Meet a Librarian: Jason Puckett
Who is Jason Puckett?
Jason is the Online Learning Librarian, a new position (as of last summer). In this role, he creates some of our online tutorials, supports librarians who are working with online classes, and is the system administrator for the University Library’s online chat service and research guides (and he has a book about the latter). For the previous eight or so years, he was the subject librarian for Communication; for about the last three he’s also been subject librarian for Anthropology (and still is). He also teaches the bibliography software Zotero (about which he published a book in 2011 and a revision in 2017).
What’s Jason’s educational background?
Jason’s a GSU alum with a bachelor’s in English, and he got his Master’s in Library Science online from Florida State ten years ago. He did some coursework toward a Master’s in English here at GSU when he thought he wanted to be an English professor – he loved the classes, but never finished it.
What got Jason started in libraries?
Like many librarians, Jason ended up in libraries accidentally. He used to work in IT (for the law school here at GSU), and got a job here at the University Library in 2000 that was part IT but with a reference desk component to it as well, and the rest was history. He worked here for about a year, then worked as reference staff at Emory for eight years, and came back to the GSU Library in 2008 after he got his graduate degree.
Some fun facts about Jason:
Hot tea or iced tea? Unsweetened iced tea. I’m an oddity for a Georgia native.
What’s the furthest you’ve traveled from Atlanta? I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for three years as a teenager. My dad is retired from the CDC and was working with the US refugee program over there, and I attended the international high school. My dad is still there, so we jaunt to Thailand to visit every couple of years.
What’s your favorite song to sing at karaoke? Anything Bowie, but “Rebel Rebel” is my go-to.