{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/2804x56510/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["LAPL Institutional Collection - Arthur Pond"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/200/original/lapl_logo.png?1628076950","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Arthur Pond","Tiffney Sanford"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2024-10-02"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Retired librarian Arthur Pond held several positions over the years, including Librarian, Senior Librarian, Acting Area Manager at many Los Angeles Public Library branches, the Municipal Reference Library, and Service to Shut-Ins. He was interviewed by Librarian Tiffney Sanford at the West Valley Regional Branch Library on October 2, 2024."]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MPEG-4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["TheirStory"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Retired librarian Arthur Pond held several positions over the years, including Librarian, Senior Librarian, Acting Area Manager at many Los Angeles Public Library branches, the Municipal Reference Library, and Service to Shut-Ins. He was interviewed by Librarian Tiffney Sanford at the West Valley Regional Branch Library on October 2, 2024."]},"provider":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Los Angeles Public Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Los Angeles Public Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/200/original/lapl_logo.png?1628076950","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/257/393/small/Arthur_Pond-1.jpg?1732737635","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20241127-264959-nijrxv.mp4"]},"duration":6780.69108,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/257/393/small/Arthur_Pond-1.jpg?1732737635","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-lapl.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/257/393/original/open-uri20241127-264959-nijrxv.mp4?1732733806","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mp3","duration":6780.69108,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["TheirStory Transcript (Paragraphs with Speakers) [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e My name is Tiffney Sanford. I'm a librarian at the North Hollywood Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Today is October 2nd, 2024. We are at the West Valley Regional Branch and I am interviewing Arthur Pond. So thank you for being with us for the interview.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2.66,19.4"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Glad to be here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=19.43,20.21"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e What year did you start with LAPL and what positions have you held in the system?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=20.24,24.71"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I started on August 13th, 1984, which I remember because it was my ex-wife's birthday that year. We both got what we wanted. I got a job and she passed the bar exam. Coincidentally, she passed [the bar exam] on my birthday. I started as the young adult librarian at the West Los Angeles branch. I was hired by and working for Fontayne Holmes before she promoted to the stars. I was there until late 1989 when I transferred to the Municipal Reference Branch, which no longer exists. At that time we had a small library in City Hall South, basically serving the denizens of City Hall with a lot of technical material and so forth. I spent the first four hours of every day there, starting at, I think like 7:30 in the morning because City Hall gets cranking early. And then around noon I'd take lunch and spend the last half of my day as the official police librarian running a small library within Parker Center before the new building was built, which was more than a little peculiar. It's funny, but working around people with guns, especially as a librarian, something I just never got used to. It's funny, it's like having a television on or something--it's hard to take your eyes off. I started there [in] late August [or] September perhaps. And we were waiting on the results from the senior librarian's exam at the time, which at that time took approximately six months to come through. I had taken the exam with a flu that I came down with, and no one there told me, either from the library or from city personnel, that if you are sick like that, you have the option of taking the exam later. So I just took it and got through it and six months later, I barely remembered being ill. I remember that the results came out and rumors ran all over the library system. The rumor was that I had scored first on the exam, which was not likely at all, but--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=24.74,180.394"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's pretty amazing if you did!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=180.94,182.29"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean, what it was was that I was a male, which was rare enough and very active with the union by that time. So, you know, that was the kind of rumors that spread. And around midday, Fontayne, who was by that time the Assistant Director of Branches, got the list of who had scored how on the exam. And Fontayne was always one who was aware of rumors. And she called me to let me know--and thank goodness she did --that in fact, I had scored something like 37th. Way in the toilet. There was just no way I was promoting off that exam. It was one of three odd pieces of news I got while at a very, very busy reference desk at West L.A.. She had since, you know, left the position and gone to interlibrary loans, and then left LAPL and become the City Librarian of Pasadena-- South Pasadena--excuse me. Big difference. And then come back to us. Having passed the principal librarian exam and promoted directly to Assistant Director of Branches. Well, [she was] the assistant to the Director of Branches, and so she had access to the list, and she called and told me. That [low score on the Senior Librarian exam] was pretty much it for me. I figured I'd have to wait and take the exam again in a year or two, whatever they were doing. So I worked at West L.A. for a while,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=182.56,272.23"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Were you an adult librarian?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=274.0,275.403"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was the young adult librarian. And I stayed in that position because it rather suited me and got to be part of the Young Adult Advisory Board, where I worked closely with Laura Weber, who became instrumental in union stuff and was already on the board by then. While I was new at West L.A. Fontayne got me signed up for the union, and there was never a question about that because I came from a union family. And talked to me about taking a position on the executive board. I said, \"Yeah, I'll do that, but let me have a year to get my feet on the ground and learn people's names and stuff. And she said, okay. And exactly a year later, she reminded me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=275.8,318.83"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e She had you on her calendar.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=319.28,320.12"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yeah. And at that point another executive board member had quit so I wound up being the program chair, which mostly meant I was responsible for arranging food for meetings, but it also meant I was involved in conversations and expected to be at executive board meetings. Oh, it's only going to be 12 meetings a year. Ha!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=320.57,343.526"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So you were kind of like a fly on the wall almost, you didn't have to do anything major....","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=345.53,350.119"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I mean, I remember being at a meeting at West L.A. branch. It was a long day because it was a Sunday, and it was some sort of an emergency, and I don't even remember what it was. And before that, I had been at some sort of an event at the University Elementary School [now known as UCLA Lab School]. I don't even remember why I was there up at UCLA. And I had been with Laura Weber, and we both wound up at this union meeting, and we sat at West L.A., and I had to wait till the end of it, regardless of whether I was ready to go or not, because I was the staff member from West L.A., which meant I had to lock up the building. They were all going back and forth talking about something or other, and it just got tedious. And I mean, anytime you have a meeting of librarians where there's not a line authority, someone to say, all right, shut up. I've made my decision. It gets long because we all have different opinions. And finally, around 5:00, I looked at him and said, \"Look, I know I'm the new kid, but it sounds like what it comes down to....\" And they had kind of broken into three factions, and I summarized each one and they all nodded their head. And I finally said, \"Well, what if we take one from you and one from you and one from you and do this? And they all looked at me sort of shocked, and I said, \"Sorry, I don't mean to be presumptuous,\" but they nodded their heads and I said, \"Everyone okay with that?\" And they said, \"Yep.\" And I said, \"All in favor,\" which I wasn't empowered to do. And they raised their hands and I said, \"Move to adjourn?\" And they all raised their hands and we went home. And that is pretty much how I wound up being union president.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=350.15,445.08"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's great though that you saw that and you were able to summarize it that way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=445.11,450.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Mostly it was a matter of wanting to go home. So we got that done. And not long after that came the union's 30th anniversary party. And I don't remember why I wasn't more involved in planning that, but I wasn't. But I do remember that while we were there, Fontayne, who was also there because at the time I started, she was the executive vice president and Harriet Newton was the president. She [Fontayne] came over to me and whispered quietly in my ear, \"you're planning on staying a young adult librarian for your entire career?\" by which I took to mean you need to broaden your experience if you want to get promoted, which I thought was a really good point. So despite the fact that I really liked West L.A. and the staff, and we all got along really well--by that time Anne Connor had promoted to senior. The principal librarian there was a woman by the name of Penny Carr [Kathryn (Penny) Carr], and she was legendary for being difficult. Well normally you didn't promote as a librarian directly to the regional branch. You went to a branch and then worked your way up because the regional had a staff of 30 to 50 and was much, much more complicated and expected to fill a very different function than they are now. But Penny was legendary for being difficult, so she tended to promote new people because that's what she could get. So she promoted Fontayne from librarian to Senior [Librarian]. And I remember Fontayne told me part of the reason she left was Penny wouldn't let her form a Friends [of the Library] group. Penny just didn't want people meddling in the affairs of the library. So she promoted Fontayne, and when Fontayne shortly after--no, I guess it was not long before the library fire--she transferred to interlibrary loans and they promoted Anne Connor, who was at that time the children's librarian [at West L.A.] which was rare because normally they don't promote you to the same branch where you've been working, because it's always awkward to suddenly turn to your coworkers and say, \"Oh, hi, I'm your boss now\"-- which Anne struggled with briefly, but dealt with with remarkable grace.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=450.03,588.41"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So you promoted after West L.A.? Right-so","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=593.72,595.315"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I basically needed somewhere to transfer to that would be a significantly different experience than young adult librarian. And there was an opening at the Municipal Reference Library, which was the one in City Hall that I mentioned. So I applied and got it and transferred there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=595.73,614.09"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e How many librarians worked there for?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=614.12,617.69"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Four maybe. There was Gina Estrada, who was the senior at that time. I don't remember what else she was responsible for but Leslie Nordby was a principal librarian and she was the principal in charge. And there were at least 1 or 2 other librarians. It was an interesting place, and the police library was even more interesting because basically there was just me in charge of acquisitions, cataloging, reference and everything else. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=617.72,651.29"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e what sort of a reference collection was there at the police library?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=651.29,654.44"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Sort of a haphazardly collected bunch of stuff that mostly was built around the idea of--cops are incredibly ambitious. They want to promote, and so a lot of it was stuff to prepare for their promotional exams. What wasn't for that was general cop stuff. Some very strange things. Books with titles like The Psychology of Normal People. That was more than a little bit peculiar. There was no clerical staff assigned, so on a rotating basis, I would get a different clerical staff member every day from a different department within LAPD, which was peculiar as hell.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=654.74,697.43"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, it's hard to get any sort of systems in place when you're rotating that way.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=697.46,701.69"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e It was that way. The other thing was that at that time, LAPD was undergoing significant growth. The city had had a hiring freeze in place for years, like four [years] from 1980 to 1984. I remember this because everyone was very excited when the hiring freeze broke in [19]84, which coincidentally timed out perfect for me because that's when I graduated from library school, and they hired a raft of us out of UCLA, known as the class of '84 that included Dan Dupill and Heather Sells, and a number of other people whose names I don't remember right this instant.