Description:
Catherine Cook talks about her career in librarianship, working in Kansas, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma, and her time with the Oklahoma Library Association.
Interviewer: Jan Keene (JK)
Interviewee: Catherine Cook (CC)
Interview Location: Cox Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Date: April 3, 2007 (a guess based on information given in the interview and outside research, i.e., the content of an article from The Oklahoman dated March 31, 2007)
jK: Good morning, I'm Jan Keene, and I'm at the Cox Center in Oklahoma City, and I'm about to interview Catherine Cook from the Chickasha Library. Good morning, Catherine.
CC: Good morning, Jan. Nice to see you again.
JK: Good to see you. We'd like to start with a question about your early childhood. What you remember of it, if you had a family, if you had brothers and sisters, where you grew up, what your town was like?
CC: I grew up out in western Oklahoma in a little town called Waynoka, which has an illustrious history. In the early days of transcontinental air traffic, planes didn't fly at night, so if you left Chicago to fly to Los Angeles you would fly in the daytime, and at night you would get on the train. So Waynoka had an airport back in the 1920s, and planes would land there and then a bus would pick you up at the airport, take you to the train station, you'd get on the train, ride all night, then it was morning, you were in New Mexico, you'd start over, get on a plane again. I can't wait to get my time machine, I want to do that. My father was a railroader, as was everyone who worked in Waynoka. The other claim to fame for Waynoka also has to do with transportation. When the produce industry really got started in California, they would load lettuce and other fresh veggies on trains in California and they would fill those box cars full of ice, and by the time you got to Waynoka, Oklahoma, that ice had melted. Waynoka had a good water supply, so the railroad built an ice plant, probably not quite as big as the Cox Center, but an enormous building, and all produce trains coming from California to the markets in the east would go through Waynoka and they would be re-iced. And that ice plant was still in existence in the ‘50s, when I lived there, and you could also buy ice by the fifty pound bag, which we did occasionally, so I've been in that ice plant. It was sort of like being in an ice palace. The floor was ice, and being summer we were always barefoot so we could take about two steps before somebody had to pick us up and carry us. I'm grateful to have grown up in a very small town, in a very safe place. I could leave home in the morning saying goodbye, and I was free to go wherever I could walk to, as long as I got home before dark. And I think about children now, and their lives are so prescribed, and they have, no personal freedom, no autonomy, so I'm grateful for that. And, of course, the down side is, we didn't have sidewalks, so we didn't learn to roller-skate or ride bicycles, we didn't get to take ballet lessons, but we were free to be our own child from dawn to dark. In my family there are four girls, I'm the third. I'm the closest, I guess, that my father ever came to having a son, I was always interested in the things he was interested in. He taught me carpentry, I can lay bricks, so I had a nice, happy childhood.
JK: Oh great, thanks. Well, what about libraries, did they figure into your childhood, or how did you decide that someday you wanted to be working in a library?
CC: Libraries had no part in my childhood. It was only as an adult after I became a librarian that I realized that there had been a small public library in Waynoka, but I never went there. So what I read was whatever my parents were reading. In those days a lot of people who lived in small towns belonged to book clubs, and I read any number of things that I must've only understood every few words. I know I was too young to read Frank G. Slaughter when I did. And I can remember a book called "Pemberton Limited," I don't have any idea what it was about, except on the spine it said, "Pemberton comma L-T-D," and I can remember asking my mother "What does that mean?" and she told me, so it didn't do me any harm, so I'm always confident when children read anything. I read whatever adults read during my childhood and it did me no harm.
JK: Did you have any particular favorites that—from your childhood, that you wanted to read more of when you started down that path?
CC: I read voraciously, and I still do, and I don't—I don't think so. I know there are people who say, "Oh, this was the book that was near and dear to my heart." I know what wasn't, I really didn't like books like "Black Beauty," or things that were really sad, and especially if there was an animal in it that died, I didn't care for that sort of thing.
JK: There were a lot of those.
CC: There were a lot. One called "Beautiful Joe" that was just such a tear-jerker I wish I had not read it.
JK: I know exactly what you mean. Well, how about high school. By the time you got to high school, if someone told you that you were gonna spend your life being a librarian would you have laughed?
