Once upon a time, a long... long... time ago, I was the English teacher and librarian at Blue Mountain Academy, an SDA boarding academy near Hamburg, Pennsylvania. My job description was to teach six classes of English each day (four preparations) and be responsible for the library.

Blue Mountain Academy was built in 1954-55 at the base of the picturesque Blue Mountain in Northeastern PA. The East Pennsylvania Conference had purchased some 750 acres with seven farms located on them. The academy was erected on a large flat acreage in the midst of these farms. Joan and I were founding faculty members of the institution, coming there in 1954. In the early days the student body fluctuated between 370-420 students.

My wife and I spent nine happy years there, but in 1964 a significant happening occurred in our lives that changed the course of history (at least our history).

I had just completed my MSLS degree at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Back then there were only three librarians in academies who had earned a graduate degree in Library Science—Margaret Duncan of Pine Forge Academy in Pennsylvania (an all black school), a librarian at Lynwood Academy in California and I.

I was in my ninth year at BMA when the Columbia Union Conference organized a Union-wide convention of academy teachers at a hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I was asked to arrange for a display of new paperback books. This was a bit maverick because "these books did not have 'hard' covers and would not last very long." Paperback books were just coming into their own in 1964. Anyway, I took a shine to them primarily because of their cheap prices.

Just a week before the Conference, I received a phone call from Dr. Keld Reynolds, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Loma Linda University who wanted to fly back East and interview me. Dr. Reynolds wanted to arrive at the same time as the Conference was being held, over in New Jersey.

When Dr. Reynolds heard that, he offered to come to Atlantic City and interview me there. Well, California was the farthest from my mind! My family was mostly on the East coast in Youngstown, Ohio. Also, when word spread around the hotel that someone from Loma Linda University had come all the way east to see George about a job, his well-meaning friends confided to him that Southern California was a "hot bed" of Adventist liberalism!

Sometime later while George and Joan pondered all of this, Dr. Reynolds called and asked me if I would be willing to fly West and visit the University for a few days. I agreed, with reservations. It never entered my mind that I might be moving from academy teaching and librarianship to a university, and not as one of the librarians, but as the Director of the Library!

Before the flight West a letter arrived from a woman librarian who called herself Alice Gregg. Alice introduced herself and said she heard I was coming to LLU. She also announced that she had been assigned an office in a bathroom. Well, what a way to be introduced to the library. I was nonplussed, to say the least.

Time has a way of smoothing the bumps of life, and I soon learned that Alice marched to a different drummer. OK, I decided. I'll march with her!

On the flight West to Los Angeles Dr. Reynolds met me at LAX, and we were soon on our way out. Outside I realized that it was almost dark, which led me to say, "Your twilight is really short!" "Yes," Dr. Reynolds said, "You have longer twilights back East." At the university I was introduced to the library staff and a few of the classroom faculty. It was about this time that I learned I was also responsible for the large medical library at the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles (more on this later).

Palm trees and avocados; orange, lemon and grapefruit trees; sunshine galore. What an interesting and exciting part of America. I walked through the orange groves streets on the south side of Loma Linda that are now houses on Daisy, Tulip, Hillcrest and Lawton. I was smitten with the wild and woolly West! Returning home to Pennsylvania, I received a telephone call from Elder E.A. Robertson, Educational Secretary of the Columbia Union Conference. He learned about my "call" and wanted to give me some advice.

"George, you are making a mistake if you accept the offer from Loma Linda. You have only worked in an academy setting. You haven't had any library experience at the college level. You should do that first; then think about the university."

Joan and I parleyed together, and finally I said to my wife, "The university knows my educational background. They know my work experience. They also know I'm in my late thirties, but in spite of all of that they are still extending the invitation to come. Maybe God is saying something to us!" Joan agreed and we accepted the call.

We moved in August of 1964. As we drove through Cajon Pass into Loma Linda, I had told Joan about the mountains around Loma Linda which I had seen so clearly in early spring. Now they were gone! Our first experience with the smog problem in Southern California!

Dr. and Mrs. Dalton Baldwin had come to Loma Linda earlier and were living on Mead Lane. We had known them in Pennsylvania, so we asked them to find us a house to rent. Dalton found one across the street from them.

Lillian Miller from University Realty rented the house to us. A few months later we bought a new home on Tulip Avenue, which we have owned now for forty years. At the time Joan's father thought we were very foolish to buy a home for $27,500 with a monthly mortgage payment of $155 per month!

Beginnings at Loma Linda University

The library at the White Memorial Hospital was in the basement of Paulson Hall. It was probably the largest hospital library in Los Angeles. The holdings of the library were almost exclusively clinical in nature, because the medical school in those days was divided. Students went to the Loma Linda campus for the basic medical sciences and then transferred to the Los Angeles campus for clinical medicine at the White and the Los Angeles County Hospital.

The decision had been made before I arrived to consolidate the two campuses (under pressure from the accrediting body of the American Medical Association). Our church, after a struggle between consolidating at Loma Linda or Los Angeles, decided in favor of Loma Linda.

The library at Loma Linda was primarily basic science, and the one at the White was clinical. My job was to transfer to Loma Linda any books and journals that the Loma Linda library did not have. Joyce Marson and Mollie Sitner were the librarians there at the White. Joyce was in charge. After her husband died at Walla Walla College, Mollie came to live in the Los Angeles area and worked part time with Joyce.

