The AGSL Guided Tour: An Interview with Georgia Brown

Posted on July 16, 2019 Updated on July 12, 2019

Interview conducted by Lauren Maddox

This week, I sat down with Graduate Student Intern Georgia Brown to discuss one of her recent projects for the AGSL. Georgia is part of the School of Information Studies coordinated degree program working to receive her Master’s in both Library and Information Science and History. She has been a key member of the AGSL staff since 2018, contributing to many projects for the library. Recently, she designed a guided tour of the AGSL to make our collections more accessible to visitors exploring the library. To learn more about the tour and how you can take it, read on:

So, we’ve started giving visitors your Self-Guided Tour of the AGSL to help them navigate the library—could you talk a little about what the Guided Tour is and your process for creating it? 

The guided tour helps people get into the space of the AGSL and really see more of the collection than is just out by the display cases. The process actually took a few months–I made a lesson plan last semester that had middle schoolers exploring the AGSL while also learning about the parts of a map. The lesson itself is a map of the library that the students use to figure out a different part of a map at each stop. After I made this, I realized that this would be an awesome way to have people just come visit the AGSL.  

How would a visitor go about a Guided tour? Could you describe the process of getting a Guided Tour and what visitors see on it? 

As soon as you walk into the AGSL, on the table to your right will be a stack of the guided tours. Someone on the library staff will ask if you need any help and if you are just there to look around, we’ll offer you the guided tour as a way to check out the library. 

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Why was this a necessary project? Has it made the AGSL more accessible to visitors? 

Lots of people come in to see the AGSL, and some will take the time to walk around and see everything. But one of my biggest frustrations is seeing visitors come in, spin once in a circle, and then leave. I realized there was probably more they wanted to see, but something about the space made it seem scary or hard to approach. Now that the guided tour is being handed to patrons and visitors, I feel like they are seeing more of what is on display.

What patrons benefit the most? What impact has this had on visitors’ experiences in the library? 

In the two weeks that I have been handing out the guided tour, I feel like only a third of the people who start it actually finish it in its entirety. The other two thirds, however, keep getting distracted by all of our other awesome materials on display. My goal with the tour was to get people into our space, and in just a short time, I have seen people just as interested in globes and maps that aren’t on the tour as the ones that are on the tour.

Did working on this project teach you anything about the AGS Library or about libraries in general?

One cool thing about putting this together was the amount of collaboration that went into it. After I made the first version, I gave a copy to five staff members and interns, and they each gave me their notes on the project.

Thank you Georgia for joining me for this interview. To take the tour yourself and see our amazing collection in person, visit the AGSL and take the guided tour! You can find us on the third floor of UWM’s Golda Meir Library, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We look forward to seeing you!