Betty Wagner, head of the Architecture and Urban Planning Library, celebrated her 45th year at the UW Libraries in 1996. We recently sat down with her and talked about her impressions of those years.

LD: Tell us about your early career.

B: In 1950, fresh out of Washington State University where I worked in the library for three and a half years, I enrolled in library school at the UW. Field work was required, and I was assigned a position in the Architecture Library. To my surprise, the librarian, who had been there about a year and a half, left her position shortly after I arrived. I did my field work mostly by myself.

After the field work was over, the director of the School of Architecture asked me if I would take over the job. That seemed a wonderful idea to me, not yet graduated and already with a job offer. Since the School of Architecture decided they wanted me, the library said ok. I graduated on the 9th of June, 1951, and came to work on the 11th. This was my first and only professional position; it's likely to be my last.

LD: Did you know very much about architecture when you started?

B: No. At that time it was not required that librarians have backgrounds in the subjects they worked in. What I have learned about architecture, I learned from working with the materials, and from seeking the advice of knowledgeable faculty and others. I have been most fortunate in having a faculty who were highly supportive of the library and its collection.

LD: What did the campus look like in the `50s when you were first here?

B: Much sparser. Gerberding Hall was one of the newest buildings on campus. Old Meany Hall was still standing. We had more temporary buildings, more grass, more open space. There was more overcrowding, too, because few buildings were built during the years after World War II when enrollment spiraled upward. The Health Sciences complex was in its infancy. There was a nine-hole golf course east of where the University Medical Center is now. The site of the Intramural Building and playfields was a city dump.

LD: What were the Libraries like then?

B: We had more branch libraries then. The largest and oldest was the English library in Parrington Hall, which was established in the early thirties. The organizational structure was simpler; all the branch librarians reported directly to the director of libraries. Not until the sixties was an assistant director of libraries appointed.

LD: Have the students changed over those 45 years?

B: The nature of the student body has been cyclical. When I first came, there was a big influx of veterans on campus--lots of returning GIs. The age mix was more comparable to what it is now, rather than the model of the high school graduate going immediately on to college. After four or five years, that switched back to a more typical situation. We've had times when students were laid back, and other eras when they were deadly serious about why they were here.

LD: Do you see differences in how students use the library?

B: There is so much difference now in the tools we use to access information. In the early days, there was little except the card catalog. Our primary index was Art Index, which indexed only a third of the periodicals we had. Users, and the librarian, had to be more curious, had to dig harder to find information. Now we have a number of more productive ways to mine what we have on the shelves.

LD: Has the faculty changed?

B: Both the faculty and the curriculum have changed. When I came, only architecture and some courses in city planning were offered. After the College was established in 1957, landscape architecture and construction management were added to the discipline mix, and the urban design and planning program was expanded. The collection became more diverse in response to these changes. As new faculty members came, they brought different strengths with them that in turn were reflected in the collection.

Some faculty members have been intense users of the library, others not at all. We have people who are very enthusiastic about electronic products and remote use of the library. Like all of us, some have a greater facility than others. I found that if I sat down with the reluctant ones and showed them how it works, how really fun it is, how much more flexible and productive, I could gain converts of all but one or two diehards. They were the same people who never learned how to use the card catalog very well, either. For them it was just trading one unknown technology for another.

LD: What are some of the advantages or disadvantages of working all your life in a branch library?

B: I feel very fortunate. I have been able to get out of the unit and do other things. I have kept current by working on Libraries' committees and councils, and through professional associations. However, I have not always had the benefit of a more general experience. In order to make intelligent referrals, I had to learn what was available in other units and keep up with current practices.

I would not recommend the route I took. Although I have never felt handicapped, there was a period of time that it was thought that if you did not move every seven years there was something wrong with you, that you lacked ambition. Now people look at me in awe. Maybe because people generally do not stay in jobs very long, my 45 years now seems like something special.

The life of a branch librarian is a very varied life. It's not just reference work or collection development. It's part budget maker, administrator, personnel manager, performance appraiser, counselor, recruiter and negotiator. It's also part cataloger, technical services advisor, preservationist and space planner, as well as educator. Sometimes it's daunting. I am not really sure that the training that most of us receive prepare us fully for the full spectrum of what we do. We often learn by trial and error.

One of the thrills about working in an academic environment is working both with the students that we serve, and the students who work for us. Working with young people is the next best thing to a fountain of youth.

LD: What are your fondest memories of these last 45 years?

B: The people and the campus. The people of the College that I have worked with, the staff and students who have worked for me, the clientele of the library and my library colleagues--they are the highlights of my saga.

The College of Architecture and Urban Planning has established the Betty L. Wagner Endowed Library Enrichment Fund to honor and recognize her 45 years of service to the UW Libraries and the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. To contribute to the fund, or for more information, contact Lyn Firkins at (206) 685-0931 or jasper@u.washington.edu, or Marjan Petty at (206) 685-1973 or mcpetty@u.washington.edu.