Photo by Brenna Tucker
We have a multitude of resources here at Vanderbilt, but so much support can be almost overwhelming if we don’t learn how to utilize it. One of Vanderbilt’s extraordinary services for student success is the Walker Management Library. I sat down with Kelly LaVoice and Robbie De Perri, the library’s director and business librarian respectively, to get an in-depth look at the tools Walker provides and how students can make the most of them.
Kelly LaVoice and Robbi De Perri: Who They Are and What They Do
To begin, I wanted to learn about Robbi and Kelly and what their specific roles at the management library entail.
In her role, LaVoice leads the team of six in the Walker Management Library, a two-story beautiful facility within the Owen Graduate School building. She has been at Vanderbilt for almost eight years and has been working in business libraries since 2013. LaVoice dedicates a lot of attention to competitive intelligence projects to support initiatives of Owen by using the library’s research tools and expertise to make decisions about programs, offerings, and expansions.
De Perri has been at Walker since 2008. Her official title is Librarian for Business, which entails research consultations, walk-in references, instructional workshops for student groups or classes, and much more. De Perri was actually a broadcasting major in undergrad, but after spending some time at an advertising firm, she decided she needed a career change. After aptitude tests and self-exploration, she realized she was meant to be a librarian. De Perri went back to school to get her masters, interned at Peabody College, and finally ended up at Walker. While advertising may not have been De Perri’s career path, she took a lot of skills away from it that she uses in her current role.
Walker’s Specialized Services
Walker is open from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday to the campus community and general public. The library offers 106 business databases and personalized research consults for students, staff, faculty, and alumni. Every weekday, Walker has a librarian from their team on call for walk-ins, emails, and any support students might need. Students can also make appointments online or set up a Zoom meeting. Any meetings with students are meant to be an open dialogue format. Students may come in with specific needs or a class project, or they can drop by if they simply have any general business question. Walker also provides in-class instruction and many workshops in various areas of business knowledge and career prep, which are listed on their workshops page.
The library is also home to quite a few certifications that students can do asynchronously and on their own time. These digital platforms include programs in Bloomberg, Python, Tableau, and many others for students to choose from depending on their areas of interest, career plans, and desired skills. LaVoice suggests that students going into particular fields such as finance or consulting do some investigating during their interviews. A great question for students to ask a potential employer is what kind of platforms they expect their employees to be well-versed in, and they can then go back to Walker and get certified. These certifications as well as generative AI tools and O’Reilly media training can all be found on Walker’s Skills Development Page. Many of these certifications as well as other workshops Walker hosts count towards VandyPass credit and badges that can be added to your LinkedIn and help you stand out to future employers. More information about VandyPass badges can be found here.
Walker also has personal news subscriptions that students can access for free! These include Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and more which can all be found on the news desk section of their website, or on the skills development page linked above.
A Resource For Everyone
While Walker is located in the Owen Graduate School of Management, I wanted to find out more about how undergraduates – and truly all students, whatever their area of study – can utilize Walker’s services. When chatting with LaVoice about this, I learned that although the library is located in Owen, Walker actually reports up through the Jean and Alexander Heard Central Libraries and intends to be very interdisciplinary. The library is also open to all students to walk in, and Walker also hosts info sessions and programming across campus in undergraduate classes and in the Central Library.
De Perri highlighted the trans-disciplinary nature of business as a subject. Almost all undergraduates, whether a business minor or not, will go on to work for a company. Interview prep, research on future employers, understanding the qualities and skills certain companies are looking for, are all things Walker can help students with.
LaVoice made a great point that a lot of the research we do as undergrads is academic research. While this is a very important skill, unless we plan to go into academia this is a very different kind of skill than the research most of us will do in the real world. Many of the resources at Walker bridge that gap for students. The platforms they offer are the exact same programs many students will use at their future companies. Walker’s job is to help you understand both how to use these programs and the differences between them, so students can obtain concrete, applicable knowledge.
Final Thoughts
The Walker Library provides so many services and like many of the privileges we have here at Vanderbilt, this can feel at times like an, “embarrassment of riches,” in the words of De Perri. Only a few of their incredible offerings are detailed here, but on top of all that they are also willing to tailor programming to you. Walker will host specialized workshops to help student organizations with professional development, career prep, marketing, resumé help, or whatever they might need. Additionally, you have access to Walker’s services even after you graduate Vanderbilt. If you are considering a career change, need information about a company, want to prepare for an interview, or are looking for resources similar to Walker in your local area (even if this is not Nashville!) Walker is still there to help!
LaVoice and De Perri also both highlighted the interactive, malleable environment of Walker. They are very open to new ideas and suggestions and want students to know they should never be afraid to reach out – their goal is to build and curate programming based on what YOU need. With all that said, if you have any suggestions, questions, or want to utilize a Walker resource but aren’t sure how managementlibrary@vanderbilt.edu is your one stop shop for anything you might need!
