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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClara Mounce TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Clara Mounce Interviewer: Unknown Place: College Station, Texas Project: Mayors and City Council Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Interviewer (?): We’re delighted to, to have you with us Mrs. Clara Mounce. You’ve been our community librarian from1978 to, to 2010. And that’s a long time and a distinguished career. Let’s begin by asking you what led you to a life in public service. 00:29 Clara Mounce (CM): I think I wanted to do something after children were old enough to be at home without supervision. And I was in the opportunity to, to get a library degree in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. That was really fabulous because I did it in one year. And I did, never had trouble with the snow. I, I drove in snow and got to school all right. I: Have you always been interested in libraries and in books? 01:00: CM: My earliest memories are of going to the library on Saturdays with that little red wagon that we used to carry the groceries home in because we didn’t have a car. And it was really just a lifelong, lifelong reading habit, led me to, to the library. I: Now there’s a saying that all politics is local. And I wonder if you tell us about the relationship that you’ve had with elected officials in both cities. 01:33: CM: I’ve had a lot of fun with elected officials in both cities. [chuckles] I’ve never, I’ve never had one of them fuss at me, and I’ve never been criticized by any of them. So they’ve been real good friends and they’ve been very supportive of the library system. I: Now how about the county? 01:51: CM: The county is, is not really connected to the library. We housed their law library for years, with no (reimbursement?) for it. We needed the space for our mysteries and science fiction. And I, I shook them and I asked them to take the collection out, but I got the permission of the city manager to do that. And we got rid of that law library. So they, they furnished us on data base, on (lexus and nexus?). No, I’m not sure what it’s called, they furnished that for us to use on one computer in the library. I: What part does local politics play in the library system director’s job? 02:33: CM: Well I think you have to keep abreast with what’s going and spend some time keeping up to date on what’s in, what’s happening nationally. And we, we write to our, con-, we visit the. Texas Library Association sponsors a trip to Washington D.C. every year and we, we on the local level visit with (Steve Hogdon?) and (Fred Brown?) because the, the, I’ve already talked to him about the budget for next year for the, for the state library. It’s going to be terrible. Because 1911 is going to be a real problem with all the expenses that the state supports. I: Excuse me, you misspoke, you said 1911, you meant 2011. 03:16: CM: Oh 2011. Yes. I haven’t gotten the new, the new dates. I: None of us have our new calendars yet so. 03:21: CM: I don’t know what to call it, 2011 or 2000, 2011. I: That’s true. Now tell me, what advice would you offer to young people who would be interested in aspiring to a job like you had with the library system? 03:38: CM: Well we, we’re going to preserve libraries. They may change, in-interior, the interior of it may change in looks and may change in purpose, but they’ll always be a public library because is, not, not everybody can buy a computer or not everybody can buy a book. We, we talked about books being dated, well I don’t think that will happen then, not in my lifetime. And probably not in this young man’s lifetime. But it is a career that is well thought of, you have a reputation. People think you’re very smart, to be a librarian. You know, you know where things are. And it’s really then exciting to, to hire young librarians right out of library school. And feel like they’ve really learned a lot. You, you learn a lot in library school, but you learn more so when you go to work. I: Now you talked about getting into public service but one thing you didn’t address was the fact that public service usually pays less than the private sector. So tell us how did you keep yourself motivated? And how did you keep your employees motivated? 04:57: CM: Well most people who work in the library, have a purpose for working in the library. And, and they believe it and support it. Salary, I took a survey one time of the employees about what was the best about their job, and very few of them put down salary. That was not, it was not necessary. They. I: We are fortunate to live in a community where we have Texas A&M and its huge library resources. Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of impact that university library system had on our library system? 