Oral History Program Sally J. Arway Interviewed by Ruby Licona 5 November 2007 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Sally J. Arway Interviewed by Ruby Licona Special Projects Librarian 5 November 2007 Copyright © 2009 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State University Oral History Project began conducting interviews with key Weber State University faculty, administrators, staff and students, in Fall 2007. The program focuses primarily on obtaining a historical record of the school along with important developments since the school gained university status in 1990. The interviews explore the process of achieving university status, as well as major issues including accreditation, diversity, faculty governance, changes in leadership, curricular developments, etc. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Arway, Sally J., an oral history by Ruby Licona, 5 November 2007, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Sally J. Arway 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Sally J. Arway. It was conducted November 5, 2007 and concerns her recollections and experiences with Weber State University. The interviewer is Ruby Licona. RL: Sally, thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me and help fill in some gaps about the history of the campus and of the Stewart Library. To begin with, tell me a bit about your background, where you were born, where did you got to school, etc.? SA: I was born in Ogden in the old Dee Hospital and grew up on west 17th Street down in the area of the Marriott where J. Willard Marriott was born, back in the days when he called himself Marriott (Mari’-ut) and not Marriott (Mari-ought’) like the hotel chain RL: Is that part of what’s Marriott-Slaterville now? SA: Yes, that’s right. I went to Mound Fort Junior High and Ogden High and then two years at Weber College, it was Weber College then. The first year at Weber College, down on the old campus on Jefferson and 25th, and then during my sophomore year the first four little buildings on campus were built and they moved a couple of transitional buildings up, little quad kind of things, and my sophomore year was spent here. It was still called Weber College however. RL: How many students were there? SA: I bet there were only about 700 students all in all. Everyone knew everyone. RL: So it was an extension of high school and that’s where the nickname Harrison High came from? 2 SA: Actually, I had some wonderful teachers who stayed here for years and years, like Dello Dayton, who became Academic Vice President. He was a History Department teacher. Jennings Olson taught philosophy back in those days too. RL: Was there a core of classes that you had to take? SA: It was very similar to what it is now. The general education requirements were very similar. They really haven’t changed that much. Now there are many more options, but you had to take so many hours in natural sciences, humanities, and social science, and you had to take three quarters of English. We were on the quarter system. They did require Physical Education. I don’t think they do that anymore. I took swimming from Carol Westmoreland who taught at Weber State for many years. RL: How many faculty members were there when you first moved up here do you remember? SA: Maybe about thirty. RL: Did they cover more than one department? SA: Yes, some of them did and some of them, such as Wayne Carver, who taught English, became a fairly well known writer and moved from Weber State to Carleton College. RL: They are also known for being very student oriented. So it would have been a good match I would imagine. You did two years here? SA: And later went to the University of Utah. RL: And finished a four year degree there? SA: That’s right. 3 RL: What was your major? SA: Foolishly it was psychology. I had taken French at Weber, three quarters of French in order to get a degree in English. I had thought that was my plan, and needed to have five quarters of a foreign language. I went down to the U and enrolled in the fourth section of French and realized I hadn’t learned any French at Weber! I couldn’t do it, so I had to quit. I knew I didn’t have time to start all over in French and so I thought, “well, I probably have enough psychology classes that I could put together a quick major there,” but I really had more classes in my English minor. RL: I’m sure you put the learning to good use when you were doing Collection Development in the library. SA: Psychology. I don’t know. It seemed to me that we spent a lot of time with rats going around mazes and that sort of thing. But I did enjoy the English department at the U. I also took some library classes. All of this time, while I was going both to Weber and to the University of Utah, I was working in libraries. I started working at the Carnegie Free Library downtown on Washington between 25th and 26thwhen I was sixteen. It’s been torn down since. Then it was right next to the City and County Building and it looked like a typical Carnegie Free Library. RL: A little brick building with the stone steps? SA: Yes. I heard that there’s a river that goes under Ogden city and through the years it sort of tilted. [Laughter] RL: The leaning tower of Ogden. 