Now you can understand how the ladies felt. I was commissioned to deplete their library and have the items shipped to Loma Linda. I came down to the White once a week to "encourage" the ladies and help them understand that I had no malice toward them. My task was to merge the two libraries on the Loma Linda campus. Sometimes I rode down to Los Angeles with Jerry Pettis, who was working for LLU and later became U.S. congressman from our district in Loma Linda.

Jerry's untimely death in his private plane near Banning, CA shook up the people of our area. The memorial service was held in the University Church. Two or three helicopters filled with members of U.S. Congress landed on the campus between the church and the Dental School. It was a sad, but impressive service.

As I have said before, I came to Loma Linda in 1964. Just prior to that Dr. G.T. Anderson, President of La Sierra College, was appointed President of a "new" institution—formerly called The College of Medical Evangelists and now called Loma Linda University. He was a fine gentleman and scholar as well as an effective administrator. More about Dr. Anderson later.

Prior to my coming West, there was an addition put on the Vernier Radcliffe Memorial Library. It was a module of six floors of book stacks. The supports for the shelves were also supports for the floors. In other words the configuration of the stacks could never be altered.

Dr. Anderson told me of his plans for the newly re-named institution to reflect the liberal arts as well as the medical sciences. He wanted the library to reflect the new direction in its collection development program. Now we had space in the library and a charge to fulfill. We were "ripe" for something to happen!

The Slotkin Brothers' Story

Milton and Stanley Slotkin were Jewish business men who owned a chain of retail stores in southern California called "Abby Rents." You could rent anything from large pieces of heavy equipment, hospital beds to wedding banquet punch bowls, cups, tablecloths, etc. When you needed something, Abby Rents could rent it to you.

The brothers were good business men with an eye to the profit margin. They also needed tax deductions to keep the IRS from taking too much money. I am not completely clear on how this came about, but the brothers took an interest in the rehabilitation of young Los Angeles gang members whose bodies were covered with tattoos.

Somehow the Slotkins had befriended a plastic surgeon at the White Memorial Hospital. The brothers asked the surgeon if he and his staff could perform plastic surgery on these gang members who were now ashamed of their bodies. The Slotkins promised to pay all of the medical bills—honest benefactors to humanity but always with that profit margin in mind.

One day the brothers heard about a used book store in Burbank, CA that came up for sale. They bought the entire store and its contents of approximately 125,000 books. The object, of course, was to donate the books to a college or university library and then have a tax write-off for several years in the future.

Through some fluke (I think God had a hand in it.) they called LLU, and the call was directed to me. Milton Slotkin was on the phone. He wanted to know if I would like a gift of a used book store. Now, I lost my equilibrium for a moment. I had been at LLU only a few years and was still "green around the gills." I told him I needed some time to think about it.

"That's all right," he said. "I'll call again tomorrow. And if you are interested in the contents of the book store, you must move them in three days." And he hung up. Never in the annals of my brief human history had I ever been placed in such an unusual predicament! Naturally, I went to Alice Gregg, who was Chairman of our Department of Technical Services.

Alice said to me, "You know this collection of books is apt to be rich in literature, art and the social sciences. It will also be full of 'junk.' Let's take it!" I wanted to clear this with my boss, Dr. Robert Cleveland, Vice President for Academic Affairs. He was agreeable and we had six floors of empty stacks available.

Now, how was I going to get these books out here! I talked to the head of Maintenance. He agreed to organize the men and trucks. The next day Slotkin called me, and I told him we were interested. He was delighted! The brigade of men and trucks left for Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA. They packed all of the books in boxes and transported them to the LLU library.

The job was done in three days. It was an incredible journey! I was grateful. I told the men to put the boxes on the floors of the new stack module at the library.

Someone on the staff came up with the idea of a faculty party in the stacks with the boxes of books. Several classroom faculty took part opening the boxes and putting the books on the shelves. I know that a number of faculty were aghast at the titles of some of the books. I heard their comments, but we were quick to remind them that this was a used book store.

After the library staff recovered from this wild adventure, the Administration held a reception for the Slotkin brothers. Milton, who seemed a little older than Stanley, made a little speech at which time he presented to me two pages from an Incunabula, beautifully rubricated and illuminated in the margins and the initial letters of each paragraph.

I asked him where he found these. He was cagey, at first, but admitted that they were lifted out of the Incunabula books. When I objected to what he had done, his response was, "You are interested in preservation, but I am in the business of wholesale distribution." What else could I say? C'est la vie!

Sometime later I was talking to Dr. Landeen, who often came to the La Sierra library to do research. He told me that at the end of World War II when the American forces interred Berlin, he was responsible for visiting the great libraries of the cities to see how badly they were destroyed by the ravages of war.

Dr. Landeen said he found Incunabula that had pages missing, whether by bombs or pilferage. These beautiful pages ended up in antiquarian book stores in America. Where the Slotkins found/bought them is unknown to me.

One other word on the new stack addition. The faculty here were anxious to separate academic computing from the business office computing, but the academics did not know where to go. About this time two former faculty members from Pacific Union College were hired on campus: Dr. Paul Stauffer, as Dean of the graduate School, and Dr. Ivan Neilsen to be responsible for heading up an academic computing facility.

The problem was that Ivan had no space assigned to him. Being aggressive and of an entrepreneurial character, he learned about all of the library's new space. He approached me and asked to have the top floor of the stack module. I agreed to "loan" it to him until space became available. I also told him I wanted to use his facility including a programmer's time.

