Carol at Work

By Ross Atkinson, Associate University Librarian for Collections, Cornell University

Good Afternoon. I am Ross Atkinson, Associate University Librarian for Collections at the Cornell University Library. Sarah Thomas, the University Librarian, is currently out of town, otherwise she would certainly be here to speak herself.

For fifteen years, Carol Buckley was a very valuable and highly visible member of the Cornell Library system. The Library, like all academic libraries, relies heavily on part- time student workers for many of its most essential functions and services. Carol had many responsibilities while at Cornell. She was an active member of some very key committees. She played an important part in the recent Access Services reorganization. She did many things. She recently received an Outstanding Performance Award for Library Staff. But her focus, her specialty, her area of real expertise was working with student workers in Access Services. She posted student jobs; she interviewed students; she hired them, trained them, supervised them, evaluated them--and ensured that their jobs were among the most important of their university experiences.

Carol led by example. I went back and looked in her personnel folder. (I hope she doesn't mind. She shouldn't--I wish my performance evaluations were that good.) And it was clear that Carol had a very specific view of public services. As far as she was concerned: when you are in front of the public, when you are behind the desk, you are on; it is show time. You are a representative of the University and the Library, and you provide the very best assistance you possibly can--the level of service student and faculty users of the Library expect and deserve.

That is very difficult to do--especially in the pressure cooker that circulation services can so frequently become. And Carol was an expert at it. And she was able to pass that expertise on to several generations of student workers. So, I am here, as a representative of the Library, and as a witness, to say publicly what an outstanding library staff member Carol was--and how glad we were to have her as a member of our team.

But I would be remiss, if I were to leave the impression that gladness is the principal feeling afoot now and for the past year on the first floors of Olin and Uris libraries-- because it is not. The principle feelings are (now) grief--and also especially, for want of a better term, anger. Why this person? Why this disease? The inhumanity, the injustice, the waste of it all. And it would be very wrong for us to pretend that we are not feeling this way, when we are. Only by admitting these feelings, leaving them open, can we allow them to begin to heal over time. And the first step in that process of healing for us in the Library is to be here, and--admitting, acknowledging that grief and that anger--to say nevertheless, to whomever will listen, how thankful and how proud we are to have been a part of Carol's short but oh so vibrant life.