Thrill Seeker: Allyson Mower, University of Utah

Allyson Mower chose librarianship because “providing access to information is a thrill”—and as someone who once fought forest fires, she understands thrills.

Though she's not even finished with her MLIS yet, she's been providing access to information at the University of Utah's Eccles Health Sciences Library through her work on the Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library (library.med.utah.edu/NOVEL) and the library's wiki, as well as the classes she teaches on database searching. Now, as coordinator for the university's Institutional Repository (ir.utah.edu), she is creating its database, soliciting content, and negotiating copyright issues.

Mary Youngkin, Eccles's head of public services, says Mower's “striking ability to focus on large projects and bring together disparate people” is responsible for the repository's steady growth.

Or maybe it's her enthusiasm. Mower loves that the repository provides “access to materials that remain hidden on individual computers,” which can be “preserved and made accessible—and this is the important part—via Google.”

And that thrill doesn't involve smoke.