{"id":27580,"date":"2017-09-07T15:17:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T21:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=27580"},"modified":"2020-04-07T14:39:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T20:39:32","slug":"faculty-profile-being-a-librarian-is-about-more-than-books-for-tabby-farney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=27580","title":{"rendered":"Faculty profile: Being a librarian is about more than books for Tabby Farney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:<\/strong> This is the first in a series of faculty profiles highlighting the diverse and innovative faculty at UCCS.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most nights, Tabby Farney tucks her two daughters into bed, then joins her husband on the couch for video games. This is better than TV or books to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like reading a story, but you get to play it. I get to decide what the characters do,\u201d said Farney, 34. \u201cIt\u2019s the same with movies\u2014you\u2019re a voyeur. But in games you decide what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

She describes her current favorite role-playing game \u2014 The Legend of Zelda: A Breath of the Wild \u2014 as beautiful and soothing. She first tried gaming in her early teens after watching her brother play. She was hooked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u201cIt was the storyline,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to read fantasy novels, and it was a natural transition going from reading to playing fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaming even led to her future husband. She was 16 and working in the video game section at Toys R Us when he was as a customer. And now, 18 years later, it\u2019s how they spend their nights.<\/p>\n

Finding out she\u2019s an avid gamer \u2014 sometimes gaming means slaying zombies \u2014 isn\u2019t what people usually expect if they know her first as a UCCS librarian. Instead, she\u2019s used to hearing, \u201cYou must like to read books.\u201d<\/p>\n

But being a librarian is about so much more than books to her. Connecting with students. The technology. Endless learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are stereotypes for librarians like the shushers. But to me, it\u2019s all about access, making content accessible and making sure it\u2019s available to you,\u201d said Farney, associate professor at Kraemer Family Library and director of web services and emerging technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s never really a dull moment in the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her tasks include managing the library\u2019s website and helping students find the information they need. One recently asked for help with how climate change impacts wildlife migration in Colorado, so they researched it together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learn something new every day,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s never really a dull moment in the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, Farney was one of 10 librarians nationwide to win the I Love My Librarian Award from the American Library Association. She was commended for reaching out to students, many of whom are unfamiliar with the vast library resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, Tabby makes learning fun. She engages students \u2014 and faculty and staff,\u00a0for that matter \u2014 in a cooperative process of discovery and imagination,\u201d Donald Klingner, UCCS distinguished professor and former director of the public administration master\u2019s program, said when nominating her for the award.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Farney grew up in Illinois in a town with a population of 1,200, surrounded by cornfields, with little exposure to libraries or the internet.<\/p>\n

She thought she\u2019d be a high school English teacher. But it no longer felt like a good fit her junior year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She took a coding class through the library program and loved it so much that she pursued a minor in information technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really changed my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Farney became immersed in technology, something she hadn\u2019t even known she enjoyed until then. In 2007, she received a master\u2019s of science in library and information science from U of I before joining Kraemer Family Library the same year.<\/p>\n

She has authored nearly a dozen publications, including two books, with her research focusing primarily on digital and web analytics and making websites, and libraries, more user friendly.<\/p>\n

Farney didn\u2019t start using a library regularly until her junior year as an undergrad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember stepping into one of those libraries. It was complex,\u201d she said. \u201cThe person at the desk always looked so busy that I didn\u2019t want to bother them. That stuck with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that she\u2019s the one behind the desk, she makes eye contact and says hi. She encourages students to research smarter, not harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be afraid to ask questions. I feel it\u2019s my job to help them succeed,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so encouraging to see them graduate. I sleep very well at night knowing I helped with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Photos by Anslee Wolfe<\/em><\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of faculty profiles highlighting the diverse and innovative faculty at UCCS. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":27584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Tabby-Farney-0001.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-7aQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27580"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120869,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27580\/revisions\/120869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}