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=701.72,741.05"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So after the Municipal Library?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=746.12,748.044"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e So basically, I worked at Municipal Reference [Library] and one morning about 7:30 when I first got there, I got a phone call from Fontayne, who had kind of become my mentor and has always stayed a great friend, and I should probably try to reach out to her since she doesn't live that far from me these days. I'd","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=748.16,767.15"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e love to interview her too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=767.15,768.35"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I really recommend that you do Fontayne, and I'll probably babble out different names. If Harriet [Newton] is willing, you should interview her. At any rate, she [Fontayne] called, and in this bright, cheerful voice said to me, \"Mazel tov!\" At the time, I remember because I had the flu and I had just gone through the day before the process of getting signed up for Kaiser, and I don't remember why, but I don't think I'd done anything about that before, because there were a lot of phone calls and paperwork involved. At any rate, I'm sitting there trying to be at work and half out of it, and she says, Mazel tov. And I go, \"Pardon me?\" And she said, \"Oh, never mind, bye\" and hangs up the phone. And about 15 minutes later I get a phone call from Al Clark in personnel saying, \"Congratulations, you passed the senior exam and we're offering you Service to Shut-ins\" --another department that no longer exists. And so I was only at Municipal Reference [Library], like four months, maybe five. And in early January, I promoted to senior librarian--this will be 1989-- and transferred to Service to Shut-Ins, which was responsible for coordinating, training and recruiting volunteers to take books to homebound individuals. A department that kind of stopped existing. The city has had a long relationship with the concept of liability. I mean, at different times in the experience I've had, the response went from, \"Oh my God, we're going to get sued\" to \"What does that word mean again?\" And at the time, no one seemed to really be aware of the concept of liability. As I mentioned earlier, my wife had passed the bar exam and we had been together all the way through law school and into her career. So liability was something I was quite aware of. And the idea of recruiting people that you don't really know and sending them to the home of vulnerable, homebound individuals has a certain nervous-making factor to it. And, you know, as a result, the department kind of stopped existing when I transferred out of there about three years later.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=768.38,916.45"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e How long had the department been in existence before you got there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=916.48,920.17"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't remember, I remember doing a lot of research because, like I said, my interview scores were in the toilet. So as a result, when there was finally a position that they had to reach down far enough on the list to reach me, I found out about it and I prepared my butt off. I mean, I went to the people who were in the department and they gave me all their annual reports for years. I used the various research facilities--I think I went back to UCLA--and did a bunch of reading from the professional material on, on how library services are best provided to homebound people and how different programs existed in different libraries. And when the interview came, I sang my heart out and I wound up getting the job, and went on to do that for another two and a half or so years. It was a job that nobody really wanted, because a lot of it was going into nursing homes and things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=921.04,979.96"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Did you actually deliver books also?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=984.82,986.824"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh yeah, and trained volunteers and all of that. I had a staff of two librarians and one clerical staff member, and it was hard getting people for the department. It tended to be the sort of job that you took when you either really needed to go somewhere from the job you were already in, or were brand new to the system and needed to get in. Or in my case, needed to take something to promote, and then you could transfer to something else. But I remember being in one nursing home listening to an old woman call out from her room, \"God, please kill me.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=987.28,1023.73"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, boy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1024.06,1024.81"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, nursing homes are a real mixed bag. Some of them are plush as can be. I remember going to one that specialized in retired Catholic clergy and it was beautiful. Beautiful views, phenomenal menu, all manner of equipment geared towards seniors who had special physical needs [like] walk in bathtubs and so forth, and others that, you know, were just hell. So I was there for a few years and had some very memorable experiences, some with nursing homes. I remember a volunteer that I had recruited, a young Hispanic man, and we paired him with an older Hispanic woman. And I remember taking him to her house to introduce them and the two of them getting into a conversation. She asked him, \"How did they talk about Pancho Villa in your family?\" Something I had never thought about being a dumb white boy. Then she turned and explained to me and said, this is an issue that kind of tells you a lot about where a Hispanic family--a Mexican family--is politically, socially and economically. So they talked about that for a while, and I was quite a bit enlightened. I mean, from a certain perspective, Pancho Villa was a hero of the revolution, and from another, he was a monster who stole from your family and killed people. That tells you a lot about immigrant families and where they stand with the politics and the circumstances of where they came from. I'm sure similar things are true of Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese families, and I've certainly run into cases like that around Venezuela and things like that. So it was a fascinating job, but it was really hard to keep. And so ultimately, I transferred out and wound up as the Senior [Librarian] at the Hyde Park Branch.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1024.839,1154.831"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e And that was the old Hyde Park Branch? [Showed him the architectural rendering of the previous Hyde Park Branch at 6527 Crenshaw Blvd. available at tessa.lapl.org] The","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1155.54,1157.82"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e original Hyde Park Branch. Right. Which didn't look anything like that at all.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1157.82,1162.8"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So it was the Spanish one?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1163.94,1165.56"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I know we had at least two, maybe 3 or 4 branches that look like they had been designed by the guy who designed Bob's Big Boy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1166.13,1176.06"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Wayne McCallister? The one [Bob's Big Boy] there in Burbank?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1176.57,1178.765"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Tell you the truth, I don't remember, but I think so. One of them was Fairfax. Another one was Hyde Park. It was a very simple building--it had two keys, one was the key to the front door and the other was the key to the air conditioning system. It was all very manual and very simple. The water heater was upstairs in the attic. I remember this because at one point it overflowed and a woman walking her dog happened by and noticed that it was raining inside the library. It wasn't raining outside the library, so she called library security, whose number was posted on the front door. When I came in Monday morning, I found everything covered with towels and everything soaked.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1180.2,1227.57"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Was that your first big library building breakage?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1231.5,1235.64"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, it was. Good point. There were a few others after that, but that was the first one that I remember clearly. When I transferred to Hyde Park, they had the lowest circulation in the library system. The Senior [Librarian] there was a troubled individual who was involved in a personnel matter, and she and the Area Manager both lived far away and wanted to apply for a shift variation so they could come in at the crack of dawn and drive home before rush hour traffic. Management basically said no and they appealed it which meant that it went to a meet and confer situation--which was a combination of the union and management talking over whether this was something that there was room for negotiation on. The union's position was, you know, look, we'd really like to accommodate you here, but you want to leave work around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. And because of the fact that, at that time at least, most problems occurred around kids getting out of school--it was a more innocent time. [The union's position was] we can't really support that, because the time when supervisors are most needed is when they're going to be problems, and you're both going to be in traffic on the way home--and cell phones were not common yet--so you're out of touch. So no, we can't really support that, it's not fair to the rest of the staff. Clerical or professional. The Senior retired immediately on the spot-- to the point where she didn't even clean out her office. The Principal [Area Manager] retired shortly thereafter. But at any rate, that left an opening and I finally applied for it. The woman who was in charge of Southern Region--when there was a Southern region, there used to be seven [regions] rather than six--was named Charlotte Jackson, who was just a doll. So I applied and got the job and wound up transferring to Hyde Park. And at that time, it must have been 1990, because a number of things happened. One was that I got elected president of the union. Harriet [Newton] had done three years [as union president] which was was a phenomenal amount of time because it was a very time consuming and an exhausting and stressful job, and I don't think anyone had done it for longer than two years prior to Harriet. She was followed by Laura [Weber], who did it for two years. Laura Weber--who was also part of a long story--because at that time she was the Senior Librarian in charge of service to young adults and her boss was Jennifer Lambelet, who later became Jennifer Menken. The two of them basically were very militant in terms of needing a young adult services department. Wyman Jones was the City Librarian, and his position at that time, at least as it was explained to me by more than one person over a period of time, was [that]teenagers are a pain in the butt. Why do we need to specially cater to them? They [Harriet and Jennifer] both kept fighting for it and as a result, they kept young adult services alive at a time when there was really no other support for it within the administrative structure. They created the Young Adult Advisory Board, which was one YA [librarian] from each region to come and basically consult on services to be provided, and what went on the young adult order sheet, and things like that. And so I wound up sitting on that committee also and got to know Laura [Weber] better, even though I believe she was already the treasurer for the union. So she and I were spending a lot of time together, and Harriet [Newton] was getting ready to stop being [union] president and Laura wound up stepping up. I believe there was some encouragement for me, but I really wasn't ready yet, since I'd only been with the library system for 4 or 5 years, and Laura stepped up and did it. Where was I going from there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1235.73,1536.94"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e You were at Hyde Park when you became president-- Well","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1536.97,1539.025"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was at Hyde Park throughout that period of time and still involved with the union so I was in regular contact with Laura [Weber]. Hyde Park [Branch] was really interesting because of the low circulation, because the previous Senior [Librarian] had basically been of the attitude of, \"What do you want? Have you looked in the card catalog? Leave me alone.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1539.025,1572.321"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Service!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1573.06,1573.575"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Whereas I was much more militant about the concept of service all the way back to library school. The class of '84 [class of 1984 at UCLA] was known for being loud in their discussions. There were several cases where different classes would get loud enough so that someone would have to come from the administration office and say, \"Can you keep it down?\" At any rate, I came in and about that point, Wyman Jones retired finally--after 20 something years. He was not a popular city librarian with staff. I know he was popular with Mayor Bradley because at his [Wyman Jones] retirement party, Mayor [Tom] Bradley said, \"I always liked having Wyman as the City Librarian because he never asked me for anything. The one time he came to me and asked me for something, he did magic tricks to get on my good side and then asked for more typewriters.\" He [Wyman Jones] was also famous because during one of the budget cuts that happened and they said, they're going to have to be layoffs. His response was, \"Would 100 librarians be enough?\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1575.01,1641.405"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Wow.