I saw in this move an opportunity to computerize our serials holdings and thereby printing out copies of it in book form. We did that for a number of years. Ella Belle Groves, Chairman of our Department of Periodicals, and her staff spent hours at a keypunch machine punching out IBM cards and then taking boxes of the punched cards up to Ivan's facility.

One of the programmers assigned to our job had to program a large "Mother Board" which he installed in the side of the mini computer. Then he packed all of the cards in the top of the machine, pressed the button and voila, the "Periodicals Holdings" books were printed out, bound and available on all levels of the journal stacks and a few other areas on campus.

The first several editions were printed in all caps. Difficult to Read! Young librarians today do not realize the great lead forward when the computer could cope with upper and lower case letters. The early computing efforts might seem primitive, but that is called "Progress." The mainframe and mini computer of those by-gone days have been replaced by the PC and Mac, both of which are infinitely more powerful than the early giants (bless Intel's chip!). Progress again!

One delightful characteristic of Dr. Neilsen was his sense of humor. "George, you know your library is going to be replaced by the computer and a paperless society." He told me that many times as he passed through our lobby on his way up to his ivory tower. I usually retorted with the comment, "That may be true, Ivan, but you will still need librarians to plug your computers in the wall sockets."

Merger with La Sierra

A few years after I arrived, the accrediting committee of WASC came for a formal visit. They wanted to see if there were any changes from The College of Medical Evangelists to Loma Linda University. Well, there wasn't much change except that the new president was not an MD. He was a Ph.D. in the liberal arts mode. Also, the library was expanding quickly into the humanities and the social sciences.

The major criticism was that we had very few undergraduate students, no "College of Arts and Sciences." The WASC committee said that if we were to continue to use the word "University" in our title, we needed an undergraduate component. Their suggestion was one of two scenarios: create a College of Arts and Sciences at Loma Linda or merge with a liberal arts college near-by.

Dr. Anderson, our President, picked up on the first suggestion. It had been a dream of his to build a small arts and sciences college here at Loma Linda. But church politics militated against it, because the LLU Board was composed of all the Union Conference Presidents—all of whom were looking out for their own local colleges—PUC, WMC, EMC, etc.

The presidents were afraid that the pre-med students at the new college on the LLU campus would have cart blanche acceptance into the School of Medicine, and their students would be left out. Whether this would come true or not, one could not say. Suffice it to say, the Board rejected Dr. Anderson's dream. Subsequently, the Board negotiated with our Adventist college in Riverside—La Sierra College, some twenty miles away.

In the merging of the campuses, the two libraries came into question: Who should be the Director of both libraries. A history professor at La Sierra began promoting himself as the Director of University Libraries. In the end, Dr. Cleveland asked me to be the head of both campus libraries.

We tried our best to make the two libraries look as if they belonged to one institution. I spent two days a week at La Sierra and three days at Loma Linda. I conducted joint library faculty meetings—first on one campus and then on the other.

We initiated a bus service back and forth between the two libraries. I told Dr. Cleveland I wanted to do this and asked if he had any money. He said he didn't. "Would you support me if I use library funds to initiate the service?" He agreed and the bus service began to carry students, faculty, library materials and more.

Probably the greatest contribution I made to the merger was to lift the La Sierra librarians salaries to match those at Loma Linda. It took some magic manipulations of the La Sierra budget but it worked out.

The "marriage" between the two institutions was not a happy one. Faculty on both campuses were unhappy with the arrangement. When the great "Divorce" came sometime later, after I had left, it was a blessing for both parties, in my opinion.

FOOTNOTE: Today a "medical" university is no longer a problem to accreditation associations. In support of this statement I will remind you that Hannaman Medical College of Philadelphia became Hannaman University; Jefferson Medical School (Philadelphia) became Thomas Jefferson University—without significant changes to their programs or student bodies. Times do change!

Heritage Room:

The Loma Linda library had a small room on the second floor designated "Historical Records." Some of the staff called it, "Hysterical Records." It housed Ellen G. White original letters and documents related to the founding of CME. Why were these papers not in the EGW Estate at the General Conference?

If my information is correct, the medical faculty and administration of CME put forth strong arguments that these Ellen White letters dealing with the founding of the CME should stay with the college.

In any event they were here! A librarian by the name of Irene Schmidt was in charge of the room and overprotective of the materials. Even her boss (me) had to be careful of how he approached the letters.

About this time the White Estate Office of the General Conference announced that they were going to microfilm their EGW letters and documents and make them available to scholars on the West coast, namely LLU. Elder Arthur White came to see me and said he would provide a half-time salary for a curator of these materials, if I would provide the other half.

I agreed and this was the beginning of the Department of Archives and Special Collections (the Heritage Room). This was a difficult time for Arthur White. He was the grandson of Ellen White and had been very possessive of her letters, but the Board at the GC had voted to distribute them to Loma Linda (later to other places in the world).

Now, I needed a special person to head up the Department—someone with a religion degree and a Masters in Library Science. I called my friend Hedy Jemison, the curator of the EGW materials at Andrews University in the Seminary building. Hedy took some time to think about my request.

One day she called me and said that a young man by the name of Jim Nix was graduating from the Seminary with a M.Div. Degree. I might ask him. I don't remember the exact circumstances of our first meeting (I have a senior moment at this point), but I hired Jim as the Chair of the Department of Archives and Special Collections. Soon after he arrived I asked him to attend the University of Southern California. I felt it was important for him to have a Masters in Library Science.

