Glendale Public Library Oral History with Glenda Wilson and Judy Rhodes, January 27, 2010.

              Glenda Wilson and Judy Rhodes
January 27, 2010
Interviewer:  Cathy Johnson
Also present:  Diane Nevill, Tami Miller-Earick
Re:  Glendale Public Library
Glendale Arizona Oral History Project
Project director:  Diane Nevill
Transcribed by:  Jardee Transcription, Tucson, Arizona

(testing recording equipment)

NEVILL:  Today is January 27, 2010, and we have Cathy Johnson, Judy Rhodes, Glenda Wilson, Tami Miller-Earick, and Diane Nevill doing an oral history with Glenda and Judy.  Cathy Johnson is going to be our interviewer, and we will be asking questions of both Judy and Glenda about their time at the Glendale Public Library.
JOHNSON:  Hi, Glenda.
WILSON:  Hi.
JOHNSON:  Would you state your full name and your present city of residence, and how long have you lived in Glendale?
WILSON:  My name is Glenda Fay Wilson.  I’ve lived in Glendale about fifty-three years.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Judy, how about you?
RHODES:  My name is Judy Rhodes and I live in Glendale now, but I lived in Phoenix for a little bit.  I was born in Topeka, Kansas.  Altogether in Glendale, I think I’ve lived about sixty years.
JOHNSON:  Okay, a long time.  Okay, Glenda, when and where were you born?
WILSON:  I was born in Vernon, Texas.  I lived in Harrold, Texas, but I was born in Vernon, and that was May 22, 1938.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Judy, how about you?
RHODES:  I was born in Topeka, Kansas, March 19, 1939.
JOHNSON:  All right, Glenda, tell me about your childhood—were books a big part of it?
WILSON:  Not really.  I lived on a farm in Texas and went to school.  We had a lot of books in our high school library, but not so many in elementary school.  So mostly just books my sister gave me, like the Nancy Drew mystery books and the Bobbsey Twins, those kind of books.  Those were the ones I read when I was younger.
JOHNSON:  Judy, how about you?
RHODES:  Books were a big part of my childhood.  I got a library card at the library when I was in third grade, and I visited the library every week.  My mother read to me at a very early age.  I can remember her reading to me probably when I was about two years old, and at five years old she read me Heidi, which was one of my favorite books.  But books were always—I loved them.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Glenda, how did you happen to move to Arizona from Texas?
WILSON:  Well, in 1956, my husband and I were married, and he had a brother, Quinn Wilson, that lived out here.  And so we moved out here after we got married in 1956, and that’s how come we moved here.
JOHNSON:  When you moved to Arizona, did you settle in Glendale?
WILSON:  Yes, downtown Glendale.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Judy, how about you, when did you move to Arizona?
RHODES:  I moved here in 1940, when I was a year and a half old, and my father came out here to look for work, and that’s how we got here.
JOHNSON:  Did you settle in Glendale, or was it Phoenix?
RHODES:  We lived in Phoenix for a few years, until I was five.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Where did you go to school, Glenda?
WILSON:  In Harrold, Texas.  It was a farming community, and I went to school there.
JOHNSON:  And Judy, obviously you went to school here in Arizona, where did you go to school?
RHODES:  Went all my years, one through twelve, in Glendale:  first at Unit 1 and then at Glendale High School.
JOHNSON:  All right.  And Glenda, how did you happen to get a job in the library, and what did you do when you started?
WILSON:  Well, my sister-in-law, Rayma [phonetic] Wilson knew Velma Teague very well.  She checked out books there.  So she’s the one that introduced me to Mrs. Teague, and that’s how I got the job that way.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  And how about you, Judy?
RHODES:  Well, I worked in the library at the high school, and the librarian there was Margaret McGowen [phonetic].  And she knew Mrs. Teague very well, so I was always in the library and I applied for a job there.  I wasn’t sixteen yet, but Mrs. Teague talked to  Mrs. McGowen, and she said I was a good worker, so Mrs. Teague said to come when I was sixteen, and I did.
JOHNSON:  So you did have an age limit at that time to work at the library?
