CWU LIVING HISTORY PROJECT
George Fadenrecht
(Transcription of Tape 1, Side 1)
. . .and we’re interviewing George Fadenrecht. [The interviewer mispronounces the name, and he corrects her.] That’s German, right? And um – we have behind the camera – we have Helen Smith, and I’m Jean Putnam, and I’m going to be doing – asking the questions. So we’ll start, George, with a brief personal history. If you could kind of give us an idea of where you came from, and how you eventually got to Central.
GF: Okay. Well, I was born in Eastern Colorado to what I’ll call a German family. They called us Dutchmen all the time. My father was a – my parents and grandparents on both sides homesteaded there when Eastern Colorado became a homesteading possibility. Anyway, I was there and grew up – until I was ten years old. Started school there, was through the fourth grade. And um – fortunately, uh – I got the first and second grade the same year. But anyway – that ought to tell you how smart I am. But anyway, when I was ten years old my folks moved to Hepburn, Saskatchewan,
Now the specific thing that had happened to me over there, though, was that – uh – when you went through the eighth grade, or fifteen years old, you were a farm boy and you didn’t go to school anymore. So when I was through the eighth grade – and we had to write Provincial exams for that – the teacher didn’t see the questions or the answers – they all went to Regina – came from Regina and went there, and they graded them there. So I passed the eighth grade. Well then I was on my Dad’s farm, and so forth, and of course the Depression came, too – but I – when I – in the fall of 1933 – winter of 1933-34 we had a terrible winter over there, and my older brother was going to Bible school and my younger brother was still in school, so I had to haul all the feed for the horse and cattle that were in the barn. And we had about six weeks where the temperature was never above 25 below.
JP: Whoa!
GF: And then, that Spring – and we worked with horses on the farm – that Spring it was so dusty – worse than we’d ever had, and we couldn’t stay, because it was too dusty for the horses. So I told Dad maybe I ought to go back to school. And after six years I went back to high school as a freshman. When I was 20 years old, I was still a freshman! So I went through that then, and then, there, also, for the eleventh and twelfth grade you had to write Provincial exams again. And now, since we always had ten months of school instead of nine over there, for the last year the University would accept – if your grade point average was high enough the University accepted you as a sophomore. So that’s how I gained one year there. But then, I went and decided I wanted to go to our church-related college in Kansas – Tabor College – and that’s where I went to school, then, and got a teaching – oh, I didn’t know how in the world I was going to do that, because I didn’t have any money, and the president of that college made a whale of a difference. He said, “Well George, you have one year of college, and you can if – in one year you can get a sixty hour teaching certificate in Kansas. Now you can teach in the country schools.” And he said, yeah, “If you will sign a note for the tuition and board,” – and I ate in their dining room – “then you can pay it back when you teach.” Boy, that was a God send to me.
So I did that, and then I got my sixty hour teaching certificate in Kansas, taught one year in a country school – had twelve kids, all grades from the first through the eighth grade except the – uh – fourth grade. I didn’t have a fourth grade. But anyway, twelve kids. Well I did that one year, and then, of course, as you know – but see, that was in 1939-40, when I was in Tabor, and then ’40-’41 I taught that school. Well then the War came along and we got involved, and had to register for the draft and all that. And Marion County Kansas is a very heavily Mennonite-populated area, as is McPherson and around Newton. But anyway, we all registered for the draft, as we had to, and the – when my – my – I got my notice to come – I never had an interview with the draft board. They just classified me 4E, which was conscientious objector, which the Mennonites did not – there’s a difference between those conscientious objectors and the ones that you heard about in the last ten years, something like that.
Anyway – so I was assigned, then, to Colorado Springs at basic camp for seventeen months, and then I worked in a hospital in Denver for the rest of two – four years, three months, and eleven days – all without pay. And anyway, then I found a beautiful gal there – my wife was a good singer and went to a little church there that didn’t have a piano, and she led the singing – beautiful dark eyes and voice – gosh! And then she – they had to come over there for their affiliation from La Junta – from the school of nursing in La Junta. And so we were – the psycho – psychopathic hospital had the disturbed and the convalescence wards, both for men and women. Well anyway, we had one – one – a young guy there that they put on sleep treatment, and he had to have – be fed every four hours, and taken to the toilet four hours, and all that stuff. Anyway, it was in the seclusion room – they didn’t have the uh – uh – tranquilizers like they do now. Anyway, that’s where I asked her for our first date. [Laughs] And everybody laughs at that!
