Interview with HARRIET STEUERNAGEL and MINNIE ORFANOS

The following is an unedited transcription of an interview. It is quite long and may have spelling and other errors.

It is, however, a wonderful record of two giants in the field of dental librarianship. Many thanks to Celia Giltinan and Ron Sims for making this treasure available for us all to enjoy.

Four pictures are included in the text below.

 

Friday, October 10, 1997
Celia Giltinan
Ron Sims
Harriet Steuernagel
Minnie Orfanos

 

Minnie Orfanos, Celia Giltinan, Ron Sims, and
Harriet Steuernagel

 

Minnie Orfanos: Good morning, Harriett. It's great to see you and good to be with you, again.
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, it's good to see you.
Minnie Orfanos: Thank you.
Harriett Steuernagel: Goodness, it's been too long.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, it has, Harriett. We have to do something about that. You're still driving down to the University and doing some rare book work?
Harriett Steuernagel: I don't do any work, my car is on the fritz. To get there, I had to drive to the Hilltop campus and take the shuttle bus from there down to the medical center where the library is … now I can't go so they're trying to find out some way to get me down there.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, good.
Harriett Steuernagel: I'm perfectly willing to sit all day…
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, that's comfortable.
Harriett Steuernagel: But, going and coming is a problem.
Minnie Orfanos: Are there any faculty out that way that could bring you down?
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, they come earlier, and go home earlier so my hours are flexible, but it's a little problem getting tied up, and the place I live takes me every place. But they don't take you to work.
Minnie Orfanos: I imagine that would be pretty difficult.
Ron Sims: Now, how often, Harriett, do you go to the University there?
Harriett Steuernagel: I went. four days a week for awhile. Then I cut it back to just one day a week. Now, I don't go at all, so we're kind of at the waiting period right now.
Ron Sims: What were you doing when you went …
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, the dental library collection was moved to the medical library. They have a new building that's seven floors and they put our rare book, the Special Collection on the seventh floor. And the general collection is intermixed with the medical collection of journals, books, and so on. <That collection is> used quite a lot and the medical alumni still support it. They contribute every year and they send me a notice every month of what's been contributed, so that I send some of them a second thank you note because the university sends a formal note of thanks but I think if they get somebody they know, writes a personal, it means a little more to them. Some of them send as little as $10 and $25 and others send $100, $200, and $2500. Which is great, because it helps support the collection
Minnie Orfanos: This is the dental alumni?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, the dental alumni.
Ron Sims: Minnie, in her retirement, is working still at the library.
Minnie Orfanos: I work one day a week on Mondays at the Galter Library and I am working on the picture collection. I've written a history of the oral surgery department and its just sort of keeping myself active and just organizing the pictures because we have about five or six thousand pictures and I would say I've done about 2,500 pictures, I think. Some of them are already in the files, they're in the computer, they will become available to everybody.
Ron Sims: We've got them on a separate database, right now, but we're going to put them into NOTIS.
Minnie Orfanos: So, you will be able to have access to them if you wanted some old-timers. And ours are just not from the dental school at Northwestern. They're just sort of a U. S. incorporated and we even have some foreign photos. I've had to send overseas to get information on these specific individuals, because that was before my time.
Harriett Steuernagel: Of course, this collection now is with the medical collection and that is completely computerized. Every kind of computer you could think of is in there and they not only have that, but they have a group of men if you have trouble with your computer and you can send one on to you, and they work it out for you. So they have a repair unit as well, which is great because things are always going wrong.
Minnie Orfanos: They sure are.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, and we now have the daughter, remember Dr. Frueth, an old …, I say old. His daughter is the same age as mine, but she's now come to live in Orchard House with me.
Minnie Orfanos: You have a little something in common.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, we do.
Minnie Orfanos: You can work together on the project. That's very good.
Harriett Steuernagel: Her name is Stoody and I knew when she came that we had, well, the same friends but we didn't know one another. Now, we've made friends with one another and we're beginning to learn a little bit about her life as a daughter of Dr. Frueth. Which is great.
Minnie Orfanos: So, you can put that into the collection. And make it available to everybody. Does she have other little tidbits she can contribute to her father's history?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, I think so.
Minnie Orfanos: Which will be helpful.
Harriett Steuernagel: Right.
Minnie Orfanos: Very good.
Ron Sims: Why don't we start with our printed questions now?. I think the best thing to do is, we'll ask Harriett the question, and then ask Minnie a similar question and we'll stick to our six categories as long as we can and we'll just carry on from there. Our first category is: tell us about where you were born and maybe your early life, some things which may have influenced you on your decision. I want to hear about your dance. I've heard stories, so let us know a little bit about…
Harriett Steuernagel: The funny thing, when I moved to Orchard House I met the aunt of Charles, who I dated and knew when I first began dancing, and he went into it, he produced and he went abroad and he made a great thing of it, and it was interesting. We could compare notes. He'd forgotten me and I'd forgotten him because it had been too long.
Minnie Orfanos: Didn't he take you places afterwards?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, right.
Minnie Orfanos: Just recently?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, then he moved to Mexico and he married, but his wife's been dead for ten years. So, he's free now and he has broken his hip twice. So, he's had problems, but its fun to kind of renew the old days.
Minnie Orfanos: Where were you born, Harriett?
Harriett Steuernagel: I was born in Jackson, Mississippi.
Minnie Orfanos: She's a Lee. Did you know that she comes from the Lee family?
Harriett Steuernagel: It was in the deep South, and I lived there until I was about eight. Our home burned there and we got another home and continued to live there. Then, my father came to St. Louis with his work so we came there, too and that's where I began dancing. I was about eight and the school that I was taking dancing from had kind of tie-in with the theater. In those days, they always had a stage show in between the movies. And, she provided the stage shows for the movies. So, I got to be on that for years and I worked my high school courses around so they were all in the morning, so I could leave and go to the theater for the afternoon.
Minnie Orfanos: You performed very young, starting at eight years old.
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, it was, yes.
Minnie Orfanos: How long did you stay in that?
Harriett Steuernagel: I stayed with it 'til I went away to school.
Minnie Orfanos: To high school, or college?
Harriett Steuernagel: No, to college.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, my.
Harriett Steuernagel: It was one of those things you kind of … I didn't grow in to dentistry from the dancing.
Ron Sims: A fairly strange transition.
Harriett Steuernagel: Kind of strange. I kind of fell in to dentistry because a friend of mine from church, I guess, Georgia Gamrell, was working at the public library and she said one day, we need someone in the reference department. Would you like to come down and apply? I didn't have anything. I was out of college, had my degree, but I didn't have anything I could do.
Minnie Orfanos: What was your major in?
Ron Sims: What did you study?
Harriett Steuernagel: The arts, so I wasn't prepared for anything really.
Ron Sims: Was it a school in St. Louis?
Harriett Steuernagel: Washington University.
Ron Sims: So, you were at Washington U this whole time.
Harriett Steuernagel: I went down and applied and she gave me the position. I worked there for a couple of years and she said, you'll never get any place in library work unless you get your degree. So, I went to the University of Illinois to get my library degree and continued to work there for a year or two. Then, a friend of mine was working in the medical school under… (before Estelle Brodman). They were going to fire the librarian at the dental school. So, she said come out and apply for this and of course, I had no background for it at all, but I did, and they gave me the job. And I've stayed there, well I took time off to go to Illinois and get my degree in library work, and I stayed there till 1980 when I retired. And the school, of course, was going until 1991 so they reappointed me in different positions. They were about to have a site visit on the school. So, they gave me the chairman of the site committee and I worked on that for a number of years till we went through it and we were accredited, and so on. So, I just stayed with dentistry. They didn't fire me, so I just stayed there!
Minnie Orfanos: What year did you begin?
Harriett Steuernagel: I started in 1946 and I stayed till 1980. And then I stayed on after I retired and was being reappointed and the school was closed in '91, so I stayed on then for a year or two after the closing to kind of sell things and get things relocated to the medical school library. Then, I just plain retired for the second time.
Minnie Orfanos: Not really, because you went over to the medical school and worked with the collection in the medical school, didn't you?
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, yes, I did for a while.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, so you were going down four times a week to the medical school, weren't you?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, for quite a while. So, it worked out pretty well.
Minnie Orfanos: What about that accreditation program that we were working on with Dick Morrison? Remember? I was telling Ron about the incident where we went to this meeting to work on the accreditation with Dick and he was all gung-ho for it, remember? He was really very good to us and then we went over and had a few drinks and I think he got a little high on the liquor and he went home and he took all the money from the association, because he was involved in the registration. He took the money and left it on the dresser, and in the night there was a fire in the hotel, remember? She's sound asleep and I'm standing at the window looking out, what should I do? Should I wake her up or not? And we were working on this accreditation program, and it was so cute. But, unfortunately, we lost Dick. He moved in to something else and we never did get our accreditation program. This was for the American Association of Dental Schools. Way back then.
Harriett Steuernagel: But we worked with Morrison a lot on that.
Ron Sims: Morrison was the librarian as well?
Harriett Steuernagel: No, no, no
Ron Sims: He was a dentist?
Minnie Orfanos: No, he wasn't a dentist. He was involved in the American Association of Dental Schools. He was in… I don't remember.
Ron Sims: Just an administrator there?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, right.
Minnie Orfanos: He helped us get organized in this process to get the association to accredit the dental schools..
Ron Sims: And the libraries? Or just the dental schools?
Minnie Orfanos: I mean the libraries. Just the libraries, I'm sorry.
Ron Sims: The guidelines were approved by MLA. Frank Mason June Glaser worked with you..
Minnie Orfanos: That's right. And then we did one for the hygienists, too.
Ron Sims: Right.
Minnie Orfanos: You were involved in that, too. It's all there…
Harriett Steuernagel: But a lot of work.
Minnie Orfanos: But a lot of work and not much results.
Harriett Steuernagel: Not much came of it. That was true with a lot of the organizations we worked with.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, we never got anyplace. The ADA, even though Hillenbrand was for libraries and was very congenial and helpful. We really made no… Medical Library Association … to be the only one that really pushed us.
Ron Sims: Now, Minnie, how about you. Where were you born and so forth?
Minnie Orfanos: I was born in Downer's Grove. But my parents were Greek immigrants and they arrived in the United States at the age of thirteen. And there was thirteen years difference in there ages. They had a matched marriage and from all evidences it was a good, happy marriage. They worked hard, they had businesses, a candy store and a restaurant. And, there were three children. Two girls who were twins and a boy, five years younger.
Ron Sims: So, you were a twin?
Minnie Orfanos: I'm the oldest of the twins. I'm eight minutes older than my sister. Big deal! Isn't it? You know, we used to help out in the business. We were there all the time and we just picked up dishes, did the washing. We didn't make the sodas. We served the food but we didn't do any of the cooking because we had a cook. But, it was kind of a lonely life because we didn't have friends because we were involved in the business and the home life. So, what happened was I got acquainted with the library in Downer's Grove, the public library, and I used to go there regularly and read. I read all of Pearl Buck's books. And then I went in to all the other books, but that's what interested me in librarianship. That was the very first movement towards library career. And while I was in eighth grade I wrote a paper of a career in librarianship. Can you imagine? Never really thinking that I would get in there. And then what happened was that at 18 we graduated from high school and then we were to… My mother and father were going to send us to catholic colleges. But we turned Catholic and being Greek Orthodox, my parents did not approve, so they took away the college privileges and we went to work. I went to work in the Chicago Public Library because I had a friend who was in city hall who introduced me to the public library and I worked at the main library for a year. First, in the application center, the registration they called it. And, then I moved up in to circulation, and then a friend from Northwestern asked if I'd be interested in working in the dental library, and I moved up to dental library. I've been there ever since, from 1943 to the year I retired, in 1990.
Ron Sims: And your still there every Monday morning.
Minnie Orfanos: I am still there every Monday morning. That's how I chose my career. My education came, I went to night school at Northwestern for ten years and…
Ron Sims: Did you get one of the famous PhBs?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, a PhB degree.
Minnie Orfanos: After Adele Fisher, who was my co-worker, and we had a head librarian, Madelene Marshall, who was very much involved in the Medical Library Association and probably helped with Dr. George B. Denton to organize the dental section because for the Baltimore Centenary, remember that great big thick book?
Ron Sims: Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, there is a section for libraries in that. And she, Madelene Marshall, was in… and so did Dr. Denton. Dr. Denton was the Professor of Dental History and Literature at Northwestern. So, the library was used pretty much. Adele Fisher got her degree at Rosary College after I finished my night school. And I thought, well really, I should go on and get a Master's degree and so when she finished her college work at Rosary, she was doing that at night, I went to the University of Michigan for four summers. The Deans were really happy about that because I think they felt that Michigan was a non-religious school and I probably would get a better education there. So, you know how it is. Anyway, I worked for four summers. I went four summers, but I tell you…
Ron Sims: They gave you the time off?
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, not only did I get the time off, I got my salary!