RHODES:  Yes.
JOHNSON:  What year did you first begin working in the library, Glenda?
WILSON:  I think probably about January 1957, right after we moved out here.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Judy, how about you?
RHODES:  It was 1955.
JOHNSON:  All right.  And what was your first impression of the library?
WILSON:  Well of course I thought it was wonderful.  I’d lived on the farm and never got to work outside the farm, so to me it was just the perfect job, and Mrs. Teague was just great, you know.  She helped you do everything.  You just learned all about the library and all the people.  It was real interesting.
JOHNSON:  How about you, Judy?
RHODES:  I was just enthralled with the library—not only for its books, but there was a case in the library in the children’s room that had a dead octopus in a jar (laughs) and it just fascinated me.  I had to look at it every time I went in.  But I loved the books, and seeing the new books come in, and typing all the cards for the card catalog and all that stuff.
JOHNSON:  When you first started at the library, how many people were working at that time?
WILSON:  I think there was probably about four:  Mrs. Teague and Barbara Shaver [phonetic], Judy was there, and myself.  But sometimes on the weekends, like on Saturday, it might just be two of us there.  We just had to take turns running back and forth to the desk to help people out.
JOHNSON:  When you first started, did you work in the current downtown library, or an earlier one?
WILSON:  Well, we worked at, it was Glendale Public, I believe, at that time, and it was in Murphy Park there.  But it was torn down so the new Velma Teague could be built.
JOHNSON:  And Judy, you worked in the same one?
RHODES:  In the old one, downtown.
JOHNSON:  Can you describe it?
RHODES:  It was Spanish architecture, had an arch in the front, and kind of—looked like whitewashed adobe.  It wasn’t adobe, but I mean that’s the feeling you got.  And it had vines on the front, and [it was] just small.  There was the adult section, then there was a little reference section, and a shelf for new books, the children’s room.  There was a workroom way in the back, and between the children’s and the workroom was Mrs. Teague’s office, and that’s where they kept the restricted books that said “hell” or “damn.”  (laughter)
JOHNSON:  How many restricted books did you have?
RHODES:  There were probably maybe a hundred.
JOHNSON:  How did people ask for them?  Did they know that they existed, or….
RHODES:  Certain people in town knew they existed, asked to go back.
JOHNSON:  All right.  Downtown Glendale looked different when you started working in the library.  Can you tell me about how was it different?
WILSON:  Well, at that time we had at least two grocery stores downtown.  We had some drugstores down there, and it was just real homey.  We had a couple of movie theaters, and the park had lots of trees and flowers.  It was just very, very homey downtown.
JOHNSON:  Judy, can you add to that?
RHODES:  Not too much.  I remember the Upton’s [phonetic] malt shop on the corner, and that was kind of a hangout for the high school kids.  Like she said, we had three drugstores, and a lot of little dress shops and dime stores.  Just the regular….
JOHNSON:  What was going on in the park during the day—anything?
WILSON:  Well, we had a lot of the elderly men that played cards there during the day, but we didn’t have a lot of programs and things like they do now.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  I think I’ve already asked you this, but how many people worked at the library?  You said originally about four to five.  When did it start growing as far as…?
WILSON:  I think I’ll refer that to Judy.  I really don’t remember.
RHODES:  Early sixties, probably.
WILSON:  Do you think? … before we had more than that?
RHODES:  Uh-huh.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  What were the library hours when you first were working?
WILSON:  Probably….  Were they eight to five?  I think they were eight to five, and then Saturday.  We worked all day Saturday, didn’t we?
RHODES:  All day Saturday, yes.
WILSON:  But not Sunday.
RHODES:  Sunday it was closed.
JOHNSON:  When did they change, that you were open….
RHODES:  That wasn’t until …
WILSON:  I can’t remember.
RHODES:  … sometime in the late seventies, I think, that we were open on Sundays.  I’m not positive.
JOHNSON:  Were you open in the evenings ever?
RHODES:  No.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Was the library very busy?
WILSON:  Well, I think it was busy for two people working on the weekend.  We might do, what do you think, Judy, about 400?
