librarypunk - 162 - Fashion librarianship feat. Steph Noell

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

This week we’re joined by Steph to talk about fashion and librarianship: how it works, how they intersect, and how fashion is interdisciplinary. We also learn about how you get into this gig! Media mentioned Good general article: Frederiksen, Linda. “Fashion by Design.” Library Journal, vol. 131, no. 10, June 2006, pp. 79–81. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=297645b9-2580-3b4f-bdae-8ee2344a2633. Costume Institute article: Kazmi, Sahar. “A CENTURY OF FASHION: Library Collections Reflect the Evolution of 20th-Century American Style.” Library of Congress Magazine, vol. 13, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 14–19. EBSCOhost, https://www.loc.gov/lcm/pdf/LCM_2024_0102.pdf  ARLIS article: King, Lindsay M., and Russell T. Clement. “Style and Substance: Fashion in Twenty-First-Century Research Libraries.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 31, no. 1, Mar. 2012, pp. 93–107. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1086/664912   Library Journal's September By The Numbers focused on fashion libraries: “Fashion and Beauty.” American Libraries, vol. 56, no. 9/10, Sept. 2025, p. 11 https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/09/02/by-the-numbers-fashion-and-beauty/  All previous transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

I'm Justin. I'm an academic librarian. My pronouns are he and they. I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library and my pronouns are they them. I'm Jay. I'm a cataloging librarian. My pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? I'm Steph. I am a head librarian at a fashion library. And my pronouns are they then. I am so excited to queen out about this. You have no idea. I mean, part of my questions are going to be about fashion libraries, but I didn't know you had a whole fashion library there at your work. Yeah, so my library actually started as the Fashion

Institute of Design and Merchandising Library way back in the early 70s. So it is 50 plus years going strong. Was it like a corporate library that was on campus or is it always been academic? It started as a private university library. So Fidham, as it's colloquially known, started out in the late 60s and in the early 70s, they funded their library. And so for the first 50 years, it was a private college library that was mostly focused on fashion, but also just kind of art and design in general a little bit. And then it became a public fashion library just in the last three years. Nice. And so as a public fashion library, because it's part of a public university. right? Yes, it's part of Arizona State University now. Okay.

And that's the one in Tucson, right? Tempe. Tempe. Okay. I always forget which when I've been to Arizona a few times, it's always very pretty, but I always forget where I've been, like, what university I was at? Because I was at where Arizona University is, but I never went on campus, so I never properly made the connection in my head where I was because I was actually

attending something off campus. Yeah. So we're unique in that we're part of Arizona State University. We're now the California Center Library because we are located in downtown Los Angeles. Hmm. Okay. So very unique. Very unique. Yeah.

Pulling it all together. So what is it that you do at your job? So I'm the head librarian, which makes it sound like we have a team of librarians, but not necessarily the case. I've been there. But yeah, so my job is largely working with researchers and doing outreach to our students so that they know that we're here for them and how to access the library's resources. ASU libraries in general, they subscribe to over 700 databases. So that's a lot for any student to, you know, sift through. And then within the majors that I work with, which would be fashion and film, they're even more specialized.

So getting them to find the resources they're looking for among everything else that Arizona State University Libraries have going on, it's quite the task. So I'm happy to help streamline that process for them. So that's a lot of my job. And then also just kind of building up the collection, filling gaps, and doing collection management. and yeah, working with outside researchers. We have a lot of costume designers who come in to use the library for research. Most recently, or one of the more recent ones that we had was a group of costume designers who were working on, I think, a series on the upstairs lounge fire,

which happened in New Orleans in the late 60s prior to, you know, the Pulse Nightclub shooting. That was kind of the big mass casualty event in the LGBTQ community. So I'm really excited to see their finished product. So I'm curious, what kind of materials? Is it mostly books in film? Or do you have like patterns and actual clothing pieces in your library? Yes, we have a little bit of everything. So when I do my tours, I try to highlight the fact that we're both constantly looking to the past and the future.

And we're also constantly shifting depending on what. class we're talking about. So for costume designers, they have to be class conscious of, you know, how their characters are doing financially. And so their characters may not be able to wear all the stuff that's, you know, showing up in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, depending on what they do for a living. And so we have everything from, you know, the more high-end, haute couture stuff represented in our collections down to, you know, kind of more middle class. We have a lot of department store catalogs from the 20th century, which is usually a big throwback for a lot of our tour folks because they may not be interested in high fashion, but they remember growing up with

department store catalogs and coming out twice a year. And that's where all your birthday presents, your Christmas presents, your back-to-school clothes, all of that came out of there. And then we also have hundreds of sewing patterns in our sewing pattern collection, which spans back to the early 20th centuries. So we try to kind of have a full range and have good representation of, you know, every class of creation. So everyone wears clothes, but, you know, depending on how you're doing financially, you know, you may not be able to afford the designer stuff, but you can still make it work and be stylish. And then we also are constantly looking, you know, between the future and the past. We have our fashion future collection, which is our actual collection of garments and accessories,