Later when I talked to Arthur White, he told me Jim was divorced, and he felt reluctant to give the EGW materials into the care of a divorced man. Jim had told me the circumstances surrounding his wife's leaving him. Arthur White and I talked a number of times, and I tried to lead him along to my persuasion on the issue. I'm sure he must have talked to Hedy at Andrews University.

Oh! I didn't finish telling you about Irene. One day she came to my office.

"Mr. Summers, you remember that my mother is living with me?"

"Yes, Miss Schmidt, I remember."

"Well, she is quite ill and requires nursing home care, but it is expensive. I can't afford it."

"Oh, Miss Schmidt," I said. "I'm sorry. What are you planning to do?"

"I have decided to retire early and spend full-time caring for my mother at home."

I admired her for her motherly dedication. Irene was as good as her word. And so, out of the Office of Historical Records was born the Heritage Room.

FOOTNOTE: A note about the John Harvey Kellogg chairs in the Heritage Room. LLU gave me a six-week Sabbatical to go to Battle Creek, Michigan for research. Joan and I stayed in the old Fieldstone Building, across from Kellogg's "Greek Temple." We stayed in a guest room. From there we went out each day to find SDA memorabilia. The chairs came from patient rooms in the Battle Creek San.

At the Adventist Academy we found boxes of new silverware with the monogram BCS (Battle Creek San). There should be a box in the current Heritage Room. We also found several patient blankets. We brought one back. I also found a large collection of 8 x 10 black and white photos of the famous people who frequented the BCS. I borrowed a copy-board and a camera and copied each picture to bring back—Eleanor Roosevelt, Eddy Canter playing golf on the San's golf course, J.C. Penney, Emilia Airhart, etc.

One night Joan and I were the only ones in the Fieldstone building, and we decided to go up to the attic. That is where we found the chairs. We tagged about 25 of them with "LLU," and I received permission from the hospital administration to ship them back home.

Library Construction: La Sierra

The La Sierra campus of Loma Linda University had been gearing up for some time to build a new library. Mr. Glenn Hilts had been the Director of the college library for many years. Now I came into the picture as director of both campus libraries. This was a touchy situation, and I tried to use "kid gloves." As I have said before the marriage of the two campuses was not entered into with full faculty embrace.

Glenn and his staff had written a "Library Program," which delineated the interior of the library and the work flow which accompanied it. I came along and tried to put "icing" on the cake.

The library was to be two floors above ground and one underground. I pleaded for a third floor above ground-not a finished one, but only a shell that we could fill in as money became available. The college Board felt they could not afford the shell. I lost that battle. In retrospect, my pleading for the extra floor was the right thing to do. Now twenty years later the library needs an addition, and the current county building code will not allow the extra floor. (So I am told.)

One battle that I did win was my insistence that we hire a Library Designer. I wanted a color-coordinated building from top to bottom. Also I didn't want to be caught in library faculty meetings deciding colors and furniture designs. The administration backed me this time, and we hired Linda Appelt from down on the coast. I was impressed with Linda—not only her prior experiences designing libraries, but also her personal appearance each time that she came. She was color-coordinated!

Linda asked for complete control of all the colors in the building—the outside brick, the carpet, the furniture even down to our desk pads and wastepaper baskets. I gave it to her. Now that doesn't mean she went off on her own without consulting the library staff. We had many meetings. Linda presented her ideas; and, for the most part, we accepted them. Those few who were unhappy couldn't blame me. "It was Linda's fault!"

The new library was perched on a hill overlooking the rest of the campus. The library was build around an atrium—all glassed—in with open sky at the top. The students could go out and study there among the plants and flowers, weather permitting. We hosted a couple of weddings out in the atrium. The bride and groom walked down the grand staircase from the second floor. It was impressive. We also hosted a Spanish dance troupe that came and performed out there. In a library? Yes, in a library. Such fun!

I was very proud of the new library. Most of the credit should go to Glenn Hilts and his staff who spent hours on writing the Library Program. The architect (name slips my mind) took the Program and designed the interior of the building. Linda and her creativity made it beautiful. As I said before, I added the "icing" to the cake.

Library Construction: Loma Linda

I am not sure if any other Adventist librarian has had the privilege of planning two university libraries or not. I did, and I am grateful for it.

In 1978 the Vernier Radcliffe Memorial Library at Loma Linda was full and overflowing. We were casting about to plan a major addition to the library. So, we did what was done at La Sierra: We wrote a "Library Program" describing what we needed in terms of departments, personnel and work flow. There was no money for the addition, but we had great faith that something would materialize, and it did.

Don Prior, our Loma Linda Vice President for Advancement, had talked to me about finding money. He had made contact with the Del E. Webb Foundation. The Del Webb Construction Company had been building hotels up and down the California coast as well as Las Vegas.

Don caught them at the right time. They were "fat" with profits and didn't want to give it all to the IRS, so they set up a private foundation to hold their profits and were anxious to find a recipient of their largess.

The Foundation wanted Don to make a presentation to their Board. Don asked me and Dr. Bieber, our President, to come with him to Los Angeles. The meeting was held in the conference room of the Del E. Webb Foundation. In preparation for the meeting I took a copy of the Library Program that I had bound in tan leather.

That did the trick plus Don's charm. He was notified sometime later of a gift of approximately $4,000,000. The administration added other gift monies to complete the project. The Del Webb people are like the Slotkin brothers. They know how to make money.

FOOTNOTE: Del Webb Construction Co. saved their profits from IRS by setting up a private foundation with the understanding that their construction company would build our library addition. Then Loma Linda paid the construction company out of money given to us by the Del Webb Foundation. All very legal. Pretty tricky, wouldn't you say?

