Three months ago, I stepped into the Obermann Center’s library for the first time. My task was simple, if sizeable: I needed to organize the ~600 volumes in the collection by the end of the summer.

As a student in Iowa’s School of Library & Information Science, I was excited for my first solo library project. I’ve been interested in academic librarianship, scholarly communications, and research support for a long time. However, I knew I would have to approach the work strategically and manage my time well in order to succeed. 

Our goal was to transform the library into a showcase for the works of Obermann scholars. But we also own many books that are unrelated to Obermann, and all of our books were intermingled without regard for subject, date, or author. After about thirty minutes of pacing up and down the library on my first day, I decided I was going to take every book off the shelf.

I began the library project by sorting the books according to whether they were Obermann-related. If they were, they received an additional sort based on which Obermann program they were connected to, and if they weren’t, they received an additional sort based on subject matter. Over the next month, I logged every Obermann book in our internal database, which was easily the most time-consuming part of the project. Finally, I reshelved all the books into the appropriate sections and created a spreadsheet of the Obermann books missing from the collection. As we continue to acquire more books related to the Center, we will slowly replace the non-Obermann books, working with local schools, the University of Iowa libraries, and used bookstores to find their right homes. 

There’s often something magical about flipping through old books and imagining their past lives. As I worked, I found intriguing ephemera tucked away in the pages: newspaper clippings, promotional bookmarks, typewritten letters to and from the authors, and, my personal favorite, an uncorrected Booklist review proof from 2002. I also found quite a few inscriptions from our scholars to the previous directors of the Obermann Center, Jay Semel and Teresa Mangum, scribbled across title pages and endpapers:

To Jay, Lorna, + all the coffee drinkers in Scholar City. 

To Jay & Lorna, who pretended so long I was a scholar and did so so convincingly that I finally had to get in on the act.

Teresa, thank you for your always-tremendous collegiality and for serving as a beacon of hope to so many. 

As I affixed new subject labels to the shelves last month, completing the last stage of the project, I found myself thinking about the hours of labor and love that are represented on these shelves—from the Obermann staff who keep the Center running; to the endless hours of research, writing, and revision from our scholars; to the work of publishers to edit, format, and distribute all these books. Our collection reflects the hard work of the Obermann Center as well as recent, groundbreaking scholarship on topics ranging from American politics to Medieval literature to medical ethics. My hope is that the library will serve as a site of sanctuary and inspiration for all our future scholars.
 

If you are a scholar whose work at the Obermann Center has resulted in a book or book chapter, please email [email protected] or fill out our outcomes form so we can ensure your work is preserved in our collection.