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1641.79,1642.96"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Wyman [Jones] was not highly thought of. He was apparently quite a book guy though, and an amateur musician--[I mean a] magician, excuse me--and probably someone, you know, you could sit down and have dinner with and have quite an amusing conversation. But as a politician representing the library? No, not really. I remember being at ALA (American Library Association conference] once and having people from Dallas, where he'd transferred from, laugh at us because we had gotten their castoffs. So it was something to celebrate when he finally left. There was a lot of controversy about it, because the hiring was basically in the hands of the Board of Library Commissioners, and they had hired Wyman [Jones], so why would we have a lot of faith there? And the union wanted to be more involved [in the hiring process for the new City Librarian] because that was the nature of the union--we always wanted to be more involved. There was a bunch of paperwork that we had put together to send out to all the candidates who were seriously considered. One was the Burt Pines report, as it was referred to as if my memory is correct. I'm having a bunch of health issues, so my memory is not as perfect as it once was. I would really love it if you could find people to confirm some of these details.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1642.99,1730.7"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, of course.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1730.79,1731.744"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Burt Pines was the city attorney for Los Angeles, and I might have his name wrong [Burt Pines is the correct name], but basically he had conducted an audit of the library department and concluded that the library was spending most of its budget on what the library considered the core constituency, which was upper class, educated white women and not much on any other group within the city. And he put together this elaborate and very detailed report to which Wyman's response was--yeah, so? These are our core constituency. Of course, we're catering to them-- ignoring the fact that the population of Spanish speakers in Los Angeles was rapidly approaching 50%. I remember thinking at the time that our motto ought to be underserving the Spanish speaking community for 75 years or whatever it was. So we sent a copy of this [audit] to all of the candidates who were seriously considered for the job. The person who wound up getting the job was named Elizabeth Martinez Smith, and she read the report and recognized what it meant. So when she came, one of the things she did that was incredibly controversial was to reorganize our budget to more appropriately serve the demographic of Los Angeles. This caused a particular stir within the union, not because we didn't think reorganizing the budget was necessarily a bad thing, but because there were a lot of Central Library representation within the union and at that time, Central Library, as the research institution in a public library in the southwestern United States, was getting a lot of budget. And that got reduced and that pissed a lot of people off.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1731.96,1860.33"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So the money moved out to the branches a little bit more.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1860.36,1862.64"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e It did. And that did not cause Elizabeth [Martinez Smith] to get the most welcoming response in the world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1863.12,1871.85"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Where had she [Elizabeth Martinez Smith] been before she came to Los Angeles?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1874.46,1877.04"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I believe she was the county librarian for Orange County or something like that. If not the county librarian, then someone high up in Orange County Public's administration [she was County Librarian for Orange County]. She was an interesting individual too. It took me--by that time I was union president-- it took me I think 3 or 4 months to get a luncheon arranged with her. And on the day I was supposed to have the luncheon, I was in a car accident.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1877.07,1905.87"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh my gosh.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1905.9,1906.68"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yeah. It was just ridiculous. And so it had to be postponed even further. She and I actually got along pretty well, but she was not someone who was politically savvy and effective at dealing with either the folks in our own administration or city hall. She didn't last long with us [Los Angeles Public Library] and she apparently had a number of problems at home also because I remember around the time she left us, she also wound up getting divorced or something. I believe she went to UCLA as an adjunct professor and left us and was replaced by, Susan Goldberg Smith? No. Susan, who was the City Librarian for a long time and who really did a better job of finally bringing us computers.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1906.71,1976.21"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That wasn't Susan Kent, was it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1976.81,1979.18"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. Susan Kent. Susan Goldberg Kent. Okay. Both of them had three names, and I needed to put that together. Thank you. When I was going through orientation, and orientation was something the city was really bad at. At that point in time, I had already been working for 3 or 4 years when I went through it. There was another woman named Gloria Maurer (??), who was the children's librarian at West L.A., who was very close to retirement--and did retire shortly thereafter, after 30 years--and she had never been oriented. So they made her go through orientation with me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=1979.21,2018.69"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you feel like you learned anything during orientation that you hadn't already been doing?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2020.79,2024.48"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh yes, a dramatic amount. Jennifer [Lambelet] aforementioned, and Leslie [Nordby] aforementioned both organized it and did a very good job. I mean, we spent time at 1 or 2 branches in each region and the regional branch. We drove all over town using only the Thomas Guide, so people got lost. I spent a whole day working in cataloging downtown. It was like 7 or 8 weeks of a full day each week and different places each time. It was quite fascinating.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2024.72,2058.889"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's amazing that you got such a wide variety of the different experiences across the city.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2058.92,2063.6"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I mean the point was, LAPL is huge. You need to get to know all of it, and there was really only two mechanisms for that happening. One was that orientation, and I think it only happened once, might have happened a second time, and the other was through activity in the union. There was nowhere else where detailed conversations about each region and the personnel issues and collection development, and everything else happened, you know. Basically most of that went on either at a Principal Librarians meeting or at the Regional Seniors meetings, but it certainly didn't happen at order meetings. But I do remember a lot of the details because my first order meeting as a Senior Librarian was January 1989, and I remember this because my last Senior Librarians meeting at Central [Library] was in January 2019, and I realized it at the time and on the spot. It's sort of like, oh my God, this is the 30th anniversary of these things. So that surprised me no end. And people were making noises and I said, \"Don't get too excited, I'm retiring.\" By that time, I had 35 years in [with the city of Los Angeles] and I had three years bought back from the state because I had worked for UCLA for three years. I started working in libraries in I think it was 1973 or 1974 as security for the law library. At that time the law library was very, very popular with people who just wanted to hang out-- largely sorority girls who wanted to hit on law students supposedly. My job was to sit outside there, especially on Saturday mornings, and tell people whether or not they could go in. Unless you were a law student or had a bar card, you couldn't [get in]. So it was very odd.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2063.63,2181.31"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e You were the one keeping the sorority girls out of the law library!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2181.34,2184.015"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Something that was more than peculiar because I was probably more likely to be flirting than anything else. One way or the other one of my roommates worked in the law library, and when they had an opening, I applied and they hired me. It was called the dawn patrol--they'd close at midnight and they didn't really expect a lot of cleaning up to go on at midnight, so they brought in students on work study to do it at 5:00 in the morning. It was funny.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2184.49,2213.77"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, when you were at Hyde Park, how long were you there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2215.15,2218.39"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was at Hyde Park for about five years from 1991? Yes it was 1991, I remember exactly because I remember I was applying for Hyde Park and I asked Al Clark-- I had gotten to know the head of personnel because of my union activities--if it were possible, if they could possibly let me know whether I got the position before I left because my wife, who at that point was a professor at Loyola Law School, had arranged a staff swap position with the International University of Beijing. So we were going to China for six weeks, and she was going to teach constitutional law, and I was going to be there to see China. On the morning [of] the last day of my working--I was supposed to get on the plane the next morning--I got a phone call from Al [Clark] saying, \"Congratulations, you got Hyde Park,\" and it happened to actually happen to be my 10th anniversary at that time. So I had to tell the Service to Shut-Ins staff and at the time we were doing volunteer recognition events, one in each region. So we'd been driving all over town, putting on parties for the past couple of months, and we were putting on the last of the parties at the Echo Park Branch that morning. And I remember getting there, getting everything set up and then pulling them all into the back room and saying, \"So long guys,\" it was more than a little awkward. And then putting everything back together and leaving to do last minute shopping and then flying out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2218.42,2338.69"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Then off to Beijing. So did you start at Hyde Park right when you got back?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2338.72,2342.29"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I did, it was it was all quite awkward. At that time, we were also in the middle of negotiations and I was president of the union and so leader of the negotiations committee. I don't remember what the issue was, but we were very, very close to settling negotiations, and the history of the [Librarians] Guild is that we don't settle contracts quickly. I mean, we tend to get involved in these long, protracted negotiations with the city and they typically last at least two years. We had gotten it [the latest negotiation] down to like 1 or 2 issues and I remember telling folks, \"Look, I don't have to be here for these [negotiations]. Go ahead and settle it. Sign the thing. Hold the party. I'll see you when I get back.\" And thinking, thank God, and taking off [for China] and getting back and finding out that there had been no movement whatsoever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2342.32,2402.49"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e You were the glue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2403.27,2405.01"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't know what it was, but we hadn't settled. And I spoke to Elizabeth Martinez at the time and what she told me is you should never take vacation less than six weeks because otherwise there is nobody [who is] going to do any of your work. They're just going to leave it to pile up on your desk, and she was right. I mean, I was gone for six weeks, and it's still all piled up on my desk. So I came back and transferred to Hyde Park and went to work for Charlotte [Jackson], who was wonderful. Anytime I came back from a meeting or anything else and found Charlotte's car in my parking lot, I knew that if there had been a problem she would have solved it. And if there hadn't been [a problem] she was probably in the back room gossiping with my clerks about ex-husbands. She was just a joy to work for, and about a year or two after I started she was ready to retire, something I deeply regretted. But no one had the right to make her feel bad about it. She'd been around forever and we put on the big party and everything else. And because I was the person who put on all the parties for volunteers and for the union, I wound up eyebrow deep and party putting on. I'd done that a lot by then.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2405.04,2483.13"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e You had it down to a science then, the party putting on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2483.88,2487.24"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e More or less. So I worked at Hyde Park and at that time, Elizabeth Martinez came in and one of the other things she did about trying to make the system more sensitive to a diverse population was a project she called LAPL for the 90s, which involved a great deal of training and planning for staff all over the system. We were expected to reach out into the community, get involved, get to know people, and I spent an incredible amount of time doing that. I remember the first year--we were at that time expected to do an annual report for each branch--my annual report was 70 pages long. Turned out the only person who read it in Branch Library Services was Robyn Peshek, who started calling me Dostoyevsky largely for my lack of brevity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2487.27,2546.37"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So did the circulation numbers go up I'm assuming?