At Loma Linda we hired Marshall Brown as our interior design person. We had gone down to Chula Vista to see Marshall's work at a public library and liked what we saw. He was a different personality from Linda Appelt at La Sierra. He was more of a salesman who promoted his ideas. I don't mean to infer that we didn't like his ideas. He had good ones. There were two areas that, in retrospect, I would have done differently.

Marshal wanted the chairs at the tables to be tubular stainless steel. His reasoning was that one could see "through" the chairs, and that would give an airy atmosphere to the reading room. At the time I bought into it, but later I missed the "warm," wood chairs at La Sierra. But that's my partiality.

The most serious mistake was the location of the Circulation Desk. Grover Star wanted a large lobby, and he pushed for the Desk to be on the second floor, where there would be ample room behind the Desk for reserve books and other activities.

As a staff we bought in to the idea. Grover proceeded with the plan. Later, after reflection, the circulation people pointed out to us that the students would have to come in the front door and climb up all the steps to check a book in or out. Also, the security system was located in the lobby by the front door. If the alarm went off, how could the staff race down the steps and apprehend the villain. I approached Grover and told him of the problem. The Desk had to be on the ground floor! I should have caught that at the beginning, and I take responsibility for the glitch.

One of the most pleasant aspects of the construction of the addition was my renewed friendship with Grover Star. We were classmates back in 1949 at Washington Missionary College (Columbia Union College). Grover's father was Medical Director of the Washington Sanitarium and Hospital back in those days.

Graduate Work at USC

Meanwhile, back in 1967 The School of Library Science of USC announced that six doctoral Fellowships would be available on a competitive basis. The Fellowship paid for two years full tuition, books, travel and housing near the campus. When I heard about it, Joan and I talked. It would mean that I would only be home weekends—in Los Angeles Monday to Friday.

I wondered if I could manage the academic regimen on campus at USC and be absent from my family during the week. I decide to toss my hat into the ring and wait and see what would happen. The process was competitive, but I won one of the Fellowships. Now the problems began. Would LLU grant me a two-year leave and what about the administration of the two libraries at Loma Linda and La Sierra?

I talked to Alice Gregg at Loma Linda and John Hardt at La Sierra. Both of them graciously agreed to the arrangement. Then I needed to request a leave from LLU through the Vice President of Academic Affairs. Bob Cleveland listened and agreed to take it to the Board.

The Board approved it! The arrangement was that LLU would continue my salary, and I would pay for all the other expenses from the USC Fellowship. I would be obligated to stay at the university for at least five years after graduation. I graduated in 1973, and Joan and I left LLU in 1980. Sometimes I would have to fly out of LAX for Riverside where Joan picked me up, because it was budget time at LLU, and the gurus of finance wanted to cut the libraries' budgets for the following year.

A sidelight to this challenge has to do with Keith Clouten. Keith was librarian at Avondale College, our SDA college in Australia. He wrote to me asking if he could come to LLU for two years and work for the Loma Linda library half-time. During this time he planned to work on his Masters at USC.

I didn't know him from Adam, so I talked to the Australians on our faculty and received favorable feedback from them. This is another one of those times when I took a chance. It worked out well! Keith, his wife and two little girls arrived, found an apartment and he started to work.

Other than his half-time salary I helped Keith with his lodging at USC. I had rented a motel room near USC with two single beds. We shared this room off and on while he completed his academic program. I would add here that Keith took first prize at the library school as the best academic student of the year.

Keith was a joy to work with. He was intelligent, experienced and congenial to everyone. Our staff loved him! After he left LLU he was hired at Canadian Union College as librarian and stayed there until he received a "call" to be Director of the library at Andrews University. He is now retired and living near Canadian Union College.

FOOTNOTE: When I was at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, Keith contacted me and asked if I would be willing to serve as chairman of a visiting committee of four librarians to come to the Andrews library. Keith was having trouble implementing changes in the library. He made a wise move. He asked the Andrews's Vice President to invite me and the other librarians, who were from non-Adventist institutions, to come and evaluate the library.

The four of us submitted a report which supported Keith's plans for reorganization of areas of the library. Our committee stayed three days. It was challenging and exciting to interview the library staff as well as a number of Andrews classroom faculty. It reminded me of the thirteen years I served on the WASC evaluation teems up and down the state of California.

FOOTNOTE: When Keith was working for me at LLU, I had been talking to directors of Adventist college libraries. We all had a burden to create an "Adventist Periodical Index" of the major articles in Adventist periodicals.

We wondered what it would cost, how many staff were necessary and how it would take. So, I set Keith and Marilyn Crane free from their responsibilities to tackle the project. They set to work with a vengeance and created a small sample "SDA Periodical Index." I appreciated it, and I'm sure the other college librarians did, too!

The major problem was how to fund the Index on an on-going basis. I volunteered to start it at La Sierra library with Grace Holme and later Aletha Fletcher. The burden of funding fell to my budget for a few years. We tried to get each college to contribute and then the publishing houses. It was a great struggle. Later after I left, Andrews took it over, and the Index is now on-line via Internet. I wish Andrews success in funding it. It was a service of love for me.

In 1988 LLU asked me to go to Hong Kong and conduct an evaluation of our Adventist College there. The college wanted to graduate their students with a LLU degree. I was recruited especially to look at the library. Joan went with me. We were gone a month and we became addicted to Hong Kong, the shopping center of the world, as well as the Chinese culture. While I was there the Hong Kong Library Association held its monthly meeting. I was asked to give a paper on on-line searching, which I did. It was a pleasant evening with colleagues of another culture and authentic, delicious Chinese food. Such a small British colony with too many people! We came back home and realized that we had abundant room in Los Angeles, compared to Hong Kong.

