Happy Retirement to Anne Buck!

This month Anne Buck is retiring from both Dunedin Public Libraries and LIANZA Council. LIANZA Executive Director, Ana Pickering says:

“I have enjoyed working with Anne on LIANZA Council for the last couple of years. She has brought a wealth of knowledge from her career in libraries and useful perspectives from her involvement as a LIANZA regional councillor and member of the LIANZA Rules Committee. Anne can be relied on to respond quickly to questions and I have appreciated her commitment to our professional association. We wish her the very best for her retirement…”

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We caught up with Anne before she left to ask her a few questions and thank her for her time.

Kia ora Anne and firstly, thank you so much for all the time and hard work you have put into LIANZA!
​You have just retired from your role of Information Services Supervisor and Team Leader at Dunedin Public Libraries. Can you tell us how long you worked at DPL and a little about your day-to-day work?

I have worked at Dunedin Public Libraries for nearly 39 years having held many roles both in Customer Services and in Collection Services.  Once I decided that I loved working in libraries I took up as many opportunities that I could and as libraries developed, luckily so did I.  

My first permanent role was cleaning LPs, rewinding cassettes and processing them ready for loan as well as helping the customers to find and discover information in the Literature, Arts and Music Section. 

I then moved to be a cataloguer (both copy and original) on NZBN at the start of this part of my journey moving into the heritage collection (with a side trip or two) and then into serials work. I was the possibly the first serials librarian at DPL  and then combined this role with the acquisitions of new and sometimes old material for all the collections until my final position of Information Services Supervisor from which I have recently retired.

​I have been through local government amalgamation  and what seems like a lot of big and small restructures at DPL.

I have seen the library go from only having one computer – a very clunky paper tape issuing system – to every staff member having a computer on their desk that can access the internet and even having computers for the public. From card catalogues to microfiche and then real time access to holdings via the internet.

​In my final role I oversaw the adult reference service and APNK computers for the city library as well as helping to provide digital classes via Stepping Up and giving modems via the Spark/Skinny Jump to those who did not have access to the internet in their homes.  All in all great to end on a high with working with the customers and meeting their needs and expectations. 

What brought you to a career in libraries?

I fell into library work. I was technically unemployed ( I worked in my parents dairy) and the labour department sent me for an interview at the library. I was hired for 4 months to put red dots onto the spines of youth books for +10s. I finished that task in one week and so then graduated to putting the three call letters onto the spines of the youth fiction for the remaining time.  At the end of it I was offered a permanent job and then went on to study for and gain the New Zealand Library Studies Certificate. ​

​What has been your biggest challenge while working in the LIS sector?

​There have been two big challenges.  The first is managing the customer expectation of the librarian when they expect us to know everything about a topic so we can help them.  The second is dealing with the ever changing technology in the library environment. When I first started in the library we had the issue system but no other computers at all. Everything was manual and look at us now.

You’ve been a LIANZA regional councillor for Otago/Southland and part of CAT SIG for some time now, do you have any highlights from the time you’ve spent volunteering for LIANZA?

The  highlights of my time working for LIANZA at a local and national level has been the networking and seeing what other libraries are up to.  The ability to support librarians in their professional development and to recognise their  achievements. And not forgetting the influence on the wider community in promoting librarianship as a career and the opportunities that it brings.

Why do you think it is important to have a national professional membership organisation such as LIANZA?
​What would you like to see LIANZA do more of?

​I think it is very important to have a national organisation that is professional and capable of responding to issues quickly but with considered thought. Librarians are the gateway to knowledge and as we cut across all sectors of the community, be it school, tertiary, special and public we need an organisation that can keep its finger on the pulse of the profession as a whole and support the library world to continue to be of service to our communities.

Tēnā rawa atu koe Anne, we wish you all the very best with your retirement!