But anyway, then we – we were in Denver for quite a while, and finally we were married in – in the Prairie Street – in Elkhart, Indiana where my wife grew up – Prairie Street Mennonite Church. Anyway, so then she helped me through college. When – when I was discharged I went back to Tabor and I got my degree there, and then I – I really was in History. And then I went to University of Kansas and I got my Master’s degree in History there. Spent another year – I went to University of Colorado to work on a Doctorate in History. But then, uh – we had been married six years. We figured we’d better get on with family life.
Anyway, then I took an intern job at Lufton College in Lufton, Ohio for two years, and after that you couldn’t buy a job to teach History. The GI s were all through school, and they tried to get rid of History and English Profs. I had a good friend there, the Librarian at Lufton College, who was working on his degree in Library Science, and he suggested maybe I wanted to do that. So we went over to – uh – the – Ann Arbor, and talked to the Library School Prof there, and well, he said since you have all this background in History – those are your – what do they call them now? Anyway, courses that they required outside of the Library Science field. So that I can – I got my Master’s degree in two semesters. And that’s when I got the day – the job at Kansas State University, where I was for eleven years. I started first in circulation, and after the first year I was basically promoted to Associate Director of the library there. I was there for eleven years.
And then – um – I didn’t have my Doctorate. Oh! I got a sabbatical there, too, from – to go back and work on my Doctorate in Library Science. And so I was right – I was a candidate for the Doctorate in Library Science because I could get a sabbatical, and so forth. Well, then I didn’t have my degree yet, however, and so when a vacancy occurred they wouldn’t give me the Directorship because the wanted somebody with a PhD. So okay, I figure I’ve got to go somewhere, and that’s when I heard about the vacancy here, and – my – um – my family on my side lived in Blaine – had moved to Blaine from Colorado. Anyway, I decided, well – I wrote here, and Dean [inaudible – sounds like Crum. Could be “Wes Crum”] sent me back a letter and invited me – uh, paid me to come out for my interview, and all that kind of thing. And so I was here, and I got the – I got the job – uh – as Director of Libraries. Now they call them Dean, now – it’s the same thing. But anyway, that’s how I came – got over here.
Well I was – um – I came here – had I known what I was getting into, I might not have been here. Uh – this was shortly after the Arts and Science School had been established, and the – it had been a Normal School, and then a College of Education, you know, so you had a College of Education, and the Arts and Science School. I mean, the two of them. And uh – man alive, if you ever thought of a war being on, that was it. And the library was coded no-man’s land – it landed between – so that was a tremendous stress for me. I have to admit that it was [inaudible].
Another thing that was a stress for me was that Dean Crum wrote me before I came, and said that you probably need to spend a year to integrate the audio-visual department into the library. You see, they had been separate, and then two or three years before I came, they put them in the library but – but they didn’t operate under the library. Anyway – and so that I would have to do that. Well, I tried. I – I – I was neutral in this, and I will admit, and I always did, that I didn’t know very much about audio – the audio-visual thing. And so I figured they knew what it was. But then, the buck stops here, as Harry Truman said, you know? Anyway, I wanted to see if I couldn’t get those two – the libraries for the staff, and the AV staff to co-mingle a little bit, and by golly they didn’t. And uh – they didn’t come out to the staff room for coffee, or anything like that. And I wanted to see if we couldn’t get together and know what the other ones are doing. Because neither one of us knew what they were doing, or they didn’t know what we – and that’s – you know [inaudible] has that – has that wall right down the middle there? Uh, with an opening going into AV, and – and so forth? Boy, you talk about the Russians putting up a bar – a wall – that’s what this was. [Laughs]
Anyway, I – uh – tried. I invited them – “Let’s get together and at coffee time we can talk about things.” And – uh – it took me a year. As Crum said, “It’ll take you probably a year to get that integrated.” Well anyway, finally Ruth Adams said, “He has tried everything we can – he can to satisfy us” – bringing in the table to sit at, and so forth, and they had all kind of stories – some that were made up – uh, “ I’m not going to wash dishes for the librarians” you know, and all that kind of crap.
