ATG Star of the Week: Jonathan Harwell, Georgia Southern University

Name: Jonathan H. Harwell
Title: Coordinator of Content Management
Organization: Georgia Southern University
Address: PO Box 8074, Zach S. Henderson Library,
Statesboro, GA 30460-8074
Phone: 912-478-5114 (office)
Fax: 912-478-0289
Email: jharwell@georgiasouthern.edu
Website: http://blogs.georgiasouthern.edu/mesoj/

Born and Lived: born in Jackson, Alabama, also lived in Albania, Atlanta, Birmingham, etc.

Early Life: BA in English, Spanish minor, U of Southern Mississippi; MLIS from The University of Alabama; teacher in Albania for 2 years

Professional Career and Activities: Reference/ILL Librarian at Berry College; Reference Librarian for Education at U of Alabama at Birmingham; Chair of GIL OPAC Committee 2010-11; Honorable Mention, 2009, for SirsiDynix/ALA-APA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Promoting Salaries & Status for Library Workers

Family: married to Julie C. Harwell

In My Spare Time: hiking, canoeing, sea kayaking, movies, musical biographies, & odd tribute albums

Favorite Books: Cash: The Autobiography by Johnny Cash; and books on Quaker culture

Pet Peeves: not being able to search by journal title in WorldCat Collection Analysis, or to find links between specific names in Ancestry.com

Philosophy: I believe in creative, small-scale experimentation; shared, ethical decision-making; providing the resources needed to sustain the integrity of education; community engagement; and not making people’s lives more difficult just for the hell of it.

Most Memorable Career Achievement: co-developing (with Geoff Timms of Mercer University; he’s the programmer) OARS, an open-source subscription review tool which we plan to release soon

Goal I Hope to Achieve Five Years From Now: publishing a book on Quakers

How/Where Do I See the Industry in Five Years: Individual articles will be purchased, with perpetual access on sustainable pricing models, by libraries in lieu of big-deal packages or even individual subscriptions. Demand-driven acquisition programs will expand to manage these article purchases, after everyone suddenly realizes that a book is just a longer article, that one-time costs are the most sustainable way to budget, and that there’s no reason to have unsustainable annual costs for journal subscriptions. We’ll also finally figure out that e-books can be ILL’ed by simply providing temporary password access, and it won’t kill anybody.