Posted 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, 2024
An interview with Anita Evans, Murphy Library's first woman director
By Teri Holford, interim Outreach Librarian
Throughout history, many careers were not an option for women who wanted to work outside of teaching and nursing. Librarianship eventually became a field largely represented by women. Let’s take a closer look at a timeline of women in librarianship in the United States:
1852: Boston Public Library hired its first female clerk.
1858: The Smithsonian hired its first female employee (clerk).
1880: The Los Angeles Public Library hired its first female head librarian, Mary Foy.
1890: The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners hired Elizabeth Putnam Sophier and Anna Eliot Ticknor as the first women appointed to a U.S. state library agency.
1911: Theresa Elmendorf became the first woman president of the American Library Association.
1921: Alice Dugged Cary was the first nonprofessional librarian and head of the Auburn Branch of the Carnegie Library, the first branch to serve Atlanta's African American citizens during segregation.
1921: Pura Belpré was the first Puerto Rican librarian to be hired by the New York Public Library.. She would go on to be honored by a children’s literature award, the Pura Belpré Award, founded in 1996.
1923: Virginia Proctor Powell Florence was the first Black woman in the United States to earn a degree in library science.
1940: The first Black American woman to earn a doctorate in library science (U of Chicago) was Eliza Atkins Gleason.
1970: The American Library Association's Social Responsibilities Round Table Feminist Task Force (FTF) was founded in 1970 to address sexism in libraries and librarianship.
1971: Effie Lee Morris was the first woman to become president of the Public Library Association.
1972: Zoia Horn (born in Ukraine), was the first librarian in the U.S. to be jailed for refusing to share information as a matter of conscience.
1973: Page Ackerman was the first woman University Librarian for the University of California, Los Angeles System.
1976: The American Library Association founded the Committee on the Status of women in Librarianship.
2016: Carla Hayden became the first woman Librarian of Congress.
To celebrate Woman's History Month, we sat down for an interview with Anita Evans, Murphy Library's first woman director.
Anita, you were a librarian at Murphy Library before you became Murphy Library’s first woman director. Could you tell us a bit about your time at Murphy Library? Some of the highlights of your tenure here as director?
Thank you for inviting me to participate in the Murphy Library blog during Women’s History Month.
As I reflected on your questions, what came immediately to mind was my admiration of and appreciation for my colleagues at Murphy Library, their high level of professionalism and dedication to providing information resources to UWL students, faculty, staff and the broader community. Adding to that is the support Murphy Library received partnering with faculty, offices across campus, and the student senate. All the major Library initiatives during my years there were accomplished by dedicated people adding their expertise, working together to determine the best way forward to get the job done.
Looking across the 25 years at Murphy Library, from 1987 to 2012, a major story was the very significant technologic innovation and evolution. The Library was moving from a card catalog to an online catalog when I first arrived. Within the first year, the Library added the first CD-ROM, an education database, accessible at a computer station. Instead of having a librarian intermediary initiate the search, connecting to a remote database, users now could search for information themselves. The number of databases grew exponentially as networked databases became available through a host of venders. Eventually, Murphy Library with the other UWL campuses was able to secure legislative funding to help fund e-resources with the advantage of more favorable pricing negotiated for the UW System campuses.
One very interesting time was in the mid-1990s when web browsers were being introduced. I was a member of a UWL group who attended an AAUP (American Association of University Professors) meeting at George Mason University made presentations to attendees on using web browsers. It was a big of a scramble for us while preparing when Netscape Navigator replaced Mosaic as the favored product and a definite sign of how quickly technologies were changing at that time.
Digitizing unique collections held by Murphy Library was another initiative that took off, funded in part by UW System. UWL’s unique collection of River Boat Photographs was one of the first projects selected for this new initiative. The UW Digital Collections has expanded opening a vast trove of archival scholarly resources to our campus and beyond.
With the Murphy Library addition completed in the 1990s, we were able to re-envision the facility adding spaces to encourage collaborative learning as students were assigned by faculty to worked in teams. The first floor was remodeled, and a coffee shop added for small group discussion and collaboration.
Providing a welcoming environment for students and other library users was a focus of facility redesign and programming. Murphy Library showcased artwork from a spectrum of artists (Black, American Indian, Hmong). The library hosted lectures such as one on Olympian, George Coleman Poage and sponsored a series of annual talks with experts from around the country giving talks to multiple audiences on diversity in Children’s Literary. These were in coordination with the School of Education
To help fund library priorities beyond those in the Library’s budget, a Library Endowment was established in the late 1980s. One special project in the early 2000s was commissioning a painting by artist Michael Blazer who had used Special Collections photographs for his work. The original Blazer painting now resides in the ARC/Special Collections, and funds were raised for the Endowment by selling prints of “August Moon” to people across our community. It was a valuable “town & gown” outreach effort with a reception held, and was a substantial fundraiser, growing the Library Endowment to directly benefit library users.
Do you have a special person who served as a role model for you?
So many people come to mind, but I will mention Carol Fulton Ahmad. My first position as an academic librarian was at Oklahoma State University in the 1970s. Carol was head of the Humanities Department at that time and was a positive, inclusive, and knowledgeable leader. There was comradery among the library staff and an openness about trying new ideas. When I was at OSU, we initiated an information literacy program (then called Bibliography Instruction) for students to find and recognize reputable sources. That concept was just getting started across the country. Carol and other colleagues introduced me to various professional opportunities such as serving on American Library Association committees. We are still in touch. At every stage of my career, and certainly at UWL, too, I have worked with wonderful people who have inspired me.
What message would you like to share today with women looking to make a career (and a difference)?
I have been so fortunate to have had a l career I have loved in university libraries, first as a graduate student at University of Michigan, then at Oklahoma State, Michigan State, and for the longest and best part of my career, the UW-La Crosse. As a college student, I liked to take courses across disciplines, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. I did not decide on librarianship until I was a senior. For me, it was probably the best choice I could have made. It is a a joy to see students who are so engaged in learning and who are really transformed by their 4 or so years on campus. I also was fortunate to have worked at and retired from an excellent university.
Deciding on a career was daunting for me. It is a big decision and most do not have the idea in 3rd grade what they will do for all, or a good portion of, their lives. A clique, yes, but do what you love to do, in the environment you expect to enjoy, with colleague you expect will be a source of energy, inspiration and partners in doing something productive, something of value, something good. You may also find that you know yourself or parts of yourself better as time passes. It is OK, to shift course, maybe further your education, and match who you are with a new pursuit.
Thanks to Anita Evans for her service leading Murphy Library for so many years. The library created the "Anita Evans Collaborative Learning Space" on the ground floor to encourage collaborative learning.