JP: Oh dear.
GF: Excuse me for those – [Laughs]. But anyway, that was – that was part of the thing that I was talking about.
JP: Yeah. Now what year – you came in what year?
GF: Sixty-four.
JP: In 1964. Now um – maybe you can start by kind of giving us a run-down of – uh – your responsibilities once you arrived at Central. You said you were Director of the library when you arrived, and then there was some changes that took place, and you –
GF: Well, I was – I was Director of the library for six years.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: And I’ll tell you, I put up with so much stuff – uh – from not only inside the library. I had the absolute backing of the librarians, but the AV people I did not have. And uh – uh – there were – there were so many things going on behind the scene. You hear about backstabbing, and I got it. And then, from the outside of the library the two – the two, uh – battles that were being fought – everybody was critical and, uh –
Now – when I did come, however, we had so little support in the library. Now we had one of the best audio-visual in the nation, I think, but the library was left way behind. Compared to other schools like ours, we had – we had less – we had just over $20,000 in the book fund, and just over $5000 for subscriptions, which was nothing even in that day. And so I – I had to work, and work many – I was Director for six years, and then the – that pressure never quit, from the outside and the inside, and I – um – I – I said to myself, “Well, you’re trying to live under Christian principals. You might lose some of that if you – ” So I decided I’d step down, and I did. And went then into cataloging. I had taught cataloging for quite a number of years before I came here, and I had – uh – oh, I had so many hours of Library Science that uh – uh – the rest of them all put together didn’t have as much as I did. But anyway [inaudible] I don’t want to brag.
But anyway, I went into cataloging then, and uh – I may tell you just a few things after we don’t record it anymore, but anyway I was there for three years, and I figured – I went there because I did not want to have the public come to me when there was a new – new Director. They called him Dean right away. I figured that they should – should go to him, not to me, and I did not want to be – uh – behind the scene, you know. And so I – that’s why I went into cataloging, away from the public. After I was there for a – um – two or three years, I decided I had – it was time for me to get into the public, and I went into the reference work then. And of course I’ve taught the Library Science 145 class quite a bit.
JP: Mm-hmm. I remember that class. Now when was it that you said they changed the title to Dean? Was that –
GF: After –by – the, the next appointment. When Webber was appointed they immediately called him Dean.
JP: Okay, that would have been, what? Nineteen seventy, approximately?
GF: Yes, approximately 1970. Approximately 1970. It was six years. It was after – um – well, there – there’s going to be [sounds like “a very little variation”] whether he was – uh – there was an interim appointment, a little bit. The – uh, one was an interim [sounds like “intern”] appointment, then he was appointed the – uh – Dean of Libraries. So just when they – it was within that year – 1970 or ’71.
JP: Mm-hmm. And so you – um – up through the time till you retired, then, you stayed in –
GF: In reference.
JP: In reference.
GF: Yes.
JP: Right.
GF: And – and I – and then of course I taught that class quite a bit.
JP: Okay. Um – did you see any changes taking place in the Library from that time, during your tenure at the Library.
GF: Oh! Oh, the way –
JP: What kinds of changes took place?
GF: Well for one thing, when I came the Library side had one secretary and four librarians. And – uh – audio – audiovisual was really –
JP: Separate.
GF: Yeah, and they had a lot more people. Actually, the Audio Visual Department was as big as the total Library Department.
JP: Is that right?
GF: Yeah. And of course, I – I will give them credit, though. Films do cost a lot of money when they buy those things, and for that. But their film purchase was higher, basically – I think I’m right in that. It’s been a long time. I forget some things, you know – than our book fund. Well during the six years that I was there, I got the Administration to really start backing the Library, and uh – we had $307,000 in the book fund, and around $30,000 for subscriptions in those six years.
JP: Ooh, that really [inaudible, could be “helped” or “felt”] didn’t. And who was the President during that time?
GF: Brooks.
JP: Was he supportive of this?
GF: Yes, he was. And then – um – oh, what’s the English Prof’s name who got – who went in as Dean of Deans? He went to – he went to President of – uh – Evergreen, and uh –
JP: Oh.
