UCLA LISAAA Class Notes

Those were good years, with older faculty like Andy Horn and Robert Vosper still active, even though the name of the school had changed away from Library Service. I was particularly taken with John Comaromi, who inspired me to enter the doctoral program to study cataloging and then bailed out to run Dewey. Anyway, after some miscues here and there, I finished my Ph.D. in 1986. I started at KUSC-FM in 1981 as record librarian, but they moved me over to writer/editor and then (when I couldn’t get a job in librarianship) to computer geek. When I remarried and moved to Salt Lake City in 1995, I stayed in IT, running a three-office shop for a non-profit company until 2002. Then my wife’s career took us to Northern Kentucky, where I finally re-entered the field, as founding librarian for Gateway Community and Technical College. I was happy there, building cooperative services, including a virtual union catalog for the six libraries in the neighborhood, but my wife moved again, to Kansas City, Missouri, so I followed. And now, since July of 2006, I’m Director of the Charles F. Curry Library at William Jewell College — a remarkably rewarding capstone to a somewhat spotty career. Having a great time in Liberty, MO.

I moved back to Los Angeles 2 years ago and am currently working as a senior product manager at social networking company Reunion.com.  It’s been quite a journey to get back to Los Angeles.  The route back has taken me through Virginia, North Carolina, northern California (San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley twice!), and Washington, D.C. and through a number of positions in ARL libraries, national public policy and the private sector.  I am happy to have the opportunity to get reconnected and help get this class notes blog off the ground with fellow alum Jonathan Fiencke (Class 2006).  I look forward to seeing many interesting posts!