By A. Faulkner
What is your role in the GLBTRT?
At the moment, my role in GLBTRT is as a member. For the last 8 years I have served ALA as a representative to IFLA and as a standing committee member on Library Services to the Multicultural Populations Section. After the August IFLA meeting in Wrocław, Poland, I will be an ALA representative to the IFLA Indigenous Matters Section for the next 4 years.
Previously I have served GLBTRT as a member of the Fundraising Committee, member of the Stonewall Book Awards Committee, and as Co-chair of the RT from 2001-2005.
What does the GLBTRT mean to you?
It is my “home” within the ALA and my professional life. I started exploring professional service and activities in the GLBTRT and consider it my home to this day.
Are you involved in ALA in other ways?
At the moment all of my ALA activities are taken up by work for IFLA. I am co-planning a Library Services to Multicultural Populations Section satellite meeting to this year’s IFLA meeting. It is titled “From Refugee to Citizen-Integration: Policies and Actions of Cultural Institutions” in Berlin, Germany August 16-17.
What professional work do you perform?
I am head of Collections and Technical Services at California State University Channel Islands. (No I do not swim to work. We are on the mainland in Ventura County, California.) I am fully tenured faculty and I am lucky enough to also teach the LGBT Studies course on campus. I am Vice-chair of the Academic Senate on campus.
What would you like to share about your personal life?
I live on campus and walk to work. I’m mostly single. I have a gray tuxedo cat named Moshi (Swahili for smoke). I read far too much in my spare time. I enjoy eating most anything, except sushi.
What are you most proud of?
Uhhhh…
Who inspires you?
A friend, Guy Timpanaro, inspires me for his personal strength and determination in life. Other friends inspire me with their various achievements and intelligence.
What are your goals? (Professional and/or personal.)
To complete any assignments due in a timely manner. To continue traveling. To continue working (for a while anyway).
What do you think (or predict) is the future of libraries?
Libraries will continue to be leaders in the collection and distribution of information. Local information will be very important to digitize and make available moving forward. Collection and curation of datasets both local and other will play a large role in libraries moving forward.
In what direction would you like the GLBTRT to move in the future?
I would like to see the RT continue to move forward in educating the profession about all people inclusively under the LGBT+ alphabet. I’d like to see the RT continue to grow through welcoming and inclusionary programs and materials that are available for other professionals.
If you could be transported into the fictional world of any book, where would you go?
Jack Chalker’s Well of Souls
What would be the title of your autobiography?
To Sir, With Love. Wait, that’s already taken. Uhm…I Didn’t Think I Would Get This Far.
If you could only choose one song to play every time you entered a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Jaws Main Theme, from the movie Jaws
If you could have a dinner party with 5 culturally or historically significant figures, living or dead, who would you invite?
Ignoring the language differences:
Julian of Norwich
Lao Tzu
Nelson Mandela
Akhenaten
Walt Whitman
What is the meaning of life?
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