 

Minnie and Harriet

Ron Sims: Was that under Freeman or Teuscher?
Minnie Orfanos: That was under Teuscher. I got my salary, and I got benefits from TIAA, so I was really blessed. I thought he did me a great favor. I didn't realize it until I retired in 1990. I really didn't.
Ron Sims: And George is still going to work everyday, too.
Minnie Orfanos: Dr. Teuscher is now the editor of the Journal of Dentistry for Children. I don't know if that's the correct title now. But, I was very, very lucky. They didn't pay the tuition, but the tuition was so little even though I was from out of state. It was less than a hundred dollars when I first started. That was a bargain. You think of the tuition today and that's phenomenal. So, that was my early beginning, but I love the dental school and I love the students. I had a great time working for Madelene Marshall. She was really a very colorful lady. She was very attractive, extremely attractive, and had a lot of men friends, and she was very sociable. I sort of rested in the shadows watching this operation. It was really wonderful. But she ran a good library. She was very interested in the library. It wasn't that she was only very attractive, she was also very knowledgeable about her field. She had worked with A. D. Black, so he had hired her. And I thought a good choice.
Ron Sims: Now, Harriett, was there someone at Washington U who was at the dental library before that was significant that you can think of?
Harriett Steuernagel: No, the dental school had basically used secretaries of the departments.
Ron Sims: So, you were the chief organizer then?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, so I had to really kind of reshelve and do everything with the library, and I knew nothing about dentistry. So, of course, I had to learn it from scratch. But, it worked out pretty well, and with the help of Minnie, I found my way around.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, I don't know about that. I think we…
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, I think Minnie influenced me more in dentistry than anyone else.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, how about Don Washburn? I think Don…
Harriett Steuernagel: Well, Don was great, but he didn't do the basic things that you did with me.
Celia Giltinan: Say more about these basic things.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, we went to conferences together, didn't we? In the early days, Don Washburn used to have a series of meetings for librarians and they would come from all over the United…
Harriett Steuernagel: Those were wonderful. They were for dental librarians from all over the country, and they were probably more than official than any other meetings we went to because they were basic and right down to earth with what we needed, and they were great.
Minnie Orfanos: He contributed greatly to the librarianship for dentistry, and he listened to us. He listened to our needs and was able to incorporate them. Like when they took over the Index and they were doing the Index and we asked him to list the theses in the Index. He would do that. When we found how he listed them, we told him we wanted them more in detail, we wanted by school, and also the subjects, so he did! First, they were just listed under professional degrees but this way we got the specific subjects involved. He did a great job.
Harriett Steuernagel: They were great, yes.
Minnie Orfanos: Listed the periodicals and the histories. He became very much involved in the basic teaching of cooperation among the dental libraries. This is how we got to know each other, to help each other, too, which was very useful.
Harriett Steuernagel: I think we lost a lot when we lost Don as Head, really, because he was great for dental librarians, and he went to the places that really made a difference. I know you used to involve the library…, that cataloger from the…, you had down to your place that we were trying to get subject headings…
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, right, Adele Fisher. She organized that, she structured the dental headings. That really resulted from those meetings that Don had, right.
Harriett Steuernagel: That helped a lot.
Minnie Orfanos: At least it was a start before the National Library of Medicine took over the subject heading study.
Harriett Steuernagel: But you used to get involved with the National Library of Medicine. I think it stirred them up a little bit more about getting more in dentistry known and more done for it.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, because they took over eventually in the indexing of the dental literature, so consequently, there was more input from us in to our needs so they could come up with the information that we needed to supply to our users. It was good. Don and I went to the National Library of Medicine once for a meeting there but then he continued on and I didn't. The indexing was a jointly effort of the ADA and NLM, I wasn't really all that qualified in the cataloging. I was more of an administrator. But he could handle the nitty gritty of the essential information that we needed for the study of subject headings and the indexing of the literature. So, he worked the National Library of Medicine.
Harriett Steuernagel: Minnie always had something at the annual meeting for dental libraries. We would have some kind of a program. I remember when they first introduced Medline. We had demonstrations at the meeting for the dental group and showed everybody what needed to be done and so on that I think helped a great deal.
Minnie Orfanos: There was something I was thinking about when you were saying…Oh, we always had a dinner afterwards and we always got together, and that was really a very nice time because all the librarians would come to the Medical Library Association meeting and then we would have the special section on dentistry and and then we'd meet for dinner. It was good camaraderie We had great friends As long as they stayed in the Dental Section, we were very much involved with them. We also initiated a library section in the AADS. We used to have meetings with them and talked about how to integrate the library and the teaching of courses. Doris Erfel was in that with me and Harriett.
Ron Sims: Now, where was Doris?
Minnie Orfanos: Doris was at the University of Manitoba. So, there were Canadian libraries in this. We had a great gal up at the University of Toronto, Eileen Bradley. She was very much involved in the Medical Library Association as well as in the American Association of Dental Schools. When we went up there she was the hostess for us and we had the meeting in Toronto.
Ron Sims: Frank Mason was active with the AADS.
Minnie Orfanos: And see, that was a shame because we did have a section. We went not only to the Medical Library Association meeting, but we also went to the American Association of Dental Schools. And really tried to get them to think about the library. To get it involved in the teaching,. But I think that Medline is probably the one thing that influenced them a great deal and that helped. Then I think you probably got involved in that with the American Association of Dental Schools.
Minnie Orfanos: But that's about…
Celia Giltinan: I was just kind of curious because Harriett was saying how influential you were for her, who you look as the influential person in your life. If it was Washburn or if there was someone else? Because, really, Harriett came in as a consultant to the AAO before they hired me. So, between Harriet's work and Dr. Shanklin's history of the AAO, that's how this library got established. So, its like the kiss of Beethoven when you look at the people and the generations.
Minnie Orfanos: Madelene Marshall, of course, was probably the great influence, but Adelle Fisher, who I worked with, was a great influence in librarianship. I think all the colleagues in the dental field were very, the dental librarians, were influential. I remember the very first meeting I attended. Al Brandon met me and I was in charge of a meeting that year in 1950. It was my first Medical Library Association meeting. The other people had been going before that. I had Helen Kovax make a presentation from the New York University and she really did a magnificent job on the paper. We had a big crowd and it was…
Harriett Steuernagel: There's nobody coming along to take place of these people that worked so hard for dentistry. There's nobody right now that you can really point to.
Minnie Orfanos: Just June Glaser and Frank Mason. Frank Mason has been very loyal all those years. He's been coming to those meetings very quietly working, but he was involved with the accreditation of the dental libraries for the school.
Harriett Steuernagel: Its too bad there isn't somebody who's inherited, someone who'd come along and feel the same as we felt about dentistry years ago. Because I don't think the dental school would ever have been closed at Washington U if there had been more support really for the profession as a support.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, but I think that more of the dental schools aren't quite as strong as they used to be as separate entities. I think now they're becoming more involved in the health sciences facilities.
Harriett Steuernagel: I think when the construction came across for new buildings, the medical schools jumped in so few dental schools followed, but there weren't enough to make it really worthwhile.

