William Asp served as Minnesota State Librarian from 1975-1996. In the interview he reflects on early 20th century resource sharing among libraries belonging to the Twin Cities Library Club, Regional Public Library System development, early library automation in Minnesota, and the Extension of Access Law (1987 law passed that required the counties to levy a tax for public library service and join a regional public library system). This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Jerry Baldwin's first library job was as a student at the St. Paul Campus Library (now Magrath Library). From there, he went to library school at the University of Minnesota, and, then, on to the Minnesota Department of Highways (now the Minnesota Department of Transportation) Library as Director from 1972-2007. In his interview, he talks about staff from the Minitex Union List of Serials (MULS) visiting the MnDOT library to record their serial holdings, the development of the Transportation Libraries Catalog (TransCat) as one of the first OCLC Group catalogs, creation of the National Transportation Library (1998) and the Transportation Knowledge Networks, and reauthorization of the National Transportation Library. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Ken Behringer retired from the Metropolitan Library Services Agency (MELSA), a regional public library system that serves the libraries in the seven-county Twin City metro area, in 2019. His career included becoming the first Executive Director of MNLINK, serving as the Director of the Dakota County Library and the Great River Regional Libraries, and library positions in Wyoming and the North Dakota State Library. In this interview, he describes the development of library services in Minnesota that he observed from various points in his career and as a lifelong library user. Behringer often found his role to be in working with local county decisionmakers as well as the state legislature to secure funding for libraries. That led to impacts on budgeting for improved library services, technological advances, and the development of regional and state-wide library systems that have strengthened the library community in the state. He also discusses the colleagues who have been influential throughout his career including Bill Asp, Bill DeJohn, Charlene Mason, Roseanne Byrne, and Mike Turbes. This interview also includes an audio recording, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Cecelia Boone began her career at University of Minnesota Libraries in the Social Welfare History Archives (June 1976-1978). There, she was a writer and editor on a project called the Women's History Sources Survey before joining Minitex and the MULS program in 1978. In her interview, she describes the MULS service and how it operated in the 1970s and 1980s; hand-writing library holdings data; typing up and storing the holdings data in the homegrown database at the University of Minnesota; supervising and working with student staff; the migration of the MULS records from the database to OCLC WorldCat in 1987 and 1988, and her experience working with Alice Wilcox (Minitex Director, 1969-1982). This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
John T. Butler has served as the Associate University Librarian for Data and Technology at the University of Minnesota since 2008. Prior to that role, he was the inaugural Director of the University of Minnesota's Digital Library Development Lab, and also led the Science and Engineering Library at the University of Minnesota. In the interview, Butler discusses one of his earliest experiences working in libraries as a student for Minitex and other experiences leading up to his current role at the University of Minnesota libraries. Other topics discussed include: the development of the Minnesota Digital Library and the Minnesota Legacy Amendment funding; early mentors and influential colleagues Hank Rowan (Professor of Art, University of Minnesota), Susan Ardi (Engineering Librarian, University of Texas at Austin), Bill DeJohn, and Wendy Lougee; and his engagement with the Digital Public Library of America and HathiTrust. This interview also includes an audio recording, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
William (Bill) DeJohn received his Masters in Library Science in 1967 from the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences. He was the Director of Minitex, which serves academic, public, state agency, and other special libraries in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, from 1984-2012. DeJohn was actively involved in efforts to further library resource sharing throughout the Minitex region and beyond. In the interview he answers questions submitted to him by library staff in the Minitex region. Bill discusses: his first library job at Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia, Missouri; early interlibrary loan work at the Missouri State Library; former University of Minnesota Librarian Edward Stanford and the beginning of Minitex; additional funding for technological developments in the 1990's that led to ELM, MLAC, and the MnLINK Gateway; influential people for library services during Bill's tenure; the future of Minitex; his secret reading addiction; and words of wisdom for library staff today.This interview also includes the following: An audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Jeanne DeMars was a graduate assistant at St. Cloud State University when they began the great conversion of their card catalog to the MARC format via the OCLC union catalog (early 1970s). Shortly thereafter, after getting her master's degree from St. Cloud, Jeanne became the library director at Willmar Community College, began the process of converting from cards to MARC in preparation for their move to the PALS (Project for Automated Library Systems) system, and trained library staff to help with the project. From there Jeanne worked at PALS (program of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities initiated at Mankato State University in 1978) for a number of years before arriving at Traverse des Sioux Library System in Mankato, MN, where she currently works as Assistant Director for Technology Services.