where we are focusing in on innovative materials, techniques, you know, innovative approaches to the actual system of creation, you know, just from where you're sourcing things, or if it's, you know, something like upcycling. We try to have all of that represent. in our fashion future collection. And then we're also, we also, in the future realm, we're also collecting trend books, which are looking 18 months to two years in advance. So those trend predictive companies are, they have their own group of researchers who are looking at what are the trends that are emerging and what do we think are going to become kind of the big global trends that are going to take over in the next 18 months to two years.

But then we have, you know, things like our catalogs and our back issues of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and things like that that give our researchers kind of a nice breadth of options when it comes to what's going to inspire them, what's going to inform their designs, that sort of thing. Is the whole library a special collection, like everything has to go through a reading room? or is there like a browsable part and a special collection or is there no special collection? No, we have both. We have a small special collections that it needs a lot of TLC, but we have primarily our circulating collection of, you know, books that you can check out and, you know, non-circulating periodicals, which, you know, for creative majors,

I highly recommend having physical periodicals available because they would much rather browse. They don't want you to direct them to another digital resource. They want to have the physical items to browse. So our students get a lot out of our library because there's so much analog material to go through. Do that answer your question? How long have you been in this role

and how long have you been doing fashion libraries? So I've been at ASU California Center Library, formerly ASU Fidim Library, since August of 2024, so a year and a half now. And then prior to this, I had been a fashion librarian, the Savannah College of Art and Design, for a couple of years as well. So four years, coming up on four years as a fashion librarian from across a couple of different institutions. What were you going to ask you? I was just mainly going to point out that I imagine that. like all the fashion illustrations that I'm sure students are looking at as well are much easier to access in print than in any sort of database or like electronic form. Like I'm sure they're

there, but it's probably a lot easier. It's almost like our exhibition catalogs. Like I'm sure those are much easier like in a physical medium than digitized or electronic. Yeah. And you get them in context because, you know, things like, you know, the Vogue archive or the Harper's are archive databases. They're just doing it single page at a time or even down to articles at a time, which takes out of context. You're not getting the full context of, you know, the publication that it's appearing in. And then with our original illustrations, oh my God, I wouldn't want to try to digitize a lot of those, you know. I have a small collection of Edith Head designs. I literally found two binders of Edith Head costume binders, costume materials behind the

door in my office when I started. You did not. Yeah. You, oh my God. I told you I was going to queen out during this episode. With his head? What? And it has all the budgets for each costume. So you can see how much she was putting into her costumes. And the finished looks, she did it, she would take Polaroids of the finished looks. So we have, and they were kind of different parts of her career, because one's late 40s and one's like 60s.

Because the second, the newer, newer binder that I have is from a Jerry Lewis production that she was in. And it had Peter Laurie in it. So we've got some

Polaroids that Edith had took of Peter Lori. It's got John Carradine, the Carradine Patriarch in there as well. So yeah, just behind the door in my office, that's the kind of thing you can find in a fashion library. Oh my God. So I've, since I started, I have worked with a student intern to have those processed as archival collections because I'm like, these need to be acid-free environments. They need, you know, to be climate controlled. They don't need to be in a cardboard box in, you know, acidic binders and sleeves behind the door of an office. So, yeah, that's one of the fun things that I've gotten to do since I started here.

Damn. Neither had. So, was there... Sorry, never mind. No, go ahead. Like, were the Polaroids still, like, in good condition, or... Fairly good condition. She did enjoy using scotch tape. Good. Good for her. As you love to see in archives, you love to see a scotch tape and paper clips also.

Yeah. Well, the good thing about tape is it usually just falls off the page so you don't have to pull it off yourself. Yes, yeah. But they're all the discolored where the tape was. At least you can't make it any worse is the part that I'm like, well, at least it's already ruined. I can't like pry and take it off and make it. Whereas with paper clips, like you tend to rip stuff, and you're like, oh, no. There's a lot of stuff I've processed where it's like, that corner is just gone.

Yeah. That corner is just coming off. It's fine. Those staples were rusted. I'm just cut it off with scissors. It's fine. Yeah. Bane of my existence, paper clips, tape, and rubber bands.

I had a rubber band ball when I worked in special collections. And not all of them would still go into the rubber band ball, but I did start from nothing. And I had a rubber band ball like that big round of all the rubber bands I took out over the Two years I worked there. Oh man, most of the rubber bands I've come across, because I used to work in special collections, were desiccated. So they were just stuck to whatever they were wrapped around. When I worked at Skad, we had the Don Bluth archives.

