania. Have a story idea for Job of a Lifetime? 
E-mail Erin Dorney at erin.dorney@millersville.edu. A 
podcast interview with Mathews is available online. 

346C&RL News June 2009

mailto:erin.dorney@millersville.edu


With consistent user interaction, Mathews’ 
position boils down to designing a better library. 
He is currently working on The DNA Project, 
an attempt to “decode” the library experience. 
Through student interviews (two per week), 
Mathews learns about perceptions of the library, 
class assignments, life on campus, technology, 
and more. Sessions typically last from 30 minutes 
to an hour. “The best session I had was nearly 
three hours long—I had to cancel a meeting, 
but the data was just too valuable,” he says, “I 
don’t just want to measure user perceptions, but 
discover how those perceptions were formed. 
Why do they use the library? What triggers us­
age? What do they know, and how did they 
find out about it? Once they’ve discovered 
something, did they use it again? Did they tell 
others about it?” 

The goal of The DNA Project is to determine 
why certain individuals become regular library 
users, while others rarely use library resources 
and services at all. The identification of patterns 
has the potential to change everything, says 
Mathews, “. . . how we do instruction, how we 
promote and provide services, perhaps even the 
way we define academic libraries.” 

On advice for the future, Mathews is a pro­
ponent for purposeful change. “Assessment 
is a mess. We’re asking the wrong questions. 
We’re measuring the wrong things,” he says. 
Citing the recent ethnographic work done at 
the University of Rochester (Studying Students, 
ISBN 978­0­8389­8437­6) as the “most important 
‘library science’ book published this decade,” 
Mathews advocates for librarians to think differ­
ently, expanding toolkits and intentions to seek 
emotional and personal connections with users 
(concepts traditional library assessment ignores). 

For Mathews, staying current is more than 
a matter of belonging to library associations 
and organizations. He subscribes to Wired and 
Fast Company magazines, reads Advertising 
Age, the Chronicle of Higher Education, I.D. 
(The International Design Magazine) and UX 
Magazine, along with campus publications and 
select library blogs. “I see myself as a student 
of communication; it fascinates me to see how 
different people present their fi ndings—how 
a scientist reports her data, how an engineer 

tackles a program, or how a historian describes 
a situation—the content is different, but it’s all 
storytelling,” he says, explaining his interdisci­
plinary reading habits. 

He is also a member of AIMA (Atlanta 
Interactive Marketing Association), an integral 
factor in his development of interest in the user 
experience. Gaining face time with marketing 
professionals, designers, and managers from 
companies like Coca­Cola, Turner Broadcast­
ing, Delta, Target, Facebook, and MTV helped 
Mathews see the bigger picture: “If I had to point 
to one thing that boosted my career the most 
it is probably these interactions. AIMA opened 
up my eyes to how insulated academic librar­
ians tend to be.” 

In addition to his responsibilities at Geor­
gia Tech, Mathews finds time to maintain 
the popular blog “The Ubiquitous Librarian” 
(theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com) and 
contribute to the group blog “Designing Bet­
ter Libraries” (dbl.lishost.org/blog). His fi rst 
book, Marketing Today’s Academic Library: 
A Bold New Approach to Communicating 
with Students (ISBN 978­0­8389­0984­3), was 
published in March 2009 by ALA Editions. “I 
don’t see it so much as a marketing book, but 
rather a discussion on building relationships 
with library users,” says Mathews. 

In June 2009, Mathews will leave his posi­
tion as user experience librarian at Georgia 
Tech to fill the role of assistant university librar­
ian for outreach and academic services at the 
University of California­Santa Barbara. His new 
position will include oversight of the library’s 
outreach and marketing efforts, coordination of 
assessment, and leading Web site development. 
“Hopefully it will be a chance to further develop 
my leadership and knowledge of libraries,” he 
says of the change. 

The interdisciplinary nature of the profession 
is what provides Mathews with passion and 
inspiration, including the fields of anthropol­
ogy, design­thinking, psychology, psychode­
mographics, statistics, and ergonomics among 
others. His flexible and forward­thinking attitude 
just about sums it up; “Just when I think I’ve fi g­
ure out what a librarian is all about, everything 
changes. I love that, though.” 

June 2009  347 C&RL News 

http:theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com