Just Lucky I Guess: My Adventurous Life as a Hoosier Librarian (review)

Just Lucky I Guess: My Adventurous Life as a Hoosier Librarian. By David Kaser. New York: Vantage Press, 2000. xiii, 231 pp. $13.95. ISBN 0-533013243-6.

Probably most of us who have met David Kaser have the keen sense that we have met one of the most engaging, capable, and remarkable people in our profession. Among Kaser's great legacies is that he taught generations of students at the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science specializing in academic libraries, history of the human record (history of the book), and history of American libraries. Classes for doctoral students included seminars on advanced academic library administration, bibliographical control, and library building planning. Among the former Kaser students I have met, many entered a library practice that did not make direct use of Kaser's course content, yet, to a person, they sang his praises. He challenged them intellectually; he entertained them; they enjoyed the pleasure of his company. Clearly a master teacher for his generation, he continues to guide and instruct through his publications, through the scholarly and professional achievements of his former students, and through the way he has lived his life.

Kaser possesses that rare, special ability to be fully present in the moment, whether he is lecturing, visiting with friends, or spending time with students and colleagues. The resulting relationships are such that students and colleagues express abiding appreciation; people feel honored that they know David Kaser and that he knows them.

A case in point (among several I have accumulated in the past twenty-five years) pertains to my undergraduate alma mater, a liberal arts institution of 2,300 students. Kaser served as consultant for the school's new library building. When a development officer at the school asked my opinion about how the building would function as a library, I responded that I would tour the building but also contact David Kaser, then report back. My written message to Kaser elicited a phone call (almost an hour in length) providing context for who had made what decisions and why, a nuanced consideration of the institutional vision for library services, and in-depth impressions of the overall planning process. I had no reason to expect a response of such careful analysis and thoughtful presentation, and I have remembered that conversation as an act of genuine professional courtesy in the best and highest sense. Indiana graduates assure me that this incident was "vintage Kaser."

Kaser was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, in 1924. He earned a B.A. in English from Houghton College, an M.A. in English from Notre Dame, and A.M.L.S. and Ph.D. degrees in library science from Michigan. Early positions included serials, acquisitions, and collection development work at Michigan, Ball State, and Washington University in St. Louis. Kaser directed the Joint University Libraries (Peabody and Scarritt Colleges and Vanderbilt University) from 1960 to 1968 and the Cornell University Libraries from 1968 to 1973, when he was appointed professor at Indiana. He retired from full-time teaching in 1991 and is currently distinguished professor emeritus. He served as ALA councilor and ACRL president. Kaser obtained a number of grants, including a Guggenheim fellowship; he won a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Michigan and a Distinguished Teaching Award at Indiana. He wrote fourteen books and more than two hundred articles on the history of printing and libraries as well as administrative and architectural subjects, and he edited College & Research Libraries. He also served as consultant for more than two hundred academic library building construction and remodeling projects. His scholarly interests range from early-nineteenth-century printing, to libraries and books used by Civil War soldiers, to book pirating in Taiwan, to the development of the American academic library building.

One suspects that Kaser projected a lengthier tome. He realizes that he made his mark in library practice and teaching but does not discuss full-time library...