Title of your position:
Government Documents/Data Services Librarian, and bibliographer for Political Science, Peace Studies, and International Studies.

How did you get involved in your subject area?
As a graduate student and shortly thereafter, I worked at Indiana University's Geography and Maps Library as well as at the school's Government Information area. But I probably got into Gov Docs because as a boy I was given a lot of nautical charts to use as scratch paper.

What is the most exciting part of being a Librarian?
I dig that I can see all the new books very soon after they arrive and that as faculty I can check them out for a ridiculous amount of time. I also like to meet students at all levels of the research process.

Why did you choose to become a Librarian?
A lot of time spent as a disgruntled bookstore employee, a lot of good literature, and some formative years working at the University of Utah's Marriott Library prepared me for little else. That and I didn't like working in Marketing.

What is your educational background?
I have a Bachelor's of Arts in English from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where I thought I would end up doing something practical with my life like novel writing. My MLS, earned after ten years of writing no novels, is from Indiana University in Bloomington.

What do you like best about Loyola?
It's in Chicago. It's on the lake. It's got the Beck's coffee counter across the street. All that and we have basketball teams. If a university's mission doesn't include something about creating the next generation of professional basketball players, I don't see the point.

What interests do you have outside of work?
New music, beer gardens, road trips, and election years. I'm also Chicago's biggest Utah Jazz fan, though it upsets Chicago's other two Utah Jazz fans when I say that.

Where have you traveled?
Being from Utah, I've seen the Western United States more than the rest of the country and traveled up and down that area. I've lived in Alaska, California, and this is my third time living in Chicago. Vacations usually involve visiting an American city, my favorites being Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Missoula. But the best trip was taking my then girlfriend to Puerto Rico, a good week before she dumped me.

What books have you read recently that you would recommend to us?
Philip Caputo's Acts of Faith is a novel about the Sudan in the same way that Anna Karenina is a novel about family: meaning the thing is unrecognizable by the time you finish the book. A brilliant novel.

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra is a short, sad novel of Afghani life under the Taliban. It's like reading science fiction without the fiction part, creating an uncomfortable view of life yoked by the impulses of fundamentalism.