Harriet Wintermute, associate professor, began her appointment on April 10, 2023, as the chair of the University Libraries’ Acquisitions, Cataloging, Metadata, E-resources department. She will lead librarians and staff in identifying and ordering books, journals, and other resources in both physical and electronic formats as well as describing, categorizing, and naming materials to make them accessible through the Libraries’ discovery tools.
“I am fortunate to have some familiarity with my department’s work from my prior tenure at UNL but look forward to developing librarians’ and staff members’ trust in me in this new role and to helping them thrive in their roles within the department and the Libraries,” said Wintermute.
Wintermute worked at Nebraska from July 2014 to May 2019 as the catalog and metadata librarian before leaving for Iowa State University, where she was the head of Metadata Services. While at Iowa State, Wintermute helped staff update and streamline cataloging workflows, built a new metadata creation team, improved metadata description for marginalized peoples, and developed new collaborative relationships with other library departments.
Wintermute is happy to return to living in the city of Lincoln and take on this leadership role at the University Libraries. She has a master’s degree in library and information science (MSLIS) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Wellesley College. She has published journal articles, given presentations, and was recently elected for a second term as an at-large councilor for the American Library Association.
The type of research she plans to work on includes improving metadata workflows and collaboration within a sustainable framework.
“For example, it’s worth exploring machine learning and generative AI for ways to streamline preliminary or repetitive metadata work while leaving the high-level detail work to librarians and staff,” explains Wintermute. “At the same time, it’s imperative that we strive for better diversity representation and reducing bias in description of library resources and collections by using inclusive language and by critically reviewing vocabulary terms included in the metadata.”
When she is not obsessing over metadata, Wintermute knits. Contact Harriet Wintermute at hwintermute2@unl.edu.