4 SA: If you dropped a pencil, you had to chase it! A lot of people objected when they tore that building down but it really couldn’t have been saved. But I started working there and continued during my school years. RL: When you finished at the U did you come back to Weber to work? SA: I had a teaching certificate in English and did my student teaching my last quarter at East High School and realized I couldn’t do it. I was not a teacher. So I came back to the Carnegie Library and said, “Do you have anything?” and they said, “Oh yes, we’ll take you back,” and I was a reference librarian there for maybe three years until I got married. During that time period, U. S. Government documents were at the Carnegie Free Library. We had a librarian there who didn’t unbox them or do anything with them. For years nothing had been done, so I was assigned to unbox them and get them on shelves and I can still go to the government documents section in the Stewart Library and see my lettering on some of those old documents. So years later, well not too many years later, when Weber State was becoming a four year college, I had a two year old daughter and I got a call saying, “Weber is getting the documents depository and it will no longer will be at the Carnegie Library. Would you be interested in coming to Weber since no one else here knows about government documents,” so that’s how I got my first job here. RL: Who was the director then? SA: The director was James Tolman. He had just barely come as director. Wilma Grose decided to step down when she realized it was going to become a four year institution and that a new library was going to be built here. 5 RL: It was more than she wanted to undertake? SA: Yes. He was hired not too many months before me. RL: You came here without an MLS, but a lot of experience. SA: That’s right. RL: Did you bring the government documents with you from the Carnegie Library? SA: Yes, that’s right. RL: You had unboxed them and you reboxed them and brought them with you? SA: The library was on the north end on the second floor of Building 4. That’s where everything was and I was put in charge of documents, periodicals, and also did some reference work. We all did everything. There weren’t that many of us. RL: Normally I would ask why you came to Weber and what about the school attracted you, but apparently they were attracted to you and to your experience. How long before you went back to get an MLS? SA: I started here in November of ’62, and finished my MLS in 1970, but I did it during summers. So over the course of three summers I went away to the University of Denver. I guess I worked without the MLS for about three years before I started. At that time, Helmut Hoffman came to Weber State as Academic Vice President and he was the one that was really pushing advanced degrees. He started, over Mr. Tolman’s head, really, hiring people with advanced degrees. Evan Christiansen was one. RL: Hiring them into the library? 6 SA: Into the library, yes. Suddenly somebody would appear and Mr. Tolman would know nothing about them. Helmut Hoffman would bring them up and introduce them to us. RL: How long was Tolman director here? SA: I can’t remember the exact time when he stepped down as director. One of the librarians that Helmut Hoffman hired was named George Tanner and he just didn’t work out. I can say this because I think George died not too long ago. After a period of time they went through all of the paperwork and evaluations in order to let him go and he fought it, but they did force him to leave and he said “If I go, you go.” To Mr. Tolman. He dug up all kinds of things and went to Helmut Hoffman with them and I guess Mr. Tolman was given the choice to either resign or step down. He stayed working in the library for some time and was a very good librarian all those years. He was a reference librarian after that. Craige Hall had started working as a cataloger about a year before this happened, and he had his MLS, so he was moved in as acting director. Everyone liked him and so he continued on. RL: For twenty some odd years. SA: Yes that’s right. Some of us who had bachelor’s degrees, but no MLS, were told that we had a choice, we could either be staff members or we could go back to school again to become faculty members. RL: Did they help you with any of the expenses? SA: No. RL: But it sounds like the faculty status for librarians came fairly early on then. 7 SA: Yes it did. RL: I understand that the library had a Library Science minor with the School of Education. SA: Yes, we were expected to teach. In fact I was teaching classes all along. RL: From the beginning? SA: From the beginning. That wasn’t unusual. There were a number of faculty members in every department with only bachelors’ degrees and they were told the same: “get a masters’ degree, or get a doctorate if you want to stay.” RL: That was while the school was still… SA: Starting to grow to a four year institution. RL: When you got your MLS, you stayed on here and had faculty status. About how big was the library staff then? SA: It grew awfully fast. I’ll bet we had about fifteen librarians. For one thing, you needed a lot of catalogers in those days, more than you need now. RL: A lot of things had to be done locally. SA: A lot of things had to be done here. I think that we had about four or five faculty catalogers at that point. RL: Do you remember who those individuals were? SA: Well, Stella Chang was one of the early ones. Scott Birkinshaw, Wilma Grose was also a cataloger. I don’t remember all of them. RL: That’s all right. I was just curious. I know you mentioned some names in the chapter you did in the Weber College History. 