So millions of original animation cells from, like, Secret of NEM, All Dogs Go to Heaven, you know, all those classic Bluth films. And, oh, my God, all the animation cells were wrapped. and they were sandwiched between cardboard and then wrapped in rubber bands. Oh, no. Cardboard's not that terrible, is it? Does it discolor?

It's acidic, so yeah, it does discolor. Thankfully, it hadn't been that long since the productions, so they weren't, the rubber bands, I think, were the worst offenders in that situation. Yeah, probably. So was there something that, led you to go into fashion librarianship, or did you just fall into it like a lot of us do? I kind of fell into it. My supervisor at SCAD had gotten another job, and so she had been the

fashion librarian. She had a design background. I have a theater background, so I guess that was the closest approximation. And I think that's kind of how a lot of people kind of fall into it, is they have a background in arts or design, and they are looking for libraries with strong emphasis on creative careers, creative industries, and fashion definitely checks those boxes for a lot of people. So, yeah, that's how I started, was taking over after somebody else had left and really dug in. I think my first year as a fashion librarian, I taught 99 classes. I didn't make it to 100, but I taught 99 classes.

So I really got to dig into the industry and what the students were needing to really kind of prepare to go out into the real world. And yeah, so I got a good glimpse at the professional development that was needed for a lot of our students as well as their research needs. Wow. Was it 99 different courses you did one shots in? you go back in the same ones, 99 different courses? All one shots. Wow. So that's one slide deck 99 times.

Yeah, but 99 different slide decks. Not necessarily, but still, like, pretty, you know, pretty up there in terms of, yeah, having to, you know, because I was, I was not gifted the instruction materials of my predecessor. So I was really starting from scratch when I took over. Probably a blessing. I never teach with someone else's stuff. It's like wearing someone else's underwear. It's not. You got to really like them. Is there a lot of fashion librarians who work in like corporate libraries? Is there like when you meet other fashion librarians, are they mostly corporate? Are they mostly academic? Sure. Yeah. There's pretty much, and all of the major brands

have their own archives and private research libraries. So there are librarianship, librarian positions and archives positions and digital asset manager positions within kind of corporate environments. So for instance, Gap was recently hiring in San Francisco for an archival assistant. I know Nike has their library up in Beaverton, Oregon. Carhart has their archive in Michigan. So yeah, a lot of the big brands have their own archives and libraries that need librarians and archivists. Yeah, I think I saw some openings when I was on the job hunt, but they were so specific about like the background. I didn't even bother because they really wanted people who had a pretty steep background in another field already. They didn't just want, and I think it was like reference kind of work.

They really didn't want someone uninitiated to jump in. and start doing reference work. They wanted someone who had a bachelor's at least and something related. Yeah, I think that's going to be more common in the corporate space in higher education. You know, they're a little bit more flexible on that. Yeah, I don't remember where this was at. Like, what do I got to do to be the like taxonomist for Mugler? Oh my God. Like, what do I got to do? You and me both. Oh, my God.

We have a few muclare pieces in our museum, because we also have a museum in our building. And, oh, my God, I just drool over them every time I see them. And there's even some original Mugler illustrations in there. Yes. Yes. So good. Are we going to have to go to take a field trip, Jay? Yeah.

Let's come visit. show me the muclair it'd be easier for sadie we can we'll do a live show and that way we'll all be in the same next time aLA is in like California or something yeah yeah SAA was just in annaime which is how I felt out with the Carhart

Archives because the Carhart Archives was there yeah okay are you involved with like the professional organizations like I wrote down that there's the art library's society of North America is like that the big Yeah, Arlis has, colloquially known as Arliss N.A. Arlis has the fashion textile and costume or FTC special interest group or SIG.

So, yeah, that's kind of the primary group for folks who are interested in this area of librarianship. And I've also worked with the Costume Society of America or CSA, our local chapter. great researchers, great group to get involved with, and if nothing else to make connections with, you never know how helpful that can be. But also, CSA does a lot of really great lecture series, and that's where I've mainly gotten involved with them is through where we're all going to the same lectures. Makes sense. Those are the two main ones that I can think of.

So you mentioned that you are a solo librarian, basically, but Is there other non-library people that you're working with, like at the museum or like any kind of like restorationists or preservationists, anything like that? So my library, we currently have four staff members. I'm the only official librarian, but, you know, they still call me the head librarian. And did you know how it is outside of libraries? Everyone just thinks everyone who works in a library is a librarian. So that's just kind of how it goes. but I have my public services coordinator who does have a background in fashion.

Specifically, she's super into like millinery. So she needs a hat made, Jennifer is your gal. But also we have my cataloger who does have an MLIS, but we don't have a position for a cataloging library. And so he has more of a paraprofessional role here. And then we also have a facilities manager. So that's who I work with on the day-to-day basis. And then outside of the library staff, yes, we have the museum, which we actually share space with them.