GF: He was an English Prof. Now what is it? McCann?
JP: Yeah, Charlie McCann.
GF: McCann, yeah. And he was – he was in behind the Library, too. So – the first year, I got the um – um book fund doubled, even though they – it came from somewhere else. I don’t know where it came from. But otherwise it was in the budget, and so forth.
JP: Uh, what other changes did you see – um – even though you weren’t Director or Dean, you probably saw some things change as you went through your years. What kinds of things did you see happening there at the Library? Do you remember anything?
GF: Well not a great deal happened during the – during the – my successor’s eight years.
JP: Now who was your successor?
GF: Waddell.
JP: Waddell. Okay.
GF: He was – uh – he was not the most socialized person in the world.
JP: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
GF: And um – but then Schneider – when Schneider came, after that, he increased the book fund to something. I don’t know just to what it was, but I have heard that it was up to $600,000.
JP: Really!
GF: Uh, yeah, which was – which was really getting up there. But then, we – we also were changed from a College to a University, you know? I mean, when – the name change or not, when you have a Graduate school, and so forth, that’s a different story, and you need – you need more library for the Graduate programs than – than just only enough for the – for the Bachelor’s program. And that’s one thing that I – well of course, I had – the Master’s Degree came, already, while I was still Director. And that was one of my sales – sales idea. When you have a Graduate school, you gotta have a library. You can’t do everything by interlibrary loan.
JP: No, no you can’t.
GF: And uh – so –
JP: Um – now you mentioned – um – some of the changes that took place in the library. Do you – can you recall any significant changes just in general that happened during your tenure here at Central? Changes that may have occurred in – in just the reorganization, or –
GF: You mean of the Library?
JP: Not necessarily. I’m speaking of – you can go beyond the Library.
GF: Well I do think that – I do think that – that – that during that time that I was – that I was still working, we did have a change of attitude between the two phases, you know, that I’ve talked about before. [Coughs] Excuse me. My 25-year-old cough. Well anyway, there was – there was a much better relationship, although there was a time when – uh – I’ll call dissent, and I think dissent was involved. Some people – no matter where you go, you’re going to have critics. I had – I have several times said that if Jesus Christ came and preached on Sunday morning, there would be some who would find an error – you know. And I don’t care what – an administrator is always being shot at, no matter how it goes.
JP: Right.
GF: I think Brooks was a good President.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: I really think so.
JP: Well let’s pursue that a little bit, because I was going to ask you – [he coughs] – you want to take a little breather?
GF: Do you have – yeah, let’s do a little bit.
JP: Okay, George, let’s continue here. We were talking about President Brooks, and you had mentioned that he was – uh – you thought he was an effective President. What is your perception of President Brooks?
GF: Well I have to admit that directly, I didn’t have too much to do with him, because obviously I was first of all under Wes Crum, who was the Dean – the overall Dean – and then they separated two Deans and had – had McCann on top of that, or something like that, you know, and so I did more with them than anyone else. But – I – at faculty meetings, or at Senate meetings or whatever, when Brooks was there – they could give him a very hard time, and he – he was really – how shall I say it? – able to contain himself when some [inaudible] think he should have blowed [sic] his stack. [Laughing] That’s why I quit being Director.
JP: A lot of patience, huh?
GF: Yeah.
JP: Right. Well you also – I mean – you also served under President Garrity for a short time before you retired. Do you have any recollection of him?
GF: I had no direct contact with him at all, to speak of. Um – I heard one negative thing, though. My wife was a nurse at the Student Health, and the Civil Service had classified them as nurse practitioners. And that one year – um – at a – University of Washington came out in the nursing school as – with a degree in Nurse Practitioner. And uh – then Garrity said everybody’s gotta have that degree. Well Civil Service had already classified these people, but anyway – Florence was just two years away from retiring, at the most – one year to two years – and to go back to school for one year and then do that for one year was absolutely nothing. So she just simply quit – retired. And um – uh – it sticks – still sticks in our mind a little bit every now and then.
JP: Right.
GF: I don’t know whether that should be on here or not, but –
JP: Well – uh – let’s go on, and since we’re talking about people – some of the administrators and some of the people – who were some of the people you recall that you thought were effective during your time at Central – whether they be administrators, they might have been faculty, they might have been even – you know – people in the library. Who were some people that stick in your mind as being effective?
