Martha Gould and Joan Kerschner have been instrumental in most phases of library development in Nevada - from the branch to the state library. Their stories are fascinating and cover the techniques of moving a physical library to installing massive computer systems. They became librarians as young women and worked their entire careers in the field. Their memories add depth and profound meaning to the work of librarians. Gould grew up in a small mill town on the Sugar River and attended the University of Michigan. A librarian at Dartmouth College gave her a job and then insisted that she return to school for a master's degree. She earned her MS in Library Science from Simmons College. Kerschner hails from the Midwest, growing up in Abe Lincoln country. As a young girl, she went into their little Carnegie Library to rest and to view photographs on the stereograph while in town shopping with her family. She attended college across the river at Kentucky Wesleyan College and then earned a master's in library science at Indiana University. Martha and Joan have lobbied and testified before assembly committees to help bring libraries in Nevada to their current standing. This interview is about serious work told by two women, one who became state librarian, who look back over their many accomplishments with laughter and great joy.
Jerome Jerry Jay Vallen was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was in the restaurant business and Jerry worked for him throughout his teens and young adulthood. He and his two brothers entertained themselves during their childhood years by going to the library and reading. This was a legacy of the Depression era, when there simply wasn't any money to spare for extraneous expenses. Jerry's first jobs were bellman / assistant manager in a small hotel; auditor, and then property manager at the Pine Tree Point Club. He attended Penn State for a year (working in his dad s restaurant the whole time) and then transferred to the hotel school at Cornell University. After a stint in the armed forces during the Korean War, he returned home and used the GI bill to finish his master's degree. He started on his doctorate, but it would be 20 years before he completed it. After getting married (1950) and starting a family, Jerry and his wife Flossie realized that the restaurant business and family life did not mix well, so he decided to stay in education. Fie spent several summers at the University of Pennsylvania in their graduate school of business and in 1966, interviewed with Jerry Crawford, provost at UNLV. Jerry and his family moved out to Las Vegas in June of 1967, leaving northern New York during a blizzard and arriving four days later in southern Nevada to find tulips blooming. They decided they liked Las Vegas, found a house right away, and settled in to their new life. Jerry taught marketing in the hotel college at the beginning of his career and for several years thereafter. Boyce Phillips took the rooms division and George Bussel taught foods. Their main focus was to attract students, and they worked on making it easier tor students to transfer from out of state. Jerry also thought it was extremely important that the hotel college be independent of university administration control. Dr. Vallen has 5 or 6 books published, including 3 textbooks that he continues to update, and an oral history of the hotel college completed shortly after he retired in 1989. Today he and his wife travel and enjoy twice yearly gatherings with their family.
Oral history interview with Jerry Vallen conducted by Lisa Gioia-Acres on October 02, 2007 for the UNLV @ 50 Oral History Project. In this interview Jerry Vallen discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in June of 1967 because he was hired to work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He talks about teaching marketing at the hotel college at UNLV and how he wanted the hotel college to be independent of university administration control. He also discussed his publications, which include three textbooks.
Includes meeting agenda and minutes with additional information about the appropriation's committee meeting and a diagram. CSUN Session 7 Meeting Minutes and Agendas.