LCCN, Mar. 25, 2014
ISSN 2324-6464 LCCN: appreciating Barbara Tillett, part 4 by Melanie Polutta, with material from an interview of Barbara Tillet on November 14, 2012 When retirement comes, everyone has some ideas of how they would like to spend their time. Here is Barbara's idea of a retirement, which is not quiet at all. ******* MKP: Well, then this goes to the next part of your life. Since cataloging has been a part of your life for a very, very long time, going back to your dissertation, do you have plans to continue working with that now that you are moving into retirement? BT: I'm continuing on to finish my term as the Joint Steering Committee chair. [ended November 2013] The Joint Steering Committee oversees the development and maintenance of RDA. I will still have links to IFLA's FRBR Review Group as chair of the Joint Steering Committee. But I have stopped participation in IFLA, because I've now passed the baton. Dave Reser will be our LC representative to the Cataloguing Section in IFLA, and Janis Young for Classification and Indexing, so basically those are two things I was doing, and they have it well under control. I have every confidence that they will carry on very well there. MKP: Do you have any plans for perhaps doing some research that you never had the chance for while you were working all the time? BT: Well, actually I'm a lot more interested right now in doing things like learning Japanese, because I will be, I hope I will be going to Japan at the end of next year to teach [September-October 2013], so I'm really hoping that comes through, so I've already got Rosetta Stone to start in December. I'm very interested in that. I took Japanese years and years ago with a colleague of mine who had come from Keio University in Tokyo. She was an intern at the University of California, and during our lunch hours she would teach me Japanese, but I unfortunately didn't start it until the last month she was there, so I only learned a little bit. I'm really now interested in learning that. So that's a major thing I want to do. I've also postponed a million projects at home, as well as refreshing my memory in playing guitar, banjo, and ukulele. And I have also wanted to take up recorder again, which I haven't done since elementary school, but I've always loved the sounds of recorder. And my husband happened to find one for me this past year, so that's on my to-do list. It goes on and on, forever. I also, although I have had an inside job all the time, I really prefer to be outside, and so I was thinking of volunteering for a job that would take me outside - like volunteering with the Maryland Park Department and Botanical Gardens - to do things like clearing hiking trails and that sort of thing. I would love to do that, so that's on my list. And to finally have time to do more kayaking, which my husband and I love to do, too. This past year was terrible; we had thunderstorms almost every weekend. Now I don't have to wait for weekends; I can go on whenever the good day is. So that will be nice. I don't know.I just kind of need some down time from "libraries" altogether, so that's why I'm thinking more the park service kind of stuff for a while, but I know, just because I'm so keenly interested in it, and so excited about the potential of where we are going with this, you know, linked data environment, and the whole approach to RDA with describing the identifying characteristics of things, so that they can be re-used in so many different ways, that is SO exciting to me, and I still think, there's got to be some way I can help make the future system, you know, back to what I thought I would so with my dissertation. I really think the perfect system is out there waiting to be discovered. And it's not going to be just a library system, it's going to be an information resource discovery system, that's really, totally encompassing for all kinds of information. Building on a lot of what we have, because things tend to go in, rather than instant leaps, there's typically something that's leading up to it. [MKP: Yeah, incremental growth.] So, yeah, I'm just open to all kinds of ideas. . MKP: So, what led you to decide to retire NOW? Because I know when I heard the news, I was like, WHAT? BT: Whoa! I know. I really had been thinking about it for at least five years. Um, actually, maybe even more, but I was thinking, with Social Security, when you reach 66, that sort of.. you can't earn any more. it's sort of a magic age to retire. And so, when I was in New Zealand, I turned 66, New Zealand in September [of 2012]. And so, I figured, this is the time. You know, this is it, I should just leave, I need to do it, it feels right. I've gotten the IFLA thing sorted out, there are other people to carry on in IFLA; I've gotten most everything sorted out for things being on the paths here at the Library of Congress, the initiatives that I had started and I wanted to see followed through. They've either now been completed or they're in good hands. So I have every confidence there. The thing that was still sort of bothering me is that I was in the middle of the term for the Joint Steering Committee chair. And now we've worked that out so I can complete that term. They have an exception to their rules about having a constituent be the chair. I'm thrilled with it. And in fact, we've decided, longer term, that's the way it should happen, because trying to be an impartial chair and also represent your constituency at the same meeting just is insane. So, I think we're on a good path there. But, yeah, I think that things have sorted out and on good paths, but it just felt right. While I'm still so excited about things and still physically able to do a lot of things, I want to do it! And, as I said, I do have hundreds, hundreds not millions, hundreds of things I have always been wanting to do and now I can do them. MKP: Now you'll have a little bit more time. But I think you'll find, if my mother's testimony is anything to go by, you'll find that your time fills before you know it. BT: I know. Everybody tells me that, too. ******* And so we come to the end of this series of interview snippets. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the life and work of a fascinating woman, whose work has been such a vital part of cataloging. _____ Disclaimer: This message does not represent official Library of Congress communications. 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