CC: No. I might have thought about it, but it wasn't really a career choice that was presented to me. But I think it would have had some appeal. I liked being a student, I was a good student. One of the interesting things that happened when I was about junior high age, the Russians set off some sort of a satellite that escaped from the Earth's atmosphere, and suddenly America was really afraid that we didn't have any scientists. So, even though I was only a junior high school student, I was allowed to take some Saturday classes with a chemistry professor from Northwestern State University in Alva, and he actually came to Waynoka and taught junior high and high school students chemistry, which was fabulous and how lucky for me. And I didn't grow up to be a chemist, but I've always admired that man who usually taught college sophomores who was now teaching junior high students and he made it so interesting and so understandable.
JK: How wonderful for you. Well, when did you decide, and how did that occur, that you wanted to be a librarian?
CC: Jan, I thought I was gonna be an English teacher, and I was probably down to my last semester in school, and my advisor said, "Oh, holy-moly, you're one credit hour short, find a class that's one hour and take one hour class." So I found a class in libraries, and I walked into that library, into that classroom with Ms. Gorman and Ms. Duvall, and I realized, "This is my purpose in life, this is where I'm supposed to be." And what they taught me had nothing to do with libraries today, it probably had little to do with libraries then. I remember they had a set of calipers and they would actually measure a catalog card that I had typed to make sure the spacing was precise enough. But in spite of all that silliness I knew that this was where I was supposed to be, so I stayed in school an—an extra semester and took a couple of other classes with them and that set me on the path to librarianship.
JK: That's one of the reasons they're legends today—
CC: It is the reason they're legends [Keene talking at the same time]—
JK: Isn't it? They affected lots of people like that, I bet. The—They're wonderful, they sounded wonderful, I wish I'd known them.
CC: They were wonderful. Larry Thorne, who was the director of the public library in Alva, he was one of my classmates—
JK: Was he?
CC: And um, so at least they started two of us on this career.
JK: Certainly did. Well, after you got past the educational part, what was—what was your first job, and—and how did it fit into what you had expected it to be?
CC: Was it my first real library job? I worked, you know, as most of us did, as a graduate student in an assistantship, and worked in libraries before I had a degree. But my first real job was in 1972, and I was working for the state library agency in Topeka, Kansas. It was a wonderful time to be in libraries, we were either first discovering, or perhaps rediscovering our social consciousness and a lot of our LSCA money went into building libraries in institutions. So that was my first job, I worked—developed libraries in prisons, reformatories, mental hospitals, schools for the mentally retarded, and luckily I was too young and naive to know that I really didn't have the background to do that, so I just jumped right in there and ordered books and built libraries. And that was half of my job, the other half was to be a government documents librarian, which I probably was equally unqualified to do, but those are the first two jobs I had.
JK: That's—That's great. What kinds of, issues were there at the time, you mentioned social responsibility kinds of things, but what—what were the big things that people were worrying about in those days, or thinking about?
CC: Gosh, being so new to the field, I probably had tunnel vision and couldn't see beyond my own interests, but I remember in the early days that I was an ALA member people were talking about aconda and anaconda, and I've often thought I'm going to go back to the ALA archives and look up those acronyms and see what they were, surely there was first aconda, and then anaconda was some sort of a response to that. But I think the main issue in the ‘70s was that we really wanted to expand library service to everyone and we were really looking at, not only at people in institutions who were unable to come to their public library, but it was a great day for books by mail and-and all kind of outreach services.
JK: Beyond the first job in Topeka, what other kinds of libraries have you worked in, and could you pick a favorite or...
CC: Oh goodness, a favorite, that would be—that would be very, very difficult. After I left Topeka I actually went to work at the state library agency in Florida, doing somewhat similar work. And then I came back to Oklahoma, and I worked for the Oklahoma Department of Libraries for twelve years. That would probably be my favorite job, for two reasons. One, I got to travel every highway and byway of Oklahoma, and although I had lived here for a long time, it's a beautiful state and I hadn't had the opportunity to visit and get to know everybody, so that was a wonderful part of the job. But an equally important part of the job were my colleagues. I worked for Esther Mae Henke, who is one of the Library Legends, and I had great colleagues. John Hinkle and Sandy Ellison, who were both Library Legends, they were my colleagues, as was the late Dean Dore. And we worked for Bob Clark, and it was just a wonderful group of people with whom I worked.
JK: And since then...?
