It is hard to believe that I have been connected to this place in some way for nearly four decades. I came as an undergrad and joined the UT Libraries team as a student shelver, working in the stacks, in reference, and in the newfangled Electronic Information Center while studying for my graduate degree. I joined the full time staff when I graduated and have had the privilege to work on amazing projects with amazing people ever since. We explored what it meant to build collections on the Internet, we built out digitization services, and we helped define digital preservation. I leave having had the joy of working with a small team to understand the impact of emerging AI and piloting considered applications of the technology in real workflows. The technology kept changing but the mission never did: Make knowledge discoverable. Keep knowledge safe. Share knowledge as widely as possible.
To my colleagues here at UT, across the state, and throughout the broader libraries and archives community: thank you. It has been an honor working with you all. Thank you for the collaboration, patience, and shared purpose.
I continue to be fascinated by the intersection of new technology and collecting practices: how each wave of change, from the web, to digitization, to AI, reshapes what we collect, how we describe it, what we do to make sure it is available, and how we keep it safe for the long haul. I intend to stay engaged with those questions, and if the right challenge in this space finds me, I will be listening.
If our paths have crossed anywhere in this community, I would love to stay connected. All the best.
/Aaron