What We Owe Donetta Sheffold

Donetta Sheffold, founder of SSD, is retiring from her job at Oregon State University at the end of April.  When I read Susan Gilmont's post on the SSD email list yesterday, I remembered an afternoon long ago - in the last century, in fact!

At the 1991 Oregon Library Association conference in Ashland, in a room overcrowded with interested folks, Donetta asked this question:  Should there be a unit of OLA dedicated to the interests of support staff?  The answer was a resounding yes!  The next year, the Library Support Staff Round Table was born, eventually becoming the Support Staff Division.

Through the years, LSSRT and SSD have had many leaders, and Donetta eventually left her job at the OSU library to work in another department.  But I'm pretty sure that, without Donetta's vision and leadership, SSD wouldn't be here today.  It seems obvious now that support staff are a vital part of libraries, and thus of OLA.  It frequently takes someone with vision and drive to notice the obvious and do something about it.  That's what Donetta did for library support staff in Oregon.

My library life has been much richer, not to mention more fun, because of Donetta's vision.  I'm sure that's true for many others.

So hats off, and best wishes for a wonderful retirement, to Donetta!

Ms. Wann's wardrobe by SSD

Last weekend, I was wearing an old LSSRT t-shirt (SSD's predecessor) while I took my laundry off the clothes line. As usual in warm weather, my laundry included a couple of LSSRT or SSD t-shirts. That night, I slept in one of my collection 3x-size SSD t-shirts.

From the very first one (green, with a beautiful golden design by Maresa Kirk) to the most recent one (dark blue with the SSD logo in white), SSD t-shirts make up a surprisingly large percentage of my casual wardrobe. Since I've been in LSSRT/SSD from the beginning, it's fun to think about where the organization was when the t-shirt I'm wearing was produced, and how much we've accomplished since then. (The picture above shows the 1996 conference t-shirt; the picture below is the new book bag, which will premier at the 2009 conference)

We won't have a new t-shirt at the conference next month, but we will have a new book bag for sale. We'll be using the profits to establish an accessibility fund, so that we can make sure SSD events are available and accessible to all who would benefit from them.

So a new book bag will join my collection (2 SSD book bags so far), and I know the money will be going to a good cause.