with interviewer Celia Giltinan

Minnie Orfanos: Well, the government helped them there. See, medicine is so much larger for one thing and so much more glamorous. Dentistry is not particularly glamorous. It is very painful and it's miserable. Here you are sitting there, and how can you attract money for that? However, there is some basic research where the money has been coming in. The National Institutes of Health contributed to a lot of research that is going on in the dental schools which contributed to the health of people. We were fortunate in the library to get two grants from the National Library of Medicine for the restoration and the listing of the rare books in dentistry at Northwestern. That was very nice. Then other people applied, but the National Library of Medicine did not want to give all its money to these little libraries with their special collections. They wanted some bigger, all encompassing issues to be covered. And that's how they started to dole out their money. So, we were very lucky. We hired Paul Banks from the Newberry Library, at the time, in Chicago. He was a specialist in restoring books and we used to farm out the books to him or to Art Donnelly or to Caroline Horton in New York, and we got some very specialized work done in the rare books. And most of them are done now, we have from R through Z. We have only about $40,000 left to complete that. But we had a gift of $200,000 from Dr. Jarabak which contributed greatly.
Harriett Steuernagel: From who?
Minnie Orfanos: Dr. Jarabak.
Ron Sims: Jarabak, he was an orthodontist.
Minnie Orfanos: Right, an orthodontist who contributed to the library, but he gave a lot of money to other schools, too. But he did give us $200,000 and were able to complete most of the restoration work and also install the online system in the library because we did not have that. Of all the university libraries, we were the first to apply for the online, but didn't have the money to do it and we weren't getting it from the administration, so, consequently, this great gift helped us to establish the dental collection online.
Ron Sims: He paid for all the NOTIS terminals at the dental school library and our hook-up.
Harriett Steuernagel: Oh, great.
Minnie Orfanos: He was a marvelous donator, but he did that for, he gave to the other schools, too-$200,000. Evidently, that must have been some particular fund that he would dole out to the other schools in the various departments. We were the only library, I think, that got money from him. But I remember him as a student, and I'd be eating lunch and he'd come up and want a book from the medical school and I'd have to go down during my lunch hour and get him that book because he was really a very demanding man, and that was alright. I was young and really tried to cooperate with him. I didn't mind it, but some of the secretaries who I had lunch with were up in arms with it. But coming from a Greek heritage where women catered and did all the things for the man, why, I didn't actually feel the, you know, it wasn't bad for me to do that. That was okay. So, anyway, that's some of our story.
Ron Sims: We'll go to Section II, although we've covered a lot of these things. I'll just throw out the topic at this point and we'll maybe repeat ourselves which there is certainly nothing wrong with repeating ourselves. As we repeat things, we'll just emphasize it. Now, we'll talk about career choice. We have already discussed, I think, how and when you first became interested in library science and actually, we've covered how did you choose specialization. I think for both of you it sort of came serendipitously. As for probably all of us. You an interested in library science and then your specialty is sort of, we'll say, thrust upon you. We take the ball and run which we all have done.
Minnie Orfanos: Including you!
Ron Sims: Including me.
Minnie Orfanos: And you!
Celia Giltinan: One of the questions that did occur to me. Do we know, for the orthodontics, I know Angle and I know like this lineage of orthodontists, who was the first dental librarian? Do we have somebody we can identify like G. V. Black or Angle, the person who kind of got us going and to bring us to this modern day?
Ron Sims: Well, Dr. Bebb?
Minnie Orfanos: I think Dr. Bebb was our first librarian, but he was also a dentist. Dr. A. D. Black sent Bebb to Europe to collect this rare book collection. Bebb was very, very smart. He'd go in to these little book stalls and buy a bunch of books, but there'd only be one or two in dental, because he never wanted these men to know what he was buying. So he'd go ahead and take out the dental books, and then he'd go to another book stall and sell back the books that he didn't want, and then buy books from this man, and he collected five dental collections. Madelene Marshall came and she the library books and Dr. A.D. Black organized the periodical literature. So, then that became very structured and contributed a great deal to the practice of dentistry. But Dr. Bebb was really, I would say, the initiator at Northwestern. You said secretaries were the initiator at Washington U. I don't know about other libraries. The ADA had Judith Hunt.
Ron Sims: That name I don't know.
Minnie Orfanos: Yea, she was there long before Don and then Hillenbrand came in and, you know, Hillenbrand is a gung-ho man and he went ahead and did a lot of…
Ron Sims: He's a Loyola grad …
Minnie Orfanos: Yes he is, he's a Loyola grad, yes he is, but you know what? He was very good for dentistry. He raised dentistry and he put up that building. And then the Medical Association did the same thing with it. But he did a good job on the library, an excellent job on the library, and he had provided services for the dentists with the package libraries and the services that they could go in. Yes, right, he was really very…, it was Hillenbrand that did that.
Celia Giltinan: I was wondering where this concept of package libraries came from.
Minnie Orfanos: It came from there and then Don Washburn came over and perfected that and renovated the library and brought it up to date.
Ron Sims: Most physicians are associated with the hospital and have access to hospital library. Dentists are usually in a single practice, having no access to literature, and that's why Hillenbrand wanted dentist's to continue their education. You know the old G. V. Black motto, "A professional <person> has no other right than to be a continuous student." G. V. said that in 1901.
Minnie Orfanos: And Dr. Hillenbrand followed up on that. He held no prejudices. He was very, very good. So, that was your first area of dental librarians. I don't know about other librarians.
Ron Sims: I was thinking, you can't think of any east coast people?
Minnie Orfanos: You know who I am thinking of is the woman that was at the New York Academy of Medicine… She wrote the first library handbook. That very sweet woman that was in before us at the American Academy of Medicine. Remember? Gertrude Annan! Yes, Gertrude Annan. She had some influence in dentistry. She had cataloged the collection at the New York Academy of Medicine. And I think that she was a leader on the east coast. That was the only one that I can think of.
Ron Sims: Nobody at Baltimore that you can think of?
Minnie Orfanos: Oh yes! There was…Robinson was her last name. Ida Mae Robinson. She was very influential. She had a very good collection at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.
Ron Sims: Then at Pennsylvania…
Minnie Orfanos: Was Margaret Palmer. There were people in these libraries. We're just talking about Northwestern, but these other people were very influential and they were very much involved in the dental section of the Medical Library Association. Who else was there?
Ron Sims: Let's say NYU…
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, you know, Helen Lavick. She was a very good friend of Madelene Marshall's, who was my predecessor. And they worked together to try to get the dental libraries in shape and train the students in the use of the library.
Harriett Steuernagel: But, unfortunately, there is no one who follows those people. I don't know what it takes to bring them in to it or get them interested but there's just no one, the names that we have from the past are great but we don't have people coming on now.
Minnie Orfanos: They didn't have the interest. I think the mechanics have sort of curtailed.
Celia Giltinan: Because now you don't have these special dental collections. They're part of the health sciences collection.
Minnie Orfanos: However, Philadelphia is still separate. I think that is separate. Baltimore College is no longer separate. New York University is separate, but it's under the Medical Library, which is alright, there's nothing wrong with that.
Ron Sims: Toronto is separate still.
Minnie Orfanos: Toronto is separate. And Manitoba was separate until, I think, Doris left. I think that was integrated in to the medical collection, but I'm not sure about that at Manitoba.
Ron Sims: Who at Michigan? Before Sue Seger?
Minnie Orfanos: Wasn't there a Rankin? Her name was Rankin. Wasn't she in charge of the library before Susan came in?. We'll have to look in to that. Because I think that these other people are very worthy, like Ida Mae Robinson contributed even to the American Association of Dental Schools. She was the first speaker when we had that meeting many, many years ago and she came to Washburn's meetings at the ADA, and Margaret Palmer, I remember her. Tall, stately gray-haired lady, she was very charming and did a great job in that library.
Ron Sims: Now who at St. Louis U? At the dental school there, do you remember who was there, Harriett? Did they have a separate dental library for that?
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, they did.
Harriett Steuernagel: They did.
Minnie Orfanos: I don't remember who…