GF: Well when I came here we had a – Cliff Wolfscher was on the staff, and – and um – Mary Green, and uh – oh – John Allen. Those were the three librarians, and uh – they were all very good. Now Cliff Wolfscher was a socializer, also, with the staff and so forth, and the students recognized him as the Faculty of the Year, and his picture’s – a great big picture in uh – in the uh – paper, you know? What do you call them now, the?
JP: Oh, that was – you mean the yearbook?
GF: Yearbook, yearbook – yeah. Yeah. They had – they did very well. Now that was the students, not the faculty.
JP: Okay, yeah.
GF: And he was – he was an outgoing individual. And when I came here, I sort of got some organization into the Library, which – they really didn’t have any organization. Now the one thing that – we needed more people for – in the library, and uh – so – fortunately, at that time, I could go around and hire people for the Library Schools. Now you can’t do that. It’s a – it’s a crazy situation now, I think, from an administrative point of view. Anyway, I would go – it would go around to Library schools in Denver, and Michigan, and Minnesota, and so forth, and hire people that I liked – thought would fit into certain things. And the one thing that I wanted to do is have a library faculty that covered the various – um – interests, like History, and Economics, and Education and so forth. And that’s what I did. And so I got some people that were in Teacher Training, and some in Economics, and some in various other things to cover that, and Humanities, and so forth, because I figured that that was something that we needed to be able to delve into, even though our – our bibliography may go into something like that. But – but you – I – I – like my background was History, and I knew I could deal a lot more with the Historians than somebody that didn’t have that background, you know, and so forth. So that’s what I did – uh – with the staff. And let’s see – by the time – by the time I stepped down, I think I had thirteen – thirteen on the faculty – on the staff, altogether. Uh, I’m – I’m getting that out of the air now. It sounds like bragging, but anyway, it was – we needed to have something really being done here to bring this up to other –
JP: Institutions.
GF: Yeah, even with other Universities. Um – I forgot what your question was.
JP: Yeah, no – we were just talking about sharing with us some of the names of people that you thought were especially effective, and you were naming a few.
GF: I went – I went to – uh – I was under Dr. Crum until – until they set up the different Deans, and then McCann came under that, and then I was working under McCann. And he wasn’t there very long, actually, and so – but he was – he did back the Library quite a bit. Now what he did in his – I think he’s [inaudible] taught some English classes. I know he was in the English department, but what he did there I – I have no idea.
JP: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GF: I tried to keep in touch with – personally – with other faculties, so that they would know. And uh – but – but, you know – there wasn’t – I – I met with the faculty – head departments at one time, as the – the – the President called [inaudible] – the departments had meetings, and I was involved in that. And man alive, I got – there were one or two on that faculty that gave me Hail Columbia about the book fund. They said, “You shouldn’t even have a book fund. That should all be in the – in the departments!” In other words, the – what we had as a book fund, that should be distributed somewhere else and we had nothing to do. Well you had departments that never – never spent their money for books, and – and uh – that was true. I said, “Well, that would be a unique situation.” [Laughs.]
JP: Well so – but you did have – you had an allocation for various departments, but you –
GF: Oh, I did. We got a book fund, and then I [inaudible – could be “began to”] – contacted every department to see what they thought they would need. And then I divided the um – uh – book fund, basically, so that we – I gave that to the order department so that they would [inaudible – could be “in quotes”] get books for that. Yeah, that’s – I – I did that, and I think we were pretty good at that, too, as far as that goes. But there were some departments who never requested a book. And – and uh – so we were building up the library collection, so we would use that money as we saw fit. And – that’s being done everywhere. I don’t care where you go.
JP: Do you recall whether – has there ever been, or were there any relationships between the town itself – Ellensburg citizens or Ellensburg town itself as it might have used the library, or – did you see any cooperation?
GF: Yes. When I came here – when I came here it was an absolute open library – a public library for everybody. And um – the high school didn’t have a library. And uh – uh – let’s see, now who was the History teacher at the high school? He died here a couple of years ago.
JP: Arnold Vansell.