8 SA: I think Ruth Turner started out that way and there was Afton Higgs, who has since died, and so has Ruth. RL: LeRae? SA: LeRae King. RL: Was she a cataloger or reference librarian? SA: She was a staff member and worked all over the place. She was one of the early people. It was Lenore King. Lenore did have an MLS. She was one of those hired in, but she was in public services and also just recently died. RL: What was the reaction when Mr. Tolman was told to step down? SA: Some of us were really upset and some of us, who felt our jobs were somewhat secure, went down and talked to Helmut Hoffman. We were quite upset about it and we didn’t quite threaten to resign, but we said “you know you’re not the librarian, you can’t run the library.” We were happy with Craige. Mr. Tolman said, “Its okay you don’t have to do anything for my sake.” But Hoffman kind of backed down then and Hoffman let Craige run the show. I have mixed feelings about Hoffman because, in trying to get people with advanced degrees, a lot of people, including my husband, were hired. Hoffman was the one that brought them in and he would just bring them in and hire them. Heads of departments and others had a little bit of say, but not much. He was a rather dictatorial man. When the president left, when Bill Miller left, Hoffman applied to be president and he didn’t get it. At that point he left the campus and became, oh I think he wrote grants. I think he made a lot of money writing all kinds of educational grants. He had his own consulting firm. 9 RL: Did Bill Miller know that Hoffman was doing all this? SA: The problem was Bill Miller had had a heart attack. He was a good person, he just wasn’t able to do too much and so Helmut Hoffman kind of ran the show. RL: Who took over after Miller? SA: I think it was Rodney Brady. I’m trying to think if anyone came between. RL: Your library colleagues were, let’s just say that they had a lot of backbone then, if they were able to stand up to Hoffman. SA: We were told, when George Tanner was going through all of this, that we had to be honest, we had to speak up. And then to have it all turn against Mr. Tolman. That got to us, we felt that we’d been betrayed. Actually it worked out well for me because it was just about the time that everything was being done as far as equalizing women’s salaries with men. I really didn’t know how little I was getting compared to the others but Mr. Tolman, a sweet wonderful man, just didn’t think that women needed the salaries men needed. RL: Even though you had a daughter at home that you were trying to feed? SA: Yes, that’s right. But it was starting to change and there were committees put in force. Then over a two year period my salary was compared against someone with a similar background. The one in the library that had a similar background was Evan Christensen, a good friend. RL: Who had been brought in for more money than you had? SA: A lot more money and we were just about equal in experience and degrees and everything else. So over about a two year period, my salary just about doubled. 10 Craige Hall fought hard for that kind of thing. I don’t know that Mr. Tolman would have done it. He was quite soft spoken; not as forceful a person. RL: I think that Craige continued that kind of thing through the years. SA: Yes, that’s right. RL: I know he brought me in for more money and said, “This way I’ll be able to bring you in and then I can bring up some others that need to be brought up.” SA: Salaries, that’s true. RL: So he seemed to have fairly progressive ideas. SA: I think so. He was a good person to work for I felt. RL: He was generally well respected around the campus? SA: I should say so, yes. RL: Did you work at the library when you were down at the U? SA: I worked at the Carnegie Library during the summers. I did some work at the Salt Lake City Library. It just wasn’t as well managed as the old Carnegie Free Library at that time. RL: You don’t really have anything you could compare as far as your experiences here with other… SA: University libraries? No. My only comparison is that for a number of years I was on state committees that met with librarians at Utah State, University of Utah, BYU and the others, and we talked a lot and compared notes. I always felt that I was fortunate to be here. RL: Other than your experience with the French classes, when you went from Weber to the U… 11 SA: I had good classes at both places. RL: I’m not disparaging Weber in anyway. What I was going to ask was whether you noticed a difference in the intellectual ambiance, or the determination of the students, or was there a different atmosphere down there? SA: Maybe a little more. RL: It was much larger at the U wasn’t it? SA: At that time the University of Utah had 8,000 students. We have double that here now. It seemed awfully large to me then. The library was on that old horseshoe in an old building at the U. And it was closed stacks, so you had to go and ask for books, which we didn’t do here at Weber. RL: In addition to your teaching were you expected to do research? Were people in the library doing research? SA: They were. It seems to me that Scott Birkinshaw was doing some research and one of my tasks was to decide what kind of system we would use for government documents, whether we cataloged them into the Library of Congress System as many libraries were doing, or keep them separately with GPO numbers. Since everything was beginning to look to the time when it would be computerized, there was a thought that with the Library of Congress System, having things interspersed with the collection would be better. So I did do some research to see what other colleges of a similar size and a similar kind of collection were doing and, as a result, we decided to stick with the GPO numbering system. 