Harriett Steuernagel: They closed that quite a long time ago. Was one of the first to go.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes it was.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, I should know more about that cause that's like where Angle's connection came in to St. Louis U. They still have their orthodontic department but they don't have the dental school.
Minnie Orfanos: Isn't that interesting that that orthodontic department survived but it was a very famous orthodontic department.
Harriett Steuernagel: Then they continued their orthodontic department for a long time after that, but then they finally closed that.
Minnie Orfanos: Did they?
Celia Giltinan: No, not at St. Louis U.
Harriett Steuernagel: St. Louis U.
Minnie Orfanos: Its still going.
Harriett Steuernagel: Oh, it's still going?
Celia Giltinan: Its one of the biggest ones. They still take 15 students.
Minnie Orfanos: 15 students? Very good.
Harriett Steuernagel: Okay
Minnie Orfanos: I wondered about the teaching. Did they integrate the graduates in with the medical students into some of the courses? Or do they…
Celia Giltinan: That I don't know. It's all separate, I think. As a matter of fact, they've got a new clinic. They're moving in to a new facility. I haven't been down there.
Minnie Orfanos: They must be doing well.
Celia Giltinan:: I think they recently got an endowment from a graduate. Nobody that I had ever heard of or anybody.
Minnie Orfanos: It wasn't Jarabak?
Celia Giltinan: No, no but that's funny because you know there is a Jarabak award, or chair at Loyola, and then we have the Ida and the Jarabak award every year at annual session.
Minnie Orfanos: His daughter probably does.
Celia Giltinan: I wasn't sure if it was the AAO or if it's a foundation or American Board, but somebody selects the winner.
Ron Sims: We need to also mention some of our Southern schools like Meharry or Howard.
Harriett Steuernagel: Howard!
Minnie Orfanos: Howard was with Dr. Dickson. Remember? We worked with Dr. Dickson, too, when he was President of the American Association of Dental Schools. Remember? Didn't we go to Washington D. C. and didn't he take us out to see his school and his library.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: Dr. Dickson was a graduate of Northwestern so we had an in with him. He was favorable for libraries, and he had a good library for his school, for the number of years that it was going.
Ron Sims: When I was thinking Dr. Clifton Dummett who I have helped…
Minnie Orfanos: He came from…, he didn't come from Howard, he came from Meharry.
Minnie Orfanos: I wonder of he's a graduate of Northwestern.
Ron Sims: He did his advanced degree at Northwestern
Minnie Orfanos: I can't remember what it is.
Ron Sims: And what about Creighton? The real middle west schools. When you think of Creighton and University of Nebraska.
Minnie Orfanos: I can't remember anybody from there that stayed long enough to influence the collections there. I think they were integrated pretty quickly. Much earlier than any of the big collections.
Ron Sims: I am going now to the west coast where we have USC, that's still Frank.
Minnie Orfanos: Now, that's a separate collection.
Ron Sims: The University of The Pacific is still separate.
Minnie Orfanos: The University of Oregon.
Ron Sims?: Well, the University of The Pacific, San Francisco, but I think the dental school is in San Francisco and the medical is in….
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, that's why its separate.
Ron Sims: They're in a different location. It's not Stockton. But anyway, it's near San Francisco. And UCLA.
Minnie Orfanos: At UCLA, Louise Darling was the key one there.
Ron Sims: And that's always been an integrated collection?
Minnie Orfanos: It's always been an integrated collection but she has always, when she first started that collection she made a tour of all the libraries and she came to the dental schools in the libraries and met with the dental librarians and got a lot of information about dental collections. Then she went back home and she developed her collection. And she was for the dental schools. She worked well with the dental schools.
Harriett Steuernagel: Estelle Brodman did not do a lot for dentistry, but she was always favorable to it. She never did anything to obstruct it. She always included us in everything that would help us.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, I thought she was…
Harriett Steuernagel: She has a nephew at Washington U in the MD. Ph. D. program. And I've been talking with him, but he's pretty, leans toward the medical school, of course.
Minnie Orfanos: Is Estelle still living?
Harriett Steuernagel: I think so.
Minnie Orfanos: Is Gertrude Annan still living?
Harriett Steuernagel: I'm not sure.
Minnie Orfanos: And who was the tall woman… Janet Doe!
Harriett Steuernagel: Janet Doe!
Minnie Orfanos: I remember Janet Doe at the meetings, the very first meetings I went to.
Celia Giltinan: Who was she?
Minnie Orfanos: Janet Doe was in charge of the New York Academy of Medicine.
Ron Sims: They have the annual lecture in her memory.
Minnie Orfanos: That was good.
Harriett Steuernagel: There just aren't people like that anymore.
Minnie Orfanos: Well that was a different time.
Ron Sims: It's a different time. Its curious when you look even at dentistry. You see the early people, G. V. Black, these folks there just doesn't seem to be…
Minnie Orfanos: A leader.
Ron Sims: A leader.
Harriett Steuernagel: I know.
Ron Sims: And then there Harold Hillenbrand. And you can go through and say these strong people who really come along and give some focus and forwardness to the various associations. It's curious how things rise and fall.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, they don't have the same interests, and, I think money is the big thing these days. You have to make the money in order to stay with a job and then they're enticed elsewhere.
Celia Giltinan: Did you come to St. Louis when Washington U dedicated the library to Harriett?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, I did. I was there.
Celia Giltinan: I went but I don't remember what year it was but I couldn't have been working here that long at the time.
Minnie Orfanos: I don't remember you at all.
Celia Giltinan: I had met Aletha Kowitz at that time. I had already met her. So that was one of the few people I knew when I was in such awe being in a room with all these people.
Minnie Orfanos: So, you've been here quite a while now.
Celia Giltinan: It will be thirteen years November 4. That was pretty interesting when Wash U made that.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, yes, in fact, Linda's father, who is a gyny man, said, when I mentioned Harriett, he says that name is very familiar to me. That's very good. You had an impact even on the medical faculty at Washington U.
Harriett Steuernagel: Okay
Ron Sims: We'd like to take a little break here.
BREAK
Harriett Steuernagel: ….I gave that man, a pathologist of honor at our meeting, this reunion meeting this fall. What's his name? He wrote the big book on pathology.
Minnie Orfanos: Wood? Dr. Wood?
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes.
Ron Sims: Norman.
Minnie Orfanos: Norman Wood.
Harriett Steuernagel: No, Gordon.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh Gordon. I don't remember. It was good.
Harriett Steuernagel: He was there, yes. It was nice to see him.
Celia Giltinan: That was one of the things Kathy Gallagher ask me to have you talk about was Estelle Broadman. You were talking about Estelle Broadman earlier and what she did for… and it's funny, Kathy was like, Estelle Broadman did a lot for library science and I think Harriett just said she didn't do that much for dentistry but she didn't hamper.
Minnie Orfanos: She did organize that library didn't she? At Washington U. What did she do when she went in there?
Harriett Steuernagel: She just took it over from that girl from… went to west. What was her name? It was a short name.
Minnie Orfanos: It wasn't that oriental girl? No because the oriental girl came after.
Harriett Steuernagel: No she came afterward.
Minnie Orfanos: I should know the name but I can't think of it now.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, I remember Ginny Chan, but…
Minnie Orfanos: What did she do to the library, what did Estelle do to contribute to the library. How did she contribute to the library?
Harriett Steuernagel: Well,
Minnie Orfanos: Her library. She had good people didn't she?
Harriett Steuernagel: She had good people yes she did.
Minnie Orfanos: She had that man that worked in the rear book room. What was his name? Wasn't he a good friend of yours? The one that used to, after he retired used to come in and visit you once a year in the summer time.
Harriett Steuernagel: No.
Ron Sims: On the Washington U campus what sort of other interaction did you have with the other librarians? Like in the other disciplines.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, right. She was good at that. I think she made our library better well known.
Ron Sims: That was just in the health sciences or medicine.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes and that was just the beginning of the computers. So she had gotten in to that.
Celia Giltinan: Do you know the name…
Harriett Steuernagel: She taught down at Mizzou too. She gave a course down there. She had me come down one time and talk on dentistry and the libraries and so on.
Ron Sims: So it was the library school at Columbia, Missouri?
Harriett Steuernagel: At Columbia right.
