Last Updated on January 16, 2026, 10:49 am ET
Before retiring from the University of Manitoba at the end of 2025, Lisa O’Hara chatted with ARL about her career and research librarianship—see the interview below.
Sam: Would you like to start by talking about how you got started in librarianship?
Lisa: I started in libraries right out of my undergrad, actually. I worked here at the University of Manitoba in the book processing department, so I stuck the labels on the spines of the books, and the Tattle-Tape strips, and stamped them. And we used to put a little tick beside the copyright date to know that we’d stamped it, so I can still look at books in the stacks and go, huh, that one has Tattle-Tape in it. It’s kind of funny.
I’d always visited libraries, but didn’t really ever consider a career in libraries until I was visiting a friend of mine whose brother was applying for university so I was looking at course catalogs. And I saw a library technology diploma or degree from a community college, and I thought, “Well, that sounds really good!” But it said, that in the absence of a librarian, you might even run the library, and I thought, “Well, I might want to run the library someday.” So I decided I would apply for grad school instead. And here I am, running a library, which I honestly never really thought I’d do.
Sam: What do you consider to be some of the highlights of your career?
Lisa: You know what? I always think of that proverb, “may you live in interesting times,” and I feel like my entire career in libraries has been interesting times. When I graduated from the University of Toronto they gave us email addresses just before we left. So when I got to my first job, which was at Trent University, I knew how email worked, so I was the whiz kid who understood the internet! It’s surprising now because we do everything now on the web, but in my career I have done the big punch cards that computers read, the cards for the card catalog, I’ve done MARC records, and other metadata like Dublin Core. So I think just the variety of change that’s happened in my career is kind of the highlight. I’m a person that enjoys the challenges change presents and figuring out how we’re going to incorporate new things into what we do.
Now I think the next one is AI, and it’s going to be really exciting for the next couple of years understanding how we incorporate that into the work that we do, and how we can take advantage of it.
Sam: Nice, you’ve kind of seen it all.
Lisa: I have seen a lot, but yeah, I won’t see this last one. I’ll watch with interest!
Sam: Can you talk about some goals you may have had for yourself or your career that you might not have quite reached?
Lisa: I don’t think I ever really had any concrete goals for my career, I’ve always been kind of motivated by doing a good job and then looking for the next challenge. So I guess maybe AI would be the thing that I am really curious about. I think there’s so much potential there, and so many things that might replace some of the tasks that maybe people don’t enjoy doing so much, and that could allow us to have time to do the really value-added things that librarians and library staff do. So, I guess if there’s anything that I feel like I’m leaving undone, it’s the investigation into that.
Sam: Right, that’s fair. Do you have any advice for those who might aspire to leadership in research libraries?
Lisa: I’m gonna steal something from Talia Chung…we were at the CARL meeting a couple of weeks ago, and there was a newer librarian who was asking all of us for advice, and my advice was, “Make sure you’ve got your data in place. Make sure you’ve done your homework, so you know the decision you’re making is a good decision and is supported by the evidence.”
But Talia’s was, “It’s all about building relationships,” and that’s actually far better advice. I think it’s the relationships that you build with the people who report to you, the people who report to the people who report to you, with the people you report to, with other librarians—nobody can do this kind of job on their own, so it really is about the relationships. And that’s just the internal ones! There are also deans and faculty and colleagues in other institutions! I’ve been lucky to work with some really great people.
Sam: Well, both good pieces of advice from you and Talia. We’ll give her a shout out, she’s very wise.
Lisa: She is very wise. She’s been a great colleague.
Sam: I feel like you’ve touched on this with AI, but do you have any other thoughts on the key issues that are emerging in research libraries in the next five years or so?
Lisa: Well, AI, for sure, is the big one. I think there’s also a lot of change still ahead, and I think, being ready for it and open to it is going to be really important. There’s already a lot of change going on in the States that was unexpected. In Canada, we have a lot of budget issues that people are seeing and that’s going to mean that we’re going to have to change the way that we do some things. And like I said, my career has seen all kinds of change, but I think it’s even more and even faster on the horizon, so I think change management is going to be, really, really important, and a good skill for library leaders to have.
Sam: Definitely. What inspires you the most about librarianship?
Lisa: You know, I was just talking to someone about this, how libraries are basically social justice enterprises, whether you’re a public library or an academic library, right? It’s trying to make things available for people who otherwise might not have access to them. I love the way libraries work to support students and faculty. We were talking recently about how one of our goals is to try to make education more accessible, and how even if students can afford to enroll in university, they can’t necessarily afford to buy a laptop and buy all the textbooks, and everything else, so libraries try to make all that stuff available to them. I love the role libraries have in boosting people up. I think that’s important. I think that’s why a lot of us go into it, because we really believe in helping people.
Sam: Absolutely. Are there any areas in librarianship that you would encourage young professionals to focus on as they enter the field?
Lisa: Yes, my daughter’s best friend is going to grad school at U of T, which was exciting for me since I went there too. I told her to take every technology course she possibly can. I always felt that a lot of my role throughout my career has been sort of as a translator between the technology and the people who don’t really understand or have time to learn how to use the technology but want to use it or take advantage of it. I still think that’s a lot of what librarians do, actually in a lot of areas like supporting researchers with RDM, cataloging materials, and definitely on the front lines both at service desks and in the instruction we do.
Sam: Right. And what are you looking forward to in your next phase? I know there are many things, perhaps.
Lisa: I have a year of admin leave, so I have a research project on social justice and library leadership that I’ll be working on, so I’ll probably be talking to some the ARL people about that. But I’m really looking forward to traveling and spending time with my family. My daughter is getting married this summer, so that will take up some of my time! It’s kind of nice to have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, and have time. I mean, anybody doing this job knows how little time you actually have, so it’ll be nice to be in control of my time again.
Sam: Yeah, that’s great. A lot to look forward to.
Lisa: A lot to look forward to, yes. And we’ll see. I keep telling people, maybe I’m not done, maybe you’ll see me back….
Sam: We won’t forget that!
Lisa: But, I don’t think so, retirement sounds pretty good!
Sam: Do you have any specific ARL memories or anything that stands out to you, especially having been on the Board and coming to meetings for years?
Lisa: Oh, lots. I mean, the colleagues that I’ve met at ARL have been one of the highlights of my career. I’ve always looked forward to going to the meetings because the program always has something great. I was in the Leadership Fellows Program, and we called ourselves the “Best Cohort Ever,” because we had a lot of fun and learned a lot, it was great. I had really great people in my cohort and those were great relationships to make.
But the best ARL memory? I don’t know. There are so many! There’ve been great meetings and great conversations, and some really inspiring people that I’ve met. I think the Board meetings are always a lot of fun. I enjoy the dinners—you organize great dinners, Sam, with great food, so that’s always fun, and yeah, people that were Board colleagues that are friends now. You know, it’s the people. It’s the people.
Sam: A lot of good people.
Lisa: For sure.
