St. John's News

Mr. John Garino joined the staff of the St. John’s University Libraries in 2004, coming to the Queens Library from Information Technology, where he began working in 1997.  A Queens native, Mr. Garino holds a bachelor’s degree in history from St. John’s University, as well as a master’s degree in Library Science from the Department of Library and Information Science.  He has also completed graduate work in history at St. John’s. 

Mr. Garino is the Associate Director of Systems in the Department of Systems and eServices.  In this capacity, he is responsible for the administration of the Voyager integrated library system.  His duties include the translation of library policies into the Voyager system environment, working with all units of the University Libraries to extend the functionality available in Voyager, creating bibliographic and patron data reports, and serving as liaison to the Endeavor corporation (creator of Voyager) to resolve system problems and manage upgrades.  Mr. Garino also oversees the other systems and software utilized by the University Libraries, including Docutek (electronic reserves) and ILLiad (interlibrary loan request management).  In addition to his departmental responsibilities, Mr. Garino serves as the libraries’ liaison to Information Technology.

Mr. Garino brings to the University Libraries a broad knowledge of technology.  He has worked extensively with the libraries’ departments in leveraging technology to streamline workflow and procedures, as well as exploring new initiatives such as podcasting and digitization.  He provides technological instruction for library staff and has been a guest speaker in the DLIS course, ‘Introduction to Library & Information Science’.  He is currently working on an Advanced Certificate in Library & Information Science through the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.  His areas of interest include organizational learning, information management, and digitization.  To broaden his breadth of knowledge of developing technologies, he has become familiar with ‘social networking’ applications, such as instant messaging, blogs, vlogs, wikis, and sites like ‘MySpace.com’, as well as the alternative news sources which many believe to be challenging traditional mass media, particularly blogs related to politics.  He has also begun looking at the issues surrounding the ‘digital divide’, specifically how information and computer technology can be used to foster third world development. 

Beyond his professional responsibilities, Mr. Garino has worked as a professional musician, having performed on a number of independent music releases and other multi-media projects. He has played bass on albums by NYC-based punk rock groups, and has contributed music and scripts to independent stop-motion animation projects.  He possesses a great knowledge of music, specifically the history of New York City’s punk rock and independent music scene.  Mr. Garino sees this type of music as burgeoning from a do-it-yourself mindset at a time when there was a strong corporate influence on the music industry. He correlates this rise in independent thought and creative vision with the internet and the development and expansion of new technologies.  As he sees it, this do-it-yourself mentality has now been extended to publishing and journalism (personal websites and blogs), radio broadcasting (podcasts), television programming (websites such as www.current.tv) and movies (websites http://medialab.ifc.com ).  There has been a shift away from corporate control of media distribution, as the internet empowers people to be able to share their words and music directly with the rest of the world.  This progress is both exciting and fraught with challenges, according to Mr. Garino, who cites the need for providing access to all people who desire it as the most recent issue to be addressed.  In addition to his musical pursuits, he is an avid student of New York City and baseball history, and has traveled extensively in the US and Europe.