12 RL: It’s much easier with them coming in with numbers already assigned, rather than having to hire another cataloger to take care of all that. SA: That’s right. RL: What other activities did you undertake? When I first came here we had representatives from the library on all of the faculty senate committees. Was that the way it was from the outset? SA: Yes. RL: Once you had faculty status were you just accepted on the campus? SA: That’s what I felt. I felt that throughout my whole time here. I spent maybe four or five terms on the faculty senate but I was never chair. RL: As the library representative? SA: Well, as a representative. It seemed like we were part of different groups. You had to have so many members from each area of campus, and we were put with some other groups. We nearly always got one of our people put on senate committees. I was never chair of the faculty senate but assistant chair a couple of times. And one of the most difficult committees I was on was the committee to hear the cases of people who were being let go. RL: Like the Tenure/Retention Committee? SA: Tenure/Retention and those were tough. RL: I think it would be tough even now, especially if you’ve worked with someone as a colleague. 13 SA: When cases were brought against faculty members by students or other faculty members we had to tape everything. Everything we did was under closed lock and sealed. It’s interesting for me to walk around now and see how few people I know, because it’s been fifteen years since I retired. There was a time when I knew practically the whole faculty because much of the time I was here I was the only person in charge of Collection Development. I reached out to practically everybody and always felt I was a part of the campus. RL: Now collection management is more formalized. Subject librarians have collection management assignments with each college. SA: It just became, as the campus grew, it just became impossible for one person to do it. RL: There was tremendous growth in not very many years. There were only 700 students when you started here in the 60’s and then when I came in 1990 it was already up to almost 11,000 students. I believe we had several hundred faculty and staff and that’s probably doubled by now. I think we’re up to around 18,000 students. That means in the last twenty years it’s doubled again. SA: Because I live just a block and a half from campus, I’ve seen this growth even after retirement. I’ve enjoyed it. Weber State is home. It’s a second home to me still. RL: I’m sure it is. Did you ever have any administrative responsibilities in the library? SA: There were a number of different types of organization through the years and for a long period of time we had public service and technical services and collection 14 development. Cataloging and a number of other things were under technical services and for a number of years I was in charge of tech. services. RL: Eventually you moved into Reference, didn’t you? SA: It seems like I was always being called out there, particularly when they needed help with government documents, and I guess I thought I needed a change. RL: In the mid 80’s they hired Vicky York as Government Documents Librarian. SA: Yes, that’s right. RL: Is that when you gave it up or was there someone else before Vicky? SA: Ruth Turner was doing government documents for awhile before Vicky came. I think Vicky was quite an important hire. She didn’t always get along with everybody, but she insisted on moving us forward into the twenty-first century. She was insistent that we all learn computer skills, and there were some that could not, just could not do it. It wasn’t part of their mentalities and they had to leave. She was kind of hard on people who couldn’t do it. I think she only stayed about five years, but I think she added greatly to our progress. RL: I was hired as her replacement in 1990, and I think that she came in about ’85. When did the library get an automated library system? SA: It was pretty early on. That is one thing Mr. Tolman started. Initially, we had the old punch cards, which was an automated system. RL: It was. That would have been in the late 60’s or early 70’s? SA: Early 70’s, yes. And any number of systems since then. I remember going to many, many meetings when I was in charge of tech services to see what kinds of programs we would go on. Sometimes we would cooperate with Utah State and 15 try all these different programs. I think we were amazingly early to do that sort of thing. RL: When I came you already had an integrated system and we bought another not too long after I arrived. That RFP was done with Utah State. I remember Craige saying, “We have to try to do a joint project with Utah State, because the legislature and Board of Regents are looking for cooperative ventures.” Not too long after that the legislature provided ongoing funding to UALC libraries. Having ongoing funding for automation and shared databases has been tremendously important for UALC schools. A few years ago, when we were going through an accreditation review, the reviewers rated us as among the top twenty percent as far as technology for libraries of our size. SA: Another thing we did early on, was Jim Tolman’s decision which was to move to the Library of Congress classification system, which was another reason that Wilma Grose wanted to step down as cataloger. Of course, we had a very small collection and, as of a certain date, everything that came in from then on was classified in the Library of Congress System. Long before Utah State, University of Utah and others began to do it we were doing it. We didn’t have a split system for very long. All the new books were done in Library of Congress and then, little by little, they’d go back into the Dewey books that we had and redo them. I think we were the first in the state to have our entire collection in the Library of Congress System. RL: Trendsetters