RHODES:  Around 400.  That was a busy day.
WILSON:  And that was really busy, especially when you had lunch hours, and there was only one person there at that time.
JOHNSON:  So that was 400 checkouts of materials?
RHODES:  Uh-huh.
JOHNSON:  How many cardholders do you think there were at that particular time in the late fifties, early sixties?
RHODES:  I’m not sure.
WILSON:  I’m just thinking about the shelves.  We had three different holders of cards, so there were probably … 600?
RHODES:  Oh, there were more than that.  There were probably 1,000.  Around 1,000, I’d say.
JOHNSON:  Did they have cards at the time?  I mean today we have a card with a bar code.  Did people carry around cards with their name on it?  Or how did you do that?
WILSON:  Well, we had a file, and all the cards were kept there, so when someone came in, we would have to pull that card.  Or we remembered a lot of their numbers, so we didn’t have to pull the card out.  But each person that came to Checkout, you had to have their card number to write on the book card to show who had that particular book out.  Everything was manual.  (laughs)
RHODES:  You’d ask them their name when they came to the desk.
JOHNSON:  Yeah.
JOHNSON:  Well, who would come in?  Did the mayor and councilpeople … did they frequent the library in City Hall?  Or lots of students?  Or….
RHODES:  They did.  They came in, but not as regularly as just the townspeople.  After school the little children would come in from Unit 1 and 2.
WILSON:  At that time also, the schools didn’t have a lot of library books, so the teachers would order a supply of books.  So for different grades we would pick out books and have them there for the teacher to take back to class for the children.
JOHNSON:  So you had teacher collections back then, okay.  I know that you worked for Velma Teague, the librarian for whom the downtown library is named.  Can you tell me about her, how did you get along with her?
WILSON:  She was really easy to get along with.  We were really just like her children.  She didn’t have children.  She’d been a teacher, so she loved children.  She was real strict on the rules.  Everything had to be done proper and perfect.  But she herself was very family oriented.  She’d take us all out to eat, or go places with us.  She was just a really nice person.
RHODES:  She was born in Oklahoma, and she came out here before she was married, and she taught at Cartwright School, but the teachers couldn’t be married then, so once she was married she had to quit that, and then she became librarian.
JOHNSON:  Do you know when she actually started as a librarian for the City of Glendale?
WILSON:  I really have no idea.
RHODES:  Don’t know the year—probably in the forties.
JOHNSON:  How long did you work with her?
WILSON:  Well, I think she passed away, was it ’67?  Or was she sixty-seven when she passed away?
RHODES:  She was sixty-seven.  I think it was about ’71.
WILSON:  Oh, ’71 is when we opened the new library.
RHODES:  So ’70, I think she passed away—right close to then.
JOHNSON:  So you worked with her over ten years.
RHODES:  Oh yes.
JOHNSON:  You worked in a library in Murphy Park, but it’s not the same one as is there now.  Can you tell me why the old library was replaced?
WILSON:  Well, we were having a lot of water damage, and a lot of the books would be damaged.  I think that, plus the fact that it just wasn’t large enough.
RHODES:  We ran out of room.  It was a small library to begin with, and there just wasn’t enough room for everything.
JOHNSON:  Did the citizens get involved with wanting to build another library?  How did that all really come about?  We know there was some damage with the building, and we know that you were running out of room, but how did the process get started to build?
WILSON:  I believe it was just through the city and the city council—don’t you, Judy?
RHODES:  Yes.
WILSON:  That we needed it, and it was just one of the projects they took on.
JOHNSON:  Obviously it had to be torn down.  In the meantime, what did you do till the new library was built?
RHODES:  The firemen moved us over to the old fire station in Glendale, and the books were over there while the library was being built.
JOHNSON:  Where was the old fire station located?
RHODES:  It was a block east and half a block south.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  What were the challenges of working out of an old fire station?
WILSON:  Oh, it was so hot that summer when we moved over.  We were just….  You know, it was just absolutely unbelievable, the heat.  I think it got up maybe to the 120s.  The heat was horrid.  That was the main thing.  We had the old fire house all set up so it was no trouble to get things back on the shelf where they needed to be, but just the heat, it was unbearable.
