2017 Spring Recognition BBQ

It was a beautiful sunny day on Wednesday, June 7^th, perfect for the Library’s Spring Recognition BBQ. This year, the Library honoured 15 staff members who are celebrating special anniversaries with uWaterloo Library!

Perfect food for a sunny day! Library staff enjoyed a catered lunch, complete with different salads, burgers, and a cookie dessert!

From our own Circulation department we congratulate Elzbieta Kucharska, Stefaniada Voichita, Yi-Mei Wang, Margaret Uhde, Derek Scoular, Leah Haisoch, and Susan Arruda on their milestone anniversaries with the library.

Circulation staff enjoying the picnic.
From left to right, back row: Jeanette Chapman, Stefaniada Voichita, Carmen Peters, and Laura Girard.
From left to right, front row: Margaret Uhde, Hannah Johnson, and Loc Do

As it is the University of Waterloo’s 60^th year, we asked our celebrating staff to share some of their memories in the Library.

Sue Arruda

I clearly remember starting my first position in the library back in the winter of 1981.  I was hired for a 4-month contract to cover a maternity leave within the Government Publications department. Within the very first week, I knew that I wanted to stay in the Library. Luckily, I obtained a permanent position within the Item Preparation area of the Cataloguing Unit shortly after my contract ended. I knew from day 1 that I was very fortunate to be working at the Library, and that has proven so true. I have had the opportunity to work within the Government Publications, the Cataloguing, the Acquisitions (now Collections Development) and the Circulation departments. What I have valued most is the incredibly supportive and continuous learning environment, ok after the flex-time, you can’t beat flex-time! 

To say things have changed over the past 35 years is beyond an understatement.  Moving to an electronic environment was such an experience.  There were challenging times, but very exciting and fun times too. It felt like the whole world was changing, and apparently, it did.  Though I miss some aspects of the old days of working in a manual environment, I do not miss the long, long continuous lineups at the Circulation desk at term-loan renewal time.  I believe it was into the late 1990s when term loan books still had to be renewed in person at the Circulation desk.  Faculty members and graduate students brought in trucks of books to renew, and then another staff member that worked at a security station at the Library exit (called the Attendants station) checked each due date slip against the book before the patron could leave the building. It was quite the ordeal, and one that also prompted many borrowers to return their library books.  We would have dozens of trucks to discharge and sort.  When we ran out of book trucks, an “emergency sorting and shelving” call would go out, and everyone in the Circulation department would be called upon to help.  I am really looking forward to the changes coming our way such as with OCUL Collaborative Futures, and moving into our newly renovated workspace on the 5th floor where I first started 35 years ago.

Margaret Uhde

I started my work at the Dana Porter library in 1994 as a casual shelving staff and over the years, I moved through a few positions. In 2000, I became a part of the University Map and Design Library in the position of Library clerk/secretary. After one year in this contract position, I obtained the Weekend Supervisor position at Davis Library and after that, I accepted the Collections Maintenance Supervisor position.

Over the past few years, I moved from Davis library to Porter and my responsibilities have significantly changed. The routine collections maintenance daily activities have decreased, and coordination of large scale withdraw projects has become my main responsibility. As Collections Maintenance Project Coordinator, I am responsible for coordinating and supervising collections maintenance projects at the Porter and Davis libraries such as weeding, transferring, and large shifting and reorganizing of the various print collections.  I really enjoy my involvement in coordinating collections projects and I greatly enjoy working with student staff and collaborating with staff from other departments across the library. To support our libraries’ goal to create New Spaces for New Times I foresee continuous evaluation of the libraries’ print collections and expect more large-scale collections initiatives to continue into foreseeable future.

Leah Haisoch

It is hard to believe that 15 years have gone by already, but as the list of people celebrating anniversaries shows, people like it here!

Two of the first friendly folks that I met at the library were Sue Arruda and Wish Leonard (retired).  Sue and Wish hired me as a shelver.  I thought the library was such a great place to work as a student.  Later, I was hired as Evening Supervisor (Davis) and then as Weekend Supervisor (Porter), and now, completing the cycle, I am in my current position as Library Associate - Reserves (Porter).

I still remember the time when I was working at Davis in the evening when a cat walked in to the library around back of the ‘old’ Circ Desk while I was counting cash. The library gets all sorts of visitors.  I learned early on that during the evenings and on weekends to expect the unexpected ;-)

But, no matter the building or the position, the one constant (other than change, of course) has been working with some wonderful people in Circ and other departments.  The library is such a great learning environment to work in.  I am especially encouraged by the new staff that we have in the library who will be celebrating milestones in years to come. The future looks bright!

Congratulations to everyone celebrating a milestone!