The following story is republished from Cornell’s Human Resources website.
Cornell University Library is a complex web woven by individuals who each play a critical role in upholding the principles of inquiry, scholarship and knowledge. For many Cornellians, the true depth of the Library remains unknown, extending beyond the wrought-iron stacks and arched enclaves of books and rooted at the very core of the institution. Since the university’s inception, the library has served as a foundation; if it were to crumble, much of research, instruction and innovation would cease to exist.
Vandana Shah is just one of many who intricately thread their expertise into the fabric of this vast network. As a research and assessment analyst, she compiles and analyzes data and presents the information through visual interpretations, making it easy for people to understand it at a glance.
According to Shah, her work is like that of a chef: “Having a ton of data is like having all of your ingredients laid out in front of you,” she said. “However, it’s not a meal. My role is to take those ingredients and try to make a really good dish where others can look at the final product and see the entire story behind it boiled down into one coherent graphic. I love the ‘Aha!’ moment people get when they see my data and actually understand it.”
Through her visuals, Shah helps policymakers make informed decisions to enhance the overall experience of Cornell University Library and provide a more transparent, collaborative and cohesive approach to determining what resources are being used and where to allocate funds.
Much of Shah’s work occurs behind the scenes, which is typical for many departments and units across the library.
“We’re pretty invisible in many ways,” Shah said. “People see nice big buildings and think, ‘Oh, students go there to study and buy coffee.’ But really, many of us within the Library are engaged in incredibly diverse and unique work. We not only provide the resources, but we also make them discoverable.”
Each year, the library facilitates over 200,000 loans of physical materials, not including online resources. Shah plays a critical role in tracking and managing this massive inventory. By using dashboards to provide real-time data to faculty, staff and stakeholders, Shah helps uncover information that influences what materials and resources find their way to campus and within Cornell’s databases.
The university is currently home to the papers of signers of the Declaration of Independence, manuscripts of James Joyce, private correspondences of Ezra Cornell, archives of early Hip-Hop photographers and even the largest witchcraft collection in North America. As a leading research institution, curating and managing these highly specialized collections requires the collaboration of experts from various disciplines.
“One of the misconceptions about the library is that everyone is a librarian,” Shah said. “Instead, many people are professionals in one specific field. Our employees have degrees in law, chemistry, math, fine arts, music and more.”
Shah is one of the many employees at the library who brings a rich background to her role. Although her present work involves numbers and graphics, she is a lover of both language and literature. After receiving a degree in German literature from the University of Mumbai in India, Shah’s journey took an unexpected turn into applied economics and statistics.
“As you can imagine, graduating with a degree in German in India is probably one of the most useless things you can do,” she admitted. “I love languages, but I found myself wanting to work with something different. I began to study applied economics in grad school and was riveted by it. That changed the course of what I wanted to do and helped me explore different avenues like data analysis.”
The transition from words to numbers was challenging yet gave Shah a unique edge in her field. Her unconventional background allowed her to grasp concepts that others often found perplexing.
“Not everyone speaks in data and numbers,” Shah said. “When I was in graduate school, I really struggled because my brain was used to learning literature and languages. I didn’t have the background that others did. So, now, when I see data, I understand what people don’t understand. I actually possess the perspective of someone outside of the numbers. And it’s turning out to be incredibly useful.”
Shah arrived at the university twenty years ago, beginning her career at the Smithers Institute and Survey Research Institute. Since joining the library in 2014, she has found herself surrounded by colleagues with different skill sets, backgrounds and educations, something that she is proud and honored to be a part of.
“That’s the beauty of working here,” she said. “We have so many people who are experts in many different areas. We are unique in that way. I never thought of the work that I do as fitting into a library setting. But I now realize that experts can’t get information without me, and I don’t know what data to retrieve without them. We are always depending on one another for our work.”
One notable project Shah worked on involved capturing the most trafficked areas of the library. To determine where to best place staff, she created heat maps that charted locations with the highest book checkouts. This allowed the library to identify which areas required the most staff presence to effectively assist patrons.
Shah’s projects thrive on these symbiotic relationships. Behind the scenes, library staff are often collaborating on the curation and preservation of ancient collections, guiding students and scholars in research, managing digital archives, collecting vital data and much more. Shah hopes these essential aspects of the library are recognized, even if they often unfold in the background.
“It’s so rewarding that my team and I have gotten people really excited and appreciative of the data that lies behind the library and the stories it can tell. One visual is often worth a thousand words, so, a goal of mine has been making the data less scary for the people around me,” she said.
Shah and her team continue to use their dashboards and data to help drive decisions made on behalf of the library and inform colleges and departments of the resources Cornell has available.
By transforming data into actionable insights, Shah and her colleagues ensure that the library not only preserves the past but also drives the future, keeping Cornell at the forefront of global academic excellence.
Shah echoes the words of a faculty member who succinctly captures the essence of their work, “The library is the center of this institution. And when that goes, so does Cornell.”
