Mary Beth Hollenbach and Rebecca Ray

00:03 I'm Mary Beth hollenbach and I'm 59 years old. And today is the 31st of January 19th, 2015. Sorry old people and aware at the Midwest genealogy center for storycorps, and I'm being interviewed by my good friend, Rebecca Ray.

00:26 Who I work with

00:28 I'm Rebecca Ray. I'm 47. Today is January 31st 2015 at the Midwest genealogy center in Independence, Missouri and I am here with Mary Beth who is my employer and co-worker.

00:46 Okay, I'll get started Mary Beth. When did you start working at the Mid-Continent Public Library at was 1975 and I had just moved to Raytown Missouri and we lived in a really little apartment that only cost $147.50 a month and I didn't have a car and I needed a job and I was actually expecting my child Jason who is 39 now and I walked to the local library and I just asked if I could maybe have an application for employment and I'm mrs. Julian was the manager at that branch and she was a wonderful character and she looked me straight in the eye and said are you expecting a child?

01:36 And I don't know how she knew but I said well, yes, I am and she said Daniel work really hard for me and she gave me the job and I was a full-time page was a person who puts books away on the shelves and that was my first introduction to being a librarian. I made $375 a month for full-time work.

02:00 Wow, what is your favorite thing about working at the library? I love story time and we had story time this week and we got to do dinosaurs and there was so much and worrying that I think we Disturbed every other person who was trying to get anything done at the library that day but there was a lot of giggling and we had a wonderful time. It's great before you became a librarian. What was your first memory of the library in general? We rode our bicycles in Ferguson, Missouri to a library that was three miles away and I had a basket in my on my bike and so I could only take home what was sit in the basket and it was usually summertime and before that. We just read what was available around the house and I really wasn't a very good reader until after the second grade.

03:00 So my first book was the Hunchback of Notre Dame which happened to be in the house and I really didn't understand a lot of the story but that was my first plunge into reading it on. So I really read along book, which I think it's wonderful and I hate your books. I like books that are forever long because then you kind of live with the characters and that's one of the most enchanting things I think about a book absolutely kind of along those lines. How has the library influenced your life? What what lessons have you learned? Well, it's giving me directions for how to do everything. I love to do. So, I love to cook. I love to create things. I'm in Leslie curious. I like to do stuff. And so everytime I get another idea I go to work and look it up. And so I know how to knit and I know how to paint and I know how to grow things.

04:00 Cook things and I think I can do anything. But what I really know how to do is look everything up so I can get directions on how to do everything. So I teach myself from books.

04:14 I know it's fun in Buckner Missouri. How is the library important to that Community? If there wasn't a library in that Community First of all, no one would have connection to the internet off of like I would say a fourth of the population do not have an internet connection at home. That's just my gas. But when they come in a lot of people don't even know how to click or what the internet can provide some people are afraid of the internet. And so where are their introduction to was that absolutely the cyberworld and I think that if we weren't there an awful lot of those people wouldn't be able to even apply for their food stamps or get a job or

05:07 Healthier kids do homework or any of them are things that you need in today's world Witcher online. So we're like vital. We're not just important were vital. Yes. How would you describe the community of Buckner? And it's a really that's a very caring town There's only about three thousand people and we really Encompass Buckner levacy in Sibley and

05:34 Those three communities are kind of like what I would call bedroom community in that people work in the city and they come there to sleep. But they do take care of each other and everybody knows everybody. You can't even make a face in the branch because if you do you probably are making a face about somebody's cousin or brother or everybody seems to know everybody so and and we are kind of a Clearinghouse for local news. We're kind of a place where people come to figure out what's going on or if they're lonely. They just come to the library to hang out and be with friendly face. So I kind of like that being able to say hi to people by name and knowing the people and we even see their cars pull up. Then we go pull their hold off the shelf because we know you do mr. Rhiner's here for his his big stack of movies. So we're like excited to be able to do that for people definitely.

06:34 What's the wildest thing you've learned from you don't because you've been working at a library.

