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player ready...When Mary Jane Garrett began working at the Northlake Public Library in 1983, she said the only use for computers “was checking books in and out of the library and keeping track of patron accounts.”
“And now it’s a part of everything we do,” she said. “I’m assuming this job will always be changing.”
Garrett, who worked as the library’s head of technical services, is retiring.
“I’ve been librarian over 32 years,” she said as she sat in her office on Aug. 31, finishing some final paperwork before heading to the going-away party her colleagues were throwing for her. “I’ve always enjoyed helping people, no matter what position I was working. So I’m going to be missing that the most.”
Garrett’s first experience working in a library was as a high school student. She worked as a page, which mostly involved re-shelving books, in her hometown’s library in Dixon. During that time, she realized she liked the atmosphere and the work.
“So, very early, I realized it was something I wanted to do,” Garrett said. “And because it was a small library, I oftentimes got asked a lot of reference questions.”
After high school, she studied library science at Illinois State University. After she got her bachelor’s degree, she earned a master’s in library and information science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1983. Since then, she’s worked at the Northlake Public Library District.
“I think the organizational part of my job is something that I’m also going to miss,” she said.
She says technical services’ main responsibility is acquiring the books from the orders that other librarians submit. So her department receives the books, classifies them and then processes them. Essentially, it is making sure many moving pieces are all working in synchronization to make sure that the books the library needs are on the shelves for patrons.
“If we do our job well, customers and staff will be able to find the items they need when they’re looking for them,” she said.
Looking back at her career, she says the biggest change to libraries has been how she helps patrons. An example she gave is the library’s 3-D printer and maker space, which is less focused on reference materials and more on showing patrons how to property use new technology.
Now that Garrett is retiring, she is not really sure how she wants to spend her extra free time.
“I’ll continue reading of course,” she said. “I am a member of a book club in my home library. But I haven’t really decided very much yet. I have so many books at home that I haven’t read yet that I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.”
During the going-away party, Garrett’s co-workers said one of the things they’ll miss the most about her is her knack for trivia and nearly instant recall of information from memory.
“She can remember anything from any time. It’s amazing,” said Christie Chaidez, a technical services clerk. “We always joke because her and I are old cartoon buffs, and she’ll pull some info out of nowhere and I’m like, ‘How do you remember that?’ And she’s always got little interesting stories to tell us when we come in, which makes the day go by a little faster. I’ll miss those, too.”
Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.