WolfGRAMS Newsletter. From the Director. Library, Maria Varki By Teresa Cartularo, Reference Librarian

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1 Wolfgram Memorial Library Robert E. Danford Director Susan C. Tsiouris Head of Public Services Teresa Cartularo Patricia Georgini Mary McNeill Group picture with Maria Varki, front and center, and some of the Wolfgram Memorial Library Staff members, with Director Bob Danford at far right. May, 2010 Reference Services: 1st row, L-R: Teresa Cartularo, Molly Wolf, Maria Varki, and Jill Borin. 2nd row, L-R: Rosalie Fisher, Susan Tsiouris, Jan Alexander, Edna Moore and Patty O Hara. May, 2010 WolfGRAMS Newsletter From the Director May, 2010 Volume 1, Issue 2 Maria Varki will retire this year after providing 40 years of service to the library and to the university. We are offering this special edition of WolfGRAMS to celebrate Maria s significant contributions to the library program and to the students and faculty of Widener University. The article by Mrs. Teresa Cartularo, Reference Librarian, highlights significant aspects of Maria s career here and gives us the opportunity to share our appreciation of Maria with the university community. Library, Maria Varki By Teresa Cartularo, Reference Librarian Maria Varki has spent forty years of her life in service to Wolfgram Memorial Library and the Widener University Community. During these years she has been an assistant cataloguer, part time serials and reference librarian, teacher of bibliographic instruction, Coordinator of Reference Services and finally Reference Department Head. From the very beginning she has served as liaison to the Schools of Engineering, Nursing, and the Science departments. Maria continues as liaison to the Nursing and Science departments having relinquished the Engineering liaison duties to Janet Alexander, University Archivist/Reference Librarian, during some required personnel shifts in the 1990 s. At that time, she assumed the additional responsibility of liaison to the Physical Therapy Department. The title of this piece is the greeting heard on the phone by anyone calling the library during those years. In 1964, the newlywed bride left her home in Kerala, in Southern India, to accompany her husband to America. While adapting to her new life, first in urban Philadelphia, and then in suburban Wallingford, Maria decided to study librarianship at Villanova University. She already held a degree in a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the University of Kerala.

2 With her newly acquired Master of Science in Library Science degree, in August of 1969, Maria applied for a position at the Pennsylvania Military College Memorial Library. Mr. Lee Brown, library director at PMC Library, from , hired her as an assistant cataloguer to catalog 3,000 books, on February 9, PMC Library was then located in today s Admissions Building. This building was under construction and her deadline was to finish her cataloguing assignment by November of 1970 when the library would move into its new quarters. The transfer of books was accomplished by a long line of faculty, staff, and students who physically carried their color-coded sections from one building to the next! As the years passed and Maria moved on from one set of responsibilities to another, the world of finding and retrieving information in libraries changed from a print format to a CD-ROM format to the Web online environment of today. Technology contributed to the physical changes in the library: cabling and wiring and moving the old reference desk from what is now the Hex area to its present location, removal of the print indexes to accommodate the Van Pelt computers and printers, changes in Lounge use, relocations of collections, etc. Technology also forced changes in the teaching of bibliographic instruction to students and library users. From a book cart filled with print books and a table in the reference area to the first Bibliographic Instruction Room carved from a storage area belonging to the Media Department in the basement to the current Electronic Classroom in the Multimedia and Classroom Support area, the librarians have had to continually revise and renew their methods. In addition to their lecture format, librarians have used handouts, workbooks, slide presentations, video presentations, online tutorials, virtual reference, reference and online chat to answer student queries. Throughout these changes, Maria s main focus has always been on service to the student/user (customer). In an article she wrote for the May 1994 WolfGRAMS entitled, Changes and Challenges: Reference Departments and Reference Librarians, Maria said, We want our customers to leave with answers and librarians want to be a part of the solution. To keep abreast of all the changes in the profession and to bring back the latest and the best practices back to her library, Maria attended many national, regional and local conferences and workshops given by organizations, among them, the American Library Association, the Academic and Research College Libraries Association, the Pennsylvania Area Library Network (PALINET), and the Tri-State College Library Cooperative (TCLC). Maria also encouraged her staff of librarians to attend conferences and workshops at various stages in their career paths thereby Library, Maria Varki The title of this piece is the greeting heard on the phone by anyone calling the library during those years.