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2549.4,2552.807"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e They doubled. That's","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2554.29,2554.912"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e great! I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2554.912,2554.98"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e was very pleased, and I'm still proud of that. People would come in and find someone sitting there, and, I mean, all I had to do was sit there and smile at people and they were happier with it because the woman who was there before me didn't smile much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2554.98,2567.91"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e When you went out into the community, did you go to organizations or businesses, or--?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2569.56,2573.484"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Hyde Park at that point was one of the blackest communities in L.A. or in the country actually so I went to all kinds of things. I went to a variety of meetings. There were different community planning meetings put on by council offices. I remember spending many, many hours one weekend in what was called a pleshette (??) or something like that, where they basically talked about how to spend community beautification money and organized traffic flows. I remember part of the discussion was we were planning the traffic flow around a strip mall, and we talked about the difference between maximizing traffic flow for ease of commuting and slowing it down so that people would have to stop and look at the businesses and possibly go in and spend money, which I found kind of fascinating in its own way. At any rate, I was there for five years or so, and many, many things happened, including the LA riots [in 1992] and the burst water heater in the attic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2573.73,2641.94"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Was the branch affected by the riots?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2643.02,2645.21"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, we were right smack in the middle of it. And miraculously we were untouched. I remember coming back to work afterwards and neighbors coming and telling me that they-- Hyde Park was very peculiar at that time because it had a large parking lot in front of it, and it was set way back from the from Crenshaw. And on either side of it were large apartment buildings that came all the way out to Crenshaw. So as you drove by, it looked like a parking lot. The first time I went there, I literally had to circle the block three times just to find the address on a small wall outside. You know, there wasn't even a very good sign. But the neighbors had found people in the parking lot looking like they were about to throw things at the branch and set it on fire, because there were a lot of things burning by then. And they chased them away.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2645.69,2702.85"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's amazing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2702.88,2703.87"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, we were very pleased. It was a strange time because I was living not far away in Baldwin Hills. I remember driving around afterwards and finding J. Serra [Junipero Serra Branch] I think, which was at that time located in a mini mall, and the windows had all been broken in and the branch trashed and pulling over at a payphone and calling library securit--a phone number I had memorized by then and oddly enough, still remember-- and telling them what had happened and saying, \"Do you need me to do anything?\" And they were saying, \"No, no, it's probably still dangerous. Get out of there.\" So I did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2703.9,2746.86"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e The branch closed for several days then during the riots?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2748.05,2750.647"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't remember what night of the week it was, but I remember I had taken off that day because of an errand my wife needed to run. At the time, she was working for the Attorney General's office, and there was some sort of paperwork that had to be served in Santa Barbara. I don't remember why in the world we had to do it, but we drove to Santa Barbara that day and I remember driving back that night listening to traffic radio and hearing about riots bursting out and getting home--and I don't remember how they got word to me, but basically it was, \"We're not opening tomorrow, let your staff know.\" So [I started] calling everyone. And it turned out that even though the riots had started in the mid to late afternoon, no one had told any of the branches in the affected area. My staff worked until 8:00 that night and then drove home through the middle of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2752.07,2806.13"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That is scary.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2806.16,2807.54"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e It was. It was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2807.57,2810.06"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So you were only closed for one day, then?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2812.25,2814.17"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e No, no, I think we were closed for 2 or 3 days at least. And when we all got back, we were sort of spooked and looked around and people would come in and tell us what they had experienced in the process, and it was quite memorable.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2814.2,2829.23"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So were you there for a long time after the--?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2830.67,2833.837"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was there for five years. Yeah. And at that time I remember thinking, you know, taking a job in a branch is a lot like buying a house. You know, even if you think it's only for an investment purpose, you need to be prepared to be there for five or so years minimum, because who knows what circumstances are going to be. And I was there and I think I finished being union president and Michaela Johnson, bless her heart, stepped up to take over from me. The hardest part about being union president was no one wanted to do it, and as a result getting someone to run was part of the job. And Michaela did, and I wasn't union president anymore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2834.09,2883.22"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Were you still on the executive committee?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2884.63,2886.273"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I don't remember to tell you the truth. And I was still deeply enough involved so that right around that time there was a lawsuit filed by the [Librarians] Guild against the city on uncompensated overtime. Not long before that, there had been a similar lawsuit filed by a captain in the Seattle [or] somewhere up in the Pacific Northwest fire department, and the captain claimed that the city was treating him unfairly because he was a salaried employee, but when he had to come in late or leave early, they penalized him and docked his pay. You're either salaried, in which case you're paid a flat fee for the work, or your hourly, in which case you're not. And basically the court found. Look, it's one or the other. So they found for the fire captain. And we were in turn suing the city on the same grounds afterwards. And ultimately, when that decision came through and was analyzed by the city attorney's office, Mayor [Tom] Bradley decided, no point in fighting this, you look bad fighting librarians under any circumstances, and [h]e gave up. So all of a sudden, the [Librarians] Guild won the lawsuit. Now, the nature of it was--I'm scratching my head over the timeline because I seem to remember that Laura Weber was president at time, and....","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2889.31,2992.941"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e It should be something we could look up, though. [??] Yeah,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=2997.88,3000.04"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e well, the reason it was important that Laura [Weber] was president was it meant that she couldn't be the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit. And I think I was [the lead plaintiff], they just needed a name to be there and it needed to be someone involved with the union because there was a fair amount of coordinating back and forth. So we went through all of that and won the lawsuit. And peculiarly enough, for reasons I never understood, they needed to do an accounting for how much overtime different employees had worked, and they wound up bringing me in and leaving me in the personnel department to just go through everyone's time sheets. At the time, it was all paper and they had banker boxes and banker boxes and banker boxes filled with time sheets and me going through them, finding all the different ones for different employees, and then going through and figuring out what they had claimed and how much each one was owed. Largely it was an accounting job, and I don't know why they brought me in. I think maybe they thought they were getting revenge on me for being a pain in the butt. I don't know for sure, but it didn't bother me. It was kind of a nice break from my usual work, and I spent a week or two weeks working in the personnel department, and some days I wouldn't be finished when everyone else would go home. And I remember one day realizing I'm in personnel office and everyone's gone home and nothing's locked. I was not the sort of person who went fishing through files looking for dirt. But if I had been, it would have been terrific opportunity. Security got a lot tighter after that. At any rate, we won the lawsuit and they paid out. I remember I wound up with like a $3,000 check-- which was more money then than it is now-- for the overtime I had put in while I was at Service to Shut-Ins. I remember the person who got the most overtime was Sylvia Galan-Garcia, who later retired as the Northeast Area Manager, and she had been working on part of the LAPL for the 90s project that specifically dealt with the Spanish speaking community around Echo Park. And she had put in just hours and hours and hours and made trips to Sacramento to deal with the State Library and all kinds of things. There's a name for the project and I can't remember at the moment. She'll smack me if she finds out. But that was, you know, yet another odd point of my career.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3000.04,3171.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Where did you go after Hyde Park?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3172.68,3174.33"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e While I was at Hyde Park, the Senior Librarian at Cahuenga Branch retired, and her name is escaping me at this point. She was once married to Lee Ridgway, who was the Senior [Librarian] in Social Sciences at the time, and she was retiring to go off sailing on a boat, I seem to recall. I was at her retirement party, and at the time, Cahuenga Branch was in a mini mall at the corner of Vermont and Santa Monica Boulevard, about a block from the building which was being renovated. And there I ran into the Hollywood Area Manager who at this point was Jennifer Lambelet and Fontayne Holmes. They came up and sort of started whispering in my ears and the next thing I knew, I was walking down the block to look at the new Cahuenga Branch, which was absolutely gorgeous. A traditional Carnegie building with dual staircases and marble counters. They","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3175.77,3241.62"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e did a beautiful job on that remodel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3242.43,3243.9"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e They  And so I wound up being the Senior Librarian who opened the branch.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3243.93,3249.54"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e What was the community's response when they opened it? And the community saw how it had been remodeled....","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3249.57,3255.244"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e They were pleased, but it was a community that really didn't have a lot of roots in libraries. It was largely Central American immigrants, and they didn't come from a place where libraries existed, much at least to the best of my knowledge. And so bringing them in was kind of a trick. But they were nice people, and it all went very well. We were one of the first branches that had a number of public access computers. So we got to work out a number of the details about how that worked and how we allocated time and so forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3255.9,3292.17"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Did you have a lot of computer questions at the time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3292.2,3295.68"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Not the same kind of computer questions we have now, mostly just people wanting to use the computers, kids wanting to play games and people wanting to check email and so forth. I remember email was finally getting to be a real thing around that time, because I remember one day trading emails with Jennifer [Lambelet] in real time. I mean, it was back and forth. It was just as efficient as talking on the phone, and we were both kind of surprised by that. I was there from I guess December 1995 and we opened in January [1996]. I went in the day after Christmas, and we opened in late January, and it took a full month to get everything done. We weren't used to moving into branches at that time, and in fact nobody pretty much was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3295.71,3350.75"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Was Robyn [Myers] the one that was instrumental in it [moving into the branch]? Robyn","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3352.01,3354.5"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e was always the one who was instrumental in it. Yeah, she was there for both building programs. And speaking of people you should talk to---","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3354.5,3361.904"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e I talked to her a little bit.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3362.03,3363.05"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh good. You know, her memory is phenomenal. At any rate, Robyn was very involved, and we were getting everything done, but it still took over a month. We got the branch opened and things settled in, and that was [19]95. In [19]97, I got divorced and was still dealing with an awful lot of that paperwork. I remember because I was driving back from dealing with a banking problem on.... it must have been just after New Year's 2000. I'm hanging up on different dates that are hung up in my mind by different things. I know that date [in] particular because I got a phone call from my next door neighbor who was Pearl Yonezawa, who was the Senior at Los Feliz [Branch] to this day, telling me that she needed to talk to me and hurry home. She wouldn't tell me why and I was very concerned. And so I raced home, and she informed me that Jennifer [Lambelet] had died.