Karen Bouchard begins by discussing how she first came to Brown, working in the Art Department's Slide Room as Curatorial Assistant, then Associate Curator. She discusses the work she did in those positions and how the Slide Room became part of the University Library after the breakup of the Art Department. She then went to library school and ended up having her job reclassified as a Librarian position and ended up working in the Rock as the Art Librarian after Norine Duncan retired. Karen talks about how Norine was her mentor over the many years they worked together and how her job has stayed interesting by changing so much. She talks about how ugly she thought the Rock was and how she would get lost in it. She remembers filling out endless paper requests for Interlibrary Loan material while she was in library school. She talks about how the Slide Room had three different typewriters when she arrived but no computers and how unhappy she was when she finally had to have a computer at her desk. She also describes the Kroytype machine that she used to make posters and the first computer program that they used for cataloging slides, VRMS. She talks about the renovation of the Slide Room and the staff's temporary quarters in a classroom during that time, and about how much she enjoyed working in person with the faculty, helping them to put their slide lectures together. She also talks about how the staff dressed in the Slide Room. She remembers some funny stories, working at the reference desk, mistakes made by staff and students, and memorable faculty members such as Kermit Champa and Dietrich Neumann. She also recalls some of the famous people she has met at Brown and how she tried unsuccessfully to meet George Harrison and did manage to see Ringo Starr at Commencement one year. She talks about using the disaster kit the library had sent over, on more than one occasion. Karen ends by saying how happy she has been with her career as a librarian at Brown and how well everything has turned out after her move from the Art Department to the Library.
This collection contains oral history interviews with longtime members of the Brown University Library staff, in celebration of the Rockefeller’s Library’s fiftieth anniversary in 2014. The interviews were conducted by Brown librarians Carina Cournoyer and Karen Bouchard. Staff members represent …
