Features

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Features

Editor: Georgia Brown

Hello WAMLites! 

Today we have an interview with Paige Andrew, a retired map cataloger from Penn State, answering questions about map librarianship and his career. Also, a full slate of conferences to look forward to this summer and fall. As always feel free to email me at browngl@uwm.edu if you want to highlight an exhibit, be interviewed for the Features, or have any career news.  

– Georgia Brown

Interview with Paige Andrew

How did you find map librarianship and cataloguing?

Paige Andrews

My first non-professional library job was as a page at the Bellingham Public Library (BPL) while I was an undergraduate student at Western Washington University. In fact, observing the two reference librarians do their work is what lead me to decide I wanted to become a librarian! My specific job was to take handwritten patron slips of paper to the closed stacks downstairs and retrieve whatever was requested by a patron. Secondarily, I did other tasks as assigned or needed. Working at BPL part time gave me the opportunity to observe how the reference transaction was done and done well, and how the librarians were always able to help the next patron with whatever question they had. This was before the advent of desktop computers, OPACS, and online resources, so the librarians knew the card catalog and their paper reference sources inside and out and showed others how to use them as well. This left a deep impression on me, as did the collegiality of the entire small staff; everyone was there to help the next person who came in the door.

As for finding map librarianship/map cataloging, I was working towards a degree in Geography and quickly realized that there were basically only a couple of things that geographers usually pursue as a career; either teaching, or if one had the appropriate skills, cartography. I was not interested in either one of those options. But I asked questions of the librarians at BPL about their careers and found out about cataloging as one path in the profession. After graduating from Western I began work on my MLS at the University of Washington (UW), which included taking my first cataloging course in the second quarter. I was fortunate to be able to learn the basics of cataloging by taking three classes (out of four offered) during my two years at UW. That said, I really stepped into map librarianship through learning and doing map cataloging at my first professional position at the University of Georgia (UGA). I credit Johnny Sutherland, long-time map curator at UGA, with introducing me to the first group of map librarians I met and came to know well through the Geography and Map Division of the Special Libraries Association. Being involved in many different map librarianship groups and organizations over the years broadened my group of cataloging and other map colleagues.

How long have you been in the profession?

With my retirement from the Pennsylvania State University Libraries at the end of September 2023 I concluded nearly 37 years in the profession as a map cataloger and librarian. If you were to add to that my three years working as a student in a public library one could stretch it to close to forty years of library work.

My professional career began at the University of Georgia Library, an excellent library for new catalogers to get their start and learn real-life practices. I mention this because at the time (I am not certain this is as true today) UGA hired people with little to no experience from library school or past jobs and was willing to train them to be excellent catalogers knowing that many would eventually move on to other places, which was the case with myself. Not many libraries, academic or otherwise, would accept a semi-constant turnover of employees in such a scenario. My tenure with UGA was 8 years and 3 months and by the time I left I was well-versed in all aspects of map cataloging. I then spent 28 and a half years at Penn State, earning tenure and later promotion to the Librarian rank (highest), and ending with the honors of Distinguished Librarian Emeritus from the Libraries and Emeritus Professor from the University.

What has changed about the profession most since you started?

The growth of the computer becoming a ubiquitous part of everyone’s life, and advent of the Internet along with it, underlies the biggest changes in the profession in my opinion. Speaking from a cataloger’s perspective, when I started my career in the late 1980s we were describing only print or print reproductions of maps along with other physical cartographic materials such as globes and plastic relief models. To accomplish this we used for our rules AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition) along with other paper resources such as the Library of Congress Schedule G for classification. By the early 1990s some types of materials, cartographic and otherwise, were being created or delivered digitally either online or through a medium such as CD-ROM, necessitating additions and changes to AACR2 to keep up. By the late 1990s the computer era was in full force among the general population and that meant libraries were changing many aspects of their work including in cataloging, and the services they provided to their publics.

This meant more broadly catalogers changing from doing a lot activities manually to incorporating computers in some manner for not only descriptive cataloging purposes but also the ability to use and eventually add to critical databases such as the Library of Congress Name Authority File. For a number of years if I needed to look up a rule or interpretation of a rule, I grabbed my AACR2 book, later enlarged and published as a 3-ring binder but eventually all of this was available online (along with most all of our guides and tools) and I did my lookups in that manner.

A much more recent change from manual application to online tool use regards finding and including in one’s bibliographic record geographic coordinates. In my early years I became very adept at using a physical atlas, when coordinates were not part of a map I was describing, to derive those numbers from and also manually keying in those degrees, minutes, and seconds symbols in the 255 field. About ten years before I retired a free online website, the Klokan Bounding Box Tool, allowed one to search for a place and it would come up with the bounding box coordinates that you simply copied and pasted into the record being created. There are many other instances of how the computer and online accessibility of resources greatly changed map librarianship and map cataloging, but I will leave you with just these couple of examples.

One of the new services that I mentioned above borne by this computer revolution was the implementation of GIS laboratories as part of existing physical map collections. I remember touring a couple of the earliest of these GIS labs while attending conferences in the 1990s, such as those at the John R. Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota and the Map Library at Syracuse University. Today, most research-level libraries with map collections have some form of a GIS lab or Cartographic Data Center as part of their operations and in fact the digital side of things has supplanted physical map collections in some ways. Suffice it to say that without the desktop computer, later on the laptop, and the growth and power of digital computing capabilities, libraries would be much different places today.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

The favorite part of my job when I was working was descriptive cataloging and its associated work such as classification. These tasks made our cartographic resources known to our students, faculty and other patrons and kept our map collections organized (Penn State has four distinct map collections, and when I started there were even a couple of very small ones at non-University Park campus libraries). This was what made me happy to get out of bed and go to work every day (okay, most days). Additionally, as the librarian on a maps cataloging team of four people for many years — dwindling down to two of us the last couple of years — I also enjoyed coordinating cataloging activities with team members as well as between us and those map curators of our several cartographic collections. While the individuals who oversaw our largest map collection, now known as the Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information, changed several times over the years the work we did for them and with them was always a joy, sometimes a challenge.

