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Rebecca Hyde is a Research & Instruction Librarian and Associate Professor at Pius XII Memorial Library at St. Louis University.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
There are so many great parts of my job, but my favorite is helping people with government information! SLU was designated a federal depository library in 1866, so we have a great collection of historical material, as well as access to all the modern-day government information. The US government is interested in everything, which means I get to help patrons with all kinds of interesting research projects. Obscure aerospace reports from the 1950s, census data for community analysis (past and present), statistics on everything (yay!), historical legislative documents, recent congressional hearings, and so much more! You never know what is coming next and there is always something new and interesting to learn.
What’s the one piece of advice you would tell someone new to the field?
Get involved with professional organizations in whatever way you can and find people in them to mentor you and introduce you to others. SLA-St. Louis is great because it helps you develop a network of librarians in the St. Louis area, but also look for organizations at the state and national level that attract the librarians who do what you want to do.
What has been your favorite SLA event?
I’ve only been active in SLA for about a year, but so far last year’s Holiday Happening at Grbic was my favorite event. There was wonderful company and conversations, lots of fun auction items, and those cabbage rolls were one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten!
What’s your favorite new app, program, or website? How has it made your life or work easier?
I used to favorite tons of tweets with links to articles and then never go back to read them. In the last couple months I started using an app called Pocket that allows you to save articles to read later and even allows you to read articles while offline. Now when I have 15 minutes to spare and want something to read, I just open Pocket on my phone, iPad, or computer and I have lots of interesting and relevant articles to read. I highly recommend it and not least because it’s so fun to say, “Oh, this article looks interesting, I’ll put it in my Pocket!”
What’s your favorite metro St. Louis area restaurant/food/landmark?
My favorite St. Louis landmark is definitely the Botanical Garden. It’s beautiful in all seasons and has lots of great events. My absolute favorite parts are the Climatron and the Shoenberg Temperate House. I grew up in Florida and moved to St. Louis in 2011 after 6 years in San Diego, so those two parts of the garden are like trips “home” in any season.
Lastly, how can people connect with you?
Email: rhyde1 (at) slu (dot) edu
Twitter: @altair77
LinkedIn: Rebecca Hyde