1. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Suffield, Ohio, a few miles from my great-grandmother’s farm.
2. Why did you select law librarianship as a career?
I knew that I wanted to be a librarian, and I had an idea that I’d like working in higher education, but I intended to get a JD/MLIS/MBA and then decide between working in business schools or law schools. I still don’t have the MBA, but never say never!
3. When did you develop an interest in foreign, comparative, and/or international law?
I think my interest can be traced back to the books I read as a child. The dragons don’t live in your neighborhood, thank goodness, so if you want to find dragons you have to go on adventures. I saw foreign, comparative, and international law as the most adventurous branch of law librarianship.
4. Who is your current employer? How long have you worked there?
I’ve worked at the Boston University Fineman and Pappas Law Libraries for almost five years now.
5. Do you speak or read any foreign languages?
I can muddle through in French, and I’ve studied Italian, German and Spanish. I also studied written Latin and I even took a course in reading Egyptian hieroglyphs (a perk of working in higher education).
6. What is your most significant professional achievement?
My most significant professional achievement was when I advised a student that based on her interests and considerable research and writing talents, she’d be a great asset to a law journal. She wrote me an email a year or so later to say she’d become the editor-in-chief! I can’t always quantify my impact as a teacher so it was validating to hear that my suggestion was helpful.
7. What is your biggest food weakness?
I love ice cream! I think I could eat it every day!
8. What song makes you want to get up and sing/dance?
I don’t often sing around other people but I have been known to sing “I’ll make a man out of you” from Mulan.
9. What ability or skill do you most wish you had (that you don’t have already)?
I wish I could speak many languages without having to work to learn them. In the film The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne has amnesia but as other people address him in non-English languages he finds that he can answer them without effort because he still remembers the languages, he just doesn’t know who he is. (Technically Jason still did all of the work to learn these languages, he just doesn’t remember it, but I still love the scenes where he discovers his linguistic talents as if by magic).
10. Aside from the basic necessities, what is one thing you can’t go a day without?
Tea with milk; which is actually two things, but without the milk it’s just not the same.
11. Anything else you would like to share with us?
I am grateful to be a part of such a generous profession. I deeply appreciate the librarians who have mentored me, listened to me, and led me towards growth as a librarian and a teacher.
DipLawMatic Dialogues 