ASU Retirees Association (ASURA) Video History Project Interviews
This collection includes interviews of Arizona State University retirees, including administrators, faculty, and staff. The video interviews were conducted by the ASU Retirees Association (ASURA) beginning in 2001. Videos are approximately 1 hour each.
Marilyn Wurzburger, Hayden Library Special Collections Librarian, was hired as an ASU Library cataloguer in 1960. The early part of the interview covers growing up in Illinois, participating in the Pillsbury Bakeoff and being a CBS tele-visitor reporter. Marilyn describes working in both Matthews and Hayden Libraries under a variety of head librarians. Marilyn talks about the creation of six Special Collections (see notes below for more details): Kelmscott Press, Batchelor Press, Doris & Marc Patten Herbal Books, Fritz Scholder, and Helmut Gernsheim. The interview wraps up with a discussion of some disappointments and highlights of Marilyn’s career.
Charlie Arntzen joined ASU in August 2000 as the Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Endowed Chair and retired in 2016 from the School of Life Sciences and Biodesign Institute. Charlie was the founding Director of the Biodesign Institute.
Important ASU stories include:
1) the creation of the Biodesign Institute,
2) the design and operation of the Biodesign labs,
3) the development of ZMapp to fight Ebola,
4) The New American University - a discussion of the importance of collaboration, and
5) several comments about Presidents Coor and Crow and Provost Glick
Vladimir Borovansky, ASU Noble Library Research librarian, joined ASU in May 1968. Interesting stories include:
1) the development of the NOBLE LIBRARY,
2) GOING DIGITAL - progression in the use of digital searching from offline searches to ARPANET to Google,
3), the creation of a Patent Depository Library and
4) an important trait of being a research librarian, i.e., know your audience