![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pnwhistorians.org\/guild\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Guild-awards.jpg\")
That same\nyear, I arrived at UW. \u00a0Fresh from my\ngraduate training at Berkeley, I had learned the one key lesson that all academic\nhistorians learn.\u00a0 While it is important\nto keep happy the faculty members who are supervising your work, it is even\nmore important to develop good relationships with two groups:\u00a0 1) the History department staff (who made\nsure you got paid; who made sure you didn\u2019t run afoul of rules and regulations;\nwho could obtain tolerable rooms and times for your classes; and so on); and 2)\nthe people who staffed libraries, archives, and record centers\u2014people who not\nonly enabled you to do your research but also knew about materials that could\nenrich and redirect that research in wonderful ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Berkeley,\nit had been hard to warm up to the Librarians.\u00a0\nI spent a lot of time at the Bancroft Library, and at times it seemed\nthat the staff at the illustrious institution treated me like the proverbial\nBarbarian at the Gate. The staff was always quite professional, but cool and distant.\u00a0 They never expressed interest in what I was\nworking on; they never bothered to make me feel welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine my\nsurprise, then, when I showed up in Suzzallo Library for the first time, and\nencountered Carla and Richard.\u00a0 They were\nalways quite professional, too, but they were also warm and encouraging.\u00a0 They possessed great senses of humor.\u00a0 They were full of good advice about my\nresearch projects.\u00a0 They treated me\nexceptionally well, and they were equally generous and helpful to the graduate\nand undergraduate students that I sent their way over more than three decades.\u00a0 Richard and Carla were as much historians\nthemselves as they were librarians, so they always had a good sense of a\nresearcher\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard\nEngeman worked at Special Collections from 1983 to 1998.\u00a0 He was assistant\nlibrarian for the Pacific Northwest collection, then the photographs and\ngraphics librarian.\u00a0 He helped to teach me the value of visual materials\n(as opposed to documents).\u00a0 I got to know Richard from a different angle,\ntoo.\u00a0 He earned a Masters in History at\nUW, and I had the pleasure of supervising his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pnwhistorians.org\/guild\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Richard-Oregon-Centennial-May-8-1959-e1559248604782.jpeg\")
In 1998\nRichard decided to take his talents to the Oregon Historical Society, where he\nserved as Director of Manuscripts and Archives Collections.\u00a0 Some might say that Seattle\u2019s golden age of\nlibrarianship ended then, but as I see it we in the Seattle area were just\nsharing our good fortune with Oregon.\u00a0\nRichard has long had as many ties to the Beaver State as he has had to the\nEvergreen State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carla\nRickerson worked in Special Collection from 1983 to 2015.\u00a0 A native of South Dakota (the Mount Rushmore\nState), Carla initially held the job of as Pacific Northwest Librarian.\u00a0 Then there was the moment when Allen Library\nwas added to Suzzallo, and when the Manuscripts and University Archives were relocated\nand merged with the Pacific Northwest and Rare Books collections.\u00a0 The new Division was eventually called the Special\nCollections Division, & Carla was named Head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think Carla\ndid a terrific job as administrator.\u00a0 She\nhad more responsibilities than before; moreover, Carla was always involved with\na wide variety of professional activities.\u00a0\nLike Richard, she served librarians\u2019 organizations, presented frequently\nat conferences, published numerous articles and chapters, and curated dozens of\nexhibits. \u00a0Yet she always made time to talk\nto users, to answer their questions, to hear their feedback.\u00a0 Many times our conversations turned to the\nMariners.\u00a0 (Unfortunately, in Seattle, the\ngolden age of librarianship has coincided with an apparently unending Dark Age\nof major-league baseball.)\u00a0 Carla retired\nin 2009 but continued to work six more years part-time as a Public Services\nLibrarian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard\nEngeman and Carla Rickerson enriched and enlivened the community of Pacific\nNorthwest historians, in both Washington and Oregon, for many years.\u00a0 Please join me in applauding their\noutstanding careers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 25, 2019 The Seattle area is blessed with terrific libraries, record centers, and archival collections.\u00a0 The specialized staff who run these facilities are utterly crucial to their success and […]<\/p>\n