JOHNSON:  How long were you in the fire house?
WILSON:  Two years?
RHODES:  It was a couple of years, I think.
JOHNSON:  Did you have any input as far as when they were building the new Glendale Library downtown, did they come to staff and ask opinions on interior design or any things of that nature?
RHODES:  Yes, they hired a consultant, and then the consultant consulted with us, and we got to have input on what we wanted.  It wasn’t always followed, but we did get to say our bit about it.
JOHNSON:  And what did you say?
RHODES:  Well, just like in the work areas, what we wanted there.  Like we wanted sinks and some running water and things like that.  I don’t remember all the things we asked them to do.
WILSON:  But we were able to get a nice little lounge and a kitchen, which we’d never had before.  It was small, but it was very nice.
JOHNSON:  How long did it take to build that building, do you recall?
WILSON:  I’m thinking two years, but it might have been less than that.
RHODES:  If we were over in the other building two years, it was probably about two years.
JOHNSON:  All right.  Let’s see….  We always know that people have to pay fines for late returns.  When you first began, what did people have to pay for an overdue book?
RHODES:  Two cents a day, and a penny for magazines.
JOHNSON:  So you did check out magazines?
RHODES:  Uh-huh.
JOHNSON:  Do you recall the largest fine you ever took in your career?
RHODES:  I don’t.
WILSON:  Well, if they couldn’t find the book, they paid for the book.  Some people probably just kept the book and paid the fine, so it would have been the cost of the book, probably around twenty-four or twenty-five dollars, although that would have been high.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Do you have any idea about the cost of an average children’s book then, and today?
WILSON:  Do you remember?  You typed the cards, Judy.
RHODES:  Depends on if it was library bound or just the regular binding.  I think the library bounds were about eleven dollars.
JOHNSON:  That was then?
RHODES:  Then.  Today, I don’t know, probably twenty-some.
JOHNSON:  How about adult books?
RHODES:  [They were] $12.95, around in there, when we began.  And then twenties, thirties, on up, later.
JOHNSON:  Do you recall what was the library budget when you started?
WILSON:  I don’t really know the budget.  I know I was making fifty cents an hour when I first started.  So I think the budget must have been awfully small.  Do you remember, Judy?
RHODES:  I don’t remember exactly what it was, but yes, I made fifty cents an hour when I started too.  (laughter)  So I know it was small.
JOHNSON:  And when did you go up to a dollar?
WILSON:  Probably not until we went full time.  So that would probably have been a year or two after we started, before we got….
RHODES:  That would have been about 1957 for me.
JOHNSON:  [unclear] a dollar, okay.  How did the budget grow over the years?  You say pretty much in the late fifties, early sixties, [it was] pretty stable.  When did it really start to grow, that we had more money?
RHODES:  I think right after the new library was built downtown.  So that would have been in the early seventies.
JOHNSON:  Do you recall what the book budget was at that particular….
RHODES:  No, I don’t.
JOHNSON:  Do you remember how many books were in the new collection when you opened up?  Do you remember a possible count?
RHODES:  I don’t know, probably around 70,000, somewhere around in there.
JOHNSON:  How much did you grow from the original Glendale Library—well, it actually wasn’t original, but the library that you worked at, that was torn down—to the new Velma Teague Library?
WILSON:  Probably five times, at least—more than that.
RHODES:  Yeah.
JOHNSON:  Today programming is a big part of the library mission.  Were any programs held at the library when you first started working there?
WILSON:  The one thing I remember was library week in the school.  Well, different grades from the elementary schools would come to the library, and we’d do programs for them.  We’d read and give them some kind of little candy or something to tell them what the story was about that we read.  But we usually had a piece of candy for each child.  We would read different books, maybe some of the Caldecott winners, and the Newbery.
JOHNSON:  Do you remember any other programs?