06:50 Okay, I learn to make I know this sounds really strange. It's a kaleidoscope, but it's called a discus throw scope and I used to do science for kids and I had 10 experiments to make kids say and be really fascinated and one of the things I made was this thing that's online. They give you directions and you go buy glass mirror tiles and you put them together and it makes a parabola it but what makes it into a discuss those scope is it you if you hold your fingers under the lens, it looks like a ball of brains or you can put your eyeball up or your mouth up to it, and I've been known to pull the disgust no scope out just when I have a bunch of teenagers who are acting up just so they could like go. Oh my gosh, that lady is crazy and so it

07:50 Break the ice and the discussed oscope was one of the highlights of the science program which by the way was entitled blow up the librarian and a lot of blood thirsty kids really did want to blow up the librarian and I had to disappoint them because it was only a Hydraulics experiment where in which I rose up off the table based on Hydraulics. And so if anybody wants to know more about that the lab to go to library science programs. So that's the teaser other funny stories about the library or maybe a certain book that comes to mind that makes you laugh. Yeah. There was a thought of Red FM

08:40 The story of Despereaux by DiCamillo and we have this program where we try to read a whole bunch of kids books at a certain time of the year and we try to get a trophy which looks kind of like, dr. Seuss. Anyway, my book I was reading was this DiCamillo The Tale of Despereaux in which a mouse saves the life of a princess and he does it with a needle at that would how little of a red thread sticking out of its orbit dorner's needle and weirdly enough after I read that book on my desk. There was a darning needle with the red yarn.

09:18 Coming out of it. I don't know where that came but it's one of my treasures perhaps isn't that crazy? I don't like a mouse somewhere that saving my life that is really neat and he comes to every story time. But but that's true. I have a friend who is inanimate to have a squeaker is a little mouse that I found and I played with the puppet long enough to animate it and sometimes children thing that squeaker is a live mouse and my enemies Frenemies call squeaker a rat and for Christmas one year. They gave me a picture of allies.

10:05 Owl that was photoshopped with squeaker in his mama and it made me cry and I don't think that very funny. Sorry spray funny at all. That was my story.

10:26 You owe me chocolate. Absolutely always good. What are some of the biggest changes you've noticed in the library over the years how many years have you worked for the library 37 years. And so when I first started the library, we had a dress code and we were allowed to have pants suits but they had to be matching. So now we can wear blue jeans Network and we are very comfortable with our customers coming in their pajamas, which does happen. And the one thing that we do the line a man came to work wearing a bright green Speedo and he wanted help at the copy machine and I just want to get that close. So yes, we have limits, but they're pretty broad. It was funny though. I popping.

11:20 Yeah, I can imagine. What do you think the library be like in the next 10 years 20 years excetera on down the road. We keep going at the rate of accelerated change that we're going. I think that people will come in and we'll just know what they want before they speak because it's kind of amazing what we do now in a small Library long time ago. I went to an advanced training class on databases. And this was like maybe 20 years ago and databases were kind of an idea at that point and I was very interested in was thinking forwardly and the person who was going to the meeting with me said, well, you just want to have a reference branch in your own little Library, don't you and I answered quite honestly. Yes, I do. I want that to happen for us and now it we're like that.

12:20 We are able to do any level of reference right there in a small rule Library. We have the world at our fingertips literally and it's only really limited by what the staff is capable of learning the the arrow that they can have in their quiver. And one of the things we are trying to do is convince our staff that you know, you can change a Life by being a great librarian and and I think they're catching on and I think we are changing lives for definitely right along those lines. Again County Public Library is all about access and what does the word access mean to you? Personally. It's like every individual comes in and they all have a different need some people One Entertainment and some people want to know how to make a grateful on some people want to fix their bicycle and some people want to fix their tractor and by the way the most

13:20 Only broken thing on any tractor Librarians have weird knowledge. One of the commonly thing is the hydraulic lift is broken on every tractor. That's the first thing when someone comes in to fix our tractor. I know it's probably the hydraulic lift and I can help them find the manual to repair that tractor but really it's just that being ready for whatever comes to the door and being willing to ask the whole staff to participate because I'm not really an audio file. I sure do my Steely Dan, but I don't know what's popular right now. So if there's a staff member there who would know I refer to them and so I just kind of get to know everybody's specialty and make the whole thing work as one and that's kind of my job is the manager to be to access specialist is to

14:16 Make sure that we answer the questions that we get and answer them.

14:22 Suited to the knowledge of the person who's coming in.

