Know Your HBS Staff: Heather Oswald
by Shona Simkin Heather Oswald is the manager of public services for the Special Collections and Archives unit in Baker Library. We talked with Heather about what fascinates her about her work, how collections are ever evolving, and what she likes to do in her spare time. ![]() Tell us about your role at Baker.
I have a range of responsibilities, which helps keep things interesting. I oversee the reading room and reference program for all our researchers: Harvard students, staff, and faculty, as well as people all over the world who are interested in our collections. I help get them the resources they need and access to our collections, whether that be virtually or on site. I run our digitization program. We work with Harvard Library and vendors to digitize key collection materials based on research trends and will dive into different areas of the collection to make resources available to anyone who's interested. We have a strong in-house scanning program and I work with my colleagues to make specific requests available. I make sure our collections are findable, that our catalogs are usable, and that our discovery systems—our digital collections, exhibit sites, and website—work well and help us reach new audiences. I’ve been here for seven years.
What does that look like day to day? How did you get into this line of work? What are some of your favorite aspects of your work? It's fascinating to see how people approach our collections—they are doing exciting work, and their interests make me realize how incredibly rich, varied, and valuable the materials are to different types of users. Some have limited time and need to get specific answers quickly, and others get so excited and want to tell me all about their research. We’re here to connect people with information they couldn’t find anywhere else. We also have a really fantastic team here and getting to learn from them and see their perspective on approaching different challenges makes every day a new experience. I feel very lucky to be able to do what I do and to work with the people I do. ![]() What do you like to do in your spare time? What would you most like the community to know about Baker’s collections? In addition, we're really excited about the digitization we're doing and the ways it opens up resources and enables the creation, manipulation, and transformation of data that can be difficult to pull out of physical materials. We look forward to working with the larger HBS community to think through how we can utilize our collections in innovative ways, especially as part of digital transformation. |
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