Jeanne DeMars's interview questions focused on the topic of library automation. In the early 1970s, the MARC standard was relatively new, the OCLC union catalog was new (now known as OCLC WorldCat), and projects to convert library card catalogs to machine readable MARC records were just beginning. In her interview, Jeanne also describes searching the OCLC union catalog when it first became available, when PALS (shared union catalog of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities) was first rolled out to students and faculty, and other stories about automating library card catalogs. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Kathy Drozd began working for the University of Minnesota Libraries INFORM Service (for-fee article delivery service) before joining Minitex as a student in the early 1970s. In her interview, she discusses Minitex Delivery Services in the 1970s; using painted beer boxes for transporting library materials and the Greyhound bus for delivering those materials to other libraries in Minnesota; working in cramped quarters at the former Minitex office location in Wilson Library; what it was like to work with Alice Wilcox, the first Minitex director; her foray into the Minitex Union List of Serials (MULS) program; planning the Elmer L. Andersen Library and the caverns for high density storage of library materials; the office move to Elmer L. Andersen Library from Wilson Library; early beginnings of the Minnesota Library Access Center (MLAC); and the best parts of her job. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Ruth Dukelow retired as Director of CLIC (Cooperating Libraries in Consortium) in June 2019. Ruth Dukelow discusses her career as a librarian and director at libraries and consortia in Pennsylvania, Washington DC, North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota, culminating in her role as executive director of the CLIC Library System in the Twin Cities. Dukelow also mentions working with fellow OCLC network librarians from Minitex when she was at the Michigan Library Consortium such as Kathy Drozd, Becky Ringwelski, Mary Parker, and Carla Dewey Urban and traveling to OCLC headquarters for network meeting in the 1990s, and a memorable migration of the CLIC shared catalog to a next-generation library management system. This interview includes an audio recording, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Mark Eckes worked at Minitex from 1974 to 1984, when Minitex was just three years in to the program. He managed the Minitex staff (payroll, vacation, sick leave) and was responsible for office purchasing and OCLC billing. In his interview, he describes early technology used at Minitex for processing interlibrary loan requests, such as the TWX machine, and Minitex's first computer. Other topics discussed include the Minitex traveling slideshow, what it was like to work with Alice Wilcox (the first Minitex director), and the Minitex tennis and softball team. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Keith Ewing, Coordinator of Library Systems & Digital Services at St. Cloud State University, retired in July 2017. Graduating with an MLS in 1979 from University of Texas at Austin, Ewing went on to work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration, and in system and digital services roles at St. Cloud State University. In his interview, Keith disccusses internet and digital library technology in libraries, the inception of the Minnesota Digital Library, work on the first Minitex MEIR task force, the building of a new library at St. Cloud State University, mentors, and dinner with Ray Bradbury. This interview includes an audio recording and full transcript.
Valerie Horton retired from her position as the director of Minitex in 2019. In this interview, she discusses her professional career beginning as a systems librarian at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She also worked as a systems librarian at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and in the islands of Trinidad and Tobago assisting with early library automation. Her career highlights included serving as library director at Colorado Mesa University, Colorado Library Consortium, and Minitex (2014-2019). Horton discusses some initiatives from her time at Minitex, including the Minnesota Digital Library, Ebooks Minnesota, SimplyE, and the Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project.
Peter Jarnstrom began his career at the library of Minnesota State University, Mankato in 1980. He started out in cataloging and moved into interlibrary loan where he works at present as ILL Technician.
In his interview Peter discussed: using the new OCLC Interlibrary Loan system in the early 1980s; major innovations (custom holdings and interlibrary loan fee management) to the OCLC interlibrary loan service that resulted in less manual and more automated workflows for staff; development of PALS (Project for Automated Library Systems) to include a fully integrated interlibrary loan module, making it easier for libraries within the consortium to borrow and lend materials; and an early 90s periodical disaster at Memorial Library.
