University Librarian David Bishop will leave NU with a question that his job couldn’t answer for him.
After 14 years at Northwestern, Bishop will retire in June at the age of 68.
Bishop plans on staying around Evanston after he retires. Even though he doesn’t have any definite plans, he plans to find the answer to the timeless librarian question, “Just what is your favorite book?”
“I hope that a year from now I can answer that question,” he said.
Bishop acts as a dean to all NU libraries on the Evanston Campus and one of the libraries on the Chicago Campus. The position makes him responsible for about 350 library staffers and a budget of more than $25 million.
He said he also has tried to plug into the student community by spending one evening a week working in the Information Commons area of University Library, meeting with students and serving as a faculty fellow for Hobart House, the women’s residential college.
During Bishop’s time at NU, his job description was affected by the creation and expansion of the Internet.
“Clearly everything has changed,” Bishop said.
Only a few years after he began at NU, Bishop headed the major operation of switching from a card catalog system to a solely computer-based system.
Later, the number of students coming to the library decreased when Internet usage became widespread in about 1997, Bishop said. The library has since undergone other renovations in hopes of drawing students back to the building.
“The whole idea of renovation is to make the library a more hospitable place, a place where students want to come,” Bishop said.
Computer workstations and a cafe are just two of the relatively new library accommodations Bishop has helped organize.
Modernization is not the only major accomplishment under Bishop’s belt.
During his tenure, the library has expanded from 3.6 million volumes to 4.4 million, and its annual budget has more than doubled, growing from $10 million to $25.6 million.
Bishop has worked in libraries for the majority of his life. During his college years, Bishop worked in the Sibley Music Library, the largest academic music library in the United States, as he studied music education and string bass performance at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y.
After playing in the U.S. Air Force Orchestra, Bishop received his library science degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
He then worked as an assistant director at the University of Chicago’s library, director of libraries at the University of Georgia and University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Weinberg sophomore Elizabeth Young worked in the library administration office last summer alongside Bishop and praised his immense knowledge of library administration and literature.
“He really holds that place together,” Young said.
Reach Laura Colee at [email protected].
