When Mark Larson started working at the University Libraries in 1981, dissertations arrived on paper, periodicals filled shelves and books were routinely sent away to be bound.
Forty-five years later, the work has shifted.
The dissertations arrive electronically. There are fewer paper periodicals to process. And books make the trip to the commercial bindery only a few times a year instead of weekly.
But Larson is still doing the same job he started 45 years ago — preserving the library's collections and making sure they are where they need to be.
“My job has completely changed, even though technically I've never had a position change,” Larson said.
A preservation technician, Larson will be recognized Oct. 2 for 45 years of service to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln during the annual Celebration of Service. In truth, Larson has been part of the libraries team for more than four and a half decades.
Larson started working in the libraries as a freshman in 1977, when he was assigned to the Physics Library in Behlen Hall as a work-study student. A history major who later added political science, Larson felt like the libraries were a good fit.
“I've always loved libraries, ever since I was a kid,” he said.
His first duties included processing new acquisitions and typing lists for professors and graduate students. He ran copies on a mimeograph machine and put them in mailboxes so they knew what had arrived.
He made the transition to a full-time libraries employee on May 11, 1981.
“It was a Monday,” he said.
His position was then called library assistant II. Although the title eventually changed to preservation technician, Larson never applied for another position. The work simply changed around him.
When Larson started, the preservation operation handled thousands of paper periodical subscriptions. The department had about seven full-time employees and a similar number of student workers.
Much of Larson's job involved processing paper, preparing periodicals for commercial binding and checking them when they returned. The library sent shipments to the bindery every week.
Today, it sends them about four times a year.
The same evolution happened with dissertations. For much of Larson's career, Nebraska received two paper copies of every thesis and dissertation. Copies were bound individually, with dissertations also sent to University Microfilms International for microfilming.
Larson now receives doctoral dissertations electronically, checks the submissions and sends them to ProQuest.
While each one is electronic, he keeps his own analog list, handwritten in a spiral-bound notebook.
Over 45 years, Larson estimates that several thousand dissertations have passed through his hands. He isn't sure of the exact number, but thinks it could be more than 10,000.
“I don't know if it's 20,000,” he said.
The work still extends beyond dissertations. Larson processes incoming periodicals, prepares books for commercial binding and works on projects comparing older paper records with online records. He also has done hands-on repair work over the years.
The preservation area includes mending stations, presses and equipment for repairing damaged materials. A freezer can be used to treat material affected by mold or water damage.
It is mostly behind-the-scenes work, but Larson has spent his career helping keep the materials on the shelves — and the scholarship contained in them — available to the people who use them.
For Larson, the collections themselves have provided another connection to his academic background. He was a history major and still reads history more than fiction.
“I just enjoy being in the library and working with these amazing people,” he said.
The library and its people have remained constants through decades of change. Larson remembers supervisors Mary Cassner and John Wiese, as well as Lyle Schreiner, one of the first people he met when he began working in the libraries as a student.
He also remembers when library records were maintained on paper, when periodical shelves were packed with print and when equipment such as an Addressograph machine printed labels.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Larson initially worked from home. When employees were allowed to return, he was among the first to come back.
“I was really getting tired of staying home,” he said.
At 67, Larson said he may retire within the next year, although he has no firm date.
Until then, he'll continue doing the work he started in 1981.
“I don't suffer from a surplus of ambition,” Larson said. “I'm just not one of those people who needs change very much. I like to find a groove and be in it.”
Larson found that groove in the libraries.
“I've never really had any plan to do anything else,” he said. “I just like it here.”
