Bancroftiana, Number 118 Spring 2001: A Wrong Turn Led to a Half-Century of Service: Vivian C. Fisher at The Bancroft Library

A Wrong Turn Led to a Half-Century of Service: Vivian C. Fisher at The Bancroft Library

May 2000 marked my fiftieth anniversary with The Bancroft Library. I joined the staff just weeks shy of receiving my bachelor's degree in 1950. I was hired for a temporary student job, checking in microfilm copies of documents from Spanish and Mexican archives. I was fortunate that the director, Dr. George P. Hammond, was able to scrape together enough money to pay my salary of ninety-eight cents an hour while I completed my training as a teacher of high school Spanish and English. Working in Bancroft was so pleasant and the prospect of teaching was for me at the time so unpleasant that I applied for the first career position for which I qualified (basic typing skills, some knowledge of The Bancroft Library, and knowledge of Spanish). My formal service in Bancroft ended forty years later with my retirement. My informal position continues today, as I continue to conduct research in a variety of topics.

My introduction to Bancroft was quite memorable. Someone mentioned the Library of French Thought on the third floor of the Doe Library Building, so one day I went looking for it. I must have taken a wrong turn because I found myself in a dark, dreary room with long tables, all of which had rows of books down the middle. The books all had the same bindings and the spine title of Bancroft's Works. That did not sound very French to me. As I started my homework, two people whom I took to be librarians, began to measure the floor space of the room, calling out numbers to each other. After this had gone on for perhaps five minutes, I gathered up my books and left. It was only later that I realized I had found my way to Bancroft's old reading room and that the people were planning space for the new one.

With the completion of the Moffitt Undergraduate Library, space was freed in the Annex, and in 1973 a major remodeling project resulted in more space for administrative offices and the reading room. Prior to the move into this new area, undergraduates were actively discouraged from using the reading room because there was insufficient space and not enough personnel to supervise the unique collections. The Bancroft gladly welcomed undergraduates into the new reading room, which soon overflowed with researchers. By the mid-1980s, Bancroft was forced to limit research time for undergraduates. Faculty of some of the large undergraduate classes staggered the due dates and topics of papers to help ease the situation. The explosion in research activity continues today, and staff continues to answer reference questions and keep research materials flowing to patrons, while exerting every effort to preserve the collections.

Vivian Fisher at work with microform collections.

Another change occurred at the time of the move into the new quarters. We had always referred to and spoken of Bancroft Library. An employee found an old brass plaque that had engraved on it "The Bancroft Library." It must have belonged to Hubert Howe Bancroft himself, and so we changed our name ever so slightly.

During the directorship of Dr. Charles B. Faulhaber, Bancroft has continued to change with the times and to adapt itself to the needs of preserving its materials while augmenting them with new collections and continuing to assist the broad research community and our faculty and students. New, powerful computer terminals have replaced most of the old card catalog. The floor space that catalogs occupied now has additional shelving for frequently consulted reference works.

The staff has grown in numbers during those fifty years but not in proportion to the collections, and their users. In 1950 a dozen people in the reading room in a day was considered to be busy. Now only a dozen in the room at any given time is a quiet day. The computer is partially responsible for this increase. But so also are an increased interest in research and no doubt an increase in available time and funds for travel, to say nothing of the increase in scope and numbers of books, manuscripts, pictures, and other formats.

I find it difficult to envision what Bancroft will be like fifty years from now. I prefer not to dwell on the time when Bancroft's collections will be available to me in my own home, and I will no longer be able to smell the dust and must of old books and manuscripts, to feel the texture of paper several centuries old, and to enjoy the camaraderie of the staff. It would certainly not be the same. I hope to have all my research completed before that time comes.

—Vivian C. Fisher
Emeritus Librarian