even then. 16 SA: Yes, and he was the one that did that. It was his decision and I remember the day that the catalogers got the last Dewey Decimal book done. It was all done and we had a big party. RL: Was there champagne on the sly? SA: No. We might have had lemonade. RL: What about interaction with the students? You came here as a student in the early 50’s and then hired on in the early 60’s. Did you see a change in the students and their level of sophistication over the years or were they pretty much the same? SA: I don’t think anything… RL: They became more immature? SA: Yes. At least not as knowledgeable and maybe more interested in just getting out and getting the degree. They’re all working, half of them married. They didn’t have the time to put into it. It became more of a commuter campus. I really think the earlier students were more mature, or at least more interested in taking different kinds of classes and getting a good education. RL: I’m always amazed in looking at old year books from the 50’s and up to about the mid 60’s how much older the students look in their dress and in their demeanor. You look at the seniors and the hair do’s and the clothing just seem so much more adult. SA: You dressed up to come to campus. Really took it seriously. When my husband was in charge of the Honors Program he had some very good students, but he 17 noticed as years went on that there really weren’t as many people interested in that kind of… RL: Intellectual interaction? SA: There are always wonderful students. RL: Oh sure. You’re always going to have the ones that take the ball and really run with it. SA: Perhaps it’s because not as many people went to college back in those days. These kids today are so sharp when it comes to technology, business, and the business world. That seems to be the focus now. RL: And that’s great, but there’s still room for the arts and discussing philosophy just for the sake of discussing it. SA: We always had different kinds of organizations. Gloria Wurst mentioned the Ladies Libation League, that was a little different group. We’d get together on Fridays usually, but we also had a group called Think Break that would get together Friday afternoon where we would do that sort of thing. It seems like there were always a few things like that going on during my years. Also in the old Union Building, when the campus was smaller, a number of faculty members would sit together for lunch and there’d be really nice discussions. RL: And it didn’t matter which department you were from? SA: No. RL: You’d sit down and throw around ideas and everybody brought something different to the table. 18 SA: That’s true. And then there was a bowling league on campus. I was a terrible bowler, but we did have a library bowling team, as did a number of other departments. There was an administrative bowling team and there were vice presidents and janitors on the team. We all bowled together. And the math department had a great bowling team. Before we’d bowl we would go down to the Grizzly Bear Pizza place and have pizza and then we’d come back and bowl in the Union Building. Deanna Hall and I, she became Hall, she was Deanna Read then, were the two women on the library bowling team. We weren’t very good, but Craige Hall was wonderful. He was a great bowler. RL: Who else was on the team? SA: Don, whose name I can’t think of, Don who died some years back. Art Carpenter was on the bowling team. We met a lot of other faculty members just by bowling with them. The Chemistry Department had a great bowling team. RL: Was there a lot more togetherness then? SA: Yes I think so, well maybe there is now. I have no way of judging. RL: I don’t know. I think there was more interaction when I first got here. SA: In my life that involvement continued because I’ve continued to have the friendships of the people I’ve met here. Just Friday night I was at a book club with Bob Belka, who was in the German department, and Lee Walser and his wife. Lee taught Spanish. A bunch of old Weber State faculty members are all in a book club now, my book club, so I see a number of people that I met. RL: So it’s a couples’ book club? 19 SA: Well, I’m not a couple any more. No, actually it isn’t. There is one single man; there are three of us widowed, but we’re all good friends. Fred Pashley is another one. RL: The book club Kathleen Lukken started just celebrated their twentieth birthday. It’s a good book club. And there’s a Women’s Studies book club, so there’s still that kind of thing going on, but it seems to be changing. I think having computers and telephones and cell phones means that people don’t have to meet to talk to one another. SA: That’s true. At one time I knew everybody’s extension. Not that I memorized them, it’s just that I’d called everybody on campus so many times, each department at least. I knew everybody’s extension and some of my friends used to quiz me on it, “now what’s Helen James extension? What’s Mary Jo’s extension?” And I just knew it. I don’t any more but it’s much easier to talk... RL: Than to just punch into something? SA: Yes, everything is coded now. RL: Do you remember what your employee number was? SA: My telephone number? RL: No, your employee number, what number employee were you at Weber State? SA: One of those early numbers. I’m probably down there about twenty. [Laughter] Be interesting to know. RL: Well, if there were thirty people on campus, you were probably under fifty or something. Was there much of an international presence when you were here? I know we had the Japan Airlines contract in the 90’s. 20 SA: We had a lot of Iranian students, particularly after the Shah fell. Well, even