Some of their collection storage is housed in the library. In fact, the museum started as part of the library and then just got to be too big to, you know, to coexist in the same space. So now they're their own thing. And, you know, they have, you know, one of the most, like a world-class fashion collection on the West Coast. So, yes, I work with the three curators of the museum quite a bit. And then also our faculty members as well, both in the ASU Fiddam program, as well as our film program through the Sydney Portier School. So primarily, yeah.

I'm just writing a note for Sadie. Is this, you said it's like one of the largest collection, Is this like a big, is this like a very big museum on the West Coast? It's like one of the larger ones for fashion? In terms of, you know, fashion specialized collections, yes, yeah. It's, I'm trying to think of their holdings numbers. Because I know within, because they have two different collections. They've got their museum collection.

Then they also have a study collection for researchers who want to actually be able to handle the materials. And so sometimes if they get duplicate, the lesser of the duplicates will go in the study collection, or if something's not quite museum quality, it goes in the study collection. So the study collection, I want to say, is like 1,500 items, and then the museum collection is at least 10 times that amount. So they've got a pretty decent range of materials in their collection. Nice.

You mentioned the students are mostly, like, specialized, but when we're thinking about, well, actually, let's just start with collection development. So when you're doing collection development, what are you focusing on besides the typical e-resources? What are you getting this kind of unique to fashion? I try to stay away from the e-resources unless it's, you know, I have to pick a database to subscribe to. So, you know, one of the things I've added since I've been here was the video fashion database, which is good because we also have a lot of video fashion DB. and VHS tapes, and those our students aren't going to use as much as they're going to use a database

for that kind of resource. But for collection development, I'm constantly, part of it is keeping up with what the new stuff that's coming out, which there's always new things. So we try to kind of focus on publishers who release a lot of fashion titles. So Tashon's great, Fadon's great. Scribner, which I think is under Schuster, Simon & Schuster now. They've got some solid titles. And then pretty much anything you would find in the Berg Fashion Library, Bloomsbury puts out a lot of really great resources. Yeah, so on top of keeping up with those major publishers

that have kind of dedicated subjects for fashion, we also, or part of my job is to locate gaps in the collection. And there are so many. That's where it's kind of leading into, which is as the field re-evaluates itself due to critical studies and things like that, you know, things that are missing, how does that start to affect what you're buying? Yeah. Sometimes the, sometimes the frustrating thing is, if, you know, if there's a gap, nobody's filled it with a book yet. So sometimes it's just me collecting all the articles that I can find and adding them to our clippings files, because we actually have a physical clippings files. So that's the other thing that that's one of the things that I love in our library.

And it's one of the kind of unsung heroes of our library are our clippings files because not everything is online and not everything becomes, you know, not every person gets a, book. So for instance, recently I put together all these articles that I had come across when I was researching Ola Hudson. Ola Hudson, she was a designer who designed for like the Pointer Sisters, David Bowie and like all these like major stars from like the 60s and 70s. And also fun fact, she she slashes mom. Oh. Yes. So his mom. was a fashion designer and also dancer, and his dad was a British photographer. So she doesn't have a book,

but I know that there are going to be researchers who are going to want to research her, and her clippings file had like one or two things in it. So I took everything that I had found in my research and added that to her clippings file so that some future researcher will have an easier job. And how do people use the clippings files? Like, do you have like an EAD of every of every folder in there? Or do people just have to kind of just browse? They're individually cataloged in Alma.

So in Primo, if you're searching for that person's name, their clippings file will come up. And, I mean, it's not going to be the most descriptive catalog record. Sure. But if you are searching for a specific person's name or a specific brand name, their clippings file will come up. And we have thousands of clippings files. So there's a lot of

clippings files that come up in searches where, you know, there are no books written about this person. So it's a vital resource. It's something that I wish wasn't as necessary as it is, but is really, really helpful for researchers. And also there's so many things in there that are Outside of, you know, your standard magazine articles and things like that, for instance, back in the day when designers would actually put out physical publications for each of their collections, we have a bunch of those collection catalogs in our clippings files because that's just where we put them. So, you know, if you go in our file on baby fat, for instance, there are baby fat collection catalogs in the baby fat file. So if you're researching Camor Lee, you know, that's a really great resource in terms of looking at her business, one of her businesses. Do people outside of your institution, like find it through WorldCat and go, oh, there's this clippings file and then like reach out and do research? I haven't had that happen, but I have had, we've promoted, because when I, when I'm doing my displays in the library,

