Retiring after a half century at the Libraries

I retired from the Libraries in December 2025 after more than 50 years as an employee. Looking back on my career, I still feel today what I have felt from the beginning: a deep love of this great university and incredible satisfaction that I was able to give something back to it.

My affiliation with Northwestern goes back longer than just 50 years. Before I was an undergraduate here, I enjoyed two summers as a music cherub, which gave me the chance to come to Evanston from the south side of Chicago to play trombone with other prospective students. Those summers gave me my first clue that Northwestern was special.

I felt right at home when I stepped on campus as a freshman in 1970. I needed a job and was thrilled that my interest in music and libraries gave me an edge for a job with the Music Library, where Don Roberts was in charge. Don was an excellent mentor who taught me everything about libraries and drilled the value of customer service into me. He came to trust me enough to allow me to open the Music Library by myself on weekends. I became such a fixture that it was a challenge for me to study there in my off hours. Music students would see me and ask, “Can you help me find this book?” “Can you help me use a research guide?” And I would help them, because Don had trained me to help our users. Eventually, I had to find somewhere else to study if I wanted to get anything done.

After I graduated in 1975, I accepted a full-time job at the Music Library. After about a decade, I moved into the technology side of Northwestern Libraries, where I worked for another great mentor, Jim Aagaard. Jim was a pioneer in library IT at the dawn of library automation and digital catalogs. These two wonderful bosses took an interest in me and guided me throughout my career. Their mentorship inspired me to create similar experiences for the student workers I later supervised.

Supervising our students gave me the greatest joy and satisfaction of all my job duties at Northwestern. I always tried to provide my students with a stimulating and supportive place to work. College is not just about what happens in the classroom, and I believe every employee has a role to play in the education of our students.

Becoming invested in a student job is exactly what launched me on my own career at the library. Upon my retirement, three of my former student workers sent prerecorded video tributes that we played for the guests at my retirement party. Each student shared stories of how I helped create a safe and engaging place for them to grow. Seeing those videos meant the world to me.

I did not just work for Northwestern—I worked for my alma mater. I loved my student years, and I loved my job. I even met my husband of 50 years here. I always wanted to give something back and contribute in some small way to my alma mater’s success. The people I met at Northwestern did a lot for me, and I hope I was able to do the same for new generations of students.