Peter also shared his experience working on two major projects that Memorial Library underwent in the 1980s when he was in the cataloging department. The first project involved reclassification of their entire library collection from the Dewey Decimal Classification system to Library of Congress classification system. The second major project involved retrospective conversion of catalog cards to tape, eventually forming the basis of the first union catalog of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, PALS. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Mike Kathman is the former director of libraries at the College of St. Benedict (St. Joseph, MN) and St. John's University (Collegeville, MN). St. John's and St. Ben's was one of the 11 original participants in the pilot project that was known as the Minnesota Interlibrary Teletype Experiment (MINITEX), January 1969-June 1970. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
A photograph of children in the 1965-1966 11:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1962-1963 11:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1963-1964 9:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1966-1967 10:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1975 10:30am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1967-1968 9:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
A photograph of children in the 1974 9:15am preschool story hour in the Children's Department Storytime Room, Winona Public Library, Winona, Minnesota.
Wendy Pradt Lougee was the University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Minnesota from 2002-2020. Prior to that role, over a period of 20 years, she held several positions at the University of Michigan, including Director of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library and Associate Director of the University Library for Digital Library Services. In this interview, Lougee traces her career path in Academic Libraries up to her latest role as University Librarian at the University of Minnesota. While at the University of Michigan Lougee put together the team that birthed JSTOR in the mid-1990s, a digital platform for accessing academic journals, which led to launching several other new digital projects and publishing projects. Lougee discusses the national organizations and boards she served on over the course of her career such as the Research Libraries Group, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Digital Library Federation, Council on Library and Information Resources, the Association of Research Libraries, HathiTrust, and the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Other topics discussed include: working with Minitex; colleagues that made an impact on Lougee's work such as Dick Dougherty, Dan Atkins, Paul Courant, and Governor Elmer Andersen; the awarding of the National Medal for Libraries and Museums to the University of Minnesota Libraries; and a few future library environment forecasts. This interview also includes an audio recording, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Suzanne Mahmoodi was the first continuing education coordinator at Library Development and Services (1978-2001), Minnesota Department of Education. In her interview she discusses her first library job as a student in special libraries; early education in Southern Iowa (near Lucas, Iowa, known for John Lewis Memorial Museum of Mining and Labor); early Resource Sharing in special, academic, and public libraries; conversation with U of M Libraries director Edward Stanford about the 1969 Minitex pilot project; Control Data Corporation's Plato system (one of the earliest computer based learning systems, originally developed at University of Illinois) and developing a program for libraries; how MN Opportunities for Reference Service Excellence (MORE) and MN Opportunities for Technical Services Excellence (MOTSE) began; and the decision to close the library at State Library Services. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Charlene Mason was Minitex Interim Director (1983/1984), and was on the search committee that hired Bill DeJohn, current Minitex director (1984-present), before finishing her library career at the University of Minnesota Libraries (1976-2001). She discusses her first library job held in 7th grade at Ames Public Library, early fax machines used for resource sharing, the hiring climate at the University of Minnesota after the 1979-80 Rajender v. University of Minnesota lawsuit, and working with Anita Branin (Minitex Associate Director for Document Delivery and MULS, 1980-1996) and MJ Rossman (Minitex Assistant Director for Reference and OCLC, 1980-1996) during the transition to a new Minitex director. This interview also includes an audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
Barbara Misselt led the East Central Regional Library as Library System Director for 9 years, retiring April 1, 2017. Misselt's first library job was at the Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, before moving to SELCO (Southeastern Libraries Cooperating) in Rochester, Minnesota, and ending her career at East Central Regional Library in Cambridge, Minnesota. In the interview, she discusses her connection to Minitex, working with former Minitex Director Bill DeJohn, Becky Ringwelski (former Associate Director of Minitex for Resource Sharing), Kathy Drozd (former Assistant Director for Delivery), and other influential colleagues from Minnesota libraries and the State Library. This interview includes an audio recording and full transcript.