Postlude

Staffing the libraries on both campuses with library faculty was a serious on-going problem during my administration. When I traveled around the country to library conventions, I was on the look-out for Adventist librarians working in non-Adventist institutions. I found a cataloger for La Sierra at the university in Columbia, Mo. Kathy Dunn came to us at La Sierra from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Some years later She went on to earn her doctorate in Library Science.

Carroll Westermeyer came to Loma Linda from the University of Denver in Denver, CO. Fred Anderson, our first African American. came to La Sierra, and I sent him to USC to earn his Masters. Lee Johnston came to us at Loma Linda from Lynwood Academy We sent him to USC for his Masters.

Elle-Belle Groves was at Walla Walla where her husband was killed tragically in an accident. She moved down to live in Loma Linda, because her sister and family lived here (Mrs. Roy Jutzy). She asked me for a job at the library, and I hired her. Later we sent her to USC for her Masters.

I learned about Maynard Lowry from my sister in Worthington, OH. Maynard had graduated from Kent State University in Ohio with his Masters. I invited him to come to Loam Linda. Later we sent him to the University of Buffalo to earn his Ph.D. Carlene Drake and Jerry Daly went to USC for their Masters.

So, why so many sponsored people at library expense? "Sheep Stealing" from another Adventist library only left them in the lurch, and none of them were medical librarians.

In those days there were only two places in southern California to earn an ALA accredited Masters, accredited by the American Library Association—UCLA and USC. UCLA's program was a two year one, but the university would not accept part-time students.

On the other hand, USC was the private university, like Stanford, who welcomed career students to earn their degrees while working. All our librarians at USC were in this category. Martha Boaz was the Dean of the Library School, and she ran a tight ship. Some students disliked her high academic standards.

To give you an example. When USC started the doctoral program in library science, she insisted that the degree not be granted through the School of Library Science, but through the Graduate School. At the time other library schools in the country were offering a DLS degree. Martha said, "No, I only want the Ph.D. program, and I want the students to meet the Graduate School standards—qualifying exams along with a reading knowledge of two foreign languages, the dissertation as a piece of serious research and defense of the dissertation."

So, my doctorate is through the Graduate School with a major in Library Science. It took me two years down at USC to complete all the classes, and then four more years, part-time, doing the research (I was back on the job at LLU).

USC only allowed a student five years to complete the requirements for the degree. It took me six years. I petitioned the Graduate School for another year, and it was granted. (I started at age 37 and graduated at age forty-three.) I believe I was the second Adventist to earn the Ph.D. in Library Science. If my memory serves me, Miss Lucile Lewis, Director of the Library at Oakwood College was first. She was a graduate of Columbia University in New York City.

Enough of that. I would like to add something about my philosophy of administration for what it might be worth. I am an admirer of David Packard of HP computer fame. Packard is credited with the concept of, "Management by Walking Around."

What Packard was pleading for was a manager who got out of his office in the corporate suite to come down to the lowest level on the shop floor to talk to the employees, and let them talk to him. Maybe that's why HP hardware and softwear have continued to enjoy such wide acceptance.

I divided the employees on both of our campuses into Departments with a chairperson for each department. Once a week I tried to practice Management by Walking Around. I expected each Chair to run his/her own show. I was available for advice, money-talk or problems, but I still walked around!

Automation, Bibliographic Control and Other Such Trappings

I heard through the grapevine that Xerox had come out with a photocopy machine. I called them to register my interest. Why would a library be interested in a copy machine? After all, it was designed for business use. The long and short of it is that we leased the original 914 model. It was a beast of a machine-huge and heavy with a flat glass. We put it in the lobby for the public to use.

Those were the days when the color of paper was important. Later Xerox came out with a curved glass. Not good! How could you copy from a book with that arrangement! Librarians around the country complained, and to Xerox's credit, they withdrew it, and I have never seen it since.

In the 60s Congress appropriated funds to establish a National Library of Medicine on the Campus of NIH. Those were the days before PCs when large mainframe computers dominated the scene. NLM decided to automate bibliographic control of the medical literature. It wasn't long before we were invited to request literature searches from the National Library of Medicine.

The mechanism for doing this was the famous teletype machine. It was tape driven, so we punched the medical problem onto the tape. Then we took the tape, turned on the machine and fed the tape into it via telephone line to NLM in Washington. The computer there did the search and mailed us a printout on paper and later on 3 x 5 card stock. Today you sit at your PC and through Internet have immediate access to PUBMED and NLM GATEWAY, both of which give you access to millions of citations from the medical and allied health literature. How times have changed!

You probably have sensed by now that the medical library community was first into serious automation. It probably has something to do with the urgency of medicine. Time now for the rest of the library profession to awake.

His name was Fred Kilgore. He was the medical librarian of Yale University. Fred was alert to what was going on. He began to "fiddle" around with mainframes and computer programmers. Ohio State University discovered him and asked him to come. The university library found him a small warehouse near the campus and gave him a staff of librarians and programmers.

The Library of Congress had begun to put the bib records on tape. Fred bought the tapes, and he and the staff were ready to experiment with online distribution of bibliographic records to remote libraries in Ohio. And thus was born OCLC, Ohio College library Contortion, a monolithic bibliographic utility which, today, churns out bib data to most libraries in America and resides in a multi-story building just north of Columbus, Ohio.

