
Chapter 02: Reference Services
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Description
Ms. Davis discusses the extensive reference work required at the MD Anderson library, often necessitating long hours due to the small staff. The library staff was dedicated to completing reference and research work for the MD Anderson community, often staying beyond regular hours to assist.
Identifier
DavisLF_01_20050618_C02
Publication Date
6-18-2005
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Overview; Overview; Working Environment; Dedication to MD Anderson, to Patients, to Faculty/Staff
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Lesley Williams Brunet:
That’s a good system. Do you -- you talked about preparing articles for Dr. Clark. Did you do reference? Did people make -- did you have to handle reference questions and --
Lora Frances Davis:
Oh, yes.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Reference research. I mean, big, dig up projects --
Lora Frances Davis:
Just like you do in a medical library.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
How would you manage them with such a small staff?
Lora Frances Davis:
Well, you just worked as long as you had to do to it because if they had to have it, they had to have it.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
I was asking her about reference work and how did they handle it with such a small staff.
Kathryn Hoffman:
Oh.
Lora Frances Davis:
You didn’t get very much time that belonged to you. (laughter)
Lesley Williams Brunet:
And when was the library open?
Lora Frances Davis:
When was it open?
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Mhm, like 8-5, the hours? Remember?
Lora Frances Davis:
I don’t remember.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Was it open in the evening?
Lora Frances Davis:
I only remember that -- I suppose we were supposed to close at 6:00 but other people I’m sure could have got in with a key or something. I don’t remember how that worked. And but I do know that if they needed you to do anything to help them with any research you had to stay and do it. Or you were supposed to.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Did other people have keys? I mean, did chairmen of departments -- could anyone come in the library or were there --
Lora Frances Davis:
You know what? I’ve had so many keys since then, I can’t remember.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Unfair question. I just wondered if people, you know, would come in like Fletcher or even Clark and come in when they wanted.
Lora Frances Davis:
I don’t think they ran around with keys but I think there was somewhere here that they did have access and were left then. I don’t remember having any of the keys here. Maybe we did, I don’t remember.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
OK. Were there any other floods while you -- you mentioned the pipe that broke. Since you were on the first floor and flooding is common here --
Lora Frances Davis:
We didn’t have any more floods.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
That’s good. You were lucky.
Kathryn Hoffman:
After you moved to the top floor, that probably helped.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Why do you suppose you were moved to 7? The space?
Lora Frances Davis:
It was bigger than the first place, then where we were.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Oh, OK, so it was to get more --
Lora Frances Davis:
No room to grow or anything.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
OK. So it wasn’t --
Lora Frances Davis:
It might have been because it was near Dr. Clark, I don’t know.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
That’s what I wondered.
Lora Frances Davis:
And then they kept -- at that time they didn’t want patients going in or anything, you know, so it cut down on traffic.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Oh, yes. Was that all an administrative floor?
Lora Frances Davis:
Yes.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
OK. I started to ask you about Leonard -- Leonard Grimmett was a faculty member in physics. He was the head of the physics section or department then and he died in 1950 very suddenly and the library purchased his book collection. And I’ve been trying to find out what happened to that collection. It would have been radiology -- heavy radiology, he was from Britain, but if you don’t remember --
Lora Frances Davis:
I don’t. See, he would have died several years before I was hired.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Well, I’ll keep looking for those.
Lora Frances Davis:
But we didn’t have any special collection set aside as special collections at that time.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Oh, I wondered about that, what other collections you might have had. Did you have the core collection, did you already talk about -- just general or reference and --
Lora Frances Davis:
Well, we had -- well, see, we had all our journals and everything and then we had books but – and they were just oriented like they would be in any medical library. But we didn’t have any set collections locked up somewhere.
Kathryn Hoffman:
Did you have to catalogue the books yourself?
Lora Frances Davis:
Yes, because you couldn’t buy cataloguing already done then.
Kathryn Hoffman:
So you did that as well?
Lora Frances Davis:
Mhm.
Lesley Williams Brunet:
Did you get much sleep in those years?
Lora Frances Davis:
Lots to do, wasn’t it?
Recommended Citation
Davis, Lora Frances; Brunet, Lesley W.; and Hoffman, Kathryn Jones MSLS, "Chapter 02: Reference Services" (2005). Interview Chapters. 1219.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1219
Conditions Governing Access
Open