05:43: CM: Well we were friends. And we’d go along together on some, some roads. We see each other at conference rather than here in town. But we’ve, we’ve not had the meeting with the, the librarians for quite some time. We, we used to when, when one of the last librarians who left and went to UT, he was always inviting us to something. And we haven’t been invited to, to, to very many things recently. I: Is that because the clientele of the public library system is, is different from the university library system? 06:25: CM: Well their mission is, is completely different. But their, their students spend a lot of time in our libraries looking through the children’s collection because the, English literature, the literature classes for children are not supported, chaired by the A&M collection. Whereas we have 40,000 children’s books at, at Bryan and about 20,000 at College Station. I: There have been shared service contracts between the city of Bryan and the city of College Station for lots of kinds of public utility kinds of aspects. But library contract for shared services is rather different because while there’s been some acrimony and ups and downs in, in the other kinds of contracts, the library system contract is very much different. It's never been a focus of controversy or, or bad feeling. Can you tell us a little bit about why do you think that is that? 07:36: CM: Well we had a good beginning with (King Cole?) and (Earnie Clark?) as city managers. They had a, a real sense of humor. And we were able. And then the lawyer, one of the city attorneys was a librarian also. She had a library degree and she and I wrote the contract. And we, we, we, we were looking, we were looking at the contract one day when the former, one of the finance directors of years ago here said, well he didn’t know it was going to be so involved. And Mr. Clark said, he said, we certainly expect to have a first class library. And Mr. Clark just woke up and he says, “Clara only knows one way to go and that’s first class.” [laughs] I: [laughs] 08:23: CM: I need a drink of water. Interviewer 2 (I2?): She needs to get a drink. I: Oh, okay. Help yourself. Better? 08:33: CM: Yeah. I: Okay. How many revisions did you take that contract through? 08:37: CM: It’s only been through two. I: Is that all? 08:40: CM: And they’re just now coming up with a new one. I: I mean that’s almost, that’s thirty years. 08:47: CM: Yes. I: Wow. 08:48: CM: Well we, we’ve been married with, to College Station’s library all along. We performed the ceremony. And its, its, we’ve done a good job. It’s, people, we get criticized. But most, mostly we get praise and we don’t do something stupid. I: Have other libraries copied that contract? 09:12: CM: Well no, there’s not many that. We’re one of the unique. I: That have a, a shared city situation like we do. 09:18: CM: With the cities have a contract with each other. There are county systems more or so than anything else. I: Let’s take a minute now and I want to ask you about how much the director of library services does in terms of trying to raise money for the library system? 09:46: CM: Well you, you get to be visible so that people know who you are and what you’re here to represent. And you provide good services. And we know that the budget can’t be perfect every year. So we, we look for the friends, spend a lot of time talking, talking to libraries on, on occasions when they have book sales. And they always say that everybody goes back to the library. Nobody in the friends collects any money. We, we pay for postage when we mail something, but otherwise it’s all material that is for, for the public to use. 10:24: I: And primarily to support the programming for children. 10:29: CM: Well that’s one of the big things that they did. The friends have always been very generous at, at story time and summer reading activities that, that really helps that they fund that. I: Tell us about the terrible time when there was the fire at the Bryan library. 10:50: CM: March the 28th, 1995. I: Say the date again. 10:53: CM: March 28th. I still have, we still have the two newspapers that the man who reported the fire put in the book drop. The Houston Chronicler and then the, what, I’ve forgotten the other paper that was there. When the phone woke me up just before 3 o’clock in the morning and the Chief (Going?) was still at the, at the station, and he was doing, doing some phone calling of, of officials—my boss and other people. But I said, “How bad is the fire?” He says, “I don’t know Clara, I haven’t seen it.” So I, my husband jumped up and we drove in in twenty-three minutes. We live in the country so it takes a while to get, to get some place. But I didn’t what to expect. One of the windows had been broken into. They had to break in a, a front door of glass, the, the firemen did to get into the building. I: Was that the east side or the west side that they came in? 11:53: CM: And it was on the south side. I: On the south side? Okay. 11:56: CM: Did you come up where the flag pole is? I: Okay. 11:58: CM: And you come into the building. One of those small, low windows was broken by a, a rock that came from, from the, the building across the street. What? What am I trying to? I: Where the, the children, the children’s museum is now? 12:20: CM: No. Across where the Carnegie is. I: Oh. 12:23: CM: The (Mason?). The (Mason’s?). I: Oh, the (Mason’s). All right. 