Celia Giltinan: That's where I did my library degree. I was going to say do you know the name Ralph Parker? Because he was apparently a librarian who was really involved with the early computerization of libraries. And he had gone in to retirement and the library management course, you know the core course, the instructor quit two weeks before the semester started and Ralph Parker came in. When I was working for the College of Pharmacy, this was maybe my third or fourth class, she said, "who's your instructor?" Oh, I said some old guy. Real old guy is name is Ralph Parker. She's said "Ralph Parker!" You know it could have been Elvis Presley or somebody. She was just so excited. I just thought it was some old coot. No this is a really important individual. I was really fortunate then.
Minnie Orfanos: I remember the name but I don't remember too much about him anymore.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, it's one of those Missouri…
Minnie Orfanos: Local folk.
Celia Giltinan: I think so.
Minnie Orfanos: Don Washburn used to have a luncheon group and we met once a week at the cafeteria in the American Dental Association building. And there was always a table. Don would all ways get there early at 11:30 and we would be there.
Ron Sims: And it wasn't restricted to just dental librarians.
Minnie Orfanos: No, no, no. It was the Chicago area librarians. Some of them came pretty regularly. Others came intermittently, even though they didn't come on any schedule. It was just wonderful. We just had a wonderful time. Don always had an agenda at the back of his mind. If there was an issue that was being brought before the associations at the time, he would bring it up and he would get the information from all of us. If there was some news item outside that he thought we should be thinking about. He was very… it was wonderful he did a repertoire of stories. He was fabulous with languages. He just knew languages. He just had a knack for that. And he was really very interested in librarianship. He did an excellent job.
Ron Sims: They tried to continue that, I think, they called it the Michigan Avenue Bridge Librarian's Committee, or something. Because there were so many associations in downtown Chicago within walking distance of the Michigan Avenue Bridge: AMA, ALA, ADA, and APA. They are all right there. Well, the American College of Surgeons is right there. So they really had a fine group. They have tried to continue that, and that was still in to the '80's because we would get notices when I was at the ADA, they would have their weekly or monthly meeting. Then it was discontinued.
Minnie Orfanos: It wasn't the same without Don. Don had stories and Bill Beatty would come, and he was the literature man and was very up on current literature in the Medical Library Association and the medical literature and it was a very interesting group. We had business libraries. We had technical libraries. Some man came from Des Plains from the Anesthesia Association.
Ron Sims: What other organizations were you involved with?
Harriett Steuernagel: …I guess special libraries.
Ron Sims: Did you go to any of the ALA things?
Harriett Steuernagel: ALA, once in awhile, but not too often.
Ron Sims: Yes, it was close by, so I would say…
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes.
Ron Sims: Minnie did you?
Minnie Orfanos: I join the American Association of Dental Schools, and I was part of, for a little while in the Special Library Association.
Harriett Steuernagel: And the American Association of Dental Schools. Things like that. Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: Medical Library Association was really the biggest thing for us. I was financial trustee for eleven years for the Medical Library Association. I wasn't a great deal. I signed a checks, that's all I did. They would bring me the checks at the Ritz Carlton, and I'd sit there in the Ritz Carlton and I'd sign checks for the Medical Library Association. When they did away with the job they made a cake in the form of a check. It was really very nice. I'm sorry they didn't take a picture of it. That would have been nice, but anyway. You get to know the executives of the Medical Library Association. One year we did not have an executive. What happened was that something had happened in between. It ended up that Anne Kirker and I were trying to look around for a meeting place, for a home for the Medical Library Association and different activities, and one year the executive secretary and I didn't attend one meeting we were so busy with the registration, counting of the money and doing all of the other things. So, it was a varied experience. But, I was very close to the headquarter's offices so we didn't have any problems getting it together.
Ron Sims: They never had any problems from your school administration.
Minnie Orfanos: No. In fact, the school administration encouraged us to participate, and if we participated, they paid all of our expenses. We never had to be concerned about expenses to meetings. In fact, whenever I interviewed anyone I always tried to encourage them, when they went to talk to the dean, to say that they would be, one on the stipulations for accepting the job would be going to the Medical Library Association meeting. So they got their expenses from the very beginning. That would always be included in the budget.
Ron Sims: Are there any MLA meetings that really stand out in you mind? I heard stories of someone going to the racetrack. But I can't remember who that person was.
Minnie Orfanos: She was coming up to my summer home in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin. And so, on her way over to drive up, she passed the racetrack so she thought she'd stop and place a few bets. <laughter> Just as she was leaving to get in to her car, she heard this winning horse and it was the one that she had bet on so she went back to get her winnings. You know who that was?
Ron Sims: I think it was someone sitting next to me here!
Harriett Steuernagel: They still take us from Orchard House to the riverfront and to the one other one. We go to two of them.
Ron Sims: Is it Cahokia Downs?
Celia Giltinan: No, there is a Fairmont Park but I think she is talking about the River Boat Casinos.
Harriett Steuernagel: They take us somewhere called the RiverFront and another one that's called … I don't know what it is called. It is on the river some how but not down at St. Louis.
Ron Sims Do you go up to Alton?
Harriett Steuernagel: No.
Celia Giltinan: There's St. Charles.
Harriett Steuernagel: St. Charles, yes, right.
Celia Giltinan: So they just taking you to the boats in Missouri.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: She has always been a tremendous better. We used to go to the American Dental Association meetings, and we went out to Las Vegas. I'd hit the nickel machines, she'd hit the dollar machines. She'd be watching some man playing the dollar machine. He would walk away from it. She'd go over and stick her dollar and, by George, maybe a couple bucks she'd put in there and then she'd come out with a fist full of money. She had won $200 one night just watching these guys play the machine, walk away from it and go and play it.
Harriett Steuernagel: I remember one time Minnie and I were going to meet for dinner, and I had won a $100. So, I got it changed into a $100 bill, I wanted to wave it. And I went in and I guess putting on a jacket, I lost it. The next morning I went to the same machine and I won another $100. Minnie said, well you would have had $200. I said no I wouldn't have because I would have stopped after a $100.
Minnie Orfanos: She had to win that $100. Were you with us when we took the Swansons to the shows? And we went to one of the shows…
Harriett Steuernagel: I don't think so.
Ron Sims: Which Swansons are they?
Minnie Orfanos: The Henry Swansons who was very active in the American College of Dentists. Dr. & Mrs. Swanson and then their daughter, Margaret, who was also executive director of the American Dental Hygienist Association.
Ron Sims: Okay.
Minnie Orfanos: So, we would go to the shows in Las Vegas. It was my treat. And I was taking them to the show. And somebody suggested that we go to such-and-such show, I can't even remember what it was.
Ron Sims: Go to Harrah's or something?
Minnie Orfanos: Probably, one of the big ones. And it was a girlie show. I was horrified sitting next to Dr. Swanson.
Ron Sims: You thought it was just going to be a big dance thing.
Minnie Orfanos: I thought it was just going to be a good show like some of the others we had been attending.
Harriett Steuernagel: Oh, great!
Minnie Orfanos: We have met some wonderful people through the libraries.
Celia Giltinan: Since you were talking about that luncheon group that Dr. Washburn had. Locally, we had the St. Louis Medical Librarians, and Harriett and I were talking about that one time. I think Estelle might have been involved with getting that started.
Harriett Steuernagel: Okay.
Celia Giltinan: I don't know that much about it.
Minnie Orfanos: Do you remember that luncheon group that Estelle had organized?
Celia Giltinan: Just how the St. Louis Medical Librarians got started.
Harriett Steuernagel: I think it kind of petered out. I do not think it amounted to very much.
Minnie Orfanos: How long was it going on?
Harriett Steuernagel: Not very long.
Celia Giltinan: Do you have any chapter groups like that, or this group that you had lunch with, it was an informal group?
Minnie Orfanos: It was an informal group, but it was regular. And somebody was always there. And Don was always there, and other people would come in. And sometimes it was a huge group and sometime it would be just maybe three or four of us. It was a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to the other librarians.
Harriett Steuernagel: I got involved with Enid Idle who was with the….
Minnie Orfanos: That's right. The American Association of Dental Schools.
Harriett Steuernagel: …American Association of Dental Schools, and she gave a talk I guess when I retired. Anyway, she was very active and interested, but she didn't pick it up and carry it.
Minnie Orfanos: I don't know if she is still with the ADA.
