JE
Feature ______________ L
WedNEsdAy, J anurary 24, 2001
CI ac I c AMAS P r ÎNT
Adventurous librarian brings experience to Clackamas
JENNY CHAVEZ
to access and evaluate informa
tion for just about any endeavor
you pursue.”
Halliday wasn’t always a librar
Karen Halliday, former teacher, ian. Her first degree was in biol
sheries biologist and Peace ogy education and in 1976 she
orps member, has brought a joined the Peace Corps to teach
ickground of adventure with math and science in Nepal for
;r to Clackamas College as its three years.
“ It was the Peace Corps expe
:w academic librarian.
Halliday started at the college rience as advertised,” remarked
st fall as a foil time librarian. She Halliday.
;cided to relocate to Oregon
She taught in two villages - one
om Utah to be close to her par- Tibetan and the other a High
lts and found this job while Caste (Brahmin) village - after re
¡arching through a library job ceiving an intense three-month
sting website. She left a tenure cross-cultural training session.
osition as a
Part of her train
:ience librarian I
ing was total
: the University |
immersion in
the Nepali lan
I Utah to come | "I
ork
at ’
guage, includ
that
to
ing living with a
a
Nepali family
lackamas.
who
didn’t
library is liberat
I “I like the
speak English.
people here,” I
Karen Halliday
Halliday said
Eid Halliday. “It
she was glad to
librarian
ally does have
have had that
nice commu-
experience.
ity feel here
“I wanted to
nd I really like
experience life without running
ealing with be-
water or electricity,” said
inning students.”
Halliday. “It was an opportunity
Part of her job description is
to step outside your culture and
o give reference instruction to
realize you’ve got one.”
tudents, helping them learn how
In Nepal, Halliday taught
o research various topics. Ac-
grades 6-10 in government-run
ording to Halliday, learning how
schools. An average of 25 stu
o do research in the college’s li
dents was in each class and most
brary will put them way ahead of
consisted of boys. Sometimes
nany students at the university
there would be one girl in a class
evel.
of 22. The girls were usually
“I really believe that learning
needed as child labor because
o use a research library is liber-
the women did most of the agri
iting for a student,” said
Halliday. “It gives you the power
Copy Editor
really believe
learning
use research
ing-
cultural work. School costs were
also a factor since families had to
pay for education beyond the third
grade. There were other reasons
as well.
“Parents were afraid of their
daughters sending love
notes,” said Halliday.
“There was a signifi
cant fear that edu
cation was moral
contamination.”
Halliday went
back to Nepal in 1985
and saw a total
change. Besides finding
running water and elec
tricity in parts of the vil
lages, she also observed
that 50 percent of the stu
dents were girls. One
theory for the big turn
around was because of
the marriage market.
“I have nothing to
back this up, but an an
ecdotal reason was that
educated young men
wanted educated young
ladies,” exclaimed Halliday.
After returning to the states,
Halliday worked in Seattle as a fish
eries biologist while pursuing her
master's in fisheries. She discov
ered this wasn’t the field she
wanted to stay in.
• “You go into biology because
you like critters,” said Halliday.
“You end up torturing animals. Our
mission was to come up with esti
mates of various fish populations
in the Serring Searand to do this
we had to kill thousands of fish.”
She then reactivated her teach
ing credential to teach biology
Below: Karen Halliday, the
new librarian at Clackamas.
She welcomes students'
questions and is eager to
teach research skills.
GILBERT BARRETT I Clackamas Print
Though .Halliday liked teaching,
she didn’t like all that went along
with teaching, especially discipline
problems. She went back to school
and earned her master's of library
science at the University of Wash
ington. As an academic librarian,
Halliday can still enjoy being in
the educational setting by using
her talents in teaching and service
to help students better their own
education. She encourages stu
dents to pomp to theJitjrajy more
often and use the services avail
about asking for assistance,” said
Halliday. “Always ask. That’s why
we’re here.”
able.
“People are often very timid
Writer
of natural sonal
history
books becomes new leader of support group
TAM OLIVER
essays. I did one about when
A&E OLIVER
Editor
TAM
my husband and I changed our last
names when we got married; another
about the birth of my daughter.”
Lichen is also looking forward to'
having three books published by
Sasquatch Press.
"They are natural history books
that focus on a specific plant, ani
mal or natural event, such as the red
cedar, ladybugs or lightning,” she
said.
According to Lichen, one of the
most interesting aspects of the re
search for her
| books was delv-
| ing into the folk
snnal essavs I did nnp about whpn
Chrysalis, a support group at
Clackamas Community College for
women writers, has a new leader this
quarter.
The group was formed eight
years ago when a few students in
Kate Gray’s women’s literature class
at Clackamas Community College
wanted to continue the writing they
had been doing for the class. Ac
cording to Gray, the women wrote
up a constitution
for the group,
and she has been
you
leading it ever
lore. For instance,
I she relates one of
since. However,
Gray, who still
| the stories about
writing, you I how ladybugs
teachers at the
I were
named.
college, decided
can't wait for
she wanted more
!| When farmers
inspiration"
time for her own
Pat Lichen I prayed to the Vir-
I gin Mary (Our
writing.
writer
[ Lady) to save
Pat Lichen
I their crops, she
jokes that she in
herited her new
sent beneficial
position as leader on the basis of bugs to help them. These little
longevity: she has been a dedicated beetles became known as ladybugs.
group member for six years. She has
Asked how she got published,
had articles published in Northwest she replied, “I really did my home
Travel and Canoe & Kayak maga work.”
zines as well online for
First, she took a trip to the library
citysearch.com. Additionally, she to look up regional publishers as she
has done commentaries on OPB ra felt this was where her essays be
dio.
longed. Also, she borrowed a book
“They call them commentaries,” on how to write book proposals.
she said “but I think of them as per-
“You can do that [submit a pro-
"When
begin
to get serious
about
JENNY CHAVEZ / Clackamas Print
Pat Lichen is the new leader of Chrysalis, a support group at
Clackamas for women writers. She is the author of three
books and several published articles.
posai] with nonfiction books, not
like how you would submit fiction,”
she continued.
At home, she wrote her proposal
and sent it, along with a couple of
samples of her essays, to Sasquatch
Press.
“I have some of their books,” she
explained. “I like how they were
done.”
And Sasquatch liked what they
saw. They hired an artist to add il
lustrations to the books, which will be
published in June.
Lichen is equally excited by her
continuing commitment to Chrysa
lis.
“One of the first things you learn
when you begin to get serious
about your writing is that you can’t
wait for inspiration. It [Chrysalis]
sort of gooses you to write more,”
she explained. “Also, the view
point of all these people helps you
to understand what’s clear in your
own writing and what’s muddy.”
Clackamas Federal
Credit Union
270 Warner Milne Road
Oregon City
503-656-0671
10400 SE Main
Milwaukie
503-653-7788