14:26 Right, even though sometimes you might know things it's easily to get confused. You told me a very funny story about someone that came into the library looking for Pachelbel's Canon and we found it eventually but it it really I'm throwing Castle was a great friend of mine and a wonderful librarian and at the time we were doing LPs long-playing records long-playing records, right and we had all these large, you know vinyl collection actually and someone's phone and they wanted to record librarian and so we refer to call to Darlene and and the person said that they would like to have Pachelbel's Canon in she heard Taco Bell's canon.

15:12 Lie down the street from us. There was a Taco Bell on 39th Street and she kept saying yes, 39th Street and Noland and it's actually it's not a Canon it's a bell and so the person try it again and she answered and milk. No see I'm trying to tell you, it's Taco Bell's at 39th and Noland so I ran and found Pachelbel's Canon LP and held it up in front of Darlene and she kept pushing me away because she was trying to communicate with this customer until finally she went Pachelbel's Canon is what you're after so we did manage to answer the question, but sometimes it's pretty funny. Sometimes you just don't hear things quite the way do you think you're thinking so far ahead that you just don't like a little girl came up to the desk and she was so young that she didn't she was shorter than the desk. So I'm leaning over the desk.

16:12 And she said I want the lady with the long blond hair and at the moment I was blessed with long blonde hair that I was pretty Vain about and I said at your service and smiled really big at the little girl and she looked at me she has not you the book so that day I Learned leave my ego at the door and I found her Rapunzel. No, not me. That's great. Tell me the wildflowers story. Okay, so I really good friend of mine came to the library and I am crazy about growing flowers of all stripes and she told me about a piece of land in Sibley that had

16:59 Ann unplowed ground from Pioneer times and that every spring hundreds of varieties of wild flowers grew on this unplowed ground and that I should really go and see it so lunch time came and I was off like a shot and you had to cross over a real rickety bridge and then you get on the other side of it and on the right hand side. There were these magnificent flowers Johnny jump-ups and violas and things that I had thought were extinct were growing in profusion. And there were I started counting, you know, like more than two dozen different varieties of Woodland flowers growing in this Glade. So I'm fascinated and I'm looking and then I smelled something wrong very bad. So being endlessly curious. I followed the smell and I found an enormous carcass of a dog that had passed away and it was putrid in it.

17:59 Smell terrible. So when I get back to town good citizen I called and I said there's a putrid, you know Turkish and you need to you know, maybe move it before some kids get ahold of it or whatever so they went out there but not only was there a decomposing carcass of a dog. There was a human being or we had been murdered there and I was instantly a suspect and I got nobody and I said, but I was looking for wildflowers and I like your lady here. So that was one of the first experiences I had when I started at the Buckner Branch 22 years ago. I was a little bit I had a bumpy start and I wasn't the murderer sure. Well, I'm free.

18:54 I don't know. They never tell you they're not party. They will tell you the rest of the respiratory. Unfortunately about your first programming experience that involve wolves. Well, and in the beginning programming didn't have a program Department never know people in charge of it and we just came up with our own programs. And so we would search far and wide for anything interesting and we did find some wonderful times. We had, you know, a thing on Indian arrowheads that were found locally. We had people who dressed up in costumes from their grandparents and they look fantastic and one of the people that we had come where the possibility of having wolves as pets and the man's idea was that this was actually really really good idea and he promised me that he was bringing just pops to female pops.

19:45 And when he came in his big truck there were full grown long-legged female wolf and wolf Pack's the females are dominant and they were held on enormous chains. And the first thing you did in the program was hand me the chains for the Wilson said hold this and so here I have to

20:08 Enormous powerful wolves and I'm a dog lover. I was kind of fascinated and we had in our building we didn't have rules about fire code and a building with pretty small. So we were wall-to-wall people. I think we had a hundred and fifty people in our building right now. The building is almost twice the size and our fire code limit is 70 too. So we were definitely over fire code and people are packed in there like sardines with these walls and the man was giving his talk and at the end the reward for the talk was you got to pet the wolves. So I'm standing there holding with the big chains wolves and a little boy in the front row got the most spectacular bloody nose. I ever saw in my life, which was scary because the Wolves started the hair on their hackles worth lifting smoke and they shorted I started to see the back teeth.