12:25: CM: They. The, these people stole swords and things out and messed up in the, in that room. And he, the man who did the, ring, who was the ringleader, says that the Lord told him to do it. And he, he, he took drugs. And he was really, he used his twelve year old son to put him into the building. And he set the fire with the a can, a can, a coffee can with gasoline in it. He pulled all the magazines off. Of those, hundreds of magazines. And sprinkled the gasoline at that and set fire. If, if ten more minutes had gone by, the fire chief told me, we would have not had anything left. It was really. It was devastating. I: How long did it take before the building was renovated and things were? 13:18: CM: Five months. They told me it would take a year and I said, “Not over my dead body.” [laughs] I was in there every day. And the, the electricians were notorious for spitting on the floor and playing loud radios. And I said, “From now on, I’m telling you, you don’t spit on the floor, even though it’s concrete. And you don’t play your radio so loud that we couldn’t hear somebody if they had, what if they had an accident, (then?) you would never hear them.” The music was so loud. It was. I had a fight with several people, I won. [chuckle] I: And you had, did you have a grand re-opening? 13:56: CM: Yes in September, September the 4th. We, we cut a ribbon that we took from the front, from the north door to the south doors, out to the flag pole and back again. And we told people to bring their scissors because they would become historic scissors. And we cut a ribbon and everybody got a piece of the ribbon. And we did autographs on the ribbons. I: Oh, autographs. How wonderful. How about the first story time for children that was held once the renovation. Did you do something special for that? 14:36: CM: I don’t remember. We, we did so many things. We probably, I’m sure we did. We, we relate to the fire very well. I: I’m sure so. 14:34: CM: Many of us are still there. There were six of us who stayed in downtown Bryan. We had an office back in the municipal building. I: But your office was in your car wasn’t it? 14:34: CM: Yes, I was in my car with a phone. I: With a phone? 14:45: CM: Yeah. I: And it going in and out of the library all the time. 14:49: CM: When they, when they were what we needed to do. We were given four hours of notice to get the piano out of the building because the ceiling that they had to redo was very moist and it would have made rusting on the, on the piano bars a problem. And then we had to pick the colors of the fabric that they put on the walls. I: Did you testify at the? 15:14: CM: I was the victim of the trial. I: Oh, you were? 15:16: CM: And, and I, I testified. And they wouldn’t let me just stay in the courthouse, I was kept in an office space i--, in case they needed me. But I, I was, I was really upset and I, I spoke very quietly. I, I knew what I was going to say because they’d spent two million dollars—some of it insurance money and some of it raised by the friends. And it was, it was really an ordeal. It was a stressful situation for all of us. I: Talk about the Carnegie library and its reputation? 15:57: CM: My jewel. I: A jewel. The jewel of downtown Bryan. 16:01: CM: It took me nine years from when I started to get the Carnegie ready to go. We had a, I talked to the Austin history center director and she said, “You’ll get the Carnegie if the council wants it.” So we had some people that were, were very influential within the community, talk to the council. And that was, it was really friends were very active in, in getting it. We wanted to make a history library out of it and move the Texas collection over there and the rare books so it made more space at the Bryan library—at the Clara B. Mounce library we call it. I: Now, just recently. 16:44: CM: Yes that’s been wonderful. I: What about the, the College Station library. You were active in all of those committees and all of that planning. 