John Unsworth, former University librarian and dean of libraries, retired at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, marking the end of his nine years in the position. In this position, Unsworth directed all six of the University’s libraries, including all staff members and student employees. Specifically, he oversaw the 2020-2024 renovation of Edgar Shannon Library and was a proponent for the renaming of the building in April 2024.
Unsworth is resigning amidst a boom in artificial intelligence and questions of open access source material. In this context, Unsworth discussed the changing role of libraries over the years, specifically in the 21st century.
“We live in a world where the problem is abundance and the challenge is understanding quality,” Unsworth said. “The role of a library… is to help people discriminate between better and worse sources of information.”
Unsworth’s connection to the University dates back to 1983 when he attended the University as a graduate student and later became an English department lecturer. After departing to work at North Carolina State University for a few years, he returned to the University in 1993 to serve as the Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities — an organization at the University that works with humanities researchers on digital scholarship initiatives.
After nearly 10 years as director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, Unsworth departed to serve as dean of Graduate School of Library and Information science at University of Illinois and later vice provost of Brandeis University library. Unsworth then returned to serve as University librarian and dean of libraries in 2016.
Right when he took his position, Unsworth established a priority of creating community and a positive work culture in the University libraries.
“I spent the first four months of the job meeting each person who works in the library individually for at least half an hour, and just listening to their stories about the workplace and the workplace culture,” Unsworth said.
A major accomplishment of his tenure, according to Unsworth, was the three-and-a-half-year renovation of Shannon Library. The building closed in May 2020, reopened in January 2024, and was officially renamed to its current name in April 2024.
Unsworth initially submitted a request to the Naming and Memorials Committee for consideration of a name change June 2021. The change, which did not happen until three years later, renamed Edwin Alderman Library to instead honor Shannon, who pioneered coeducation and racial integration at the University.
Unsworth fondly remembers the day Shannon Library reopened its doors after the renovation’s completion Jan. 8, 2024.
“We had people lined up at both entrances at nine in the morning in the winter term,” Unsworth said. “I don’t think that happens very often with a college library.”
As dean of libraries, Unsworth played a role in managing the $161 million budget for the project. He worked to ensure that the renovation took less than four years, so no student would graduate without having the opportunity to use the new building.
The renovation added a 130,000-square-foot addition and renovated 100,000 square feet of the historic building. It also added more open shelving for books, study areas and spaces for book preservation.
According to Unsworth, libraries are not only a place for studying but also for community. To foster that sense of community, the renovation created more group study spaces within the building, so students had more places to work with others.
“People just flooded back in to be together in that space [after the reopening],” Unsworth said. “I thought that was really inspiring.”
Unsworth also said that book storage in the library, known as the stacks, was not originally made for students to have access to, but rather only the librarians. The renovation allowed students to study in the same environment as the books, rather than be isolated from them.
“The design of the space with seven-foot-high ceilings and nowhere to sit down [was] just books, books, books,” Unsworth said. “What we replaced it with is a space … to work in the presence of books … It’s an inspiring space.”
Unsworth also mentioned the importance of information literacy — the understanding of how to evaluate information sources. He said that one key role of libraries today is to spread that literacy among students and the community.
In addition to sharing information literacy, another way the libraries served as a resource was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unsworth recalled when the libraries stepped in to digitize material to make learning remotely more accessible for students, faculty and the Charlottesville community.
“The library always needs to have an ear out for the problems that the [University] has that the library can help solve,” Unsworth said.
Unsworth expressed gratitude towards the University for giving him the opportunity to serve as dean of libraries, and allowing him to rise up from English lecturer all the way to University librarian.
“That was kind of a leap of faith on the University's part to hire me to run the library when my experience in that was pretty light,” Unsworth said. “My experience [at the University] has been one of a continuing series of possibilities and a lot of institutional support along the way.”
The University announced June 18 that Leo Lo, former dean of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico, will serve as the new University librarian and dean of libraries, effective Sept. 15.
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