before that. When the Shah was in power, Utah State did some work with Iran and brought a lot of Iranian students to Utah State and then some, depending on majors, came to Weber. We had a very large Iranian group. RL: That would have been in the 80’s? SA: Would have been in the 70’s I would say. There were always some African students. I remember we always had an annual foreign student’s dinners. I think they still do. RL: The international dinners. SA: And there was an international student advisor early on. I do remember the great number of Iranian students though, which ended after the revolution. RL: And then we had quite a few Asian students that came here in the 80’s and 90’s. SA: Yes, right toward the end of the time I was on campus. I remember we always liked to hire Asian students as shelvers. They were so good. They could follow the numbers. You could explain it once and they could do it. They were great. RL: Besides Helmut Hoffman, do you have recollections of other administrators? SA: One of my favorites was Rodney Brady. Some people made a bit of fun about him because he always had this sixteen rule plan to be successful in life, but I just thought he was a joy to be with. RL: A sixteen rule plan? Like a business plan? SA: Yes, of how you could achieve all these things. He was a very goal oriented person but he was just a sweetheart. He was president of the college, it was not a university then. He knew everyone and was one who, if you were eating in the 21 Union Building, would sit down with you, sit with students, sit with everyone, and get to know them. I just thought he was a joy as an administrator. RL: And he was here about ten years? SA: Yes, I think so. I think he replaced Joe Bishop. Joe Bishop was the one that had all the problems here at Weber State and… RL: What? They overturned him? SA: Oh yes. The Faculty Senate called for his dismissal. Are you sure Marie Kotter and some of the others haven’t talked to you about... RL: I have a note here that says a group deposed President Bishop. SA: Yes, it was the Faculty Senate. Joe Bishop looked like he was going to be pretty good, but he brought in some other pals of his and they decided that Weber State should be run by management by objectives. They completely reorganized the whole campus and all of the schools and decided that everything should be taught through kits. The faculty members didn’t. You’d meet with students once and give them a kit and they would work through several steps on their own and then the faculty member would meet with the students. This was supposed to be phased in. The library, of course, was put in charge of circulating all these kits. Putting them together and circulating them. Well, I think after about two quarters, the faculty was just up in arms. RL: That seems like a lot more work for people. SA: Initially it was a tremendous amount of work because it was similar to what the Education Department had done with kits, have you heard of those? And in a way it would work in Education because they spent so much time out in the 22 schools. But in American History, it just wasn’t the thing. And so different faculty members were taken out to the classroom and they had to write all these kits, how to teach all these classes, and then make them available to other people in the department to use them. So, if Jean White was giving somebody in Political Science a kit that she wrote, he would have to teach it her way. That’s just an example. I know she did work on some of the kits and became very upset with them. Bishop finally backed down from it and said “we will only do it for certain classes.” But, he had sunk himself by then. RL: Was this a method that he had used somewhere else? SA: He hired an Academic Vice President from Florida who had done it at some kind of Florida institution and was sure it would work at Weber. RL: Do you remember who that was? SA: I don’t. He only lasted a year. I remember he was really young. RL: How long was Bishop here? SA: I would say maybe three years before they got rid of him. RL: And had everybody up in arms. SA: Everybody was up in arms and the Mormon Church saved us by calling him as a mission president to Argentina or something. [Laughter] So that we wouldn’t have to go through all of what happens when you have to get rid of a president. RL: That must have been horrendous. How was morale on campus? SA: Oh it was terrible, poor morale. There were people who said “Let’s give it a chance.” And in the library, we did too, but it just didn’t work out. Bishop felt that 23 higher education had to change throughout the country and wanted Weber to be at the forefront of doing it. RL: That’s good if you have a system that succeeds, but when you get everybody up in arms... SA: Well, you’d have these wonderful lecturers, like Joe Dixon in history, who would just draw students to his classroom because he was such a wonderful lecturer. To stop him from doing that and just handing out kits and then meeting with the kids from time to time to take tests, that’s a terrible thing to do. RL: We have this Last Lecture series presented on campus now. SA: Eugene Bozniak this year, he’s another friend. RL: Yes, he did that a couple of weeks ago. So then Rod Brady came. SA: Yes and he, it was just like a wave. We called the Brady years the Golden Years at Weber State. And it was the time, too, when money was available. We weren’t having to cut back constantly. So we really couldn’t have had it better. RL: More federal funding for higher ed.? SA: Yes. Those were good years. RL: Was he supportive of the library? SA: Very much so. And he came to everything. He would come to our