21:07 So I took it upon myself to take the wheels out and put them in the truck and lock them him and the person who gave the program was very angry with me because I sort of spoiled his show and we talked to the mother of the child with Bueno saying, you know, you might want to have this checked out by a physician not that we give medical advice, but it was kind of really sure the spectacular bloody nose and the whole program was a disaster. And so I used it as my pattern of what not to do for programming in the future. And so that was our fledgling disaster when you do going forward no matter what happens. It can't be as bad as the Wolves right and we have lots of wild animals come to the library in one time. We had a wonderful lady and bring a baby lamb to the library for story time and it was adorable had a little tiny diaper on it was

22:07 About 7 weeks old and they are tiny you have no idea how tiny there and you have no idea how loud they bleeped it was deafening and little boys that can I touch the lady who brought it inside shirts just real soft. You won't believe how fast so he put his little knuckle in the Lambs mouth who began to suckle and the child started screaming because it's suckled really really hard and we had another example of what not to do at the library with animals. I am scheduled his finger and I was first

22:57 Being a branch library in at the Buckner branch and I was not a horsewoman and I hope to become one Monday, but I'm not there yet. And I saw a little I called it a baby horse not a full, you know in a in a pastor and his mother was standing over with one leg up and I was very worried that there was something wrong with this poor little animal. So I drove up to the door and knocked on the farmers, you know door and said your horse it's there's this happening in and I was real worried and he patted me on the shoulder and said well now that little fall asleep in and mama is a rest in her foot and it's okay and thank you for coming by honey. And from there on out. They said every time he came in and said the horses are fine, baby. I was famous for

23:57 Been wrong. They would have been grateful to you for letting him know. I don't know. I don't think it's an interesting journey to becoming a librarian. What did you think you were going to be when you were growing up? I like that is going to be a mathematician. And so I go off to Rolla and I'm taking my math classes and I hit the wall almost immediately. So when I became a librarian and you know, I was enormously pregnant with my son shelving books. Everybody had to clear the show so I could come through I learned that I am really a curious person and that I have a very random way of thinking and in most jobs, that would be maybe a handicap but as a librarian being extremely curious and having an extremely random way of think,

24:57 Makes you superb reference person and I could find the answers that no one else could answer. I found the answer to equations for spirals in math and how music relates to Spirals in math. So I still used my math but it was in a different way and I'm one of the most wonderful questions anyone ever asked me he was a sculptor. I was working at the South Independence branch and he made his suit heroic sculptures of angels. Wow out of old trees that it's fallen and he needed lots and lots of photo reference while we didn't have Google images in those days. So I spend spare moments finding pictures of birds women men anything that would relate to photographical images that would

25:57 Play 2 heroic sculptures of angels and I would keep piles of books for this man and he would come in and check them all out and one day I got to go and view his sculptures that were absolutely magnificent and I wish I would have had an iPhone cuz I would have a bunch of pictures. But all I have is my memory, but it was just a really wonderful and Charming.

26:21 That was a great place. That's awesome. People have perceptions of what Librarians are.

26:30 And what do I want to work?

26:36 How do you see Librarians as we are versus how people perceive us and have you ever encountered someone that had a very wrong perception of what we did well, and I have a little story about the South Blue Springs South Branch. They all dressed up as Librarians for Halloween wearing buns in the heavy glasses and sturdy shoes and Cardigans and the male librarian to work leather patches on their Woolen jackets and bowties and no one noticed that they were dressed up. So just so you know when your perception however, if you go to the library convention, you will see a lot of comfortable shoes and bags. We all carry bags and we all yes do have cats that is a true and meek or quiet or are kind of retiring person.

27:32 I've not met one yet. I need the most imaginative creative a lively and sometimes loud people in library. And if you get a library on her day off, you will find the secret Vavoom. There are Librarians with tattoos. It's true. So we are not the retiring quiet little mice that you might think.

28:02 Story about your father and what he thought you did as a librarian.

28:06 He thought it was really cute that I was library and he was a manager at General Dynamics and he went to Turkey to work.

28:18 When's the deals wise with turkey every time they sold a jet fighter to the country of Turkey? They did $1000000 of infrastructure in the country of Turkey and he he had a librarian in his company who was supposed to find him opportunities for this infrastructure, but he was not able to Resource the enough.

28:44 Things inside mentioned it to me and I said that I'll look that up for you. Don't worry about it. So I went back and with the help of Barbara Lee Martha Lear we did it research and we came up with about an inch thick portfolio of different schools Bridges and all of it was translated from Turkish and they build Hospital schools Bridges and I presented to him with this portfolio of information and he said,

29:17 I had no idea that you are so expert at your job and then he came to see the library and he said you take care of this entire building and train this entire staff. You help all these people all day long 40 hours a week. And I said, yeah and dad is fascinating. He said I always wondered when you were going to get a real job.