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3364.31,3441.77"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh my God.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3442.16,3442.79"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e You haven't heard this story?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3442.88,3443.93"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e No. So","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3443.96,3444.74"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Jennifer had been married originally and gone to library school. [She was] one of those women who did it as a follow up job in case their husband ever left them--and he did. And she went to work as a librarian and was absolutely brilliant. She had very, very little patience, which is why she didn't have a great reputation, which was one of the reasons that I was able to apply for Service to Shut-Ins, because most people were terrified of her. She had recovered from her divorce and worked her way into the library and was doing very well and was incredibly supportive when I went through my divorce. And at the same time, she met a man who was---she was very active in the Sierra Club. She was a very vigorous hiker, and she met a man who was very similar in everything but his politics. He lived in Orange County as opposed to she lived in San Pedro, and they both led mountaineering groups and had climbed many mountains and so forth. I remember once we were at an order meeting, at the time she was the Adult Services Coordinator, so technically she was the one who convened the meeting and everyone was standing around chit chatting, and it was like quarter after nine [a.m.] and no one was showing any sign of sitting down and getting down to business. And she went up to the microphone, picked it up and said, \"Everybody sit down and shut up.\" She was required to apologize to next month. The way she apologized was to say, \"Look, I'd just come back from hiking\" the Sierra Trail--the John Muir Trail, you know, the famous one, \"and I hadn't dealt with anyone bears for the previous two weeks. Bears respond really well to that tone of voice.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3444.74,3550.941"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So she was on the--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3556.75,3558.034"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e So she was basically met this man, and they were both very compatible. And everyone liked both of them. And they got married, and they got married in the redwoods because they couldn't really manage the honeymoon of their dreams at that point. So they got married up in the redwoods, and it was beautiful and came back and a few months later had planned by this point, excruciatingly, the honeymoon of their dreams. They were going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and crest it on New Year's Day, 2000. And they did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3558.61,3590.86"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's dramatic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3590.89,3592.03"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yep. They made a point of going up the hard way. There are apparently two ways up Mount Kilimanjaro, a relatively easier way and a much harder way. You get to 17,000 ft either way, which is the highest you can go without carrying oxygen. And they knew this and did it deliberately and climbed with a very experienced climbing group, including doctors and nurses, I'm told. When they got to the top, I have a picture somewhere still to this day of Jennifer [Lambelet] with a glass of champagne, in her parka, toasting the sunrise on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, and [she] almost immediately thereafter collapsed and had oxygen deprivation. And they raced her to the bottom of the mountain. By the time they got there, she was dead.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3592.06,3647.59"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's incredible. That is an incredible story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3647.62,3651.88"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e At the time, she was the Hollywood Area Manager and Pearl [Yonezawa] was calling to tell me because she just found out because she was also in the Hollywood region. And I think the next day I got a call from the Director of Branches informing me that I was going to be the temporary Hollywood Area Manager, and that I would be going into Jennifer's office to take over and clean it out. Jennifer [Lambelet] was absolutely brilliant, but she was not organised. Her desk was the proverbial mountain of paperwork, with nothing in any sane order whatsoever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3653.92,3693.97"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Are you an organised person?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3695.29,3696.91"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Only marginally.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3697.57,3698.65"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3698.68,3699.07"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean mine is not that overt but hers was. At the time [when] she was the Adult Services Coordinator she was in a warehouse on Manchester near Western with Service to Shut Ins, Library Adult Reading Project and Southern Region Bookmobile. We were all sharing space there, and Central Library opened and Jennifer's office was being moved to Central Library. She had meetings all morning and around 8:30--I was in the office early--she called and said, \"I'm stuck in these meetings, I can't leave. They're coming to move my office at noon. I need for you to pack it up for me.\" And I said, \"Jennifer, your office is chaos. You'll never be able to find anything.\" She says, \"Don't worry about it. Just put everything in boxes and send them on their way to Central [Library].\" And I did. And I mean, literally it was just pick up a pile and put it in a box. About a week later, Pearl [Yonezawa]--Pearl was also on the union executive board, and I don't remember whether she was my neighbor or not by that point or not. At any rate, she had a meeting with Jennifer [Lambelet], and she walked into Jennifer's brand new office in Central Library, and Jennifer had carefully recreated her old office, which is, say, utter chaos. And Jennifer looked up and said, \"Oh, what brings you here?\" And Pearl says, \"We had a meeting.\" And Jennifer stands up, walks across the room to shake her hand, steps on something, reaches down, looks at the bottom of her shoe, pulls off a post-it note, and it's apparently the reminder of the meeting, and she is completely prepared and ready to deal with it. She was that good. If she had had a better control of her temper, she probably would have been City Librarian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3699.43,3816.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So you went from Cahuenga to [being] the Acting...? I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3820.38,3823.239"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e went from being the Senior [Librarian] at Cahuenga, to being the Acting Hollywood Area Manager, which was a little awkward because that meant basically, \"Hi, co-workers, I'm now your boss,\" One of the things they required was, apparently Jennifer had been remiss in writing annual evaluations, so I got to write evaluations for everyone. They were rather perfunctory. I thought to myself, you know, they're going to bring in someone to replace Jennifer [Lambelet]. One of the points of being a Senior [Librarian] is it gives you more control over who you wind up working for and who you wind up working for in this library system is pretty much everything, and so I recruited. I had a friend who had been promoted to Principal [Librarian], Edris Newton-- another person you should talk to-- who was the East Valley Area Manager at the time. But I knew Edris lived-- I don't remember exactly where she lived-- but it was south of Olympic [Boulevard] in central Los Angeles. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3823.239,3892.15"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e so East Valley was a long way away.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3892.93,3895.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Exactly. And I basically talked to her and told her a lot of the stuff about Hollywood to help her prepare, and she wound up getting transferred there. At this time, the first or second-- I don't remember which-- building program was going on. I remember this because I was in charge of getting things ready to open at Pio Pico [Branch]. Washington Irving [Branch], Fairfax [Branch]-- I'm not sure where else, but there were a bunch of them. And I mean, at that point, that meant going to the branches, making sure everything was on on the on schedule and moving ahead, and that things delivered were as they were supposed to be. And so I was spending a lot of time driving around. I was also spending time doing things like putting books in boxes or taking them out of boxes. Generally working side by side with staff. And that worked out just fine. Edris got the job, they announced it, and the Assistant Director of Branches at that time-- where had Fontayne gone?-- I'm not remembering the exact order of promotion, but the Assistant Director of Branches was Leslie Nordby and Leslie and I got along very well. Leslie had at one point been very active in the union, and had been president of the union, and left LAPL entirely and come back and then become the Principal [Librarian] in charge of [the] Municipal Reference [Department]--and by that point she was the Assistant Director of Branches, and she was overseeing a lot of the building stuff, so she and I got along really well. And the phone call I got when they announced Edris was getting Hollywood [Area Manager position] was from Leslie saying, \"We want you to go out and take Edris' place in the East Valley [Area Office as Acting Area Manager]. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=3895.66,4013.42"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e so just moving from one person to the other.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4013.42,4016.15"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Right. Well, I mean, we this was around the-- I don't remember a lot of acting positions prior to this, and I would have been more aware of them because as union president, you pay attention to issues of wages, hours, and working conditions. So I wound up going out to East Valley, and because of the union, I knew everyone there and most of them I got along with just fine--and took over their building program. And I think I had seven different buildings at different stages in moving out, moving in, tearing down, building up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4016.6,4051.61"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Including this branch, right? West Valley?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4051.64,4054.921"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e No, this was East Valley. West Valley was always West Valley. There were a few branches that were that were sort of in flux between regions. One was the Echo Park branch, which was fascinating because at the time it was in Hollywood [Region], and it wound up in Northeast [Region]. It was fascinating because Echo Park is a community divided between the hills where there are affluent folks, and the flats where there are poor folks. The rich folks had been lobbying like hell to get themselves a library and-- Jackie Goldberg was the City Councilwoman at the time [and] Jackie, who was a very, very famous liberal-- and when she saw where the wind blew, she knew they were going to get a library for Echo Park. They had they had a lot of meetings at the time, and there was a meeting to determine where the library was going to be situated-- whether it was going to be up in the hills or down in the flatlands. And for that meeting, Jackie arranged to bus in people from the flatlands, and as a result, what the Board of Library Commissioners heard was an overwhelming cry for a library to serve the emerging immigrant community, which is how Echo Park wound up where it is. Later, the folks with the money basically lobbied some more and wound up with the Silver Lake Branch. But it was particularly fascinating to watch all of that transpire. Also, while I was at Cahuenga [Branch], Jackie--Jackie's partner, was a woman named Sharon Strickland [sic, Stricker] I believe. Sharon was a doll, and she worked for LAUSD. And I never was sure exactly what her her position was, but she wound up being in charge of a program to develop after school services to improve academic performances for children in the poor parts of Hollywood, basically stretching from La Brea to Atwater Village. She had set up one, and she and Jackie were looking for somewhere to set up another one, and they had called the Hollywood Regional Branch, and the staff there basically said, \"Oh no, we couldn't possibly do that. We're all overworked.\" Staff[ing] there was always kind of an issue, and they wound up calling me. They didn't know me at this point from Adam, but they called me, and my answer to the [City] Council office has been, \"Yes, ma'am, whatever you want. You're the person who signs my paycheck. You're the person who's going to vote on whether I get a raise. What would you like?