Christmas party, he would come to a student’s music recital. He’s such a good person, I think. RL: And after he left, it was Nadauld? SA: Nadauld. He was a bit of a disappointment after Brady. I must say that. RL: He wasn’t here that long was he? 24 SA: No, and Thompson replaced him. I left during the time Thompson was here. I thought he was fine during the time he was here. I know there were people who were kind of happy to see him go and I think now everyone is thrilled with our president. RL: Yes. She doesn’t ask you to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. So that I think that works out well. What about the deans? Do you have any recollections about the deans or the provost? I know Bob Smith was provost when I came. Did he come in with Brady? SA: Yes, he did, and stayed through Nadauld and part of Thompson. I thought he was great. I know there were some on campus who felt he tried too hard to bring people with different backgrounds on to the faculty. RL: In terms of diversity? SA: Yes, and kind of resented it. RL: Did they see that as a problem? SA: They saw those people being promoted over them, but I thought it was great. He was also a very good friend of ours, he and his wife. So I was close to them. RL: And they retired to California, didn’t they? SA: Idlewild, California is where they live now. Not too far from Palm Springs, but they’re up in the hills. RL: We’ve talked about moving to the new campus and it was just moving to being a four year school when you got here, or was it already? SA: The legislature had approved it. The first thing they did was build the north end of the library. I told you that when I started working here the library was on the north 25 end of Building 4. When the north end of the library was finished they built chutes out of the windows. We hired students and had book carts and a system to move everything into the new building that way. RL: So you put them on book trucks in call number order so that they could just be put on the shelves. It would take lot of carts to do that. SA: Seems a tremendous undertaking. I think that was another duty, as I recall. RL: You mentioned in your article in the Weber College History that everything was dark with low ceilings. SA: When they built the second half of the building, where we are now, then we moved over here completely, something like the Union Building is doing right now. Then they remodeled the north end and put the two together with sky lights. RL: That used to flap up and down? SA: Yes, that’s right. It was kind of hard to fit us all in, because we had really grown a lot during that time period. RL: There’s been two or three remodelings in the time that I’ve been here. SA: Oh, I’m amazed at how often this place has been remodeled recently. RL: We had the stairwell that was put in in the center and then that whole front end was put on. All of the people moved out downstairs so that area could be remodeled and then we moved staff down there. SA: That’s so nice down there now. RL: Did you see any changes when WSU gained university status? That would have been not too long, a couple of years, before you left. 26 SA: Yes that’s right. I remember it came as a shock to us. We hadn’t really applied all that much for it. I think it was because Southern Utah also wanted to be a university at the same time, and southern legislators just said “well you know we’ll get the people from Weber County and all of the southern legislators and push this through,” and they did. So it was kind of a surprise. I don’t remember seeing to much of a change with university status. RL: I think there’s been more change in the last few years as we’ve gotten more and more masters programs. SA: That’s true. And we wouldn’t have, if it wasn’t for getting university status. RL: You were not here when we went through semester conversion? SA: It was just going to start. RL: Were you involved with the strategic planning? SA: No. My last job was to be in charge of the selection committee to pick the new University Librarian. That was the last thing I did and then... RL: Got the heck out of Dodge, didn’t you? SA: Well, my husband was retired and I had wisely kept state retirement all those years. Just talked to John Sillito and he said, wisely, he had state retirement too. I had worked thirty years for the state, so I was at maximum retirement. I think Bob and I sat down and figured out that with what I could get from Weber, too, I’d be working for a difference of four dollars an hour if I kept working from what I would make by not working. It just seemed silly to do it. And then, the fact that Craige was leaving the library as well. It just seemed like big changes were... RL: A change in the era. 27 SA: That’s right. RL: To use a trendy term, it was a paradigm shift. SA: That’s true. It just seemed the right time, and I’m glad I did it. RL: You and Bob had quite a bit of time together. SA: We wouldn’t have had as much if I had continued working. So I’ve never regretted it. RL: How do you fill your days? It sounds like you still see a lot of people who have also have retired from here. SA: I do. When I was working here I had so many good friends. I was thinking that the other day when I had my cataract surgery, because my daughter who lives in Salt Lake was on a business trip to Dallas, and her husband was working and you need somebody to go down with you and drive you home. I had all my friends helping me out, doing things for me, coming to my house, and handing out Halloween candy. I thought when I was at Weber State I had a group of really good friends, and I still see them somewhat although they’ve moved out of the area. And I