I try to promote not just books, but also DVDs and the clippings files. So I try to have a nice range of formats on display so that anyone who visits the library can see that there's a bunch of different things that you can pull from for your research or your interest. And so we had done a Black History Month post last month. And one of the images that we had was one of the items from the Ola Hudd and Clippings File, and we had a researcher reach out who's researching her, and I was able to connect them with all the other articles that I had found. So I can't remember if that answered your question or not. I've already forgotten. I've just been interested in Clippings files, because

there used to be a lot of discussion on, like, how do you have, like, a digital clippings files of, like, saving things from the web and adding them to, like, your vertical file. And I'm just curious if there's like any, like if you've got the idea for cataloging the vertical files from other like special collections or if this is just something you did out of necessity and don't know if anyone else is doing. I think it was done out of necessity within the library. This, this was being done, you know, decades before I got here. It used to be someone's full-time job just to go through every major publication and clip out anything related to designers, brands, retailers, and a small section on architects.

Because we used to have an architecture program here, but we don't anymore. So our architecture collections are kind of neglected at this point. But yeah. Something I think that fascinates me about this is I'm always fascinated when, like, library information science sort of butts up against a format or medium. it was never meant to describe in the first place. And I think with like fashion, especially in this context, like so much of fashion, even hauteur and like high fashion and everything,

is sort of relegated to sort of the like ghetto of pop culture and not necessarily academia. And so it's like how then does a library collect materials about this if they're not sort of traditionally published and then put forth through that Like how do you sort of even know, like, where to look, what to grab and when, how long to hold on to it, how to describe it and for who? When all of our standards largely are not meant to do any of that in the first place. So, yeah, I think it's just like I love it when these kinds of contradictions come up. Well, and it's, yeah, it's also difficult because a lot of the critical analysis,

you see, it's about the same like 10 designers. And they're great. And they are absolutely part of the fashion pantheon. But it also means that a lot of these other designers are not getting anywhere near that level of coverage. So it does require also, you know, all of these additional resources that aren't available at the academic level, you know, because no academics are writing about them.

And it's really frustrating as a fashion librarian that, you know, I have so many academic resources on all of these high-end designers, typically white men, cis white men. And I cannot get anything beyond a juvenile coverage of Vera Wang, for instance. You're kidding. There's only juvenile books written. about Bureau Wang. And that's like a big name. Right. Even I know that name and I'm like, excuse me? Yeah. Household name. Nothing beyond,

you know, what you would, you know, give to your like elementary or middle schooler for information. So yeah, it's as a fashion library and this is the stuff that really like gets me fired up and really upset because I see their legacies. And, you know, I am so frustrated that nobody else is seeing their significance and writing these, you know, at least give me, you know, a retrospective. Give me a career retrospective. I'll be happy with that. I don't even need anything like, you know, super, you know, super academic. I just need you to give me like the basic level of research that literally everybody else has. And sometimes it takes the designer doing it themselves.

Like Betsy Johnson, she wrote her own memoir because, like, when I was working at Skad, she was one of the number one designers that we would have research questions about. There were no books on her. So, yeah, she wrote her own memoir. And now there's actually a book on Betsy Johnson on the shelf. So, yeah. I was not to ask, I'm like, surely like Betsy Johnson has got to be, wow, okay. Yeah, that's just in the last decade.

that she finally got a book. And, you know, I have on my shelf a 1979, God, it wasn't Ed Sullivan. It was one of the other late-night hosts. I can't remember who it was off the top of my head. But she was on a late-night show in 79, showing her first collection for the 80s. All of the models are on skates or on quad skates,

including Betsy herself is also on quad skates. and that was the fashion show was everybody's on quad skates and Betsy Johnson designs and that was how she kind of rung in the 80s. So yeah, someone who's been working that long, you know, it's taken this long for a book to be written about her and it had to be her memoir because nobody else was writing it. Wow.

And you said primarily like it's like students, sometimes in external researchers. And I guess what I'm sort of curious because fashion is so interdisciplinary, I guess what's a like students in a major like what's almost like unexpected like for somebody who maybe didn't who would like a major you maybe wouldn't think that would be researching fashion stuff in your library but is relevant to what they're doing like what's been one that surprised you maybe. Well I only work with two majors. Oh, okay. I just work with fashion.

So I think unexpectedly related to that question, so we did a z. competition. Okay. The museum just opened a new exhibit on 90s fashion. And so, you know, very in line with the 90s theme, we decided to do a zine competition for the students. And I actually had two film students submit zines. One is on kind of unisex fashion in the 90s, and one was on F1 fashion.