CC: And since then, after twelve years of being a public library consultant I decided I really wanted to be in a position to take my own advice. Being a consultant is fun, but all you can do is recommend and suggest. So I was offered and accepted the position as the director of the library in Enid, Garfield County, and that was most enjoyable, very nice place to live in Enid. While I was working for Enid, I went to a library conference, and I had an hour to kill and I wandered into placement, and read a job ad for the director of Central Library in Fort Worth and I looked at it and I thought, "Goodness, that's pretty much what I do," and so I sort of accidentally applied for this job. And then they called and offered it to me, and I was sort of taken aback so I said, "No, I couldn't possibly work for that much money." And they called me back and offered me more money, and so I thought, "Gee, I guess I'd better take this job, I sort of applied for it and they've offered it to me." So I spent three years living in Fort Worth, which is a beautiful city, but I was on the wrong side of the river, so I came home again and I've been working in Chickasha ever since.
JK: Well, glad you came back.
CC: Me too [Keene says, "That's great" at the same time as Cook is speaking]
JK: Oh, over the career that you've had what was proven to be the most difficult part of working in libraries?
CC: I think the most difficult part, for me, is to see the problem, know the solution, and not have the resources. And not just money, but I guess everything evolves down to money. Not having the staff, not having the physical plant, not having enough people, and I find that very difficult not to bite off more than I can chew, and it is frustrating. I was just listening to The Future is Today talking about all the things that libraries need to do, and it would be wonderful to have all the resources to be able to implement all those things.
JK: It would be. Well, what have been your joys?
CC: Wow, I think joys come in two levels. One, you can't beat working with the customer face-to-face, which I don't get to do very often but when I do... the other day I was working a young guy, he must've been, I don't know eleven or twelve, he was kind of wandering in the stacks with that sort of skyward stare, you know, the way customers look as if maybe the book is up there on the ceiling and it will fall on them. So, I went to ask him if I could help him and he said, "I'm looking for some short stories," and I said, "Alright." He said, "Do you know a writer named Poe?" "Yes, as a matter a fact I do, let me take you to the Edgar Allan Poe," and I ask him on the way, I said, "Have you read any Poe?" and he said, "No." And as I handed him the book I said, "Well, welcome to the world of Edgar Allan Poe fans, you will enjoy this and you will be a fan of this writer forever." And that's a fabulous thing, to be there at that moment when somebody's life is going to change in a very positive way now and forever. So working with the customers is always a great joy, but so is working with colleagues. People who are interested in making the world better, who have ideas, who have energy, who want to propose wild and nutty schemes and then we can make that happen, and I've always found the collaborative part of librarianship very, very enjoyable.
JK: Well, we'll move on to technology. What was the latest cutting edge technology when you were in library school?
CC: Oh dear, when I was in library school I learned how to punch data cards. Do you remember those cards that you couldn't spindle, fold, or mutilate? Well I had a class, I think it was called "Data-mation," learning how to do those cards and, my word, there's probably not a person left alive who who knows how to do that anymore, and no reason to. So, that's where we were, in Oklahoma we were still running the interlibrary loan system on teletypes, if you think about it you can hear that teletype in the back of your mind: duh-duh,duh-duh,duh-duh,duh-duh,duh-duh, and so that's where we were, we were just beginning uh, to get into library automation and computers.
JK: And the first type of new library technology that came along, did you think it was a big improvement or did you think it would last or were you...
CC: Big improvement, wahh?!?! I wrote my Master's thesis on the way catalog cards were filed and my belief that the average student didn't understand that. And they didn't know "nothing before something," and that everything that starts out "New York" will be filed before anything that starts out "Newark." So when computers came along and I thought, "This is great, they don't have to know “nothing before something,” and on a personal level, "I never have to file another catalog card as long as I live." I thought it was better than sliced bread.
JK: I remember thinking the same thing when I first heard about it. Well, what was the time and what were you doing when you used your first computer?
CC: I was working for ODL, and Dennis Stevens came to ODL as the assistant director and I think he was largely responsible for automating the Department of Libraries at my level, I was a consultant, and he's the first person who bought me a word processor. We were really at that beginning level, I think we had one that the ten or twelve consultants shared, and I know I went in a lot of Saturday's and put in some extra hours to teach myself how to do that because we didn't have a clue what a spreadsheet was or how to make it work. I remember the first time I working with numbers, I was probably reviewing annual reports from public libraries and I kept getting this funny answer that was like, "Pound sign, asterisk, question mark, question mark," I think, "What is this? And how do I look that up in the manual? It starts out pound sign..." And those were the days, Jan, where when you had a question you just ask around and somebody would've figured that out, and sure enough somebody said, "That means your column is not wide enough for the number of digits that this mathematical computation will create, make your column wider," and I was so grateful, so grateful to learn that.
