In the spring 2009 issue (no. 9) of the Chronicle of the University of California, Judy Bolstad writes about the establishment of the School of Public Health. With origins as early as 1919, the school became the first school of public health west of the Mississippi in 1944. The authority to establish the school and money to create it came from AB515 from then Governor Earl Warren's first legislative session--a most unusual circumstance for the establishment of an academic department on a UC campus. In honor of the governor, the new public health building was named Earl Warren Hall. Included in the article is a photo and some history of the Public Health Library.

Congratulations, Judy!

Debbie Jan
Head, Public Health Library

Richard Cándida Smith, director of the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and will be serving as Distinguished Professor of American Studies at the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro for the spring 2010 semester and the summer. During his absence, ROHO's associate director Victor Geraci will serve as acting director.

Congratulations, Richard!

Charles Faulhaber
Director, the Bancroft Library

Jeffery Loo joined the UCB Library in November as the Cheminformatics Librarian. Although his position is funded through a LBL contract, hs home base will be the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library. Jeff hails from Canada, but has traveled extensively since earning his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Simon Frasier University. He was an Associate Fellow at the National Library of Medicine, earned a master's degree in chemoinformatics at the University of Sheffield in the UK, and most recently, successfuly defended his PhD dissertation in Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jeff is also the founding editor of Mobile Medical Computing Reviews, an open access journal.

Welcome Jeffery!

Mary Ann Mahoney
Head, Chemistry Library

Please join me in wishing Wendell Hogg well in his retirement from the University Library. For the past 30 years, Wendell has provided consistent and timely mail delivery and receipt of our precious packages of library materials and important documents. Wendell joined the library community in May of 1979, starting as a mail processor reporting to Albert Hawkins. In 1982 Wendell earned a reclassification to Senior Mail Processor and in 1985 was temporarily reclassified to Mail Room Supervisor, permanently earning this promotion in 1986.

In 1996 Wendell received a distinguished service award for meeting cost saving targets by reducing operations costs and improving services. Wendell implemented a number of mail processing systems/ techniques which greatly improved the timely delivery of mail, efficiency of mail services, and resulted in cost savings for the library.

Beginning November 1, 2009, Susan Francisco, who manages Mail and Transportation Services for the Library, will assume responsibility for the daily mail room operations in addition to her other duties. My thanks to Susan for her adoption of these new responsibilities to provide continuity in communications with library staff, and to Wendell for his many years of service to the Library.

Elise Woods
Chief Financial Officer                                                                                                                        

Two highly valued Preservation Department staff members are retiring as of October 31. Cameron Olen joined the Department in 1981, the days of typewriter ribbons and carbon copies, as deptartment administrative assistant, a position that morphed into office manager as the department grew during the late 80s and early 90s with grant-funded preservation projects. Keeping track of project expenses and funds was no small challenge; during many of those years over a half-dozen different grant-funded projects were simultaneously underway, in addition to Library-funded preservation activities. Cam frequently substituted for the department head, using her broad knowledge of the department and the Library to get things done. She will be much missed.

Charles Stewart has been a key member of the Library's photographic team and a specialist in preservation microfilming since 1978. A proponent of traditional wet photography for its unique advantages as a preservation tool, Charles developed methods for optimizing capture of difficult-to-image materials, including rare books and MSS, and developed a unique system using microfilm for copying photos in large numbers inexpensively. Charles brought recognition to the Preservation Department with his technical expertise by consulting with other preservation microfilming operations in the US and abroad and by producing technical reports for the preservation community. Among major career events, Charles remembers vividly his work to keep operations going during several Library construction projects by erecting camera operations under makeshift conditions in various library stacks and cubbyholes and, when need, by working in a hard hat! Charles's contributions have been many.

Begging November 1 Robert Byler in the Preservation Microfilming Lab will continue to provide as many of our preservation microfilming services as possible. Maxim Osinovsky will pick up some of Cam's duties by serving as deptartment office manager in addition to his ongoing assignment as unit head for the Preservation Replacement Division of the Department.

On behalf of the Preservation Department staff, congratulations and much appreciation to Cam and Charles for their non-stop contributions over decades, and many thanks to Max and Robert for stepping in behind them.

Barclay Ogden
Director for Library Preservation