Oh, cool. So it was a good, I think that was the surprising thing for me. was that the film students were submitting to the zine competition as well, even though it was for this fashion opening, fashion collection opening, it warmed to my heart that our film students were also wanting to get involved. Are there, with like your collections, are, are there any times when you butt up against copyright issues that are kind of unique to fashion? Thankfully, I have not had to deal with any kind of copyright issues. We don't do interlibrary loans. So that's cut out a lot of copyright questions that we might have had. And yeah, we haven't

had anybody using the special collections in a way that I would have to worry about that. So so far, we're good. But yeah, I think when you get into like the original illustrations and photographs and things like that, so like once our Edith Head collections are officially open for public researchers, which I'm still working on that with our special collections team in Arizona, to get everything. Because we have the finding aid. Everything's processed. It literally just has to get put up online. So yeah, once those are publicly available for research, that may be something we have, bridge we have to cross. But yeah, so far have not had any issues, but also I will say the paper trail, not great here.

That's normal. Yeah, so not a lot of provenance for a lot of things. So that's the thing that I would worry about when it comes to copyright is do we actually legally own this? And so it's like things that were donated and you're not sure if the paperwork was done properly or something? Yeah, there's no. transfer of ownership, paperwork, not even a gift form. So, yeah, so much of, I mean, yeah, credit to my intern who processed our Edith Headbinders who put in the research and figured out where these came from. They actually came from a former staff member. So,

wow. Yeah, shout out to the last name was coffee. So it's the coffee collection. Yeah, shout out to her. I don't think she's still around, but shout out to her for donating these to the library. And yeah, shout out to my intern who figured that out. Are there any, like, persistent problems? You already mentioned, like, a lot of the gaps in the coverage of different designers, but are there any other, like, persistent problems in the field that you would like to see addressed, either in, like, the library side of things or just, like, the field of fashion that would,

if you had like an ideal kind of like, what would fashion libraries look like in your ideal world? What are some of the issues that like you would want to see addressed? I think for fashion research, it has to be a pretty wide, you know, range of subjects, designers, geographic areas. Like one of the things that is a struggle is global fashion for us, especially right now with all the tariffs. I just got hit with my second surprise tariff issue. So, yeah, you'll order something, and then all of a sudden it, like, doubles in price because of the tariffs and things like that. Yeah. So it's making it really hard to get global fashion representation in the collection.

So, yeah, for fashion libraries, can we do away with tariffs? But also, yeah, the access to a wide variety of materials and voices, because, yeah, as we mentioned earlier, like, it's a lot of the same voices are, you know, continually being highlighted and at the detriment to others who were also there and also working. So, yeah, kind of my idealized fashion library would have a mix of, you know, the DIY all the way up to the Oat Couture, the, you know, historical materials. up to future trends and a lot of things that are rethinking the supply chain, the materials that are being used, the way that we're designing and highlighting the body. And, you know, yeah, so I'm working on it at my library, but it's, yeah, it's never going to be perfect. That's just any library collection. But yeah, anything that, like, my ideal fashion library would be anybody could

come in and find something that they can connect with, that resonates with them and inspires them. That's my goal as a librarian in general. So it just kind of naturally is how I approach fashion librarianship. So yeah, a lot of my best ideas come from my patrons. You know, they come in, they're asking for something if we don't have it. My first instinct is to find it, is to find a copy that we can order or to at least find another library with something that I can connect them with. But yeah, it's also well-staffed. Yeah. What sort of like, since this is such, I guess, like a niche aspect of librarianship,

what sort of continuing education or professional development is available to you or that you do or that you wish you could do? like what's it look like to sort of continue in this career? I think that I'm still working on the professional development side of things just because I'm wearing so many hats in my day-to-day that I, unless it is something local, I'm probably not going to make it. So for me, professional development would be like, could it be in the L.A. area?

That would be great. But, yeah, so I, the only professional development I've really gotten to do since I started was going to SAA, but that's because it was in Anaheim. And it worked out because I did get to learn about other collections that were similar subjects, which is kind of the goal for me of a lot of professional development conferences

and events and workshops and things is just to meet my peers in other institutions, see what's working for them, what are they doing, and kind of building the best practices from there. But yeah, I wish I had more time to travel. Yeah, because I, yeah, I was really hoping to go to Montreal this year for Arliss, and I'm not going to be able to. Yeah, yeah, I remember when I, so for a couple years, I was the library director, aka only librarian, at a music conservatory.

And music librarianship, I think it sounds very similar, where it's so niche. often you are one librarian filling many roles. You do cataloging. You do reference and instruction. You do acquisitions. You do systems. You do all of it. And also because there's such this sort of niche intellectual aspect of it that is not sort of standard to a lot of general collections, that it's almost, it feels very isolating to the rest of librarianship. Like, luckily, music librarians have a very rich little group and all the music librarians know each other. But like when I was a music library, I didn't do any other professional development basically because like nothing at ALA was relevant to me. Like nothing at any other library conference was was relevant to me. And music

complicates every aspect of librarianship in ways that I don't think librarians who have never worked with music collections can appreciate. And it's, it's, sounds like fashion is very similar. In that regard, like, do you often, like, do you feel isolated from the rest of the profession ever because of that? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

And for instance, I did, I did a talk with a couple of my colleagues who are in Tempe, and they work on, you know, our cereals. So they're, bless their hearts. They're having to figure out how to order all of these indie publications for me. But we were giving our presentation and we talked about the emphasis on, you know, physical, like, analog periodicals. Everyone was kind of gobsmacked because most of the profession has moved away from that. And also, like, the death of media and all of that.

