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Re: A rose by any other name? I don't think so!



The way I always describe it (unless I'm talking to someone with a
short attention span, in which case I say yeah, I'm like a librarian
only for old stuff) is this: we are a microcosm of this entire library
(J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, in the interest of full
disclosure).  We do everything in our area that the rest of the
library has whole floors full of people to do: we research new
collections (read the obits and chase ambulances!), we solict
them, we work with donors both for the collection and on occassion
for funds to work on them; we haul them out of the basement and
in the door, we do minor conservation treatments, we process,
catalog, arrange, describe, provide bibliographic control, house,
move, dust, do online arrangments, create and maintain websites,
provide reference and publicity for...   There are over 300
employees in this building; I have a staff of five; yet we perform
every function that's performed by the rest of the building, and
some that aren't.  You get the picture; a microcosm.

Right now I'm reeling over the already-beginning onslaught of
Olympic-related questions; I've had three calls already today, one
of them desperate, gotta-do-this-right-NOW!, and it isn't even lunch!
And the games are still over six months away.  Waaah!  Anyone in
one of those nice, quiet, dusty archives that we all hear about want
to change places until about this time next year?

Nah, as my wife (already a committed Olympic volunteer) says,
"it's the experience of a lifetime."  So is heart surgery, I keep telling
her...


Roy Webb, C.A.
Multimedia Archivist
Special Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
295 South 1500 East
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
rwebb@library.utah.edu

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