\" I'm real easy that way. And they wanted to meet, and we talked and wound up setting an after school program at Cahuenga. And basically, my position was-- yes, this is a good example of what the library should be doing. When I started at West L.A. [Branch], one of the things Fontayne said to me is, one of the things you have to figure out is how to provide the best service you can for the community you're responsible to, and one of the jobs of a branch librarian is to look at them and get to know things and people well enough, and the organizations in the community, and be able to determine that. And so, especially at Cahuenga, it was real clear that we had a lot of parents who were working 12 and 15 hour days and kids who needed both structure and academic help. So an after school program made perfect sense. So they asked me if I was willing and I and Cahuenga was perfectly perfect for it because they had had the big downstairs area--so there was room and everything. And I started meeting with teachers and principals and all sorts of folks, and we put it together. And being union and staff, one of the things I wanted out of this was it's got to be practical and it's got to not monopolize staff time. You know, if the library can't do its basic functions, then it's never going to fly. So we set up a program that basically was geared towards that and it worked really well. Later there was a shift in staff downtown, and we went from a relatively aggressive service model to- -we've had our budget cut and our staff cut, we've got to cut down to just our basic functions. The job of the library is to open the doors, check in the books, check out the books, answer the questions, close the doors. And at that point, there really wasn't a lot of room for school programs, and so they were phased out. [That was] something that kind of broke my heart. But by that time, other things had changed, and I had gone from being the Senior [Librarian] at Cahuenga to the Acting Area Manager in Hollywood [Region], to the Acting Area Manager in East Valley [Region] and then back to Cahuenga for about a year. And then along came the Valley secession issue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4054.94,4392.31"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4392.61,4393.42"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Which was a very big deal. And one of the things the city was concerned about is the argument that the city is all downtown and representing the westside-- they don't care about the valley. And by coincidence, we happen to have both regional branches in the valley getting ready to open and in October 2002, just before Election Day-- in fact, just a week before Election Day-- they wanted to open these two branches. We had never opened a branch in less than a month before. Mhm. They brought in Frank Navarro to open this branch [West Valley Regional Branch] and me-- that's another person you should talk to Frank has a lot of things he'll remember-- and me to open North Hollywood [Regional Branch Library]. We both managed to get them done and open both branches while everyone in the city basically said, \"No, it's just a coincidence [that]we're opening these branches [it] has nothing to do with the fact that we're under a lot of pressure to prove that the city is providing services to the people in [the] Valley.\" And so we managed to open.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4393.9,4466.73"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's amazing. I went to the opening of West Valley [Branch]. I just moved to the Valley right before it opened and I remember coming that day, and I didn't even put two and two together about the Valley secession-- which is, I guess, what is supposed to happen. Right? I'm not supposed to put two and two together.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4468.44,4482.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Exactly. And I would have been there, except I was at North Hollywood [Branch] doing exactly the same thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4483.59,4488.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's amazing. So how long were you at North Hollywood then?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4490.31,4494.42"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was there from October 2002 till March of 2010. By that time, it seemed clear that I wasn't likely to promote again. So I was kind of thinking I'd retire from there-- a nice community, great friends group, I was getting along with people. This was well before they had started having as many security issues and for the majority, for all the time I was at North Hollywood, I was security. There were just, you know, there was never a security officer stationed there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4494.45,4532.91"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Well I've witnessed you in action there, and you do pretty darn good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4533.21,4535.91"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e There was so much more than that. I remember one day-- we had a payphone when we opened, and there was a man standing at the payphone screaming obscenities into the payphone and walking over to him and basically humming until finally he got off the phone and [I] looked at him and said, \"Dude, it's a library, come on!\" And he got to looking incredibly sheepish and said, \"Oh, I'm so sorry, I was talking to my lawyer.\" What can you say to that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4539.27,4568.97"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. So then from [there]-- I mean, you didn't retire from North Hollywood though.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4569.0,4574.58"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e No I did not. From North Hollywood we got to 2010, and 2010 was the Great Migration, as they called it, and the economic collapse. The one thing I really don't intend to speak ill of anyone in this, although I'm probably sounds like I have. I worked with Jennifer [Lambelet], who was brilliant, and she and I got along great. Even Penny [Carr] and I got along great, even though it required some real effort to do so. And she was incredibly dedicated. Penny cared deeply about the library. Antonio Villaraigosa was the mayor, and there were a couple of things with him. One was he had negotiated a very attractive contract deal for city employees. And I was out of the negotiations by this point, and basically, the MOU came to the [Librarians] Guild for review and signature, and every other union in the city signed off on it without a thought because there was a pay raise included. A generous one. And we read it through and there was one problem. There was a clause in it that said the city reserves the right, in the event of a significant economic downturn, to unilaterally alter this contract. And nobody can sign that. I mean, I'm shocked that the other unions were willing to. And virtually nobody in the [Librarians] Guild even thought that we could sign it. And it's not like we ever had real unanimity, and we all said no. That went on for over a year and caused a lot of enmity. And Antonio deeply resented this as far as he was concerned, he was Father Christmas, and we were turning up our noses at him. Finally they gave up and took the the clause out. And as a result, a couple of years later, the economic downturn came. And unlike previous administrations and unlike the county of Los Angeles, he completely freaked out. You know, he started laying people off and doing all kinds of draconian stuff that the [Los Angeles] county didn't do. Basically, you know, the point of having a massive structure like this is you roll with it. Yeah, you [might] accumulate debts one year and you pay them off the next, or the one after that. It's not forever, you know. This is not the way it's always going to be. He couldn't see that. And it was extremely tense and difficult. And he was extremely unpleasant. And partially because of our relationship with him he always resented the [Librarians] Guild--and the library by extension. I remember when we were opening the Silverlake branch, Martin Gomez-- please God, let me have gotten the name right-- was the City Librarian at the time, and he had made it clear that his name was Martin. And at that ceremony, Villaraigosa was there and referred to him continually as Marty-- and that was pretty much his attitude. He was just like that--vindictive, small minded and ultimately, despite the fact that he had started as a union organizer-- anti-labor. It's why it is he's never going to be governor of California and extremely unlikely to get any support from organized labor. As we approach that election. So when that happened, they started shuffling people around. My boss at that time was Ruth Seid. And Ruth and I were old friends from the union, and being close friends with your boss is not an easy thing. But she and I made it work. I was on vacation in Arizona when I got a phone call explaining to me that Ruth had been reassigned to the Hollywood Region. And oh, by the way, she was taking my library assistant with her, who was Pam Mason--who was the long story by herself and a dear friend and now dead. I came back [from Arizona] and the night before I went back to work after that vacation, [I] spent the evening whining at a couple of friends who were very patient with me and drinking champagne. I came in the next day feeling the effects of it, something that almost never happens to me. I got into work at 11-something because I was on the night shift that day and found a note taped to my chair in my office that said, \"Call Cecilia Riddle [who by that time was the Director of Branches] now!\" So I called and Cecilia doesn't even bother saying good morning, she says, \"Which regional branch do you want?\" Well, they're moving everyone around. I realized what she was talking about because my boss was gone and they were putting Paul Montgomerie in there, and he and I never got along. I might have been a little injudicious about saying that out loud in public. At any rate, I wound up saying, because I had to make the decision on the spot-- Hollywood-- because I knew at least knew who my boss was going to be there. And I wound up transferring in March of that year I seem to recall, from North Hollywood to Hollywood.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4576.29,4957.3"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Hollywood obviously didn't have the issues then than it does now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4959.79,4963.39"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, it did. They were just starting then, but they were seriously bad. I mean, the most one of the most depressing things in my life I've ever done was just to go through the incident reports for the previous couple of years at Hollywood. Oh my God, the things that went on there. I mean, in all of my time with the library, I had seen one [report of] assault of a staff member, and it was relatively rare to call the police at all. At Hollywood, I stopped counting at 5 or 10, I mean it was just amazing. Part of the problem was that when you got out of lockup at the Hollywood jail and asked what you were supposed to do now, the cops would pretty much say, go to the library and look it up. So it was very much a post-prison kind of experience there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=4964.41,5030.2"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e The police department was on Wilcox?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5031.76,5033.421"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, just a few blocks away.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5033.71,5035.15"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e And the library is on Ivar. So very close together.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5035.18,5037.73"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Walking distance, easy. A couple of years later, there was a guy who was sitting on Hollywood Boulevard, and tourist took his picture, and he demanded a dollar, and they wouldn't give it to him, so he stabbed them. He was one of our patrons. It was that kind of crazy situation. I remember being on the phone to Cheryl Collins, who was by that time Director of Branches, describing to her five different psychotic episodes. I was watching, you know, one, the classic \"get them off me, get them off me\" and another one talking to voices in his head. It was just like that. It was the single most undesirable, unpleasant position I've ever held, and I was there for three years. When they finally were ready to start shuffling staff around again, I applied. And by that time, things had shifted enough so we didn't have individual application process anymore. You didn't apply for a branch. You applied for a transfer, which meant you couldn't really prepare at all. Traditionally, what you do to apply for a position as Senior [Librarian] is get to know the neighborhood, drive around, collect the local free papers, see what kind of churches and community organizations are there. You know, look them up online--couldn't do that [anymore]. I was basically applying for anywhere in the West or East Valley, and they wound up assigning me to Sherman Oaks, which at the time was a loss of pay because Senior Librarians at regionals, get a bonus--and I was quite upset. I remember on the day I drove out to Sherman Oaks to collect the keys and codes, thinking, you know, I got to protest this and trying to make phone calls to people who might file grievances or whatever on my behalf--and getting there and meeting the staff, and basically they threw their arms around me. The president of the Friends [of the Library] group came--she was a little old lady from Arkansas, which is where my mother was from--and she basically said, \"We're so glad to have you. Welcome. We bring in about $25,000 a year and we expect you to spend it all.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5037.76,5186.184"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Welcome, welcome.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5187.72,5189.07"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e And between all of that, I thought, well all right then, and stop trying to get out of it. It was in many respects, one of the nicest positions I ever had. I actually had more discussions of books and and things with people there than I ever had anywhere else in my entire career. I didn't feel nearly as much needed. At Cahuenga and Hyde Park, I felt really needed. Those people needed all the help they could get. And Sherman Oaks? Not really. You know, if they didn't get what they needed, they'd hire a lawyer and sue. But they also were much closer to where I'd come from, you know, regular folks, more traditional middle class upbringing. I got along very well there and finally retired from there in 2019.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5189.61,5243.22"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Right before Covid.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5243.61,5244.78"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, very shortly before Covid. I retired in January, started subbing in August, and I remember what was it--April? When all of a sudden all the shifts were gone and everyone was out. Well,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5244.99,5264.094"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e believe it or not, we're just on the first question of [the interview] when you started at LAPL [and what positions you held]-- Well,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5265.63,5270.97"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I realized as I looked through the list you sent me that, that the time that I was here would pretty much answer an awful lot of the questions because, you know, I was so involved with the library system and watching who was doing what. I remember one ex-union president told me, what you want to watch is-- follow the money. Who moves it or who has access to it, [and] who doesn't. During the building program, one of the things that we did was buy lunch for staff, something that never happened again afterwards. And the woman who was Assistant City Librarian at that time was Elizabeth Higby. And Elizabeth Higby is a long story about whom I'll talk very little because a difficult personality, but one thing she did know how to do was follow the money, and she knew how to manipulate it so that she could do that. She was originally in charge of what was then Technical Services, which basically was everything to do with Acquisitions and then with all the computer stuff. And for years, the response to staff questions about computers was, \"You wouldn't understand. Keep your hands off. If there's a problem, call the Help Desk. They'll help you.