Sharon Perry:
I started here as a freshman in fall of 1964 and I lived in Fullerton since I was 8 so it seemed a logical place for me to go when it was time for college and we have to keep in mind that the campus was a much smaller place than it is now, in terms of the number of buildings so I didn’t have all of the buildings to run around to that the students would have today. After I graduated with my degree in history in ’68, I went on to library school at UCLA, which in those days was just a year program so I was hired in 1969.
I stopped in, in the spring before graduation from UCLA just to leave an application with the library and the then university librarian said oh why don’t we interview you now. Things were simpler then.
This building, when I first was hired, the south wing where we’re sitting now, was not used entirely for library purposes. There were other departments and curriculum departments that used some of the building and I think the second and third floor were used, so they were not completely used for library purposes at that time. But gradually that changed over the years and we did acquire full use of all the floors in this building.
After I came here as a librarian, I also continued as a graduate student to get my second masters degree here in history. So I was working full time as well as taking on graduate school courses. But that was done at a slower pace than undergraduate work. I don’t think anything is more stressful than researching and writing papers. Researching is no problem for me but writing was not my favorite task sometimes.
I’ve lived in Fullerton since I was 8 and I lived just two miles from campus so it’s very, very convenient in terms of the commute. It was a nice situation for me in terms of the work that I was given to do and the people that I worked with so I always found that very pleasant and stimulating.
I’ve just thoroughly enjoyed the work, my family, my parents, who are now deceased, but now my in-law, my mother-in-law, everyone is close to me so it’s good for me to stay near them so it just has worked out very well.