Memories of McBee cards, midnight pizzas, and the Van Arsdale twins

Providing part-time jobs to about 700 students each year, the IUB Libraries are one of the largest student employers on campus. The vast majority of these students are undergraduates, who sort, cart, shelve, and check out thousands of items daily.

About 20 current library employees, some shown here, worked for the IU Libraries as undergraduates.

Lou Malcomb, Head of Government Information, Microforms, and Statistical Services

It was my sophomore year at IU Bloomington in early May, 1969. I was working in the Main Library at Kirkwood and Indiana, and I was headed to work on a Friday. When I arrived, flames were shooting out of the Bound Periodicals Room (which I called the PBR Room for the popular beer of the day, Pabst Blue Ribbon). In January, I had been promoted to “filer” of the thousands of McBee cards that were used for undergraduate book retrieval, so for the remainder of the school year, I filed cards beneath the smelly insulation, hanging from the ceiling where the firemen had removed the ceiling tiles. Yes, we opened the library on the Monday after the fire but only staff could go into the stacks and retrieve books. The smell was unforgettable!

Linda Kelsey, Reference and Collections Associate for Government Information, Microforms and Statistical Services

My sharpest memories of my student employment are of the fires.

Erika Dowell, Public Services Librarian, Lilly Library

I first started working for the IU Libraries when I was 17, in the fall of 1986. I remember going to the job fair at Assembly Hall and filling out applications for many different jobs. I filled one out for the Main Library Media/Reserves department and moved on. Before I was more than a few tables further down the hall, Dennis Scoville tracked me down and offered me a job, and I took it.

In Reserves, I remember working what I considered a perfect schedule (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 9 p.m. to midnight) stapling a lot of articles into file folders and then taking staples out at the end of the semester. Sooo different from today's online reserves.

Two fellow student employees that I first met in Media/Reserves became lifelong friends. My friend Ketayoun introduced me to this really nice guy one day in the Collins Dining Hall. We started dating later that year, and now we've been married for 15 years.

Vaughn Nuest, Head of Auxiliary Library Facilities Management Services

I was working as a shelver one afternoon when Bob Knight, perhaps the most imposing and famous figure on campus at the time, came to the second floor of the west tower to film a public service announcement on behalf of the Libraries.

A film crew was assembled near a range of shelving and patron access to the area was restricted, but I was allowed to continue to shelve books on the floor during filming, so long as I was quiet. I thought the best way to be quiet was to not be moving carts or shelving books at all during that time, so I moved to the area where the filming was taking place and positioned myself so I could see through the book shelving, looking directly at Coach Knight.

When he was handed the script, Knight promptly threw it on the floor, saying he didn't need scripts. Then, as the film rolled, he proceeded to make a loud, impromptu, profanity-laced statement to the State Legislators that was equal parts appeal and tongue-lashing. He profanely questioned their ancestry, intellect and purpose in his inimitable style. Standing as close as I was to his blistering delivery, I soon realized why he was jokingly given credit for being the painting crew's best friend. His legendary verbal attacks were said to be potent enough to strip paint from the walls.

When he finished, there was as much silence in that part of the library as any librarian would ever hope for. The film crew looked at each other in stunned silence, and the director, trying to both praise Knight for covering the topics and gingerly suggest an alternate approach, was relieved when Coach Knight started laughing. His tirade had been a joke, he said. A very memorable joke for the people assembled there, especially for the library employee who was peering through the shelves!

Pat Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries

As an undergraduate in the Biology Library, I worked for a fussy librarian known for hiring sorority girls who lived in the sorority house across the street. The girls liked working there, not only because the library was air-conditioned (so rare in the early ‘60s!), but also because the library, for whatever reason, attracted jocks. The Van Arsdale twins were regulars.

I wasn’t in a sorority and was free of the social obligations required of many of my co-workers. As a result, they often asked me to work their hours, which I did –sometimes working 40 hours a week.

Mechael Charbonneau, Director of Technical Services and Head, Cataloging Division

I was the desk attendant in the Kent Cooper Reading Room and worked from 8 to 12, three days a week. My first job in the morning was to check-in newly arrived newspapers and shelve them in the room. To this day, I can't stand to touch newspapers -- I just hate the feel of the ink on my hands! When I see a new student in Technical Services checking in newspapers I often stop to tell them that that is how I started out in the library too!!!

I worked in the Kent Cooper Room, the periodical reading room in the Main Library.

We subscribed to two copies of the Herald-Times, the local newspaper. We kept one copy behind the desk and put the other copy out for readers. The desk copy was a backup, meant to replace the first copy when it became too worn.

One user figured this out and tried to beat the system. Every day he'd head straight for the desk and ask me for the fresh copy. I followed the rules and wouldn't give it up, knowing the other copy was only steps away and in fine condition. I think we drove each other crazy.

He eventually learned to wait until I left for lunch and ask someone else for the paper. Apparently not everyone was the stickler I was. That was 30 years and many jobs ago. I still follow the rules.

Diane Dallis, Head of Information Commons and Undergraduate Library Services

I started working as a student employee at the Fine Arts Library circulation desk in Fall of 1991. In the spring of 1994 I received my B.S. in Education. While working my last shift at the Fine Arts Library I remember thinking to myself, "I really love working here in a job where I help people. I wish this could be my real job after college." My wish came true. In September of 1994 I became a full-time staff member of the IU Bloomington Libraries and I have had the opportunity to help people every day in every position I have held in the libraries since then.

Cathy Berndt, Reserve Coordinator for Document Delivery Services

When I interviewed for a shelving job here as a freshman at 17 I was tested by an older librarian, and she had her eyes closed through most of the interview. She also asked me to put catalog cards in call number order. I guess I got them all right, and I was hired on the spot. I had to resist the big urge to make faces at her while her eyes were closed. (Lucky I did). I shelved for a year in the Undergraduate Library and really enjoyed it, (except for those heavy periodicals).

I worked my sophomore through senior years in the Reserve room, (currently the IC). When it was slow one of our supervisors used to read to us, he had a great storytelling voice, and it was a very special treat! A couple of years after I graduated and was working full time in the InterLibrary Loan department, the same storyteller supervisor asked me to apply for a full-time job as an Assistant Reserve Supervisor, and I have worked with Reserve and now E-Reserve ever since!

Mary Pagliero Popp, Public Services Librarian

I was a student employee in the old Graduate Library School Library, located on the ground floor of the Main Library building. It seems very far away now, but some of my clearest memories of working as a student in that library involved the chance to see new technologies—at least new ones by early 1970s standards. We checked out “portable” computers at the desk—we had three of them. These were very different from the laptops we have now. They were the size of a suitcase (probably 27 inches tall) and they weighted a ton! They did not have screens at all. Each used an acoustic coupler with two plastic holes into which you put the telephone receiver, and you had to get it in with the listening and speaking parts facing the proper direction or it would not connect. Then you dialed the mainframe computer to connect.When connected, we could type in a computer program and the mainframe computer would send back data—all through a printer. It sounds primitive, but it was much more convenient than running over to the Wrubel computer lab (then in the HPER building) to run a computer program using punch cards.