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Published by the Library Staff Association of the University of Oregon Library System
No. 18, February 2000
"Free kittens!" the sign proclaimed.
This happened more than once when I was a child: we would move somewhere (we'd lived at four places I remember by the time of this story, and there were a couple more after), and within weeks a stray cat would show up. My dad, having spent much of his rural West Virginia childhood pretending to be a good ol' boy instead of a musician, was not yet prepared to admit how much of a cat person he was. He would feed them, and, predictably, they'd stick around, and invariably turn out to be pregnant females. Voila, free kittens to give away.
This was the year we lived in Decatur, Illinois. Illinois is flat and yellow. We moved into the old farmhouse in October the year I was five, after I started kindergarten in another town. I changed schools for the first of three times in about three years. My parents rented the place because it was in between Urbana, where Dad was still working on his Vietnam-interrupted academic career, and some other town I don't think I ever knew the name of. Mom, already done with her Ph.D. at 23 and several years into work in her field at 28, spent her days in this other town, trying to redirect the passions and frustrations of disturbed juveniles at Heed School. They figured it would be cheap for that last year of Dad's schoolwork to live out in the country, and mostly they were right, except for the power bill (it was a big old farmhouse), and the cost of feeding the cats.
This time the cat situation was unusual: it wasn't just one pregnant female cat this time; it was two, both emaciated, and both well beyond ever being docile around humans. Apparently it was OK with them if we fed them, but they bolted if we made much of a move in their direction. The two of them had their kittens on the same day, one five, the other six. Eleven kittens with nearly wild mothers--it was bound to be difficult right from the start. It began when they had the kittens in a window-well around the side of the house. Both of them. The weather was cold yet when they were born--it must have been something like February--so we thought maybe a more sheltered locale, such as on the porch in a box, would be a better idea. Moving them, however, didn't prove to be easy, since both mothers were suspicious and uninclined to trust our intentions, and they were able to work in tandem, simultaneously moving them back and keeping us at bay with assorted clawing, biting, and spitting tactics. Eventually we gave in and left them in the window well, and eventually after that, the mothers noticed the nice, warm, blanket-lined box on the porch, and moved the babies. Go figure.
The babies grew into juvenile cats, and I must say, between them and Mom's work, "disturbed juveniles" seemed to be the theme of that year. The kittens had been around us since birth, but as they also tried to imitate the mistrustful behavior modeled by their mothers, they were a highly unpredictable and exceptionally scraggly-looking bunch. They had to come to us; they didn't tolerate being chased, cornered, or picked up without their consent. They would engage in regular kitten play, curl up in a lap purring, and then suddenly leap up spitting, tail fully abrush, and bite, breaking skin. They would figure-eight around our legs, and suddenly hiss and claw without specific provocation. And then they would scamper away to the barn, where they played pounce with the many snakes, mice, and other wildlife in the hay and grass. They came up to eat with their mothers only when we dumped out food on the porch and then left them alone. Sometimes when we were lucky, they would either be feeling mellow, or would be hungry enough not to care, and would allow us to watch through the screen while they ate. If we opened the door, they fled. My baby brother, not quite two at this time, was no help; he refused to learn the keep-the-door-shut rule, and sent the 13 cats scattering on many occasions.
Along came mid-summer, and we were moving again. Dad was done, all-but-dissertation, and the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse had hired him to teach voice and opera. Mom got a job there too, in the Ed school. We got a U-Haul and started packing, and belatedly realized that something had to be done about the cats. Plywood and paint came out, and the sign, probably four feet square, hinged, two-sided, landed at the side of the road. Free kittens.
We had a few takers early in the day, and to our lack of surprise, they picked up the friendliest three or four. After that, no one came along for several hours, and we began to worry. Despite the fact that they were strays and weren't very interested in letting us approach, we felt some responsibility by now, and hated to think what would happen to them. We were digging around for the phone book to at least call the humane society and tell them when, late in the day, a man with a beat-up red truck came roaring up our driveway. He leapt from his truck, electrically excited. "You got any cats left?" he asked. Dad, still plugging away at the farmboy persona even as he passed his 30th birthday, tried to be casual. "Yep. We got about 8 or 10." The man beamed. "Great! I'll take them!" We wondered quietly what he might want with 8 or 10 cats. Dad was impelled to warn him, "Now, they are a bit wild. The mothers were strays and haven't wanted us too close." The man cheered up even more, an action that had seemed impossible based on the level of his previous good humor; it seemed he wanted a bunch of cats around to be mousers at a nearby farm he had recently acquired, and he figured strays were likely used to catching their own food.
Dad and the man, whose name I never caught, headed for the cats' stomping (pouncing?) grounds in the barn. They found three cats right off, which they put in a box with a board over it while they went to catch some more. After a while they found one more they were able to corner, and tossed that in the box too. It occurs to me upon reflection that the act of removing a board from a box of three wild cats, tossing in one more, and getting the board back on without losing any has serious comic possibilities. But I digress. At least fifteen minutes went by with no more cat unearthings until, aHA! Dad found a hole behind a piece of equipment, which led to a nice hollow wall. He stuck his arm down the hole and felt fur. Cats! The man thought he could haul a couple more out of there and have a nice round half-dozen cats for his place. He reached down and grabbed the first cat. It yowled and swung itself about in impossible directions, finally coming to rest with its teeth embedded in the man's thumb, and all four sets of claws out and fully buried in the palm, back, and fingers of his hand. He hollered. He pried loose a set of claws only to have them reengage elsewhere on his hand. This went on for some time. Eventually he stuck that hand down in the box of cats and waited for that one to notice the others and let go. Which it did. He went back to the wall, repeated this performance once more, tipped his hat, tossed the box of cats in the cab of the truck with him, and roared away without even asking for a bandage for his hand, which was bleeding from many punctures.
