Dean of University Libraries Steps Down, Begins New Library Role

Dean of University Libraries Marianne Ryan will step down from her current role June 30, the end of the current fiscal year, before beginning her new role as Loyola’s senior research librarian July 1, according to an email from the Office of the Provost.

Ryan said she’s proud of the myriad of accomplishments made by library faculty over the course of her tenure, which began in 2016. During her first year as dean, Ryan appointed faculty to two vacant positions — assessment librarian and civic engagement librarian.

Having an assessment librarian allowed the university to collect and interpret data in the form of student and staff feedback so the library could better tailor its efforts to users’ needs, according to Ryan. The same data also shed light on which demographics use the library the most and the least.

As captions, Ryan has overseen the Cudahy Library, the Information Commons, the library storage facility on the Lake Shore Campus, the Lewis Library at the Water Tower Campus and the Information Commons at the John Felice Rome Center. 

In 2020, then-Provost Norberto Grzywacz started the One Loyola Library initiative, an effort to synchronize the varied resources, technologies and policies of all library facilities under Ryan’s administration. 

She was appointed chair of the One Loyola Library Task Force, which reported on the technologies and resources used at the library facilities to the Provost and then made changes based on their findings.

“Probably the most important aspect was to be able to make the user experience consistent, so that if you walk into a library on one campus, or you walk into a library on another campus, you can expect the same thing,” Ryan said.

Ryan said another major accomplishment of library faculty has been an increase in student feedback about the functionality of physical spaces, such as the IC. 

Ryan said she made it a point to host events where students could offer feedback, as she wants the IC to be a place where students enjoy spending their time — a “third place.”

“Academic libraries always hope to be that ‘third place,’” Ryan said. “I think investment in that — to help there be a safe and supportive environment where students can choose to spend time productively and thrive — has been really important to me, and I think we’ve been able to advance that.”

To further the goal of comfort, all the furniture, carpeting and some technology in the IC was replaced during summer 2023. Dividers were installed between rows of desks, and some of the tables and chairs were replaced with sofas, The Phoenix previously reported. 

“The Information Commons is kind of a crown jewel of the campus,” Ryan said. “It opened in 2008, which predates my arrival at Loyola, but according to Architectural Digest, it is still on the list of one of the most beautiful libraries in the world 16 years later. It is a LEED-certified building, which also is great, and the students just really love that space.”

LEED —  Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design — is a program that certifies buildings whose design and operation meet a national standard of eco-friendliness. The IC was deemed green due to temperature and carbon dioxide sensors throughout the building, heat-resistant coatings on its glass windows, daylight sensors to regulate the overhead lighting, a roof that absorbs rainwater and many other engineering measures, according to the Loyola webpage.

Having been dean since 2016 and Loyola’s longest-serving current dean, Ryan said she still wants to involve herself in the University Libraries at the faculty level.

“Nine years is a long run for an administrator,” Ryan said. “It’s been a good run, but it’s a long run. And so, I just feel that it’s time, I guess. When you oversee a unit like the library, which in a way never closes because we’re open online all the time, it’s a lot.”

Ryan said Provost Douglas Woods is forming a search committee for her replacement, and the leadership transition was a discussion point at the most recent library staff meeting. The search process is in its infancy, and no candidates have been settled on yet, Woods wrote in an email to The Phoenix. 

Ryan said the responsibilities of her new role as senior research librarian will be determined in part by the new dean. Ryan said she believes her new role as senior research librarian, which isn’t an administrative role, will allow her to contribute to the university in ways she couldn’t as dean, including writing grants on behalf of the libraries. 

Above all, Ryan said the addition of new resources to assessment and feedback solicitation will allow future library changes to be made more democratically.

“Assessment is how we justify what we do,” Ryan said. “It’s how we justify what we’re doing, what we’re putting our effort into, what we’re putting our resources into. And sometimes we librarians think we know what our users want. And I don’t think librarians are the only ones that do that. Others will think, if they work with people, ‘well, I know what they want,’ but you have to ask them, and you have to listen to them, and then you have to hear them.”