JK: I love that. Well, how about microcomputers? How do you think they've changed the library scene since you've been working?
CC: Well, I could say a lot of things that machines can do so much more efficiently than people could ever do, and of course that has freed us up to have time to work with people instead of working with objects. I think this is great, I think that for a long time every new technological advance that comes along will improve libraries. We're improving access by leaps and bounds, just simple little things like having magazine back files online, all of them in your laptop, all of the time, wherever you are, never missing a page, how good is that?
JK: It is—it is wonderful isn't it?
CC: It is.
JK: The things that have changed, it's really terrific, and I can't begin to think of how you could go back...
CC: Oh you couldn't.
JK: ...to the way it used to be, it was just terrible. Well, how about other activities, did you jump right into OLA when you first started working, or how did you become aware that there was an Oklahoma Library Association and that you'd ought to be a part of it?
CC: I'm sure this is all thanks to Esther Mae Henke, who was such a forward looking person, and had been instrumental in getting the first system law written and all of that, and I'm sure it must've been she who encouraged me. But I think from the very beginning I was smart enough to recognize the value of an association, and how we could do things through our association that we wouldn't be able to be doing individually. And before I came back to work in Oklahoma I had worked for the Florida state library and I was a member of the Florida Library Association before, and so I knew the value of it, but I'm sure it was Esther Mae who pushed me along and said, "Go to the library conference."
JK: And have you done anything in OLA that you're proud of, or remember fondly, or thought was fun?
CC: It would be easier to say, "What've you done in OLA that wasn't fun?" Everything was fun. I particularly enjoyed the sights committee. You travel around, and you look at hotels, and Kay Bois will be there and tell you “you need this many luncheons at the same time, so this hotel better be able to seat one hundred people times four on this week." I enjoyed the Intellectual Freedom Committee very much, I served on that several times. Nominating...gosh all the committees are so much fun, I was trying to think, in preparation for this interview, Jan, "Why would I have been on a committee that had something to do with budget or audit?" I can't imagine, but I remember being in ODL's small conference room, and I believe Marilyn Vesely was chairing this meeting, and we were talking about the cost of mailings, and I said, "Why don't we do a bulk mailing and we'll just bundle this together?" So I think that's my one overwhelming creation that has changed ODL, I am one of the people who said, "Yes, let's do the bulk mailings!" And why I was on that committee I can't imagine!
JK: Well, good for you! I'm sure it saved them a lot of money..,
CC: I'm sure it has!
J
K: ...over the years. I'm sure that's it. Well that was actually the next question on the list is, what—what lasting contribution did you make to OLA? And you just said it.
CC: Well I fear it may only be the bunk mailings, goodness. Nothing grander than that. But I think part of the strength of OLA is that all of us worker bees contribute all the time. We make copies on our library copy machines, we spend our own personal time, and our own personal money, and sometimes the library’s time and the library’s money, and it's just all of us together, not doing anything overwhelming, but if you get hundreds of people not doing anything too overwhelming, but just regularly, year after year, keeping the association moving, then the association can do things that are wonderful and overwhelming.
JK: What would be one of the things that you think the association has done that was wonderful?
CC: I think the thing that the association consistently does that is wonderful is monitor and influence legislation. There have been a lot of scary proposals in the state of Oklahoma and the library association, through its combined efforts, has encouraged better legislation and monitored things, and I think this is what we've done that has benefited the most people, over the long term. I'm excited about our proposal to increase state aid. What couldn't we do with that amount of money? And I'm personally working hard to see that that happens.
JK: Well I hope you're successful.
CC: I hope we are too.
JK: Is there anybody in Oklahoma libraries that you think stands out, as a pillar? I know you've mentioned a couple of people already, but people that you do not want to be forgotten.
CC: Oh goodness, people I don't want to be forgotten? All of those people at ODL, and they won't be forgotten. I've also been a big fan of Lee B. Brawner, as have a lot of other people, um, the fact that he taught me how to hang a spoon on my nose at an official library meeting, I thought, "Yeah, these are my kind of people, This is a fun thing," and for someone as prominent as himself to be that playful, I think that that endeared him to me forever, besides his ongoing fights for intellectual freedom. Gosh there are just so many. When I sat at the Library Legends banquet last night, first, I was appalled at how old I am that I knew so many of these people, but it was wonderful that so many of them were recognized and all of those people. If I were going to add anybody to that list I think it might be my former colleague, Dean Dore. He was a consultant for the Department of Libraries, and he was also a construction consultant, uh, back in the days when Library Service and Construction Act had some construction money and he did a lot of good.