\" And so especially the older generation are very reluctant to play with different things around programs. And when they started encouraging people to do that, it was something of a revelation to us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5271.0,5361.5"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, do you want to go on to to your path to librarianship, or do you want to cut it and do a part two [second interview]? However","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5363.06,5369.554"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e you'd like to do it. It's","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5369.554,5370.29"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e totally up to you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5370.29,5371.07"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I mean, my path to librarianship was relatively simple. I mean, I was very fortunate to go to college at a time when there was more financial aids available than there are now. And one of the things that I did was get into UCLA and part of my my financial aid grant was work study. Work study did not mean then what it came to mean under Clinton. It was then [to] basically hire students to do low level jobs in all aspects of the university. And I wound up doing a bunch of different ones, including working at the medical technical bookstore and then getting the job at the law library--being security-- and then getting a job there, basically shelving books, the UCLA equivalent to a Messenger Clerk. Then later I wound up being a research assistant for a professor in the English department. To give you an idea of how it worked, he was doing all the paperwork to hire me and turned to the secretary for the department and said, \"What's the difference between a Research Assistant I and a Research Assistant II? And she said, about a dollar an hour. He turned to me and said, \"You're a Research Assistant II.\" He was a hell of a nice guy, and my job was to do what he told me to. One time he sent me to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in South Central [Los Angeles] to research the goings on in the Newgate Chronicles [aka Chronicles of Newgate], which was just fascinating. So I had different experiences in libraries, ranging from shelving the books to looking things up. When I finally graduated without any real plan, being an English major, I started looking for work and I looked for like six months. It was one of those deep hiring slumps that the country gets periodically. And on one day I got offered two jobs. One was in the mailroom of an insurance company downtown that had been set up for me by a neighbor, and the other one was at the business library at UCLA, as the Stack Supervisor and that basically was the position I had reported to at the law library. [It entailed] coordinating, shelving and the student assistants, and serving at the circulation desk. And so I did that for a couple of years, during which time my wife graduated and then decided she wanted to go to law school, and which made me think, \"Well, Arthur, what are you going to do? Be here, you know, working at the desk, being a clerk for the rest of your life?\" And so I started thinking what I wanted to do. With a BA [degree] in English, you didn't have a lot of choices. You could drive a cab or work like that. You could go to business school, law school, go on in English and try to become a professor where there was enormous competition and a lot of people who were gifted at it, and I wasn't. Or you go to library school. So I thought about it all, and I thought, none of those sound like much fun, because as far as I could tell, the librarians at UCLA weren't having much fun. So I decided to be a teacher because they got three months, a year off, you know, go with vacation time. So I enrolled at Cal State Northridge, and at that time, I still had to work. I always had to work to go to school. You know, financial aid is fine, but if you want to actually eat and have a roof over your head. So I got a bunch of different jobs. One was as an assistant to the to the head of the English department? I think so. And so one of the things I did there was to manage their textbook room, and they had a big room where they had all the textbooks that they were sent to them as samples by from publishers all over the place. And my job was to make sure the professors who needed them to evaluate whether or not they wanted them for their classes or not, got them in and out. I remember sending a letter to all of them one day, saying something like \"Dear derelict professors,\" which happily, they all thought was funny, but at the same time that was only one job and a relatively number of limited hours. They had a job at the South Library. CSUN has two libraries, the Oviatt Library, which is their answer to YRL [Charles E. Young Research Library] at UCLA, and South Library, which everyone thinks is named that way because it's south of the other one, but it's actually named after Leland H. South. I don't remember what he's famous for, I just remember his name. It was a reference position because they were too cheap to pay librarians to be there at night and on weekends. They were thinking they would hire library students from UCLA. Problem was, it's the state of California, and any bureaucracy that gets big enough is going to have some rules that seem like a good idea at the time. One of the rules was in order to get this job, you have to have worked full time for the state of California for two years. And none of the library students had. Or more accurately, there were two jobs and one of them had. The closest they got to a library student was me. And I had been working at the business library and then the architecture library at UCLA. So I had the two years in, and I went into South Library, and a woman named Snowdy Dodson taught me everything I ever learned about science reference all in one eight hour shift. I worked two nights a week and I forget whether I worked Saturday or Sunday, but it was my first experience doing reference. And it turned out I liked it and had some facility at it, as opposed to being a teacher, which never came naturally. Yeah, I am not particularly fond of children.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5371.31,5750.05"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So what did you teach?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5753.59,5755.42"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was trying to teach elementary school, thinking that I would rather be exposed to children before they were taught to hate school. Because I remembered that as the years passed, I went from being fairly friendly to school to disliking it. So that [teaching] wasn't working out for me. I remember at one point my wife came in to study for something to do with law school, and I was sitting at the reference desk and I was cutting out yellow felt ducks for a storyboard. This is not the sort of work I enjoyed very much, and being fairly grumpy about it. And someone would come up and ask me a reference question, and I'd get all cheerful and help them and enjoy doing what I was doing. Then I'd go back to cutting out duckies, and at one point my wife walked up to me and said, \"What are you doing?\" By which she meant in the larger sense. I responded rather grumpily about profanities and ducks and finally she went away and time passed and I had a graded, I think, a final graded lesson for the semester, and the whole lesson just fell apart. I remember at one point, a cute little kid in the classroom walked up to me in front of all of the teachers who were evaluating me at the time and said, \"Mr. Pond, do we have to do this? It's boring.\" The kid's name was Michael Fox, it was not the actor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5755.45,5847.27"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5847.3,5848.02"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e At that point, I could hear my teaching career circling the drain. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5848.62,5853.63"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e then you thought, ah, library school? Well,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5853.63,5855.82"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e no. I went home and drank margaritas all weekend and then thought, okay, what are you going to do now? And started looking at library schools. And there was only UCLA and USC at the time. USC wanted a fortune, but they were willing to let me in at the, you know, the drop of a hat. UCLA was both more familiar, closer to home, and I knew the job situation. So I applied and got in. And that's how I wound up being a librarian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5855.82,5890.68"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Would that have been 1982 or-- Yeah,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5890.71,5893.41"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e that would have been starting in '82, finishing in '84. And while I was there getting a job, working, doing reference at the Ed Psych library [UCLA's Education and Psychology Library]. They've done a lot of reorganization of their library systems in the 40 years since then. I don't know that Ed Psych even exists anymore [The collection was split between the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library and the Charles E. Young Research Library]. Architecture got merged with something else. Business is still there. But as I went through library school, I kind of assumed eventually I'd wind up back in academic libraries. But one of the things I realized is that most academic libraries want at least a second Masters [degree]. The person who is also the alternating student reference librarian with me at the psych [Education and Psychology] Library was Dr. Joan Kaplowitz, who was had her PhD in psychology. And I thought to myself, well, who are they going to hire? And they did hire her. So around December of my last year of library school, I started looking in the big book of Jobs, and I noticed that there were more public libraries than not. So I went to Elizabeth--oh, what's her name?--Eisenberg, who was the graduate advisor. And she said, \"Oh, you want to be an intern in a public library?\" Up to this point, I'd thought, why would I go to a library and do for free what I've already done for seven years [and] gotten paid for. But by that point, I realized, you know, you need some practical experience here if you're going to get a job like this, and what I didn't realize is that I would be going back to having fun. It wasn't classroom stuff anymore, it was real. And Elizabeth looked at me and said, \"Oh, I know just the place for you. It's on your way home. You can see my old friend Fontayne [Holmes]\", and she sent me to West L.A. library [West Los Angeles Branch]. I did my internship with them and at the time, we [LAPL] were hiring and breaking this hiring freeze. All of it was individual interviews. I did 13 different interviews all over town. I didn't interview in the Valley because it was too far at that point, and at the same time, the Olympics were going on. The man who had wound up being my individual advisor for library school was Bill Fisher, and he was-- I don't know how he wound up doing it, but he wound up being the coordinator for the Olympic Village Libraries at UCLA. So he conned a bunch of us library students into volunteering for it. So during the 1984 Olympics, right after I graduated from library school, I was spending a lot of time sitting in libraries around UCLA. At one point, I was responsible for collecting all the newspapers that were delivered and delivering them to each one of the different libraries-- there was one in each of the big dorm buildings--and I remember offering copies to the LAPD who were on campus providing security. And them looking at it and saying, \"Oh, we hate the L.A. Times. They're mean to us.\" And then when LAPL started interviewing, [I remember] leaving campus, getting on a shuttle bus to the parking lot, which was in the VA hospital down on Wilshire, jumping in my 1963 Plymouth Valiant, c,hanging clothes literally on the road and going to interviews all over town. And then finally being required to turn in a list of where you wanted to work in order of priority. And West L.A. was my first choice. I'd gotten to know the folks there. I really, really thought the world of Fontayne--something that never changed-- and it turned out that I was the first person on her list, too. So that's how I wound up being the Young Adult Librarian at West L.A.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=5893.41,6132.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's great. Well, that's one of the questions, too, is people in your career that have had an impact on you. So it sounds like Fontayne [Holmes] had a big impact.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6132.84,6142.13"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Fontayne did, Pearl Yonezawa did. Harriet Newton certainly did. I'd tell you to talk to Eda White, but she's dead. She was very important. Roy Stone, he and I didn't wind up getting along all that well, but he certainly had a lot of impact on me and all of that. Ruth [Seid], you should talk to Ruth. Her memory is imperfect, as I found out when? After I retired, because there were a couple of times when she came and said, I don't remember this, do you? She still was there for an awful lot and will remember things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6142.25,6191.48"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e It sounds like Fontayne, though, had the biggest [impact]-- Fontayne","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6197.15,6200.06"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e would have by far the biggest. I mean, she was in the library system longest. She rose to, you know, she basically went from MC to City Librarian. You can't promote further than that as a librarian. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6200.06,6213.65"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e that's an amazing career path.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6213.65,6215.42"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e It is, absolutely. And she used to speak fondly of the idea of an LAPL history project. So I would think that she would be anxious to to talk. I would hope so anyway.