RHODES:  No.  The children’s was the big thing of the year that we got ready for.  I remember we mostly read a story each year about a Mexican jumping bean, and then we’d hand out these little capsules that had like a BB in it, and the kids could hold it in their hand, and it’d roll around like a jumping bean, and they thought that was really neat.
JOHNSON:  You didn’t do any adult programs at all?
RHODES:  No.
WILSON:  No, I don’t think we did.
JOHNSON:  When you started working at the library, did you have any idea that you would work there for so many years?
WILSON:  I liked it, I never ever thought about working any other place.  I did one time.  I quit one time, and I worked at a mortuary for about a year—which was really interesting—but I went back to the library.  There was no other place I really wanted to work.
JOHNSON:  Why did you like it so much?  What made it a great environment?
WILSON:  Well, besides meeting all the people and helping them get what they wanted, you used your hands a lot in processing the books and getting all the new books ordered and everything.  It was just real interesting.  I just enjoyed it.
JOHNSON:  Judy, how about you?
RHODES:  I don’t know, I loved the people, seeing the people.  There were a lot of little jobs that we did, like typing the cards, and then I helped with the bills each month.  That was really interesting, getting to do the typing and the filing, and seeing the new books coming in, processing them.
JOHNSON:  How did your jobs evolve?  I mean, from the very beginning it sounds like you almost had to do everything:  You had to process the books, you probably had to do some shelving, you checked people out.  You might have even done story time.  But towards the end of your career, what were you doing, and how did you get there from where you began in your career in the library?  How did you get to where when you finally retired from the library?
WILSON:  Oh, I don’t know, I started out a lot with the children, working with them, and the circulation.  And I guess my job kind of changed by the different bosses I had, or the directors, if they wanted you to change and do something that they thought you could do better.  So that pretty much was mine—just changing as the need progressed, and whatever they wanted you to try.
JOHNSON:  What were you doing at the very end of your career?
WILSON:  Well, of course I worked with the volunteers, hiring those—well, not hiring—but interviewing those and getting the volunteers; and just kind of overseeing the people that ordered the books, and we had the magazine check-in, all of that.  Mostly at the end it was all behind the scenes, it wasn’t out in front of the circulation and the people.  At least you knew what they were going to be reading and all of that.  So that’s kind of how mine evolved, just mainly doing what needed to be done.
JOHNSON:  Did you, when the library, back in the fifties and sixties, did the library system use volunteers back then?
WILSON:  Not that I can remember.  Maybe someone from school, if a librarian from school might have wanted someone to come and try out, but not on a constant basis that I ever remember.
RHODES:  Yeah, they didn’t.
JOHNSON:  Judy, how did your job evolve from how you ended up from, again, sort of doing everything at the beginning, to when you retired?
RHODES:  Well, I always wanted to do the cataloging.  It fascinated me, because it was like a puzzle, finding out where all the books went.  So Mrs. Teague taught me cataloging, and then I went to college and had courses in cataloging.  It just evolved into I became head cataloger.
JOHNSON:  What exactly—can you expand on what-all was involved in cataloging a book?
RHODES:  Well, to begin with, it was typing the cards and getting them in the card catalog; assigning subject headings that you knew that people would look for, and be able to find the book.  It’s making the book accessible to the people, any way that you could.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  What are some unique or funny experiences that you had over the years, working in the library?
WILSON:  Oh, in the early days the people were just so friendly, and they would come in with their children, and it would be the funny things that children would tell you about their parents.  When they’d leave, you would just be hysterical.  You wouldn’t want to laugh with them.  It was just learning about people.  I can’t think of anything in particular.  I do remember the one time—and Judy can back this up—we did all of our work at a little table in the children’s room, as well as mending.  Judy would put the Dewey decimal numbers on the back of the books.  And one time she got some oil on a book, and we got in trouble for that.
RHODES:  We’d been over to the corner drugstore, and we bought some mixed nuts and brought them back and set them on the table, and our hands were oily from them.  I remember it was an almanac with a blue cover.  I remember the prints to this day.
WILSON:  [unclear, same time as Rhodes]
RHODES:  One of the funny things about the kids, though, that came in, there was this one little boy that was so mad at his mother, and he came in and he said, “I’m just gonna boil her in oil!”  (laughter)
JOHNSON:  How have library patrons changed over the years?