But not here. That is not the case here. So so much of my job is trying to find those unique publications that will inspire our students, inform our students, and they're not easy to get when you're at like an R1, because the processes for ordering periodicals are meant for these large publishers titles and indie publications, they're doing more with less like we are, you know, in a lot of these niche, you know, specialized libraries. So yeah, no, it's definitely its own thing.

And I'm glad that music librarians have that. I don't know fashion librarians. Yeah. We have Arlis and that's kind of it. But in my experience, a lot of the Arlis Sigs aren't as active as say like some of the ALA groups. So I think that's a struggle for a lot of Arlis Sigs is just kind of that moment, building up that momentum. Although I can't speak specifically to the FTC sig. They may be killing it.

I haven't gotten the chance to really get involved in much since I started here just because my job was to come in and move this library from private to public. And that shift is not easy. So just doing the outreach and the policy writing and all of this is it's a lot. But I took this job because it was a unique position. You know, it was when else are you going to, I am a strong advocate for public research libraries. And so for me, the chance to take a private library and transition it to a public research library was too good to pass up, you know, especially for a fashion library. Because I think that, again, it's something that everyone can find something. something that they're interested in, you know, within the collection. So it's, and it's something

that would be of interest to a large, you know, group of researchers that maybe don't realize that we're now a public research library. They can make an appointment to come in and use our resources. So, yeah, a lot of my job has just been doing outreach and making sure people know that, yes, you can come back. You don't have to be a student here to use our library. You mentioned DIY. I'm interested in two things. One specifically like drag and ball culture in terms of like your collections, but also what you're able to do or would like to do with like in your local area in terms of like bringing fashion in.

Like what what subcultures are you focused on that you're like, I need to make a collection for this. Yeah, that is actually, that has actually come up because I'm always. also the local liaison for the LGBTFSA Faculty Staff Association at ASU. So one of the ideas we were pitching is FITM, Legacy Fitem, had a lot of alumni who went on to design for like drag race stars. So I'm like, let's get them in. Let's have some public programming promoting our alumni. and also, you know, this really great subculture that has become like a global movement, you know, you know, everyone knows about drag race now.

So it would be great to highlight our alumni and, you know, show off because they're behind the scenes. They're not necessarily getting, you know, all the accolades. But their designs are. Their designs on the show are. Yeah, because none of them designs their own shit anymore. They all, like, take out loans beforehand and get things designed. People are walking in with five figures of debt just for their designs. So, yeah, absolutely.

That's something that I would love to get going here, and we have the community available. So, yeah, in the future, you'll be seeing, I'm sure, a drag race designer panel. But also for me personally, I grew up in going to, like, punk clubs. So I'm also going to be drawn to like a lot of the DIY aesthetics and a lot of our students who are doing a lot of upcycling. They're the ones who I've definitely connected with because I get their kind of process. I get, you know, their points of influence and, you know, kind of where they're coming from as designers. So I'm always kind of trying to keep an eye out for the things that are that they're looking for

because they're not necessarily going to be what, you know, the people who are wanting to work at, like, the high-end brands are looking for, you know. Maybe they're, you know, a couple of my students, their projects, their capstone projects, they're working on, you know, things that are inspired by, like, military. because like you, when you're, you know, growing up in the punk scene, you're wearing a lot of, like, military surplus. And one of my students is doing a punk take on Roman costumes, like Roman military costumes. So I'm like, I'm really intrigued to see what they come up with. So, yeah, the military is definitely a big part of that, but also, you know, kind of what's in, the second hand stores. So for me, when I was their age, I was wearing a lot of 70s stuff, because that's what was in the secondhand stores. So I'm rocking my like polyester in Florida,

not the best environment for polyester. And so yeah, that's, so I'm also kind of keeping an eye on what's in the thrift stores and the secondhand shops because it is going to be, you know, stuff from 20 years ago. So, yeah, and also the sewing patterns are a big hit with my DIY students as well. So I'm making sure that they know about them and that they have access to them and helping them figure out how to make their own patterns out of the patterns, because they can't just, you know, take the patterns home with them. They have to, like, use either tracing paper to make their own patterns or they make photocopies,

which is fun for sewing patterns because they're so large. Yeah. I imagine those are also easier to collect in terms of like, because there's other things. Like I'm thinking about like the leather archives. They have just tons and tons of like vests. And probably you can't really do anything with them because they've been donated over the years.

