Hometown. I was born in Minneapolis. I grew up in Christmas Lake near Excelsior (childhood, the 50s) and in Minot, North Dakota, and La Crosse, Wisconsin (adolescence, the 60s).

What was your very first job? My first job was at 12 or 13, delivering Sunday Minneapolis Tribunes in Minot.

What was your occupation when you retired from full-time work? I was in an "office specialist" support staff position in collection development at Wilson Library with University of Minnesota Libraries.

When did you join UMRA? Pretty soon after retirement in 2021.

Over your 30+ years at the Libraries, your work there must have evolved a lot with the advances in information technology. Can you give us a sense of the changes you experienced? 
The change from 1990 to 2021 was, at first, the offloading of a significant part of the work from the mainframe computing systems onto PCs (through the 90s), and then the gradual "re-centralization" through the internet onto cloud computing through the 2000s and 2010s. Computing only added another dimension to the realm of the Libraries. The hidden, unique nooks and crannies are still there.

According to the cover story of the August 2026 issue of The Atlantic, "The Age of Reading is Over." What do you think?
The Horowitch article is interesting and thought provoking but also maddening, like [Yuval Noah] Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is maddening when he seems to infuse a bit of personification into the process of natural selection. I haven't finished The Atlantic article yet; I shouldn't say more. And, full disclosure: I read for several hours every day, so my viewpoint is prejudiced. I also confess to visiting one or another of the libraries on campus on average at least twice a week.

Digital or paper? Both. It's about equal. 

Do you have a favorite place on campus? There are "favorite places" and then there are !Favorite Places! The most personally favorite places trigger a creative moment—a poem, a feeling or mood, or a memory. I cannot predict where or when I will encounter those. But in my role as a student/retired University person, I would point to Scholars Walk, the Architecture Library’s north wing, the Great Hall on the second floor of Walter Library, or one of the lounges on the third floor of Wilson Library. There are so many places. It depends on one's mood.

What is a fun fact about you that we might not know? I have enjoyed swimming for recreation all my life. A three-stroke freestyle is second nature to me, but I hate flip turns. Also, I like learning languages.

What do you currently enjoy doing with your time? I enjoy getting to campus early in the morning to spend time reading and doing a little bit of writing, and about an hour or so of exercise at the RecWell Center sometime during the day, and, during the school year, I like to take at least one class a semester.