Ron Sims: No. She is retired from the ADA and has gone back to Columbia. And she is a consultant with the dental school there. She is a pharmacologist and Ph.D and wrote one of the textbooks that is used for dentistry and pharmacology.
Celia Giltinan: Kathy Gallager had also talked about Harriett had worked locally with a Dr. Irwin Pizer, or librarian, trying to identify libraries here in St. Louis that had special early medical serial collections.
Harriett Steuernagel: He died not too long ago.
Minnie Orfanos: And then he went up to the University of Illinois to the Medical…
Ron Sims: Library of the Health Sciences.
Minnie Orfanos: Library of the Health Sciences there. He was there for quite a while. And, he became president of the Medical Library Association one year. He was also convention chairman one year. He was very active in the association. But, he started here in St. Louis with Estelle Broadman.
Harriett Steuernagel: He was a good friend with Estelle Broadman.
Ron Sims: Did you work on special projects with Irwin?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes she did.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: What was the periodical project that you worked on?
Harriett Steuernagel: What was that?
Minnie Orfanos: It was called by a special name. That was when they were first beginning to computerize the periodicals. It was the holdings that they were computerizing.
Ron Sims: So you did a union list of periodicals? Are they pre-19th century or 18th century?
Harriett Steuernagel: I don't think so, no.
Minnie Orfanos: They were current periodicals, and they were on cards. What was that card system called? We should have done some homework.
Ron Sims: That is okay. We can edit this later with our little contract here and you can add things. I'll let you read the transcripts afterwards and then you can jot down a few items that we may have forgotten. That will fill in the blanks here.
Minnie Orfanos: We can look them up and have them available. Right.
Ron Sims: Because we can't keep on top of everything.
Minnie Orfanos: There's an awful lot of years there!
Ron Sims: We have discussed library practice for the most part. I'll go ahead and read this and maybe it will jog things here and get it going. How would you describe libraries at the time you started working? What have been the big changes in libraries? What are the major advances that you think have taken place that have effected librarianship the most?
Harriett Steuernagel: I think the computer has been the biggest thing that has come in to libraries.
Ron Sims: Early on when you first started working what was it like.
Minnie Orfanos: We had the indexes we had to go through.
Harriett Steuernagel: It was pretty dreary. Yes, right.
Minnie Orfanos: I thought it was friendly, wonderful warm atmosphere when we first went in. We worked with the students and with the faculty. We built up the services with the various teaching techniques that they, in our case, with the professor of history and dental literature. And so that you got to learn the literature. I wonder how much you learn about the literature today with the machine doing the work. I have no idea. But you do have to have the subject heading so have to have some kind of knowledge in order to pick that up. But, we had to do it from the very beginning to look up the word to find out what other ways we can look it up in the index. Then to move on to coordinating the various sources. So, it was more service oriented, I think.
Harriett Steuernagel: Yes, I think so.
Minnie Orfanos: Today we're more mechanized so that sometimes you don't even have contact with the people. They tune in to your computer and they get their search listed, and the search is done in the background, and then it's forwarded to him. Unless he has some complaints about the subject, he is not going to get in touch with you again unless just thank you for it.
Ron Sims: I have always been impressed working with Minnie's old card, the hand produced card catalog, how much analysis they did of so many of the materials. The chapter analyses and so forth that are not available, well they're not available at this point with the on line systems.
Minnie Orfanos: What so terrible is that you can't find any obituaries. It is very, very difficult to look up people because there isn't any place to go. The Index, the man is no longer listed.
Harriett Steuernagel: We have now a Head of the library that is an MD. He is not a librarian. He had a lot of criticism around the group when he first came in. But, he's beginning to kind of get himself in.
Minnie Orfanos: He is becoming aquatinted with the services and routine that are…
Harriett Steuernagel: But, I think the fact he is an MD makes him a little more distant from the library group.
Ron Sims: Dr. Washburn was a dentist and a librarian.
Harriett Steuernagel: He was a DDS. That's very different.
Ron Sims: But, he had a library degree, too.
Minnie Orfanos: He was scholarly. It makes a big difference. I don't think the dentists are particularly scholarly. I don't like to say this. In the outside fields, I think, for dentistry they're satisfactory. There isn't the warmth that used to exist in the olden days, I feel. I don't know, however, I think it's very nice that people come in and have access to people at the desk. There is contact. I think it is just…
Ron Sims: Do the computers make it cold?
Minnie Orfanos: I think so.
Ron Sims: That human touch is lacking?
Harriett Steuernagel: I think so, yes.
Minnie Orfanos: There isn't the repartee that used to take place.
Ron Sims: It is too mechanical.
Minnie Orfanos: Too mechanical. But then you see we're speaking from a different era. Now, anybody coming into the library field now, how do they feel about it? They don't know the past the way we had it unless they went through the public libraries and the high school libraries where they had contact with folks. But even there, I contribute to Preparatory Seminar Library one day a week, and the students there are using computers. The librarian is training them or they take this computer course in the school and then they go on learning to use the computer getting the literature in a prepackaged form, what is it called, the printouts.
Ron Sims: Of their searches?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, their searches. But they also have the abstracts of information, so sometimes they don't even have to go to the original source, which is not, I think, very educational.
Ron Sims: I always remind the students that the conclusion that you see in the abstract isn't necessarily the written conclusion in the printed paper, so you go look at the full text. "And I have, oh, all the abstracts are here, I can write a paper like that." Well, you can't. You have to look at the whole source.
Harriett Steuernagel: You really do. Yes.
Minnie Orfanos: You have to go to the original. That is the draw back I think of today; however, I will say that the mechanization of the literature is really a very big boon. It can harness the subject and make it available to so many people in so many places. In outlining where they wouldn't have access to it before.
Celia Giltinan: You can get a lot done faster.
Ron Sims: Yes, but there is always more to do. That is the problem with the librarians that are always saying now I don't have time to do all this work. There are too many outside influences, influencing what you are doing in your job and you can't focus on a lot things.
Minnie Orfanos: Now librarians are coming into the floor were they are being appointed to the various committees within the institution or organization that they work for. And so they're not really 100% working for the library any more. They're into…. I was on the admissions committee for, I think, eight years, four and four terms, so that took time. You interviewed the people. You evaluated the applications. I just think that there's a lot of different things that the professionals are taking on now that take them away from the library. I'm sure you do that.
Celia Giltinan: Oh, yes, I feel like I am doing less and less on the things that turned me on about a library and make me want to work in libraries. I want to be a student assistant again so that I can do shelves and reshelves.
Minnie Orfanos: Shift books.
Celia Giltinan: Right. Finding information for people is becoming even… it's as if I have delegated checking in periodicals. That is something I have always enjoyed doing.
Ron Sims: Because you get to read the literature. I will say…
Minnie Orfanos: Didn't you go through the periodicals when they came in?
Celia Giltinan: Yes, now I still do. I get the mail and I look at the table of contents real quick. If I see something I need I will photocopy it, whatever. But, you know you move it along. Now even finding time to fill informational requests is almost like a side line for all the other administrative functions. I just think that's terrible. You are here to be an information resource and it is not the primary focus. But, the note came in to let us know that our lunch is here, so anytime you guys stomach's….
Harriett Steuernagel: The medical school has the shelvers pick up all the journals that have been used and then they count them by title. So they turn them in so we know how many dental journals are used.
Celia Giltinan: I go down and use the collection. I always feel like I am a librarian. I am responsible, I should reshelve but I leave stuff laying out because I want to know that it is getting used.
Ron Sims: We are doing a lot of our selection now based on computer statistics from the usage of the journals. With the dental literature… They are always talking about budget cuts and then they see what kind of usage the thing gets. If it is not used and it is costing, out the subscription goes. Well, let's see, we have gotten to number six now. We've cruised around this area but we are going to talk about gazing into the future. Where do you think librarianship will be going in the next ten years and then beyond that the next 50 years? And do you think that the librarians entering the field today can have as worthwhile of a career as you have had?