Enter Pat Barkey. Pat was Director of the state University in Toledo, Ohio. Pat, of course, was a part of OCLC and worked with it. About that time he was appointed Director of the Claremont Colleges libraries. Pat and I became acquainted and invited Larry Marshburn of the University of Redlands, the Librarians of Occidental College and the California Institute of Technology to a meeting. Pat wanted us to help him "pull" OCLC across the Mississippi River to the wild and wooly West.

As a result, all of us had access to OCLC which changed our opus operinde. At the time, I was also director of the library at La Sierra College. The migration to a new way of cataloging books was taking a toll on older staff in cataloging. We were concerned about Florence Marvin, who was close to retirement. I believe Kitty was Chair of the Cataloging Department. To our complete amazement Florence took to the computer as a duck takes to water!

Well. OCLC soon spread around the Southwest and beyond, so much so that OCLC had to open a Western Regional Office on the campus at Claremont. It was a real pleasure for me to be in on the OCLC migration West. The rest of it is history. What would we do without it?

Hong Kong, Pearl of the East

The Adventist college in Hong Kong wanted an affiliation with LLU so that the Chinese young people could graduate in Hong Kong with a degree from Loma Linda. Different faculty went over for a while, and I was asked to go and give special attention to the library. My wife and I went over for a month. We went everywhere on evenings and weekends and, frankly, fell in love with this exciting city with its teeming millions of people, skyscrapers and shopping.

While we were there, I became acquainted with the two university library directors of the University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In fact, I was asked to speak at a meeting of the Hong Kong Library Association. So, I had made some contacts in addition to getting around the city on public transportation.

When Joan and I came home, I thought that was a good experience and thought no more of it. One day my Bulletin of the Medical Library Association came in the mail, and I saw an ad for a Medical Library Director at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government wanted to start another medical school at The Chinese University. They were advertising world-wide for a medical faculty including a medical librarian.

I had been Director at Loma Linda for 17 years, and felt as if I needed a change. I talked to Joan about it, but she did not want to go. She had a classroom of students at Loma Linda Elementary and was enjoying the experience. I said to her, "Let me toss my hat into the ring and see what happens. We can decide later what to do." She agreed, I think!

Two or 3 months went by and nothing happened. I erased the whole dream from my mind. But, one day I received a telegram asking me to fly to San Francisco to the offices of the Asian Foundation and be interviewed by Dr. Gerald Choa, the new Dean of the Medical School in Hong Kong. Dr. Choa had been Head of all the government's hospitals and facilities. He was about to retire, but the government asked him to stay on a few more years to get the Medical School up and going. He agreed and there we were.

Dr. Choa and I spent about an hour together. Before we parted he said to me, "George, if we should pick you don't sell your home. Just rent it out and have a home to come back to." In retrospect that was good advice and we took it seriously.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Joan and I had goose pimples. Something serious was going on here! I had worked for the Adventist Church for 27 years and had misgivings about going out of denominational work. Joan did not want to leave her school children.

For quite some time we heard no further word and thought someone else had been chosen for the position. I settled down to the routine and cleared my mind. But one day I received a packet of materials from the Chinese University. In it was a contract to be signed if I was still serious. Misgivings again. This is serious stuff!

Joan finally agreed, and we began to make preparations. Our two daughters were engaged to be married in August after we left the end of December. Joan came back in June and I came back in August to witness a double wedding ceremony in the University Church at Loma Linda.

I had been hired two years before the medical school opened. The Dean and the Hospital Planner had also been hired early. The 3 of us had a head start before the students came. I was to order current medical books in all the specialties. I was also to order about 1500 current journals and backfiles, back 15 years. I worked with a budget of US$1,000,000 to do all of this.

The first language of The Chinese University was Chinese. The second language was English. But the first language of the Medical School was English. It had to be because the faculty came from England, Australia, US, Scotland, Germany. The students were all Chinese from Hong Kong.

The pre-clinical courses were all on the university campus. All of the clinical courses were to be in the new hospital—The Prince of Wales Hospital. It was to be a 1400 bed facility. I settled in. I had a fine Chinese assistant, a librarian educated in the US who was a great help to me—especially with the language. His name was Kai-Sum Young. All of the books and journals were in English.

After a couple of years, the Dean called me in and asked me if I knew anything about television. I told him I had had some experience. He wanted an educational CCTV system in 38 locations within the new hospital with two-way communication. (No patient rooms) He also did not want the students in the 5 operating theatres. They were to sit outside in a conference room and see on TV monitors as well as talk to the surgeons. How was I going to pull that off?

Anyway, the Dean said, "Do it, George." And I did. Some time later he called me in and asked if I knew anything about photography. The faculty wanted slides for teaching purposes and other photographic goodies. I told him I had had some experience. "OK, George, do it." So, I hired a young Chinese photographer who knew what he was doing. His name was Thomas Fung—a great fellow.

For the third time the Dean called me in and asked if I had any experience with medical art and illustration. I said, "Dean I don't know a thing about that!" And he retorted, "That's OK, George. Just do it." What do you do when you thought you were going to be just a medical librarian. You roll with the punches, and Kai-sum and I learned a lot! We hired a young Chinese artist and bought all the equipment he would need.

The exciting thing about my job was the availability of money. Money was not a problem! I got what I asked for, within reason, and I was able to create something out of nothing—namely a medical school library which included CCTV, a photographic unit and medical art and illustration.

