Get to Know …

Aimée Quinn

Gwen Sinclair

Veteran documents librarian Aimée Quinn draws on her experience in a variety of settings for her current position as Campus Librarian for Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Yuma. As the sole librarian, she does it all: reference, instruction, and collection development. In addition, she is in charge of the Student Research Symposium and is delving into AI so that she can teach students to use it ethically.

Unlike many librarians who accidentally find their way to government documents, Aimée was directed to this career path by an important mentor, documents librarian Eulalie Brown. Aimée worked at the library at the University of New Mexico (UNM) as a student. She had fully intended to pursue a degree in theatre; however, a serious accident derailed those plans, and she ended up back at UNM and eventually found her way into a government documents position. Although Aimée was working on a master’s degree in Renaissance drama, Brown had other plans. She told Aimée, “I don’t know why you’re working on all this. You’re going to become a docs librarian—we just know it!” She arranged for Aimée to receive a scholarship to get her library degree at Louisiana State University. Aimée was fortunate enough to attend the program when it still offered a certificate in government documents librarianship, and she credits this plus her on-the-job training for honing her expertise.

After finishing her library degree, Aimée took a position at Texas A&M University. A ground-breaking project that she worked on was the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Information Bridge, which brought together a number of documents librarians to help DOE figure out how to structure an electronic documents repository. As a relatively new librarian, Aimée also volunteered with the Dupont Circle Group, a group of government information librarians that developed recommendations to help GPO weather a period of legislative upheaval and budget challenges.

Aimée subsequently took a position as the documents coordinator at Eastern Washington University. She then moved to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and later to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where she worked with John Shuler on the DOSFAN project, a partnership between UIC, GPO,
and the U.S. Department of State to host a digital archive of State Department documents. Next, Aimée returned to
Albuquerque to work as the associate director at a community college. She later spent several years at UNM before moving on to Central Washington University for a few years prior to taking her current position.

Although some of her positions have not been in a government documents role, Aimée said, “I think everybody’s a government documents librarian, whether they admit it or not. If you work with data, you’re working with government data. If you’re working with education information, you’re dealing with ERIC in some form or another. Almost every database you use is based on government information. I deal with government information every day, so I’m always a government documents librarian in my soul.”

Aimée greatly values lifelong learning and professional development. She is fascinated by early congressional publishing and rare books in general, so she aspires to attend the Rare Book School someday. And she still maintains a connection with the theatre: she is currently re-reading Richard III, which she does every fall, “because I think it should have been a comedy, and I think that’s what Shakespeare really meant it to be.”

Aimée says that GODORT “has truly been a lifeline.” For her, it is an organization whose members share her love of the works of Andriot and Schmeckebier and appreciate the arcane nature of government documents.¹ She was GODORT’s chair in 2006-2007 and has continued to be active throughout her career. Another of her joys is being a moderator for the Gov
Doc-L listserv, which she has done since 1989.

Throughout her career, Aimée has been a strong advocate for access to government information and is especially concerned about how the digital divide continues to impact users now that the FDLP is a mostly digital program. Thanks to Aimée’s advocacy, NAU is in the process of becoming a virtual depository library, and she is looking forward to adding Depository Coordinator to her duties. Meanwhile, she loves to help her fellow librarians: “I don’t know all the answers, but I usually know who to ask.”

Gwen Sinclair (gsinclai@hawaii.edu), Chair, Government Documents & Maps Department, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Library

Notes

1. John Andriot was best known for his Guide to U.S.
   Government Publications. Laurence Schmeckebier wrote numerous guides to government agencies and was the
   author of Government Publications and Their Use.