Idaho Librarian

ALLOW US TO INTRODUCE OURSELVES

GREETINGS FROM THE EDITOR........

 For some time now I’ve been standing in front of undergraduate classes at ISU doing the basic library workshop and preaching the new gospel of “information literacy”.  I talk about publication dates and authors’ credentials and the tell-tale signs of scholarly  writing.  I hold up copies of the Monthly Review, the Nation, and the National Review and try to get someone, anyone, to tell me what distinguishes one from the other.  Since I usually get no response, I then launch into my little lecture on how freequently it is important, when reading articles in a magazine, to know something about the editor – his or her background, ideological commitments and personal connections.  Having become the latest editor of the Idaho Librarian, it would seem intellectually dishonest of me not to draw the appropriate lesson from my own instruction and provide you, the readers of this journal, with something beyond a bare-bones resume by way of introducing myself.

 To begin with, I think you should know that, setting aside mowing lawns and delivering papers, I’ve only had two jobs in my life that weren’t within the world of academe: a few months as a clerk in a bookstore, and slightly less than a year as a children’s librarian at Lewiston Public Library.  I was also born into the academic life: my father was a professor at the University of Iowa.  I spent a long time in graduate school and ended up with an M.A. and an A.B.D. in philosophy, and then was a college instructor for about 15 years in various places in California and Arizona, teaching philosophy and humanities.  After that, I went to library school, emerged as a naïve and barely competent librarian, had several months of enforced leisure and then found the clerk and children’s librarian jobs.  Next, slipping gratefully back into the sort of pond I knew best, I was hired as humanities librarian at ISU.  After about eighteen years here at ISU, I occupy the position of AUL for Collection Development.

 Though the Idaho Librarian is not, for the most part, a journal of political opinion, I think it’s worth mentioning that I am somewhere to the left of liberal (I voted for Ralph Nader).  In other areas, I tend to be suspicious of dogma, both within and outside of the profession.  For example, I believe firmly in the value of intellectual freedom, but I find the Office of Intellectual Freedom entirely too sanctimonious.  I agree with the goals of the “information literacy” movement, but have doubts that librarians are God’s best and only chosen instruments for achieving those goals.  I am a book-loving (and book-collecting) librarian, yet I can’t help feeling that the world of information is beginning to pass books by.

 As to allegiances and loyalties, I should point out that I have two children, one of whom is a graduate student at ISU, the other a junior at the University of Idaho, and that I have lived in both the north and south of the state.  So, wherever our own Mason-Dixon line may lie, I have ties to both sides of it.  In addition to being an Idahoan, I have lived in Ohio, New York, Washington D.C., Iowa, Minnesota, California and Arizona.

 Finally, whatever my skeptical tendencies may be, I wholeheartedly believe that libraries --  whether school, public, private or academic -- play a critical role in the social, political and educational life of this state.  I also think it is undeniable that our profession has undergone, over the past decade, a technological revolution, one that has brought with it great stresses and uncertainties.   It has become, I believe, particularly important that librarians keep in touch with one another, for mutual reassurance and assistance.  I hope that this journal will be one way in which the librarians of Idaho may do so.

Leonard Hitchcock                            

AND FROM THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

 Salutations!

 You may already know me – I have been the Book Review Editor for the Idaho Librarian for the past year.  Here’s a bit more background information.

 Unlike Leonard, I was not born into the Groves of Academe.  But I was fortunate enough to have been born into a family that prizes the pursuit of knowledge, and that meant that there were always plenty of books around.  There was nothing better, in our family, than to be able to satisfy the pangs of curiosity from within the pages of a book at hand – provided one could actually locate an appropriate volume amongst the jumble of tomes.  And chances were that one might forget the original question and go off on a totally different quest, learning something just as important as the answer to the first question.  So I’m pretty comfortable with books and the joy one can have in seeking knowledge and entertainment from them.  I also developed a strong and still persistent interest in the structure of the book as a physical object, and the book arts employed to create it.

 As an undergraduate in Seattle, I wandered through the humanities, majoring in music, classics, and finally getting a B.A. in English literature in 1983 (I also lived in Los Angeles and Hawaii briefly during this period).  During the last couple of years at the University of Washington I was immensely fortunate to have a student job at the Suzzallo Library’s Mendery, where I learned hand bookbinding, and fell in with a marvelous crowd of creative and enthusiastic book artists.  I aspired to be a book editor, but that never happened; instead I ended up in Texas, working in libraries at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Austin Community College, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, where I began to work on a Masters in Library and Information Science.  I also worked as private librarian for a pathologist in Austin.

 Disliking Texas, I moved back to Seattle and became manager of a large, general used bookstore right next to the U of W campus.  This took up so much of my time that I never had a chance to get back to that unfinished MLS, but I did attend the Out‑of‑Print and Antiquarian Book Market Seminar in Denver one year.  After a couple of years, I thought it would be more rewarding to be an owner than a manager, so I quit my job and started my own bookshop, which I sold four years later.  At the bookshop I hosted a lot of events:  readings, folk music concerts, monthly club gatherings, writers’ groups, book discussion groups, etc., and for a while after I sold it, I continued to work as a representative or agent for musicians. 

 We’re now up to about 1995, when I moved to Pocatello and started working on a B.S. in Ecology at ISU, while working as the trade book buyer (student position) at the campus bookstore, among other things. Then I got a half time position at Marshall Public Library as a Readers’ Advisor, and a little later, a half time Reference Desk position at the Oboler Library at ISU. Shortly after that, I became a full time Library Assistant 3 in the Health Sciences Library at ISU.  After about a year in that position I began the MLS program offered by Emporia State University (see related story), from which I graduated last summer, making me eligible to apply for a Reference/Cataloging position here. 

 That’s a lot of jobs in a lot of places.  Why did I do it?  What drives me to move around and change so often?  I think it is the desire for more knowledge in a variety of areas.  I really enjoy research and reference work, but I have never abandoned my desire to work in the publishing field, so helping out with the editing of the Idaho Librarian will be an excellent experience.

 I hope my eclectic background, maverick tendencies, connection with other aspects of librarianship (such as special, solo, medical, legal, and public libraries), and the newness of my MLS will add something to the editorial mix.  I am, like Leonard, bookish rather than electronic by nature, but have been working to achieve an appreciation for both worlds.

 Please <contact me> if you have any ideas for articles or suggestions regarding the Idaho Librarian.  I look forward to getting to know you.

Kristi Austin