3 ensuring a collegial, collaborative working environment. Many of today s students have never used a card catalog to find books in the library, a print dictionary to find the meaning of a word, nor a print index to locate a journal article. With the advent of the first CD-ROM catalog (LE PAC) and the early CD-ROM databases, to the arrival of the first online catalog (WOLFPAC) to the current WEBPAC catalog and the many online databases owned by the library as well as all of the information now available on the Web, the nature and the name of library use instruction has undergone many changes. Back in 1982, Maria wrote the script for the 1 st Freshman Library Orientation Slide/ Tape Program produced in-house by her and then Audio Visual Director, David Nutty, to meet these changes. Maria has been instrumental in starting the Library User Education Program, which became Library Instruction, then Bibliographic Instruction, and now, Information Literacy. The names have changed but the objectives remain the same: to teach students, faculty, staff and community users how to use the library s resources to satisfy their requirements for a particular assignment or need. Although Maria had been teaching bibliographic instruction since 1975, she attended the 4 th National Bibliographic Instruction Conference at Eckerd College. This conference included classroom faculty, librarians and administrators focusing on the importance of collaborative teaching by both classroom faculty and librarians as practiced at Earlham College. This conference resulted in some changes made here at Wolfgram to involve teaching faculty in the library classroom lecture and a few faculty have participated. Front row: Maria Varki Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars, Gamma Tau Chapter, February 2002 Away from the library, Maria is the devoted wife of Reverend Father Dr. Paul Varki, the proud mother of Liz and Paul and doting Ammachi (grandmother) of Taylor, Sarah, Sophia, and Mirabel Elizabeth. Other firsts for Maria at Wolfgram: 1975 Teacher of bibliographic instruction Tenure. Dean Murphy, Dean of Academic Affairs said, due to six years of outstanding service to the library and the university Promoted to Assistant Professor. Online Searcher -- a pay for information service mainly available to faculty, who were required to fill out request forms for each specific request. The librarian had to plan an excellent research strategy before going online because this service was very expensive. Once the databases became available on the Web this service was discontinued. Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars, Gamma Tau Chapter, in February L-R: Reverend Father Dr. Paul Varki, Patricia O Hara, Teresa Cartularo, Maria Varki, Edna Moore, Jim McCloskey

4 2004 First Librarian to be granted a Sabbatical for six months to study the impact of electronic resources on collection development in nearby academic area libraries. Her report: Survey of Impact of Electronic Resources on Collection Management in Libraries in South Eastern Pennsylvania, was submitted to the provost. Maria has served under three presidents of the university: Clarence Moll, Robert Bruce and James T. Harris III, and three library directors: Lee Brown, Theresa Taborsky, and Bob Danford. During that time, she has served on all of the library committees, on several university faculty committees, most notably on the Academic Affairs, and the Faculty Affairs and on a number of TCLC committees especially those most closely allied with her work experience, such as bibliographic instruction, online searching and reference policies and practices. Additionally, Maria has served on the Board of Directors of the Crozer Public Library for six years. During that time she served on the search committee to select a new library director. A plaque of recognition for her services to that institution was given to her in December With two degrees and already a grandmother of one, Maria graduated from Widener s Master of Business Administration (MBA) program, with a Master of Science in Human Resources Management in In the April 1990 WolfGRAMS, Theresa Taborsky, then library director, wrote an article congratulating Maria on her 20 years of service. She began her article by quoting comments made on the occasion of Maria s10 th anniversary celebration: She is truly one of the finest, most professional, loyal, committed, competent, and hardworking people on the staff and she has a warm and outgoing personality to match her exceptional professional qualities. In her article, Theresa said that the second 10 years of service had not changed that assessment and that Maria had grown with the demands of reference services. In the conclusion of her article, Theresa Taborsky said: We want all library users to celebrate with us and wish for all of us at least another two decades of her dedicated diligence and delightful collegiality. Maria has indeed given us those two decades without any lessening of her interest in providing the best resources for the needs of the university community. She continues to encourage her staff to attend professional conferences and workshops and to keep up with the literature of the profession. She continues to strive for excellence in service to the library and university community by conducting the library committee Reference Discussion Group monthly meetings to discuss and explore new products, Maria Varki with International Students Reference Staff, Back row, L-R: Molly Wolf, Jill Borin, Teresa Cartularo, Front row: Maria Varki, Janet Alexander Maria with grandson, Taylor

5 new practices in the field, and to solve any problems encountered on a daily basis at the Reference Desk. She is most passionate in her desire to maintain the highest level of service to the students by providing research instruction and assistance at this desk so that both the student/user and the librarian are satisfied with the transaction. With her outgoing personality and warm engaging smile and her years of duty on the Reference Desk plus her liaison responsibilities, Maria has made friends of many of the students who have graduated from Widener. Many students return on Commencement Day or at Homecoming Weekend looking for Maria wanting to share their current circumstances. Most of these students are in Nursing, Science or Engineering fields but not all. A number of international students found an empathic listener in Maria as they made adjustments in their academic lives at this university. In recognition of Maria s interest in international students and the assistance she gave to them over the years, Maria was inducted into the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars, Gamma Tau Chapter, in February One of Maria s favorite flowers, the Water Lily. Maria is the devoted wife of Reverend Father Dr. Paul Varki, the proud mother of Liz and Paul, and doting Ammachi (grandmother) of Taylor, Sarah, Sophia, and Mirabel Elizabeth. In retirement, Maria plans to spend more time with her family, volunteer with the American Cancer Society, work in her garden, and continue her reading of non-fiction books, particularly in philosophy and theology. Maria is essentially a very positive person and her personal philosophy is to learn something new every day. Undoubtedly her years at Wolfgram have prepared her to do this. Maria is also a people person and despite all the rhetoric that libraries and librarians will become obsolete she is certain that the librarian will still be necessary to interpret and guide the student/user through the maze of information prevalent in today s Web environment. Thank you, Maria, for your years of dedicated service to the students/users of Widener University; thank you for your accomplishments, which enriched the educational experience of those students; and thank you for your leadership and collegial management style, which enhanced the working environment in the library. Enjoy this new phase of your life with best wishes from all of us here at Wolfgram!