Minnie Orfanos: To answer the last one first, I don't think it would be as exciting unless they are not aware of what we did at the beginning so they cannot compare. The youth of today cannot compare some of the family things that were done if they haven't gone through them. So my reaction would be that they probably are going to be able to do great things because they have a different point of view. They come in with a different point of view and they will be able to build on that like we did but in different ways. In what way I can't tell you.
Harriett Steuernagel: But, I think they will make it as exciting as they get involved as much with it. I think anything that you are interested in and get involved with becomes exciting. It depends a lot on the individual. I can't really see what libraries are going to do in the next 100 years, whatever, 50.
Celia Giltinan: We're even worried about the next ten.
Harriett Steuernagel: The book is more and more retrieving from the shelves.
Ron Sims: They are talking about full text databases where they have put the books online. There are a few available. Especially for the classics and the things that are not in copyrighted anymore which are in public domain. And there's all kinds of arguments with publishers about how do they get their money. Unfortunately in our modern society comes down to the dollar and how can we share this information and still get our piece of the pie for the publishers. I don't know how this is going to be resolved but that is one of the critical issues right now is dealing with the copyright and payment to the publishers, what is free pre-use.
Minnie Orfanos: Are they going to, like they have oral books now, do you think the medical and health science books will become oral books?
Ron Sims: I don't think so. You mean like for audiotapes? That is more popular literature at this point. I don't think they've tackled….
Minnie Orfanos: You don't think it will seep in to the professional fields?
Ron Sims: There are several series of, different disciplines have presentations on tapes that physicians and dentists can use to study while they are doing something else.
Minnie Orfanos: Like their national board certificates.
Ron Sims: There are those things available but again you purchase those things.
Minnie Orfanos: Would the library be purchasing oral text for the students if they become available and then become in demand?
Ron Sims: I don't know. I tend to doubt it. We have like the Merck Manual online and the Encyclopedia Britannica where you can access it quickly for information.
Minnie Orfanos: And even at home.
Ron Sims: And even at home.
Minnie Orfanos: You see, so you don't need the oral then.
Ron Sims: But, we do have the series of tapes, both video and audio in our collection. Where you can do the studying for boards or for specific subjects, even a few textbooks. I think there probably will never be a satisfactory way between the publishers and the consumers.
Minnie Orfanos: Do you think that the textbook on line will become difficult to read after a while. Do you think they will have trouble with their eyes from reading the screen instead of reading the book itself?
Ron Sims: There is always going to be that tactile thing where you have to hold that book in your hand. They are talking about screens that will even read to you now, I mean that's how far advanced they have…
Minnie Orfanos: That is part of the oral tradition.
Ron Sims: That's part of the oral, yes, I think so. But, they have microphones that you can speak in now and it types for you. There are very expensive at this point but I think as they become more used the price will come down.
Minnie Orfanos: I don't know what else to think about. I think that probably the subject headings will be perfected more, maybe they'll be studied in great detail and perfected. But, I don't know about the mechanism what can happen in the next 50 years that, this has been a great boon. I remember this coming in and being excited that Index Medicus was online …
Minnie Orfanos: There were several individuals responsible … I don't remember the names …
Ron Sims: This was at the National Library of Medicine?
Minnie Orfanos: At the National Library of Medicine, right. And Estelle was, although he did not work for her, he was kind of her mentor. And it was very exciting, because he came with the idea, she said, to the National Library of Medicine of putting this Index online. And he was the one that initiated it. But, then he went to some organization in Switzerland, I think if I remember correctly. Have your ever done and interview with Estelle Brodman? Do you have an interview with Estelle Brodman?
Ron Sims: I am sure that somebody has.
Minnie Orfanos: Okay, because she would have this information on this particular young man.
Ron Sims: Well, if we can imagine pre-computer times, and then suddenly we are thrown in with the computer, do you think there will be greater advancements from what we are doing now that will be comparable to the dramatic change from the pre-'60s?
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, I think so. I think that…
Ron Sims: Or are they even imaginable? See, that's…
Minnie Orfanos: Not at this point, no. I think Gates is really going to come through with a lot of current new things, because he has that kind of mind that can manipulate this and see how this is going to work. I can't possibly imagine.
Ron Sims: If we watch, for example Star Trek, on TV and they say "Computer", and the computer answers them back in voice, "find me this information." Do you think we will, will we have that?
Minnie Orfanos: Isn't that a precursor to… I think so.
Ron Sims: It will come to that.
Minnie Orfanos: I don't think that Star Trek is too far fetched.
Celia Giltinan: I keep saying that we librarians are going to put ourselves right out of business basically.
Ron Sims: I don't think so. We still have to guide these folks in their searches. I mean, I have MDs come to me and dentists and I still have to direct them to focus in on the specifics. They have broad range of knowledge. Then they have to take the two pieces together and cross them when they are doing a search. It is a whole different type of thinking, whereas, the librarian can pigeonhole things. The MD or dentist has a wide spectrum of knowledge but sometimes can't bring it together like you or I can.
Harriett Steuernagel: That's true, yes.
Ron Sims: Plus I know how the machine works.
Minnie Orfanos: I know young people are growing up with these machines and they are so much more adept with them. They don't even fear them like we did. You know we feared them when they first came out and were afraid to tackle them where they are not. They are schooled from the very early years. I notice the little people have little miniature computers that they can play with. They have a globe that they can put the question to and the globe answers them. The one I was looking at is $200. I was looking at it for this little four-year-old. I thought it would be kind of fun to have for her before she went to England. She said to her grandmother, "Grandma, you know," she says, "there is only one world. We are all on this one world." I felt like saying, honey you don't know that this one world enveloped, is round and has so many different places that you can go to. I think her little four-year-old mind can't fathom this one world. It was a big deal to her. The fact that it was one world. Exciting.
Ron Sims: Shall we take a break?
BREAK
Celia Giltinan: Do we know when and where the dental section was established?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes. There is some historical information on that, and my first recollection was the Baltimore Centenary when they got that group together with the dental section.
Ron Sims: So that would have been 1941?
Minnie Orfanos: 1941, yes
Ron Sims: Because that was…
Minnie Orfanos: See, Madelene Marshall came to Northwestern in '36, so I would say '40. But, you know what? I'd like to verify that.
Ron Sims: Okay, that we can do. I have something that Dr. Lynn in Potomac has sent to me with some of the history stuff which I'll include as best I can with the transcript.
Celia Giltinan : Do we know who was the first chair?
Minnie Orfanos: No.
Celia Giltinan: Or are there any chair people that stand out in either of your memory?
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, well, I would say Margaret Palmer for one. She was very good and very active. She was from Philadelphia. Helen Hoavic from New York University.
Harriett Steuernagel: Where are you all now?
Minnie Orfanos: We're right here.
Ron Sims: Outstanding figures in the dental section.
Harriett Steuernagel: Okay.
Minnie Orfanos: Do you remember anybody, Harriett, that…
Celia Giltinan: Any controversial figures?
Minnie Orfanos: Alderson Fry.
Celia Giltinan: Alderson Fry.
Minnie Orfanos: Remember Alderson Fry, he always advocated the combined health sciences library. He used to come and tease the heck out of me. Alderson Fry used to, and he was an innovative person, he has neat ideas. You know when you're first starting and you're just trying to grab a hold of the information that you're supposed to know. It was really very challenging. He was a challenging person. But he always came to all the dental meetings. He came to every single one of them. He was a librarian at West Virginia University. He was the one that Ben Robinson got him, you know Ben Robinson from Baltimore College of Dental Surgery… Yes, he was an early dean. He was that one that got him to organize that library. He went down after he retired from Dean at Baltimore to become Dean at this West Virginia School.

