Jessica Moran is one of only eight people, and the second woman, to be The Alexander Turnbull Libraries’ chief librarian since it was opened in 1920.

Jessica has worked in libraries and archives for over 20 years, including academic, government, and research. This includes 13 years at the Alexander Turnbull Library, where she has worked as a digital archivist, digital collections services leader, and Associate Chief Librarian for Research Collections. She was Acting Chief Librarian from February 2024 until being appointed into the role in July.

Originally from California, Jessica has a master's degree in library and information science from San Jose State University, and in history from San Francisco State University, along with a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Emile Donovan asked Jessica what she thinks Alexander Turnbull would make of the library today?

“I think he would be quizzical but be ok about it. He was concerned with a couple of things: for the library to be owned by the crown and to be for all New Zealanders. I think he would be pleased to see how it has turned into a wonderful research library for all.”

The Alexander Turnbull Library began with the gift from Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull, who, on his death in 1918, bequeathed his magnificent library to the nation. He had built a comprehensive collection relating to New Zealand and the Pacific, summed up in his own words: 'anything whatever relating to this Colony, on its history, flora, fauna, geology and inhabitants, will be fish for my net, from as early a date as possible until now'.

“We're still throwing our net – but it’s often a different net now,” said Jessica.

A career librarian and archivist, Jessica says it was a complete accident ending up in libraries. They were hiring library assistants at her university library and Jessica applied.

“It was supposed to just be a summer job, but I ended up working there during my time at university. It set me on the path of libraries. I worked in a couple of areas, inter-library loans and research. Other libraries would request articles and books – it was my job to look them up and find them. I got to see the range of things people were searching for and learned how to read citations and search catalogues.” 

“I had another job there, looking at historical papers, researching Emma Goldman an anarchist and women’s rights political activist in the US at the turn of the century. But her papers were dispersed rather than being held in one or two archives. This was in the late 1990s at the beginning of the World Wide Web, and I could see at this stage how the internet would change how we worked and what we could do digitally. This set me on another path – libraries interconnecting and libraries in the digital area. 

“You have to embrace the digital area as a librarian,” she says. “There are thousands of pieces of paper, books, and manuscripts, as well as many petabytes of data, that we interact with at the Alexander Turnbull. It’s been a digital library for decades, and it's how we operate now. Digitally first – there are always interesting challenges working in this area. 

What are the big things on Jessica’s plate that await her in this role?

“The thing I'm really excited about at the moment is coming together with Archives in the shared heritage campus. We will provide a shared reading room and access to collections from the Alexander Turnbull Library and National Library and Archives NZ. It will be better for everyone to come to one place when researching across our collections. We will continue to be separate institutes but will work closely together when the reading room opens in September.

While there is a diverse range of collections available, one of Jessica’s favourites is the Katherine Mansfield papers – “they are so rich, there’s so much in that collection, and people come from all over the world to research it”.

Asked about the decision to dispose of some of the National Library's general, circulating lending collection, Jessica says this was a collection management decision. This collection was out of date, not being accessed, and often the content was online – so the decision was made. 

“We have to make decisions on space and be thoughtful about the use of the space and what's included. If we want to continue developing the Alexander Turnbull collection, we need to find space for it. And if we don’t dispose of books that are not being used, we have no space for new material that people do want to use and preserve.”

“This gets to the heart of what we do as librarians – it’s not just about collecting everything but being thoughtful and managing the space, the infrastructure, the people and thinking about what’s most important to keep in the national collection.” 

“It’s more than Dewey Decimal!” commented Emile. 

READ MORE

• https://natlib.govt. nz/blog/posts/introducing-thenew- chief-librarian-and-directorlibrary-collections
• Image credit: Mark Beatty