Spread across the four floors of North Park University’s Brandel Library is an interconnected, well-coordinated operation of staff and faculty. Students can enter the campus hub, which the staff has coined the “Base Camp,” and find an answer to a question they didn’t even know they had. This is made possible by a combination of instruction librarians and collections managers.

Matthew Ostercamp, director of Brandel Library, described the space as a welcoming environment where students can access almost everything they need to put their best selves forward.

“Our staff got together and asked ourselves, ‘What do we want to bring to campus?’” said Ostercamp. “And we decided to be champions of joy, curiosity, and justice.”

These tenets often come into the library’s daily work.

“My work absolutely has to do with justice,” said Jayde Rose, assistant professor of information literacy. “I’m a first-generation college student, and the first time I had a librarian show me how to access databases correctly, I felt like I had the keys to make it to the next level.”

Resource librarians like Rose, Interim Electronic Resources Librarian Brittany Poku, and Assistant Professor of Information Literacy Dr. Evan Kuehn instruct students in accessing databases, researching, creating thesis questions, and supporting their arguments. Their help is available to all students.

“We often talk about scholarship as a conversation,” said Kuehn. “When a student is writing a paper, they’re conversing with the reader, even if that reader is their professor giving them a grade. I help students jump into that conversation, which might be natural for some and brand new for others.”

A group of students rounds out the team, bringing color and light to the library. Head of Public Services Bethany Bates manages the student workers who staff the front desk, decorate, and introduce new clubs to the space. She also manages the physical library, ensuring students are directed to the right staff member.

“We’ve got a good team here. We know each other, the work we do, and how it intersects,” said Bates. “Every student who walks in is unique and has a different set of needs. Our job is to be ready to listen to them and try to meet those needs.”