Celia, Ron and Harriett

 

Ron Sims: Dr. Washburn, of course. We have had long conversations with him.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, Dr. Washburn, definitely.
Ron Sims: I'm sorry we didn't get to do an oral history with Don.
Minnie Orfanos: That would have been very good because he had a phenomenal memory, and he also had many, many friends and contacts. He also went over seas to the libraries and visited with the people over there too. He was very active.
Celia Giltinan: Was Minnie your boss at one time?
Minnie Orfanos: No, never.
Celia Giltinan: Oh, that's right, because you were at the ADA.
Ron Sims: I have known Minnie since 1978. That is when I returned to the University. But she was never my boss. We have always just been friends.
Celia Giltinan: Any unique contributions to librarianship? In general from the dental section. Well, we sure got one now!
Minnie Orfanos: I would say the list that Roy Frank and Ron's….
Ron Sims: Well, your list, too. Your previous lists.
Minnie Orfanos: Well, my previous lists, and the fact that I instituted the fact to get the theses in the Index. Because what I did was I started to list all the indexes that, all the theses that we had at Northwestern University, and I mimeographed them and sent them out to everybody. And then they asked for their copies back. That's when I gave that to Don and he was to incorporate those into the Index to Dental Literature. So, I would say that the unique contributions to librarianship were the perfection of the indexes and the institution of the online for dentistry would be great. Perfection of the indexes that Dr. Washburn was responsible for, and then the online of dentistry.
Ron Sims: How about you Harriett? Anybody special that we haven't mentioned before?
Harriett Steuernagel: No. I am trying to think.
Ron Sims: I have only been active since 1990 with the Dental Section. I didn't get involved when I was at the ADA. Not until I went to Northwestern did I get particularly involved. So seven years is not too long of a time. We'll make our impact at a later date.
Harriett Steuernagel: Okay.
Celia Giltinan: That's interesting that Minnie didn't, like she said earlier she got financial support to go to meetings and it's the kind of thing that we were even taught in library school that you go and that you get involved in your professional organizations and you should participate. And when I worked for College of Pharmacy for Helen she got me in St. Louis Medical Librarians and encouraged me and mentored me. Then when I came here, "what do you mean you want to go to a meeting? You are going to have to make up that time since you are out of the building." I'm like, but nobody else does. There wasn't the support.
Ron Sims: But you established yourself here as the librarian and then got these benefits for yourself.
Celia Giltinan: Right. But it was something that they didn't understand.
Minnie Orfanos: Yes, because I don't remember the orthodontic whatever coming to the early dental meetings. That's very good. Good thing you did that. Do you get any assistance?
Celia Giltinan: Sort of.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, you're it then.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, basically I'm it. Recently I've gotten, there's a person, we have two people at the front desks answering the phones. And, they used to just, at the front desk, or up in the front office hire someone and then that person was assigned to assist me with photocopying and circulation of videos. But it just was never working. We'd have these two girls down in front and they would be girlfriends and covering for each other. And, I said you could hire someone who's worked in a library that could answer the phones and still be able to work in the library. So, last year I hired a woman who's actually a couple years older than me and she worked for the St. Louis County library system for 10 years. So, she understands circulation and service and helping people. But what is new for her, is she's used to having an initial contact with the patron and being done with them, and now she's getting to where she has to keep track of things she has done and spoon feeding people information. It is not just a quick, you're done with somebody.
Ron Sims: That's on the phone, that was my, when I was at the ADA I almost never saw the members, you were always on the 800 line and answering questions from A to Z.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, and you, the literature search is done, and you get that information out, and you never really know whether you've been effective or not. I mean, you can say someone says I need a certain article and they tell you the article and you photocopy it and send it. But when you're doing the actual research, you don't always know until the box of candy comes or the flowers. You know every now and then we get a gift like that. Now, I've saved, I've got a fat file folder downstairs of thank-you notes.
Minnie Orfanos: That's good, and the thing is that, do you get to go to the meetings now? To the annual meetings?
Celia Giltinan: They are so close to our meetings that they conflict with the AAO national meeting. It is usually the same week or the week after. Last year was, no you couldn't have any financial support because I had gone to a leadership and librarianship course that Brook Sheldon had at University of Texas. My supervisor said you know you could use your frequent flyer miles to pay for your airfare and the AAO will give you the time off and not charge it against your vacation. So I think that is what we'll do in Philadelphia this year is I'll probably use my frequent flyer miles to pay for my airfare and I'll pay for the hotel out of pocket. I think that will be okay, because when I was younger and started working here I wasn't paid very much and couldn't afford to do it. Now I'm in a better situation. And then I get the frequent flyer miles because they send me to constituent society meetings and the annual session.
Minnie Orfanos: Oh, very good. Boy, I wondered how you built those up. I wondered about that.
Celia Giltinan: Yes, we were talking about before the "excitingness" of your career when you came in and how it is seemingly more exciting for you that it is for us now. But, my situation is so unique because of the fact that they do send me out to the regional orthodontist meetings. I interact with them.
Ron Sims: Do you participate in St. Louis….
Celia Giltinan: St. Louis Medical Librarians…
Ron Sims: Or the Dental Society meetings?
Celia Giltinan: No
Ron Sims: Have you done anything with the RML ….
Celia Giltinan: No.
Ron Sims: The regional library here?
Celia Giltinan: Very little other than go to meetings, which we just had our constituents, what I call constituents, Mid-Continental Medical Library Association was just here like a week ago.