JK: We worked with him, and I remember him fondly too. Do you have any stories about, "I can't believe they did that in my library?"
CC: What "they"? What "my library"? I guess not, if I do, best forgotten.
JK: Oh okay, best forgotten. How about some of your favorite questions that people have asked you or unexpected or funny or?
CC: Okay, that customers have asked me? When I worked in Enid I got a telephone call from a power company in one of those vowel states, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, one of those places, and this power company wanted to build a nuclear power plant and part of it would be an outdoor cooling pool that had radioactive water in it, and it would be sort of a holding pond. The AEC would not give them approval for that design, because they said about ten years previously a tornado had come through Enid and it had sucked the water out of the swimming pool and spread it over the rest of the county, and if this is just chlorinated water, no harm, no foul, if this is nuclear water, this is a big deal. So the question to me was, "Is that true?" So I read the newspaper cuttings, I interviewed some of the people, and the definitive answer is "Who knows?" The people who were there are saying the lawn furniture and the beach ball certainly blew away, but it was raining like a son-of-a-gun and who's to say what was the rain water and what was the swimming pool water? But I thought that was an interesting question and I was sorry that there was no definitive answer. And then just recently I had a customer come into the Chickasha Public Library and he said, "My garage door is laying in the driveway would you find me something that would show me how to attach it to the garage?" "Certainly, we can't leave your garage door in the driveway, we'll find you something." And then I was working with this student who came in and she said, as all students will, the wrong question. Her question was, "What do they make houses out of in New Zealand?" "Well, my dear, New Zealand is a quite modern up-to-date country, I assume the same sort of things they use here, wood, brick..." She said, "No..," putting her hands on her hips, "What do they make houses out of in New Zealand?" I—"Well, are we talking about the indigenous people, perhaps their houses were—" "No! What do they make houses out of in New Zealand?" And as I was sort of standing there looking blankly she said to me, "My social studies teacher said they use wool when they make houses in New Zealand." And I'm thinking to myself, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, of course they don't make houses out of wool in New Zealand," but I didn't say that to her, I said, "Well let's go to the internet and see what we can find out." And I typed in wool, housing, New Zealand, up pops a site that says they make houses out of wool in New Zealand! Actually, they use it for insulation and there on the site, those big rolls, instead of being pink fiberglass, it's wool colored wool! And I thought, "Why of course, how many sweaters can the people of New Zealand wear and what are you going to do with the rest of the wool?" So they use it for housing insulation. And this is one of the wonderful things about librarianship, and I think what brought a lot of us into librarianship is just the opportunity that you'll find out that in New Zealand they make houses out of wool.
JK: That's right. Never know what you're going to know when leave the building. Well, what else would you like to have on this tape? What else would you like to share with people who might listen someday?
CC: Oh, that I think, today in 2007, this is a wonderful time to come into librarianship, it was when I came in in the ‘70s and we were going from teletypes, duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh, to automation, but I can't imagine what libraries are going to be like in the next thirty years. I'm confident that my young colleagues will continue to provide excellent public library service, because I'm planning on being a user for the next thirty years or so, but I can't imagine how their jobs are going to change. It will be up to them to reinvent the public library, as it has been reinvented several times, and now it will be their turn and I'm very excited to see what they do. And all I would say to them is "Go team, go! You can do it, I can't wait to be one of your customers."
JK: That's very good. What—what other words of wisdom would you like to leave to...
CC: Join the Oklahoma Library Association, I can't imagine that that will go out of fashion. I think people will always needs to be in association. When I was in grammar school, someone taught me that civilization grew up where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers came together, and I said, "Why did civilization begin there?" And they said, "Because people from different places came together and talked to each other." And I thought, "Of course, this is how things happen. People come together and talk to each other." So maybe in the future OLA conferences will be virtual, but I think there'll still always be that need for people to get together and talk to each other and share ideas, because this is how civilization grows.
JK: Great, great quote. Thank you very much...
CC: Thank you.
JK: ...for your time, Catherine.
CC: My pleasure.