GF: Vansell. A very good teacher. But his students all came to the library – to our library – to use our books – and I checked on that – because they were free. Everything could come. And our American History books – there were only three books on the shelf of American History, which should be available through our – and they were checked out to high school kids. So I went to – and by the way, I requested an advisory committee from the faculty, which was appointed, and I don’t know from where – but anyway – and brought to them. So that we decided that we would not close that, but they needed to get a card – and we had a check-out card then – which would cost them five –
(Transcription of Tape 1, Side 2)
GF: [Tape begins in mid-sentence] that they built their own library.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: But anyway, the people would say “Well, it’s done by tax money, so everybody does it.” “Well,” I said, “You pay tax for keeping the highways open, but do they keep your driveway open? And this is for this – the library is for this program, not for the program on the corner.” And let’s – that was my – and I still think that that’s – philosophically, it’s for this program, not for a public library program. Not to say that they can’t come and use it. They could always come and use it right there.
JP: Did you have any sense that other members of the community used the library, or ever came in –
GF: Just a very few. Just a very few.
JP: Okay.
GF: They were mostly – mostly the high school kids. But there were some that came and – and did it. And of course we welcomed them, and they could – they could also check out books. Of course, we didn’t let anybody check out periodicals. That circulation – I don’t care where you go – that’s not done because they get lost, and you can’t replace them.
JP: Now the – um – I know when I came, there were some – uh – there was discussion regarding the faculty and the faculty status of the librarians. Uh, do you recall the discussions that took place regarding that issue?
GF: Well I – you know, this has been – the library faculty – uh – had gotten that faculty status – um – who was the president before Brooks?
JP: McConnell.
GF: McConnell. I think McConnell did that, and I don’t know just how that had worked out. I know Cliff Wolfscher and John Allen were very much involved with that, and they’d get – I think it was in the Fifties, about ’56 or ’57 when the librarians who had the library degree were given faculty status. And it never – there was never a question about cutting that out.
JP: Okay.
GF: Now at – this was true at Bellingham, and also at – um –
JP: Eastern?
GF: Eastern. But the Universities didn’t do that. They had the – the higher – the officers – the Directors – they never called them Deans there, either. They were Directors. They were faculty, but the staff was not. They were on the same level, supposedly, but they were not called faculty.
JP: Mm-hmm. Uh – what about salary schedules? Did they – were they – did they seem to be comparable to the faculty?
GF: They were on a faculty basis, yes. We were on the – the – I’m talking now about the professional librarians, not the civil service people – but the professional librarians – those who had a degree in Library Science and whatever – their Master’s Degree or beyond – were given the Assistant Professorship – associate, or whatever it was – and it went on the regular salary basis of faculty.
JP: Mm-hmm. Did you ever have any – uh – any relationship with either the Board of Trustees or any outsiders like that? Or the legislature, or anything like that?
GF: No, I never did.
JP: I didn’t think that –
GF: I never did.
JP: But I thought I would just – just to see. Did you have any relationship with any of the faculty who might have been supportive of the library yet were outstanding faculty?
GF: Well I – yeah, I did, and I of course – the History Department backed us very well, and the English Department very well. Um – I cannot point out exactly –
JP: The names of people, but what about –
GF: The names of people.
JP: Well maybe then –
GF: But if you want – I’m glad that I can remember my own name, here, you know?
JP: [Laughing] Yes, right. That’s right.
GF: I even know how to spell it. [Laughs.]
JP: Um – now you were housed – when you came, where was the library?
GF: In Bouillon Library.
JP: It was in Bouillon – they had, by then, moved.
GF: They had – they’d moved into that, I think, in ’62.
JP: Okay.
GF: I think it was in – I think it was ’62 they moved in there.
JP: Right, right.
GF: And the first year, um – after I’d been here a year they immediately said, “Now start planning for a larger library.” And – uh – because we were expecting many, many students, you know, and uh – well, I had been to – um – to six American Library Association building seminars, so I had some idea about philosophy, and so forth. You don’t – you – you build a functional building for librarianship, not for people to see. Anyway – and I figured we would have built onto the west – to the east of Bouillon. But you know, that building was built without the possibility – the walls were all permanent walls, except for the north, towards the Educational Building. And that was not where we could go. And then came the idea that we were going to have so many students here – where the campus is going to the north. And so we started planning on a brand new building. And I – I – I think I knew quite a bit about library buildings – the functional aspect, and so forth – and I wrote the project – the program for it. All of that kind of thing.