The first 6 months in Hong Kong my wife had nothing to do except shop in the "Shopping Center of the World." But then they found her. She is an authority on young children and childhood education. She has written a book about it. Joan got a job in a large Chinese kindergarten. She was hired to teach English as a second language. She was responsible for teaching good American English as a second language to 10 Chinese English teachers and to the children.

When we were not working, Joan and I traveled all over the Orient. Fortunately, Hong Kong celebrates all of the Chinese holidays and the British ones—about twice as many as we have here in America.

As you can probably guess, we had the capstone experience of our lives—shopping downtown, struggling with the language, enjoying the transportation system, eating in restaurants—with chopsticks. Now you know why the Disney Corporation is completing "Hong Kong Disneyland" early this spring (2005).

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

1986 was the year. Joan and I had just come back from Hong Kong after six years there, and I was casting about for a director's position. I sent out resumes to several institutions over several months time. I received five invitations to come for interviews. Nothing happened until one day I received a phone call from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.

ES is located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. This is vacation land-resorts, skiing and heart-shaped hot tubs. The institution is one of fourteen campuses as part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. I was to be interviewed on April 19, but the day before I came I received a phone call from the Search Committee chairman asking me not to come, because they were snowed-in and couldn't move!

I left Loma Linda the following week and presented myself to the committee. The first question they asked me was why I wanted to leave sunny California for snowy Pennsylvania. I was nonplused for a few minutes, but soon collected my composure enough to tell them that Joan and I had lived not far down the road for nine years at Blue Mountain Academy and loved the area. Also, my students in the academy were now grown and many of them lived in the area.

One other thing that I did was to prepare a small brochure outlining a procedure for computerizing the university library. I wanted the committee to know where I stood in relationship to the new technology. Something did the trick, because I was chosen for the position of Director of the University Library.

I knew that the campus was unionized. The library faculty were members of the classroom faculty. The clerical staff were members of a union. The grounds people were in a union. The nursing faculty had a separate union. In essence the whole campus was unionized! I had never worked in an atmosphere like this before. When the Search Committee had asked me how I would relate to this. I naively told them I would simply call the aggrieved person into my office and talk it through.

Well, it didn't work that way. I told my staff shortly after I was encased in the Director's Office, "If you have a problem with me, please come and let's talk. The few times I allegedly caused cause a problem, the staff member went to the Union Office, and I received a letter in the mail outlining the charges. I yearned for the days when I could call a staff member into my office to discuss the problem and then have prayer with them.

But that was the way it was. I was part of the Administrative Staff of the University. As such, we were not allowed to join a union. The campus atmosphere was always the Union verses the faculty. We administrators met with the President every Monday morning to arm for battle, because the Union officials and the President met on Tuesday.

In spite of all of that, I enjoyed the six years I was at the university. I prayed often and had the satisfaction of hearing answers to my prayers.

That brings us to the subject of automation. I had become friends of the Director of the Computer Center on campus. In those days the PC and Apple had not yet taken over the power of the IBM mainframes. Our computer center was using Unysis computers, and the Director knew of my interest in computerizing the library.

He was about to buy a new mainframe from Unysis. The company had just come out with a library integrated system. After talking with me. he pulled off a deal with Unysis by telling them he would buy their mainframe if they would "throw in" the PALS library integrated system. It worked! We were the owners of one of the early Integrated Online Library Systems.

Now the problem was to find a library-computer person to set up PALS and get us all into it. I ran an add in local newspapers and library journals. We had a few responses (In the late 80s this new breed was rare). One of the responses came from a young Chinese girl who was at the University of Illinois. She was responsible for the computer systems there in the Library School. Yun and her husband were here from China on student visas. They left their little girl in China with grandparents, because the Chinese government wanted to make sure the parents returned.

We hired Yun and she was a jewel! Intelligent, pretty, co-operative, good computer savvy and had just completed her library degree. Her husband was working on a Ph.D. I took a conference room on the first floor of our library and turned it into a mini computer room. How times have changed! The mini has been replaced with powerful PCs that do all the work.

To make a long story short, we brought eager and reluctant library faculty into the electronic age of libraries. Classroom faculty? Well that is another story. Suffice it to say that at the point where the card catalog was "dead," my faculty begged me not to remove it for two years (especially the catalogers). I reluctantly agreed knowing that the students and classroom faculty would probably have to look in both places—the CC and PALS.

Once a month the library directors of all fourteen campuses met in conference. These were challenging and fun times traveling all over the state of Pennsylvania and hosted by a different Director. Overall I enjoyed the experience at East Stroudsburg University. I adjusted to the unionization and the struggles between university administration and the union. I never could see what good the union did for the institution, except every four years when the state legislature was deciding what the faculty were going to receive in compensation. Then the fight was between the Union and Harrisburg, and the salaries were good for both faculty and administration.

DISCLAIMERS:

I know that I have missed names that should be in this paper and also specific dates. I am sorry for that. Have things always been rosy? No, but they have been challenging. There have been a few serious problems along the way. I have chosen not to include them. "Forgive and forget" is an exercise that clears the mind and saves friendships. That concept has always been important to me.

Sixteen years service to LLU have taught me to cultivate my personal relationship to Jesus Christ and my appreciation for the University. One of the events that I cherish the most happened to me after I retired and moved back to Loma Linda. The library faculty at Loma Linda recommended to the Board of Trustees, through the Vice President of Academic Administration, that I be given the honorary title of "Emeritus Librarian." My membership card reads, "Loma Linda University Faculty, valid for life."