Andre Davison, M.S. Information Science 2014 and Graduate Academic Certificate in Digital Content Management
Andre Davison has a diverse background having started out working in law libraries while in school, dreaming of being a lawyer, and eventually becoming interested in information management, information technology and information systems. That has led him where he is today at Orrick LLP, where he has been Research and Information Services Operations Manager since 2021 after leaving Blank Rome, where he was Knowledge Management and Information Services Manager. Now he is managing a team that onboards employees, evaluates and manages the lifecycle of electronic resources, oversees document delivery, and provides technical assistance.
Regardless of the interesting and important work he has done, what struck me most was his commitment to servant leadership. He says that his relationships, like the one with Dr. Yvonne Chandler, among many others, taught him what he needed to know and helped to elevate him to where he is today. He enjoys exchanging ideas to get new perspectives, ideation, and inspiration. For those reasons, he embraces opportunities to give back. As an example, he applied and was accepted to the AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) Leadership Fellow program through which he was assigned a mentor that was instrumental in his growth. That led to him running for and becoming and Board Member for the AALL Executive Board. Due to his experience with that and his experience receiving mentorship from Dr. Chandler, he has signed up to mentor College of Information students through the Dr. Yvonne J. Chandler Mentorship program. He will give back by paying it forward.
Another great example of how Andre gives back is his term as Chair of the Black Law Librarianship Special Interest Section of AALL. He presided over the first AALL conference meeting and 1st Annual Diversity Reception for Social Justice, the disbursement of donated funds to the Denver Public Library, the award of the first educational grant to a member, and the development of a grant for pay equities. These actions and many other actions that Andre regularly takes helped him move towards his goals of championing access to justice and professional development growth for law librarians.
When asked about his time at UNT, he fondly recalls his classes with Dr. Philbrick and Dr. Cleveland. He especially points to 5200 Information Organization and how he learned skills directly applicable to what he does, like using Microsoft Power Automate and Power BI to create faster processes to upload data. He also built a database process to call back retrieval of items, through which he gained deep insight into such systems. About his job, he says that the biggest reward is creating efficiencies in work flows and finding lower cost ways to handle data while keeping data integrity.