still have very good friends, something I’ve had all my life, very good friends. RL: You can keep friends if you stay in touch with them. SA: Karen Wimmer who worked here so long, and is now Karen Stock, lives in Montana and has a wonderful life. I just saw her the other day when she was visiting grandkids. We talk all the time, and then Craige and Deanna Hall down in St. George. I keep in touch with them as well. RL: And you still see MaryJo Latullipe, don’t you? 28 SA: See MaryJo a lot, just talked to her the other day. RL: Do you keep in touch with Helen James? SA: Not as much as MaryJo does. In fact, MaryJo and Helen and Helen’s husband visited over at Lake Tahoe. Helen’s husband, Joe, had a conference there so George and MaryJo drove over and spent some time with them, and then went over into California and spent time with Dick and Myrna Jones. Dick was chair of the Education Department. Dick and Myrna still have kids in my neighborhood so they come back and visit and I see them all the time. I have kept a lot of the same friends, but then I have new friends. RL: You have your book club friends. SA: I have new friends too that I’ve met, the kind that you go to lunch with once a week and go to the symphony with and that kind of thing. RL: But Weber’s still kind of home, isn’t it? SA: It’s one of my homes, yes, and living so close, I can get on my little computer, look for a book to see if you have it, and walk over and check it out. RL: Its amazing the kinds of things we now have access to from home. SA: That’s right. RL: I was reading about you looking up something on InfoTrac and scanning the microfilm, and thinking why hadn’t you photocopied that when you first found the article in the sixties? SA: We loved copy machines when they first became available because people stopped tearing pages out of magazines and journals. 29 RL: And if they did, you’d ask somebody to send you a copy through interlibrary loans. SA: Maude Richards was in charge of the InterLibrary Loans for a number of years. I recall they got to the point where she had a Telex machine. Before that it was all through the mail and it was quite a thing to have that Telex machine in the library. RL: Then, faxes and now the students can put in their email address and some library can email them a copy. SA: Yes, its just amazing. When I first retired, I would come over here from time to time when new computers were set up and force myself to learn the new ones, but, you know, everything is so much easier now. You had to know codes and things and now you just need to know how to spell and even when you mistype something it can... RL: It will say “are you looking for this?” SA: “Do you mean?” It tells me what I really wanted to say! SA: When I was in reference, when we got the computers, a lot of the job was showing students how to use them. I imagine the students who come now already know how. You don’t really have to teach them much of anything. RL: They think they already know it, but you do have to teach them. SA: Do you? RL: That’s why we have the information literacy requirement now. It’s a graduation requirement. They have to learn how to use print and online resources and they’ll come in convinced they can find everything they need on Google or Wikipedia. You have to show them about everything else that’s available, so, in that respect, 30 they think they know a lot, but you have to teach them a whole lot more than they think they know. SA: That’s good to know. RL: Yes, it’s been a graduation requirement now for six or seven years. Is there anything else you remember about working with the library or librarians or on campus that you would like to add? Any individuals that stand out? Anything you would have liked to have seen done differently? SA: Well, I have good memories. I know there were a few rough times, but not many. Like all those kits we had to put together, but that didn’t last long. I guess that’s what I learned working here, that you could go through a few things, but they wouldn’t last long. So many different administrations put together planning committees to plan the next twenty years, to plan the next thirty years, and then somebody else would come in and you’d have another planning committee. RL: Right now they’re planning for... SA: Thirty years. RL: For 2030. That’s twenty-three years away. The changes that have taken place since I came here eighteen years ago, nothing that was planned then could have held. SA: Maybe you could plan for buildings that sort of thing a bit. When I went to the alumni faculty luncheon recently they were talking about this thirty year plan and I said to Thomas and Sharon Burton, who was sitting there, “Sharon, since we’re the same age let’s come back. We’ll be ninety-five then and lets see if it works,” and Tom said, “And I won’t be here at all.” [Laughter] 31 RL: Well you never know. He might be here. SA: He might be. RL: Sally, I’ve certainly appreciated your taking this time to talk with me. SA: It’s been fun. I enjoyed it. RL: It’s fun to reminisce with someone who knows so much about the library, and the changes you saw over the years. SA: I remember the Dewey Decimal System... I still go to the public library too. In fact, for a number of years I would, remember my license plate number by cataloging it and then when they added the third letter I’d do it in the Library of Congress System. I would just think of what that would be on the shelf and I’d remember my license plate. Then they added that third letter and that threw me because we didn’t have too many three letter ones, just in the K’s. RL: Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate it. SA: Okay.