JP: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GF: Um – and when it was first coming up, they had $3 million set aside for the library building, and I think it was $2 million for – well, one of them was at that building – um – what’s it called now, to the west of the library there – next to [sounds like “ditch”]?
JP: Black Hall? No – west of the –
GF: No. Social – the Social Sciences are in there.
JP: Are you – oh, you’re –
GF: To the west –
JP: The new building!
GF: Yeah, the new building. The new building.
JP: I think they just call that –
GF: Well anyway –
JP: Yeah.
GF: Whatever it is, that was part of the project, and then there was going to be an – a – basically an audio visual building with large rooms, and that’s when Harrington came in to the campus, and he said, “The idea of large rooms for lectures is going down. We don’t need those large rooms.” And so that’s when they added on to both the library and onto that – I think I’m right in saying that. I know the library got extra money, and that building got more classrooms.
JP: Hmm.
GF: I don’t remember – I don’t remember who’s there now, but anyway, those were built then. But the library – the library got just over $4 million to build this building. Now when you stop and think about what they’re thinking about paying for a building now – the Science Building is in square feet just about what we have – of course more divisions - $48 million?
JP: Fifty-something.
GF: Fifty million?
JP: Fifty-two, fifty-three million?
GF: Yeah. Anyway – so I planned that, and met with – and then there was a building committee of the faculty, and so forth, and – um – I’ve forgotten now what his name was – man who was in Education. He was the principal of the elementary school for quite a long time, and he and I worked together very well in planning that, and so forth.
JP: Mmm. Mm-hmm.
GF: But basically I will say that – that that committee took pretty well what I suggested, because they knew I – they knew I knew what I was talking about! [Laughing] And I’m not bragging, don’t misunderstand. I – you need to have – I wouldn’t know in the world to set up a building for basketball and all that kind of stuff, or anything else.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: But –
JP: Now in terms of building, what is your – some of your views on naming buildings? Like I know Bouillon. Did you know Bouillon?
GF: Yes.
JP: And I think he was a Board of Trustees member, was he not?
GF: For Benny, thirty years or so, yeah.
JP: And then he was a banker in town, I believe.
GF: Yes, he was First Interstate Bank.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: He was gone by the time I – I mean, he was still in town, but he was no longer part of the board when I got there, I don’t – I don’t think. I’m not sure about that, either. But –
JP: Mm-hmm. But was it called – it was called Bouillon when you arrived?
GF: Oh yes, yes. It was Bouillon when I arrived.
JP: Was he deceased then, or?
GF: No. Well – I – I can’t tell you. I’m not sure about that anymore. I think he was still living.
JP: Mm-hmm.
GF: I think he was still living.
JP: Well what do you think about the building-naming policy?
GF: Well are you going to name one for me? [Laughs]
JP: Well, I don’t know!
GF: Nobody would name one that way.
JP: Uh, but I do know that they had criteria for naming buildings.
GF: Did they? I –
JP: And I don’t know – and they used to have a president that used appoint a building-naming committee.
GF: Yeah.
JP: Uh – but I just thought you might have some knowledge.
GF: No, I really – honestly don’t know. I do know – I do know that uh – officially the office part of the new library building was – um – was that done for Chuck Wright, or was that done for the lady that was here for so long? I’ve forgotten. She was gone about two or three or four years before I came – had been a librarian here for 25 or 30 years.
JP: Hmmm – Mary Mohler?
GF: Molder, yeah. No.
JP: [Inaudible]
GF: No no – Molder was the history prof, and she was – she had been here on the interim basis, you’re right. But the one that had retired before that, and I can’t remember now what – uh – anyway – uh, there is something they’ve done for that, but I don’t remember.
JP: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um – [inaudible]. Did you have anything that pops into your mind? Otherwise I’ve got a few more here – questions [inaudible].
GF: I should – with regard to buildings –
JP: Yes.
