KATHY KANE, Public Services & Faculty Research Law Librarian Earns 25 Year Pin by Lou Lindsey 5/1/02
Kathy Kane is one of only 8 TU employees receiving their 25 year term of service award this May! Congratulations, Kathy!
Kathy's TU career began in 1974 as a librarian at McFarlin Library where she worked until 1982. She spent a couple years as an editor at the local publisher PennWell Publications before she returned to TU, this time to the Law Library.
Since she started at the Law Library in the Fall of 1985, Kathy has worked in five areas: Reference, International and Comparative Law, Government Documents, Circulation, and Interlibrary Loan. She is now the lead reference librarian, and has worked an average of 17 hours a week for 17 years in direct reference service. Yes, we did the math, and that works out to be 14,450 hours of reference for law patrons over the years!
In 1994 Kathy expressed to the Director Richard Ducey her interest in the subject, and since then has also served as our International and Comparative Law specialist, a task recently transferred to David Gay. Kathy has trained many an ILJ member on research in international law, has written numerous pathfinders on the topic, assisted many faculty in their international and comparative law research, and was the second librarian to be "video streamed" while she gave an international law presentation!
She has read hundreds upon hundreds of book reviews and made acquisitions decisions in order to develop our international and comparative law collection.
Kathy also developed an "acquired taste" for legislative history research, and is called upon even by practicing attorneys wanting private tutoring sessions to get her specialized help in legislative history!
In 1993 Kathy was selected to be the first library liaison to the Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law, then Bernard Schwartz. Kathy found it a great honor, privilege and pleasure to work with Professor Schwartz during his very prolific five years at TU before his death in 1997. She continues as the liaison with Professor Paul Finkelman who now holds the post.
Kathy is an Oklahoman through and through. She was born and reared in the state. She wowed the audiences in high school as a singer in a popular dance band. "Witchcraft" was her first number with the band! Can't you hear it now? Spurred by this experience, Kathy started her undergraduate work as a voice major, but she jokingly said she soon realized she wouldn't make it on Broadway, so eventually switched her emphasis, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from University of Oklahoma with a history major and a French minor.
Kathy left Oklahoma for three years to live in Seattle during which time she obtained a teaching certificate from the University of Washington and also taught a year in a Seattle suburb. A favorite memory from the Seattle years includes a summer job which Kathy had in the Fisheries Oceanography Library at the University of Washington. The library was in a building which was located right next to Lake Washington. One beautiful day that summer, Cousteau's ship, the Calypso, docked right next to the building, and the library staff went out to wave at the French sailors who were on deck.
Back again in Oklahoma, Kathy received her Masters in Library Science from the University of Oklahoma. As her first library job, she worked as a librarian at Missouri Southern in Joplin, but soon returned to Oklahoma TO STAY.
We are fortunate Kathy stayed at TU for 25 very, very productive years! She's an extremely knowledgable law librarian, a true gem amongst us.
Tidbits:
Favorite movie: Casablanca
Favorite work-related quote:
"You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that's been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians." - Monty Python