WILSON:  I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but they used to be so respectful and make their children mind and be quiet, because in the really first library it was so open and it was small, so if someone was trying to concentrate on reading or studying or reference work, you had to try and keep it quiet.  And most of the mothers would.  And now it seems like the children just have the run of things, and can be as noisy as they want.  Maybe it’s me.  I’m of the old school.  (laughs)
JOHNSON:  Judy, do you see the same?
RHODES:  The same goes for me!
JOHNSON:  The same goes for you?  Okay.  How about just….  That obviously is about patrons, but how have libraries changed?
WILSON:  Oh, the technology is unbelievable today.  When we started, and for years, you just did everything with the old typewriters and the cards, and now everything.  And I don’t even know all of it.  I’m sure there’s so much out there about the library I don’t know.  But it’s just the technology.
JOHNSON:  When did the Glendale Public Library first become computerized as far as having an on-line library catalog, do you remember?
RHODES:  I can’t remember if it was the seventies or the eighties.
WILSON:  Must have been the eighties.
RHODES:  When did we move in here?
JOHNSON:  ’87.
RHODES:  ’87.  So it was in the early eighties.
JOHNSON:  Were you involved in any of that?
RHODES:  Oh yeah.  Yeah, that was …
JOHNSON:  … a lot of work.
RHODES:  Yes, because all the catalog had to be brought on line.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  What did you love most about working in the library, Glenda?
WILSON:  Just kind of a repeat of before:  just meeting the people, seeing the new books, getting them processed to go out as quick as we could so all the best sellers would be on the shelves.  I think that was it, just doing the work that needed to be done.
RHODES:  Seeing all the different types of books and being able to have knowledge right at your fingertips there.
JOHNSON:  That’s true.
RHODES:  I liked that.
JOHNSON:  What was your least favorite part?
WILSON:  I think it was probably when the media came into the library.  It just bothered me so much to see all the videos torn up, and not being able to keep everything in good order.  Like a book, you could mend a page, but when the videos—and now you probably have CDs—you probably don’t even have that many videos anymore—but just seeing how things were not kept in good order because people didn’t take care of them.
JOHNSON:  Judy?
RHODES:  My least favorite thing was probably the politics, not being able to do certain things because the city didn’t like it, or whatever.
JOHNSON:  One of the things you said about the media, and then you said originally at the beginning you checked out books and magazines.  What are some other things through the years—we may still not check them out, you know, we now have them in our collection right now—but what are some things through the years that we have checked out of the library that you wouldn’t think that you would check out of a library?
RHODES:  Art prints:  we had those in the old library.  We had quite a collection, too.
JOHNSON:  Did you ever have records?
RHODES:  Yes.
JOHNSON:  Did you have anything for children in toys or anything?  Were any toys ever checked out in bags or anything?
RHODES:  I don’t think we did.
WILSON:  Not at first.  I can’t remember what we had checked out for children like that.  There were puzzles there, but I don’t remember them ever checking them out.
RHODES:  I thought we did, and they were in like little mesh bags, and we had to sterilize them.
WILSON:  Well, you know, we had the books with tapes, and those were in bags.
RHODES:  I think there were some toys.
WILSON:  I’ve forgotten.  (laughter)
RHODES:  It’s been a long time ago.
JOHNSON:  We definitely have a lot of things today that check out.  Obviously we no longer have record albums, but we still do art prints, and we have the DVDs and so forth.  And if you had to do it all over again, would you have chosen a different career?
RHODES:  No, I would not.
WILSON:  No, I don’t think I would either.  I loved working at the library.  Like I said, that was the first job I ever had, and I just loved it.
RHODES:  I always wanted to work there.  It was just my ideal job.
WILSON:  Uh-huh.
JOHNSON:  Okay.  Well, thank you so much Glenda and Judy, for coming in.  We really appreciate it.
RHODES:  You’re welcome.
WILSON:  Uh-huh.
[END OF INTERVIEW]