GF: We – you know, the library buildings have always been too small – I mean the space around libraries. Go to all the big universities, and they’ve built buildings too close so that they couldn’t expand the library buildings. So I suggested – and it’s on record – that through the – through the President’s committee that the library reserved – uh – three modules – by module it’s the inside of the building – to the south, and two to the west, and then formed a square. That would all be reserved for library’s building expansion. And in 100 years from now, you don’t know what you’re going to need. Maybe you won’t need one. I don’t know. But anyway – but whether that’s going to be done – University of Michigan, for example, where I knew – there they had to build a storage building five miles from the main library, and if you wanted something, that is all in the main catalog, then you probably had to wait five days before you could ever get that and use it. Well that’s what we tried to avoid. The future’s going to have to tell – uh – about that.
JP: Well that’s interesting.
GF: And so – so I know, two modules west, three modules south, and whatever square that would be – that would come out – that would be reserved. Now the – the power line is going through part of that space already, but that can be –
JP: But hopefully that’s temporary.
GF: Yeah, yeah.
JP: It can be moved, eventually.
GF: Now the one other thing that I insisted on, and you know, and it’s now – you moved in that in ’75, that’s 20 years ago now – that uh – we knew the computers were coming. I knew that that’s coming, so we put in as many possible conduits as we could into that building, and I believe that library building has – there’s no building except maybe a physical plant that has as many conduits to put the computers. Now it’s still not enough, but anyway, computers are there. I can’t even find a book in the library anymore. Of course, those things [inaudible].
JP: Mm-hmm. Uh – well uh, we’re kind of winding down here, George. Um – I guess I would ask you – um – if you had any other comments that you’d like to make just about the University itself – working for the University in general? Any parting words that you might have for us that might be something you’d like to say?
GF: Well, I think that – I think that they – they need to keep growing. And I will – I do believe, as I see this from the time I came here in ’64, that scholarship and so forth has improved from what it was at that time. I really – I really think that. That needs to continue, no matter what it is, and this is going to bring us more and more into what I’ll call “University status.” We’re not just an undergraduate college, and – I don’t know if we’ll ever go beyond the Master’s program, but at least they should be the best in the country.
JP: Right.
GF: I mean work for it.
JP: Well – any humorous events? [Inaudible] We never think of the library as a funny place, but surely some humorous event must have happened.
GF: You should have given me these questions ahead of time.
JP: [Laughs]
GF: [Inaudible] recalls.
JP: It is kind of hard, isn’t it?
GF: I’m sure there were some, but I can’t remember now. Some things I’ve tried to forget. [Laughs]
JP: [Laughs] That’s true. That’s true. Um – can you think of anything, Helen?
HS: I think he’s covered it extremely well, and I appreciate [inaudible – everyone talking at once.]
GF: One thing – you know – as you know, we have the music library clear up on the top floor, and that was to get – get the music and all that stuff away from any of the other – the sounds, let’s say. And of course, so much of it is by – is by ear phones and so forth, but I think we have a very good – um, uh – facility there, and – yeah, there was some complaint of that – that the music people had to go up to the fourth floor. But we had an elevator anyway, and uh – the books were there, and so forth, and basically I think it’s worked out very well.
JP: Yeah, it has.
GF: So we could – I’ve forgot now how many different kind of programs people could listen to on those – on those [inaudible, sounds like “hearing aids”] you know, but it was quite a few that they can put on different places, and all that electronics was involved in the [inaudible].
JP: Yeah, that was excellent.
HS: Do you find that you go back to the library very often?
GF: Uh, I go back there to tell – I tell them I gotta come back and see if they’re still earning their money, you know, and things like that. I go back there now and then. When I need to do some copying, then I – um – oh, I was going to ask you – um – that letter that I got from Crum before I came, that I would need to – probably the first year I need to work hard to get the AV and the library coordinated. Should that be in the archives? I – I’ve got one copy, and I tried to looking for it before I came here.
JP: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GF: Right now I’m not sure where I have it.
JP: Well let’s discuss that, and uh – and it might be a good possibility. But um – let’s uh, kind of put a little ending to this –
GF: Okay.
JP: Uh – and we appreciate you coming, George, and sharing your ideas about the University – specifically about the library, and uh – giving us your very valuable time. And so I will also thank Helen for her assistance. [End of interview]