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Staff Spotlight: Tina Law-Walls

by Matthew Dineiro on 2021-01-27T13:29:05-05:00 | 0 Comments

Tina Law-WallsTina Law-Walls is the senior cataloger in CCNY’s technical services department. If you talk to anyone in technical services, she’d be lauded for her hard work, attention to detail, and experience. She’s someone who is invaluable to the team, and for me personally, she was crucial to me getting adjusted to working here at CCNY. Tina is someone who is generally more on the shy side, so at her request, this will be a Q & A, rather than a traditional profile. The questions are presented below, with minimal editing.

The whole technical services team speaks very highly of you. What qualities of yours do you think make you good at what you do?

I genuinely love what I do. I enjoy the challenges of making sure [bibliographic] records are as accurate as possible. I'm pretty much an introvert, so working with data and books are what I've always preferred to do.

Did you grow up in New York?

I was born and raised in the Bronx, where I still reside. Oldest of 3. I was pretty much the only child until I was 9, when my sister, Jennifer, invaded my life [laughs.]  Those years in between I was pretty much left to books, toys, Saturday morning cartoons, and my imagination.

How did you start at the CCNY Library?

Before the library, I was in Enrollment Management, starting in the Registrar as a work study student my second semester in 1992. I got full time status over at Admissions in 2003. 

I credit my sister (who currently works in Registrar as a College Assistant) and the HR rep, Ms. Virginia Rodriguez, for pushing me to interview at the Library. I actually did not think I was qualified for the position but went and did the interview with Yoko Inagi and Rob Laurich.  And since then, I have been forever grateful.

What is it that you like about cataloging?

The problem solving without having someone at your back barking at you to have it done yesterday.  The information is in black and white and if something is really troublesome, OLS has been really supportive without being condescending.  Also, I'm able to find a lot of helpful information from other universities' libraries through Google searching.

What are your hobbies outside of work?Tessa the cat

I do a lot of stress relieving things, mostly through mobile game apps.  Digital coloring books, jigsaw puzzle or word games. Pokémon Go. I also listen to a lot of music and podcasts or watch Kitten Academy's live stream feed on YouTube.  I had two cats in the past, both were taken in as strays and both since passed after a good long life each. My husband and I haven't new cats since, but it's always on our minds to do so.

Since Yoko, the former cataloger, left, you took on a lot of responsibility. How has that been for you?​

Jacob Philip took most of the work when Yoko left, so that helped a lot with everything when he decided to retire this past January.  After he left it was a deep breath moment for me. Then it was do the best I can, and if a mistake was made along the way, acknowledge, fix, and learn from it.

I also credit Anzhelika, as well as our fantastic College Assistants, Min Li, Jessica Guzman, Ruben Martinez, and Tariq Shameen, for their continued teamwork in keeping Cataloging (and me) running.  Without them, I don't think I could've been able to be confident enough to take on the tasks of acting head of cataloging, especially with the Alma transfer and the chaos that ensued with the still ongoing pandemic.

Image 1: Tina Law-Walls in the Technical Services area of CCNY Cohen Library.

Image 2: Tessa the cat, whom Tina adopted since being interviewed.


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