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6215.45,6227.33"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/167","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e We haven't even gotten to April 29th, 1986. That was the big fire [at Central Library]. And so where were you during the fire?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6228.53,6235.97"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/168","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e I was in the workroom at West L.A. when the radio got turned on, and we all heard about it. You know, it's one of those things where you remember exactly where you were when it happened. And I remember seeing it on the news, and I remember watching Fontayne that night late on live television, carrying out a--I think it might have been one of the shelf lists from interlibrary loans department or something. She and a bunch of other staff members and all that. And LAPL was very slow to get organized around how to deal with it, because Wyman [Jones] wasn't very good at that stuff, and it was a week or two later when they finally even allowed branch staff to come in and do anything to help. And at that time, LAPL was very much fiefdoms. You know, regions didn't talk, let alone much between Central and branches. So it was awkward.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6236.0,6293.93"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/169","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So once branches did get called in, were you packing books or--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6295.52,6299.81"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/170","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, we went in and packed. I remember I did it a couple of days. It was a limited amount of [work to do] because by then they'd done much of it. But I remember taking books in the History Department off the shelves that had been water soaked, and it required a crowbar to get them off the shelf. They were pretty much a dead loss. And running into volunteers and other people from all over the place there, it was fascinating. I wish I'd been more involved. The various folks who were involved there and who were later at--what's the name of the warehouse? Soto Street?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6300.35,6338.871"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/171","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Was it Anderson?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6339.94,6341.14"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/172","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Might have been Anderson Street warehouse, who were stationed there for a long time, would have a lot more memories. Glen Creason will certainly remember a great deal. He was there and ran into some respiratory problems as a result of the fumes coming off the books and wound up being reassigned to West L.A., where at the time, Anne Connor was out having her first child, and I was Acting Senior. So I got to know Glen and and that was fun.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6341.17,6377.38"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/173","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So you packed up the books and then they just sent everybody back to the branches and soldier on with some extra people, maybe from Central? They","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6377.62,6384.16"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/174","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e took much of the Central staff and put them in the warehouse and sent a few of them out who had medical reasons for not wanting to be there. And the union was involved in trying to improve working conditions because it was a drafty old warehouse with pigeons flapping around and all kinds of stuff.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6384.16,6401.74"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/175","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e So then you remember the days before CARL [the library's integrated library system] and the days after CARL?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6403.99,6408.454"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/176","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e In fact, during the orientation I mentioned, we were all sitting in a room at the old Central Library, and Wyman [Jones] came in to be introduced, and he babbled at us for a while, not saying anything of real consequence, and said, \"Anybody have any questions?\" And most of us were fairly new and intimidated and didn't say a word. And Jennifer [Lambelet], who always had a bit of a devil in her, looked at him and said, \"Arthur had a question.\" And I'm sitting there going, what? And she said, \"He wanted to know why it is with UCLA moving ahead full speed at computerizing everything, we still have nothing?\" Which was a completely legitimate question and one that needed to be asked. And Wyman looking rather miffed and then finally saying, \"Well, you know, things in computers are changing so fast, I don't see any point in even trying to keep up. We'll just wait till they settle down.\" That was the official position of the City Librarian. There you go. Then","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6408.64,6472.85"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/177","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e computers came.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6472.85,6473.642"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/178","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Computers came, and they--The big push was while I was at Hyde Park. They sent roving teams in to each branch to barcode each volume, which was a big deal. And then they finally got CARL up and running-- first as a circulation system, if memory serves, long before they got a public access version up--when I was with Service to Shut-Ins, I remember because my library card didn't work anymore. And so I was visiting--because I was the head of Service to Shut-Ins, I was everywhere, and it was really a good position to be in from [a] union activism [standpoint], because I had reason to be everywhere. I was at Fairfax Branch, where Eda White was the Senior [Librarian] at the time, and she said, \"You need a library card.\" And I said, \"Yeah, I guess I do.\" And she said, \"Okay.\" And she dug through the box. She said, \"We've got to find you a good number.\" Well, it took a while before I realized that the first five numbers are the same for everyone. The second number out of that is what you have to remember. If they're all zeros, you only have to remember the last numbers. I have a five digit library card [number]. Wow!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6474.64,6555.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/179","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, or maybe it's six, but it's a number I've had memorized now for 30 years, that I use more now than I ever have before.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6557.13,6566.28"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/180","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e That's great! So nowadays you're checking out stuff on Libby?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6566.31,6570.017"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/181","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, mostly. I mean, it's not like I'm not in branches at least once or twice a week, but I find that the big thing for me is, because I'm on the road to branches and working and all that--I live in Ventura or just south of Ventura in Thousand Oaks, and so I drive a lot and I spend, you know, a lot of time eating lunch that way. So audiobooks and reading while I'm eating lunch are a big part of my life. And the thing about reading is that it always requires at least one hand. If you're reading it on your phone, it requires one finger. So it just becomes a lot easier. And I finally got used to it. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6571.74,6617.28"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/182","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e and there you go.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6617.61,6618.75"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/183","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6618.78,6619.38"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/184","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Let's see what else [what questions do we still need to cover, we covered] time of the fire, staff members that had impact.... Do you have a favorite patron interaction? That's kind of a hard one because you've dealt with so many people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6619.98,6634.77"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/185","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, yeah. I mean, there are so many patrons over the years. There was a case where a man came to the circulation desk at West L.A. early in my career, sort of white-faced, and finally we got out of him that there was a problem in the men's room. So I go to look into it because I'm the only adult male on staff, and the only other male in the building was Alex, who's about five foot three [inches] and a 90 lb MC. A hell of a nice boy. But we walk in and here's the stall closed with a set of legs hanging off the toilet and another guy lying on the floor on his back with his head under the door.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6634.8,6675.03"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/186","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6675.06,6675.414"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/187","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e And I went [clears his throat]--being a librarian, I had to go, \"Well, do we have a problem, gentlemen?\" And they proceeded to become loud and profane, but not confrontational, and finally explained to me that his friend had sat down on the toilet seat where he's just discovered that someone put down Krazy Glue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6676.92,6694.32"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/188","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, no! Oh my goodness.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6694.35,6696.54"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/189","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes. So I look at him and I think to myself, yeah, right. And I say, \"Oh jeez, don't move. That must be incredibly painful. You stand up, you're going to pull all the skin off your butt. Let me go get the paramedics in here. It'll just be a few minutes.\" And at that point, they both started to move around and finally left the building with a fair amount of loud gesticulation and swearing. But they were gone.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6697.17,6720.72"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/190","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh my god I think that is an amazing place to stop this interview. That is incredible. You've seen and heard a lot of things at the library, but I think that's probably one of the funnest ones I've seen or heard. I","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6722.0,6736.01"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/191","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e always intended to tell that at a retirement party, but it didn't seem appropriate at the time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6736.01,6740.81"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/192","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I thank you for telling it today.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6740.84,6742.94"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/193","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e You are more than welcome. Thank","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6743.03,6744.464"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/194","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e you for the interview, I appreciate it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6744.86,6746.33"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/195","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e You're welcome. If you find yourself with questions, feel free to ask. As I've thought about it, I find a lot of stuff bubbling back up. If I have a suggestion, it would be try to get to people before--well, just after they've retired, because I find a lot of stuff that is just harder to remember now than it was. I mean, I mentioned health problems and they're not improving my memory at all, so get to people while they're relatively vigorous.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6746.36,6776.87"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/196","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTiffney:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, thank you very much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6777.53,6778.88"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/transcript/72835/annotation/197","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eArthur:\u003c/strong\u003e You are very welcome.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=6779.36,6780.667"}]},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/index/86208","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Auto-generated Index (2024-10-02 22:08:32) [Index]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/index/86208/annotation/198","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Introduction to the Interview","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=0.0,42.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/index/86208/annotation/199","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The speaker introduces herself as Tiffany Sanford, a librarian at the North Hollywood regional branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, and sets the stage for the interview with Arthur Pond, who is present for the discussion.","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Synopsis"]}}],"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=0.0,42.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/index/86208/annotation/200","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Early Career and Union Involvement","format":"text/plain","label":{"en":["Title"]}}],"target":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393#t=42.0,124.0"},{"id":"https://lapl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2368/collection_resources/138881/file/257393/index/86208/annotation/201","type":"Annotation","motivation":"supplementing","body":[{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Arthur Pond recounts the beginning of his career at LAPL as a young adult librarian and his subsequent transfers within the system. 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