Uma Hiremath

Uma Hiremath was saved from a life of boredom on January 9, 2023, when accepted as the Associate Director for Public Services at MacPháidín Library.

Her career began as an academic with an MA in International Relations from India, her country of birth. She came as a Teaching Fellow to the University of Pittsburgh, where she continued with an MA/Ph.D. in Political Science. She got her third, and most challenging MA experience soon after, with the birth of two consecutive daughters. After a hiatus of five years of intense baby babble, she recovered her sanity by completing another MA in Library and Information Studies at Simmons University, sponsored by the New York Public Library where she was a Trainee.

She was a public librarian for the next 20 years and came to the unwavering conclusion that libraries were the most astute and resonant of human creations. She retired with the idea of spreading librarianship around the globe; her first attempt was in the Masai villages of Kenya; sadly, Covid got there first. She has co-authored a book on reference librarianship, currently in its 5th edition, that sent her across Uzbekistan as part of the US Department of State’s Public Diplomacy Program.

Considering the future evolution of academic libraries in a rapidly changing digital universe is her current obsession; she is enjoying every minute of it.