Ann Glusker didn’t set out to become a librarian.
As a public health epidemiologist in Seattle, she was fielding all sorts of requests — helping a husband find the best hospital for his wife to get a pacemaker, or providing a school district with birth data so it could anticipate enrollment numbers. “It was kind of like being a librarian,” she said.
But things really clicked into place at a dinner party. That’s when Glusker first heard of the “librarian test.” It was one simple question: When you get home after seeing a movie, do you look up any and every fact related to the film?
“My answer was, of course, ‘Doesn’t everybody do that?’” Glusker recalled. “And they said, ‘No, not everybody does that. You must be a librarian.’”
So, at age 46, Glusker — who had already earned a pair of advanced degrees — went to library school. She has spent the past seven years at UC Berkeley, where she serves as the librarian for the departments of sociology, demography, and psychology; the School of Social Welfare; and research methods.
In her newly released oral history project, Glusker’s passion and curiosity take flight. For “Librarians Navigating Change,” she interviewed 15 retired and current UC Berkeley librarians, amassing nearly 400 pages of transcripts. The interviews chronicle four decades of quiet triumphs, lingering uncertainties, adaptation, and resilience at UC Berkeley’s libraries. As Glusker puts it, each interview is another jewel in a “beautiful tiara.”
Naturally, we had to turn the tables.
We caught up with Glusker on the eve of the publication of her project to talk about what it means to be a librarian, an unexpected black market on Telegraph Avenue, and, of course, change.
Your project is called “Librarians Navigating Change.” What are some of the changes that the librarians described in your interviews with them?
One huge theme was technological change. Technology in the broader world is changing, and therefore information delivery is changing. I talked to people for this project who were at the (UC Berkeley) Library pre-internet. Is the Library going to say, “No, we’re not going to use it”? No, of course not!
I think COVID was a demarcation point and an accelerator. It accelerated change in terms of print resources to online resources and also the use of spaces and how people connect to the workplace.
Oh, the conversations about money. When people talk about what it was like when they first got to Berkeley, they’re talking about libraries that had 12 librarians that now have one or two. And the expectations are not different. So you have to get more efficient.
And not one person came to Berkeley and then in 10 years had the same job. I mean, my job title is twice as long as when I came.
There’s so much change in just how we do our work.
What did you learn about how people came to librarianship as a profession?
No one — not one person — said, “I became a librarian because I love books and reading.” Of course, they all do love books and reading.
I think the common thread is service. We all want to help people so much.
There’s something really moving about hearing why librarians were drawn to the profession. Did you feel that as well?
Oh, I totally felt that.
Librarianship kind of does often appeal to people who have a deeper approach to life — the depth of thinking, the depth of service.
The people who I talked to all felt that Berkeley was an important place to be because of the kind of impact you could make, and that your decisions mattered.
If you’re helping Berkeley students, you’re helping people change the world. Period.
I mean, you’re teaching them to fish, so the accomplishment is not yours. But you’ve supported them. And every single person talked about the honor of that or the reward from that — that that was what makes it matter.
I was moved by the thoughtfulness and the passion and just the compassion and, I don’t know, I found that to be among the most moving parts of the project.
In your interviews, was there anything that came up that was surprising or interesting or offbeat?
There are so many.
Of course, the one that stood out — that just kind of made me gasp — was the idea that there was a black market for Melvyl passwords on Telegraph Avenue back in the day. (To use Melvyl, the now-defunct online library catalog, a patron had to show their ID to get a password.) I mean, I just find that hilarious.
I love that (retired Environmental Design Librarian) David Eifler’s thought about going into librarianship was from his 3-year-old son. They went to the library, and his son said, “Papi, you love this. Why don’t you become a librarian?” I just love that.
The other one that really moved me a lot was Lily Castillo-Speed (head librarian at the Ethnic Studies Library) talking about the (student-led) protests in the ’90s to keep the Ethnic Studies Department. It was to the point that there were hunger strikers. They had banners and they had posters, and the police took them all. (The strike continued, and the protesters made more flyers, banners, and posters.) So Lily snuck her graduate student a key to the library and said: “Collect them. Don’t let the police throw them out.”
And the next day, she came in, and there was this pile in the library of protest posters and banners. They were saved, and they were cataloged. They are part of the library’s collection.
After conducting the interviews and learning about the changes in librarianship over the years — and witnessing some of the changes yourself as a librarian — how do you feel about the future of libraries? Are you hopeful?
Librarians really understand how information is structured. I mean, if any of us had a dollar for every time that a student or faculty member was like, “Oh, I never would have thought to look there.” But we think to look there.
As a librarian, I feel like a lot of us have our antennae up. What’s coming down the pike? How can we rise to meet it? What are we going to need?
I bet that librarians are the best prepared for earthquakes of anybody. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, don’t forget the can opener!” We’re that person.
I think that we’re always going to be needed.
This Q&A was edited for brevity and clarity.