The Research Library at the Natural History Museum Los Angeles
County is home to a variety of materials from a variety of fields, including
anthropology, ethnology, history, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology.
Per the museum’s website, the collection focuses on Southern California
history, geography, and industry with over 200,000 books, journals, maps, and
Special Collection materials.
Mr. Richard P. Hulser, Chief Librarian, directed the tour of the
Research Library. He was a very personable, colorful and storied tour
guide. He has experience in a variety of information services areas
including academic and corporate libraries. Mr. Hulser has a science
background. His early studies and experiences included internship work in
the Education Department at the American Museum of Natural History. He
holds an ALA accredited M.A. in Librarianship and information management from
the University of Denver; M.Ed. in instructional media and instructional
development from Utah State University; and B.S. in Earth and Space Sciences
from Stony Brook University.
I have never met two librarians with the exact same career
path. Each one has different spots. I find this very encouraging
and something of a relief. The hard and soft facts of life come into play
in a variety of ways and this always makes a librarian’s story so compelling to
me.
In addition to managing print materials, Mr. Hulser is
responsible for electronic content and the library’s internet presence.
He has written many articles on technology strategy planning, visualization of
information, and been an invited speaker at international professional
association meetings. He is a Fellow at the Special Libraries Association
(SLA) and has served on the SLA Board of Directors. He was recognized
with the SLA 2010 member achievement award for his contributions to the
association and library profession.
Mr. Husler began the tour by finding out a little about
us. He wanted to know where we are currently on the librarianship
path. Many of us already work in libraries; several of us have previously
worked in libraries; and a few of us have internships. He touched on
several topics including his previous work and education histories, the history
of the library and the state of the library as he found it when he started work
as the Chief Librarian five years ago. He connected many of the themes by
revealing aspects of his personal and professional philosophies in terms of
librarianship through time. I thought this was very helpful for several
reasons.
First, depending on who you ask and where you live, librarians
are not exactly scarce, but they are rather few and far between when you
compare their numbers to other professionals like teachers, lawyers, doctors,
etc. There just are not that many around in the day-to-day tread of the
business of everyday life. Since I have started the Library and
Information Technology, this perception has become even more acute.
Mr. Husler described the situation he came into as the new Chief
Librarian at the Museum of Natural History. He showed the group enlarged
documentary photos of the space as he found it, during its restoration, and
when it became inhabitable once again. This bit of information is
important because the restoration of the Research Library is a part of the
memory and the history of the Library itself. He mentioned he worked out
of an upstairs office away from the library during his first year and made is a
point to visit all of the individuals in each department. He found a stack
of books supporting a microwave and asked if he might avail himself of
them. As Mr. Husler said, the library is not necessarily a physical space
any longer, it is a concept. And in order for it to be a living,
breathing concept, it must live in the minds of others outside of even the
typical parameters of the library’s function.
There was a nice discussion about the changing role of the
library and the contemporary emphasis on outreach. In the past, the
perception of libraries was structured by the idea that they were repositories
or store houses or inert collections and they are somehow outside of daily affairs. This is similar to a popular notion of History, that the
record of human events happens elsewhere and to other people. Something
about this definition is riddled with the idea that History is necessarily very
dramatic. It is but not always. History is a construction or a
narrative based on the circulation of people, events, materials, data,
etc. Libraries are very much embedded in this construction. The key
word is “circulation,” perhaps.
Based on the sensitive and fragile condition of many of the materials stored at the Research Library, the librarian will take requests only if the materials are not available elsewhere. He will help you access the materials at other sites, if necessary. However, if it turns out the materials are only available at the Research Library, the Chief Librarian is more than happy to assist the user. I was under the impression the library was for the exclusive use of the institution, an internal library, and was surprised to learn how much research was done there for the motion picture industry, for example.
The Research Library at the NHM is becoming more accessible all the time, thanks to Mr. Husler's curating efforts.
Works Cited:
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/research-library
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