We never did find the other three cats before we left. They had nothing more to say to us and we didn't really have a particularly good opening overture to explain how it had come to pass that we had given away all the rest of them, so we let it be. Dad, who finally gave in to his cat-person nature, now has four cats, all fixed, that live with him. The rest of our move to La Crosse was unmemorable.
--Lara N.
Welcome New Staff!
It's never too late to extend a warm welcome to new staff. Remember to stop by and introduce yourself to these newest members of the Library team:
Douglas Jenkins - LT2, Stacks - hired 11/8/99
Erika Jacobson - part-time LT2 Stacks - hired 11/8/99
Todd Hannon - Temp Science Library Reference Assistant - hired
11/10/99
Ward Biaggne - Temp Video Producer/Director, Media Services - hired
11/8/99
Tamara Vidos - LT2, AAA Library - hired 1/10/00
Julie Palmer - Office Specialist 2, Collection Development - hired
1/24/00
Carol Hixon - Head of Tech Services - hired 2/1/00
Under Western Skies
Be sure to visit the new exhibit on display in the Circulation Lobby: Under Western Skies: Ernest Haycox and the West in Fiction And Films. This show highlights the career of one of the most prolific writers of western fiction.
Many of our library collegues assisted in creating this wonderful display. Linda Long produced and coordinated the exhibit, and Colleen Bell created the web pages. Duffy Knaus, Will Harmon, Susan Storch, Sharla Davis, Judy Byrum, Doug Hodson, Sheila Gray, Cristian Boboia, Yoon Kim, Jan Roberson, Marilyn Mohr and Catherine Heising all contributed their expertise.
There is also a great poster featuring cover art from Haycox's novels available in the Special Collections Reading Room.
The Burgess Boxes: Preserving the Past, Preparing the Future
This exhibit is on display in the Special Collections Reading Room through February.
This exhibit commemorates a milestone in the history of the University of Oregon Library: a collaboration between Special Collections and University Archives, the Preservation and Binding Department, and the Knight Library Press. The confluence of these three departments was not possible until 1999, but sets a fine foundation for the next millennium.
Special Collections is the senior partner in this enterprise, established soon after the Library itself, with holdings that date to the Babylonian empire. Among its many treasures are noteworthy collections of Oregon and Pacific Northwest publications, photographs, and papers of prominent Oregonians, scholars and public figures.
The Preservation Department was engendered in the 1960s, when recognition of the mass deterioration of volumes published since the 1880s drew national attention to the need for active care of library collections. As librarians came to realize the fragility of their collections, the field of library preservation was born. By 1986 the Library sought to identify its preservation needs through a comprehensive evaluation performed by a preservation planning task force. Raising both staff awareness and a long list of problems to be addressed, the task force report led eventually to the creation of the Preservation and Binding Department in 1993.
John Henry Nash brought printing to a superlative level at the University, where his press flourished in the 1930s. The prominence of fine printing declined with Nash's return to San Francisco, although the Library continued to collect exemplars of fine printing and the book arts. Works produced under the imprimatur of Eugene's lone goose press were avidly sought for their literary content, artistic expression, and superlative production value. A magnificently bound set of journals about fly fishing in the Northwest caught the eye of University Librarian George Shipman in 1995, and led him to envision a revival of the Nash tradition. A generous donation from Ann and Fay Thompson provided the startup funds for the new press. Under the direction of lone goose proprietor Sandy Tilcock, the Knight Library Press began production in 1999.
Thus 1999 is the first year that these three elements of the University of Oregon Library have coexisted. We share a reverence for history and for excellence in craftsmanship, a determination to protect, preserve and honor both the artifacts and the traditions that produced them, and the drive to help others understand and appreciate these treasures.
This exhibit is also a collaboration between Preservation and Special Collections, crafted by Marilyn Mohr and Catherine Heising.
-Normandy Helmer, Head of the Preservation and Binding Department
Events in February
"ROLL ON, COLUMBIA" Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration,
a University of Oregon documentary production directed and produced by
Michael Majdic, Knight Library Media Services & Denise Matthews, UO School
of Journalism and Communication premiers:
Knight Library Browsing Room
CALL TO ARTS & CRAFTERS: The Library Staff Association will be sponsoring its annual Arts & Crafts Show, Tuesday, February 22, 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in the Knight Library Browsing Room. Those wishing to share their talents are invited to bring their works to the Browsing Room by 9:30 a.m. the day of the show and pick them up between 1:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. after the show.
All mediums are welcome. If you have unusual requirements for displaying your talent or if you have any questions, please contact Duffy Knaus, at 6-1908 or duffy@oregon, Jean Murphy at 6-1851 or murphyj@oregon, or Barbara Butler at 6-1823 or bbutler@oregon.
Been to an interesting conference? Send us a brief report for publication in the next newsletter. Thanks!
Kudos!
Once again, we find ourselves in the position of recognizing greatness in the Interlibrary Loan Department. Michelle Batchelor entered the ninety-six millionth ILL request. This is her third millionth request, and ILL's fifth. The University of Oregon leads in this, as in many other endeavors!
Staff profiles:
Tina LaBonte, Knight Circulation
Mary Clayton, Law Library (should be here today (2/1) or tomorrow!)