And there's just so many. And so like are you having limitations with DIY in terms of like, are people approaching you with donations? or are you like looking to solicit donations? And then there's there, what's the, the issues around that kind of, like any ethical concerns, stuff like that? Sewing pattern, absolutely happy to solicit donations for our sewing pattern collection. When it comes to like our garment collection, our fashion future collection, that does incorporate

things like upcycling, we do have to be a little bit more rigid. in what we'll take, because most of that was purchased. Most of that collection was purchased. So not necessarily something we're actively seeking donations for, but I'm not opposed to it either. It just kind of have, we have to be a little bit more, trying to think of the word, exact in what we, exacting and what we choose for that collection,

because it is so specific. Yeah, like, I think I've been sort of percolating and how this might relate to the work that you do is like obviously the sort of like environmental crisis that is like the sustainability of fast fashion and stuff like that. Like how has that intersected with your work like in policies or collection development or anything and all like that? I think it's one of the themes of a lot of our collection development is, you know, how are we going to deal with this?

but also we are accepting donations for instance, for what we call our swatch room. Because our students have to make a lot of mood boards. And so we try to make sure that they have resources available for free in our swatch room. And so they have fabric samples that were donated from Fox fabrics. We have tons of magazines and trims. and notions and buttons and all kinds of things in there. And anything that they would need to create their mood board,

we try to have in there. And it's all free for them to use and cut up however they see fit. So that is one of the areas where we actively solicit donations because this is something that we provide for free for the students. It's not something that we're necessarily going to be maintaining. Like, you know, if a book gets donated and it spine breaks, we have to rebind it. but like if it's in the swatch room, it's meant to be destroyed.

So I think a lot of the things that would have otherwise gotten thrown away wind up in our swatch room for reuse. So that is one way that kind of the, we try to close some of that loop, at least so that it has a new life in another way. And actually our campus is doing a student closet. So right now we're soliciting. donations of clothing for a student closet that will be opened up for Earth Day. And so everyone is able to kind of offload some of their, you know, wardrobe that isn't serving them anymore. And then the

students can shop for free on Earth Day and just load up on everything that they need for their own projects or, you know, their own wardrobe, whichever they, they're shopping for. And we have so many students who are upcyclers, I know they're going to just absolutely riot in a good way for that. I'm very excited for that next month. Is there to like round out? Are there any, well, just tell us about your favorite collections and items so that Jay can get all his queening out done. So some of my favorite collections, oh my gosh. So I've mentioned the clippings files. There's that literally every time I go into them I find something that makes my jaw drop.

So there's so many unique items in there. In our special collections, and actually you can see kind of behind me what's on this desk behind me is Visionaire, which is speaking of periodicals. So this was a periodical that was put out by Condé Nast. And it,

I think they only got 69 issues, I want to say. It stopped in, I think, 2020 was their last issue that started in the early 90s. And the initial issues that came out were just kind of like print sets. So it was like an art periodical where they partnered with artists, designers, you know, just kind of creatives in general for each issue. And so they would be like a guest editor. And then they would have a bunch of other artists who would contribute. So they would, the first few issues were just kind of print sets mainly. But then they really started kind of breaking the mold of what a periodical is. So it became toy sets. So each set had like toys designed by different artists or different designers. Sets of posters. So like the prints got real big and now you have like a roll of posters.

They did one that was all protest posters in 2016. So you had your artist designed protest posters to take to the protests. And one of the more recent ones that they did was a set of three candles. And those are the bane of my existence because they smell so bad. Oh, no. They smell so bad. And if you are in a room with them, they will give you a headache. They smell so bad.

It's not necessarily that they're bad, but they're just so strong. It's a very strong smell. So let me see. What's behind me? Oh, let me grab these real quick. So this is the set of artist toys that visionary put out So you've got You've got, I think that's Vivian Westwood in the bottom

You've got R. Crum, which, man But yeah, so each one is done by different artists. They're very cute. Oh, no, this is not Vivian Westwood. The other toy set was Vivian Westwood. This one I don't read out so mature But yeah

So and they're all like Metrorich guys Nesting dolls Yeah So each one is an individually Design doll They all nest within each other All the nesting dolls are

done by the same artist And then there's a whole set of them So that was that was number 50 And they still did like almost 20 more Issues after this one So yeah Visionaire is one of my favorites It is the most challenging because they're all, I mean, there's like a three foot tall poster book with Lady Gaga on the cover.

Yes. And unfortunately, that's where we have to stop because we had an issue with Steph's audio. So thanks again, Steph for coming on the episode. Sorry, we lost some of the conversation about the collections, but feel free to check them out by looking in the show notes. So thanks, everyone. Good night.