By Tess Goldwasser. Photo credit American Libraries 1994.
What is your role in the GLBTRT?
I proudly serve as the Chair of GLBTRT, my first active role in the RT. I lead a board of committed officers, colleagues, and friends. My role is to try to articulate a vision for the RT and, with the board and the members, move us forward in ways that are meaningful to our members and to the library community. This, however, is not my 1st, 2nd, or 10th year as a member of GLBTRT. I joined in 1992, when the Gay Task Force was part of SRRT, and I have been a member every year since: almost 25 years.
What does the GLBTRT mean to you?
Home – or at least one of my ALA “homes,” a place where colleagues can work together toward the common good, and a place to be able to make a contribution.
Are you involved in ALA in other ways?
Funny you should ask. At the moment, I have few other formal roles in ALA, but the ones that I have had last well beyond the years those roles encompassed. From 1985 to 2000, I served on ALA Council as the Alaska Chapter Councilor, on the ALA Executive Board, as ALA Treasurer and as ALA’s President. That is a big chunk of involvement, one that left me a better person and a better librarian. I’ve served on many of ALA’s award juries as a member and as chair, as well as on the Caldecott committee. Now, I come to ALA to see friends, attend the ALA Executive Board Survivors Dinner, to attend programs, and be a part of the GLBTRT.
What professional work do you perform?
Do you mean “paid” or “unpaid?” I’ve failed retirement twice or maybe three times; I don’t work for a paycheck, but I definitely work. Some days, I think being RT chair is a full-time job [not really]. Being part of and contributing to a professional organization has always been very satisfying work. What you create is only limited by your imagination.
What would you like to tell us about your personal life?
No pets, one child, one husband of 48 years and a huge extended faux family and friends I love. One cabin, one house in Alaska, one condo in Portland, OR. Work, travel, family and friends, the Alaska Library Association and ALA have defined our life. Hobbies: letterpress, quilting, flea-marketing, crabbing, and hanging out with friends.
What are you most proud of?
A life well-lived, a profession I love, and the power to take strong stands on issues that matter to me.
Who inspires you?
My parents, my colleagues, my friends, and my Juneau community; my parents for taking me to the library when I was young. My husband who has always believed I can do anything I set my mind to doing. Rod Waldron, my first boss and then director of the Oregon State University Library, who welcomed me into his office to sit and have long talks about professional issues. He told me how important it was to get involved in our professional associations and that it was OK to do that work on library time. Juneau’s historically very out and very proud lesbian community: friends, colleagues, community activists, and neighbors.
What is your favorite holiday and how do you celebrate?
It’s not Halloween, or the 4th of July, nor is it President’s Day. In fact, it isn’t an American holiday at all. It is also not “my holiday.” It’s Russian Orthodox Easter. I started by going with a Russian-American friend to Vespers at Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery, founded in 1397. The all-male choir with their deep bass voices sung from the loft. With Easter coming, Alla invited me to attend the service which begins Easter – at midnight. In the afternoon, we would go to a church with our baskets to have them blessed. At 11:00, we would head out for a church, a different one very year, with our candles. We would process around the church with the candles lit following the priest and come back in just before midnight to hear the cry: Христос воскрес! and the response: Воистину воскрес! (Christos voskres! Voistinu voskres!) Christ has risen, He has risen indeed. Around 2:30 or 3:00 AM, we would go back to Alla’s apartment to break the fast. We would drink tea, eat hard boiled eggs [saving the shells to bury in the garden], cut the kulich, and spread it with the rich buttery pashka, and just sit, talk, and enjoy. Eventually, I would walk down four flight of stairs and slip into bed. These memories always remind me of my favorite piece of music: Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil [Vespers, Op. 37].
If you could be transported into the fictional world of any book, where would you go?
Damar: the setting of Robin’s McKinley’s The Blue Sword .
What do you have to say about the future of libraries?
I have faith in ALA, in librarians, and in the patrons and potential patrons we serve, that libraries, that this essential service, will last – and change – for decades, centuries to come.
Where would you like to see the GLBTRT go in the future?
Far!
A VERY interesting lady and a wonderful GLBTRT chair!