The other favorite part of my job was the people I worked with and worked for. Speaking primarily of my years at Penn State, I always had the support I needed from our administrators and my immediate supervisors to be an active member and leader in the profession and a contributor in many ways to the knowledge base of map librarianship with a focus on map cataloging. Working for a library with a demanding method of achieving tenure and high expectations for continuing to serve the profession even after doing so opened many opportunities for me to collaborate with my librarian colleagues and other coworkers. I also would not have met so many catalogers across the profession through teaching dozens of map cataloging workshops if my library’s leaders did not support that cause and many others. Similarly, the ability to go and attend conferences and meetings, whether part of duties when serving as an officer or committee chair or similar capacity, allowed me to get to know individuals at dozens of other libraries, so being a member of WAML, MAGERT/MAGIRT, NEMO (the defunct North East Map Organization) and other organizations further enriched my experience and made for many positive memories. I have made a lot of friends along the way through my workshops, my email interactions on listservs such as MAPS-L, my work with the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, and by being a part of numerous organizations, which is a priceless part of my career experience.

What advice do you have for newcomers in the profession?

Jump in and get involved! The best thing you can do for yourself as a new librarian, and particularly if you are a new cataloger, is to establish and grow a network of fellow librarians, whether they are catalogers, map curators, or leaders in the field. One can start very simply by reaching out and asking questions (either in person or via email) of experienced catalogers/map librarians. Then be willing to join at least one group and start attending meetings and/or conferences, virtual or otherwise. Volunteering to help with the work of a committee or task group is a great way to become known to others while serving the profession simultaneously. And finally, simply introducing yourself to others when the opportunity arises can open doors and lead to positive outcomes.

I owe so much my success to what I call the “backbone” of my career, my network of people. Meeting new colleagues and being willing to work alongside them as a committee member or leader or on a project or to solve a mutual problem and just being with other librarians is the key to a happy and successful career in this profession. Along the way you will likely make new friends and maybe a very special mentor or two (for me that was Mary Larsgaard and Susan Moore) that will be there throughout your career and beyond. As a cataloger I personally know just how hard it is for most of us to “put yourself out there” because at heart I am basically a shy person too, but it is well worth the effort.

News

  • Congrats to Lena Denis on her new job at the Library of Congress!
  • Those in GSIS will need to renew their membership for 2024 – check out their membership page for more information.   

Conferences

Webinars & Meetings

April 9, 2024 – New York (Hybrid), The Columbia University Seminar on the Renaissance presents Chet Van Duzer speaking on Animals on Maps and our Views of the World. The talk will take place at the New York Faculty House, Columbia University, at 4:00 PM Eastern time. For in person attendance please RSVP to Cynthia M. Pyle, <c.m.pyle(at)nyu.edu>.

April 9, 2024 – Washington (Online), Join from 3:00-4:00 pm (Eastern) Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Reference librarians Amelia Raines and Julie Stoner who will present an introduction to the fire insurance maps housed at the Library of Congress, with a special focus on the maps created by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. Register for this session.

April 11, 2024 – Washington (Online 4:00 PM Pacific Time), Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Leonid Chekin will discuss Svalbard, Paradise and Beyond: The Arctic Islands on Medieval and Early Modern Maps.

April 13, 2024 – Santa Monica (In Person), The Southern California section of California Map Society will meet 2:00PM – 5:00PM Pacific Time. Register online.

April 27, 2024 – Chapel Hill (In Person), The William P. Cumming Map Society will meet 10a – 12n at Wilson Library on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Margaret Pritchard will discuss More than Meets the Eye: Symbolic Messages Conveyed Through Maps. Margaret’s presentation dovetails with “Compasses, Cartouches, and Creatures: Exploring the Art of North Carolina Maps“, the current map exhibit in the North Carolina Gallery in the Wilson Library.

May 3-4, 2024 – Austin (In Person), The Texas Map Society is pleased to host the “2024 Spring Meeting”, All Over the Map, at the Texas General Land Office, 1700 Congress Ave. This event will feature tours of the Ransom Center, the Briscoe Center, the Benson Latin American Collection, and the Texas General Land Office, as well as pioneer land surveying demonstrations and presentations on an assortment of cartographic topics. Click here for program. Click here to register for the meeting. Discounted hotel rates are available if booking is made by April 4. For questions one can email TMS President and conference organizer James Harkins <James.Harkins(at)glo.texas.gov>.

June 11, 2024 – Washington (Online), Join from 3:00-4:00 pm (Eastern) Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, reference librarians for an introduction to the Geography and Map Division collections. This orientation session, aimed at the general public, will highlight a wide range of cartographic formats and subject matter. The focus of the session will be on maps and online resources available to all patrons any time or place in the world.  Register for this session.

June 20, 2024 – Washington (Online 4:00 PM Pacific Time), Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Heiko Mühr (Earth Sciences & Map Library, University of California Berkeley) will speak about Mapping German Americans and Their Communities: Heinz Kloss and His 1974 Ethnographic Atlas.

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