29:42 And I said, well it's a realtor and it takes a certain Talent. So it was nice to be validated because I didn't become the mathematician he envisioned me to do right what or who inspires you or keeps you motivated at work.

30:04 Okay. Well, I have to say that my staff inspires me because I have some of the finest people in the world working with me and Rebecca. You're one of them. Thank you. You're welcome and Peyton brings imagination and energy to work. Angie is great readers advisory. We have an artist in Alice. We I mean I have some old souls working for me who understand big things about life and are super kind to people I could mention the whole staff but I mean, they know that I love them and it's that's my inspiration. The other inspiration is the customers come in and they have what they need and they never leave my mind when I see something I think of a face or a person that that is for that that book is meant for this person or

31:04 I can't wait to show someone how neat does new knitting book is or I am so excited because we're having story time and I get to tell Lil Liza Lou and the yeller-belly swamp and I'm going to have you no accents in and how am I going to do that alligator? And you know, it's just wonderful. It's been every day is filled with inspiration. That's great. Go home tired though. You text several Generations. Tell me a little bit about that one Hefner's when my favorite customers and she comes in and she was in my story time when she was a little kid.

31:52 And went on to become one of the finest teachers. I know and she teaches special at it for a sage and if we're to say just kind of our school district, we we love and her and so she invited a couple of my staff members to go to her classes and tell them about databases and introduce her kids to eat box. And as a result some of her special ed students Lexile scores have gone from 402 an amazing and overnight change of 1200 and we're talking about going from a fourth grade reading level to a 12th grade reading level days in a matter of a month or two and we both agree and I would say to everyone that it only takes one great book. It only takes one wonderful story, and we've got you and you'll know you'll always come back and you'll be anxious to read the next one and it it

32:52 Makes your life.

32:55 More like a diamond cuz then there's a million Reflections and refractions and it makes your life of rich and I was telling my staff and their last reviews we have to do reviews nobody like them but I was telling them that you know, if you have a brain surgeon and they save your life, it's pretty amazing. But what we do is we in rich people's lives. We give them Gifts of enjoyment and interest. I think the worst thing in the world is being bored and if you come to lie, but you'll never be broke and people think of a library is a sleepy little place. Oh, quite the contrary. We're amazing. We're full of wonderful things to do listen to watch and we can we can absolutely literally Amaze you if you come in

33:48 Definitely if you could say anything to Future Generations about libraries, what would it be?

33:54 I'd like to say that if

33:58 Children

33:59 Did they will learn to read that's all you really have to do. It's really not. I mean God Bless the people with the phonics and but I think the main the most important thing you can do is read read read to your children read to each other and share books and share the body of knowledge. That is Mankind and you will change the world.

34:26 How do you how do you think that your your role as a librarian and then enter your job as a librarian influenced you as a as a mom? Well, am I have a super bright kid, which I think is kind of amazing because I don't see myself that way but he is so so intelligent that he had a hard time finding other people. He could be lied to and thank goodness. He found a team because he found a soulmate and but what we always did was feed that little hungry mind we did astronomy we did he was in plays. He had Stacks and stacks of books. And the Bedtime thing was you get in bed. You can read all night if you want to and so he did and every once in a while. I worried that I wasn't a good mother because I didn't insist that he sleep but I did insist that he eat but he read voraciously instilled.

35:26 And I think that that was part he was very autodidactic and I was lucky that way and it's just been a privileged to have a super bright kid in my life.

35:40 So that's fine and I'm pretty much all I've got.

35:50 Surprise people about the library or you know, give a set an Insider's view into you do library staff and Dynamics at a library.

36:00 And one of the things is and I know this from eating other staff in other libraries and I mean all over the world is the staff keys off the manager. And so even if you're having a bad day can't let it show you have to go in there and be a team and I think that's really important for anyone who has the privilege to be manager to realize that people's happiness are in the palm of your hand and that

36:33 It's it's like you're the engine that runs the train and you have to be a smiling engines. So, you know go Thomas, you know, so but that's what I'm thinking right now.

36:52 Thank you, Rebecca. You made it easy and now we get to go out to lunch.