16:54: CM: Yes. I, I had, I had a, a tough role to play because I had to be pro-College Station and pro-Bryan at the same time. And I managed very well. (Fred Brown?) was on the council then and let’s see, Lynn Mcihaney. They were all very kind and very supportive. And they, what Mayor Walter thought that, that we would just have a library where people would come in and use books and leave. But I said no we wanted to have children’s books and you don’t leave them, you take them home with you. We, we were, the committee proposed a, a 30,000 square foot library, multi-floors. And that’s more staff. And everything that they proposed to the council dropped down with, with a need for it. But they agreed to, to put it on the ballot for the second time and it passed overwhelmingly. The first time it failed by seven votes. That Larry Ringer and I cried. I: Together? 18:05: CM: [shakes head ‘yes’] I: I’m sure so. But now the College Station library started in, was it a pizza parlor? 18:12: CM: Yes it was. I: An old pizza parlor. 18:13: CM: I did the layout, a layout of where we could put shelves and we put shelves everywhere we could against the walls. We didn’t have any place to hang pictures. And we, we stayed in there in, in two years and we had to expand to the space that was next to us. And we had six thousand square feet and we started out with three so. I: Was that where the, where the, along where the present Brown’s shoe store is? 18:43: CM: Yes it’s across, it’s a, it’s just a, a walk right. I: Across the way? 18:46: CM: Across the way. I: Okay. 18:49: CM: It was, we liv, we liv, I spent some time sitting in the parking lot of that shopping center and the people seemed to obey the parking rules. We, we looked into a place later on during the, the tours that we made that, that probably people didn’t park in the parking places. They parked and just left their car some place. And it didn’t have a real good flow of traffic. And we, we wanted something on visible and I wanted it on Texas Avenue. And that was, they listened to. When, when we hired the architect, one of the city councilman was, and they had really discussed it to them to the, to the stage where you couldn’t say anything more. And (Tub Kennedy?) said, “If Clara likes that architect, that’s who I like.” They, they were always saying if I was in the building, if I was at a city council meeting, one time Lynn Mcihaney he said, “I see Clara’s here.” And the city manager said, “Yes she’s going to talk to us about something.” And she said, “Well let’s let her go now so she won’t have to sit through this boring meeting.” [chuckles] I was, I, it was, I wasn’t Clara Mounce, it was Clara, Clara was here. They were always kind. I: First name basis. Now from the time that the process started to the time of building what is now the Ringer library, how much, how much time was involved? Was that seven years? 20:33: CM: No we started in 1987 we opened the pizza parlor. And we opened the new library in 1988. I: Okay, all right, thank you. 20:47: CM: It took a while to get a library on the ballot, but it was, was supported overwhelmingly. I: Now in Bryan, there have been surveys done about expanding the, the Bryan library whether, trying to determine whether it should be added on to or whether there’s another library needed there and here in College Station. There’s even a bond issue passed for expansion. When do you see those kinds of things coming to fruition in, in Bryan and in College Station? 21:25: CM: Well we, we’ve had to accept that we had to postpone the ren-renovation that would, would double the size of it because of the economy and I think that we are stuck in the, in the muddy rug until we get better income tax, tax base. And we, with College Station is growing south, and we have to think about going south with the library. In College, in Bryan is needs to go west and north, north. We, we took a list of the, we pulled off the computer, there was zip codes of all the patrons that have library cards. And we found out where they live. We were able to and then we looked to see where, who, where the books were checked out. And it was, there were places that people didn’t use the library, didn’t come to the library and they, we need, and it was in the northwest. And we, we wanted to, we proposed that we build a combination parks and recreation facility and the library let them share the air conditioning and the parking lot. And it’s (Alan?) on the border. They’ve built one on the south side and one on the north side. And they have a meeting room, they have activities. The library (word?) cooperating with parks and recreation. And I said we need a partner, a partnership. And this would be a, a great idea because we, we, we expand our parks far more than we do our library and that’s, and we, we’re in, in competition sometimes so we should be partners then. It would be wonderful to be able to do that. I: Not only is the need of the library in each city expanding, but also within the library, there are more and more alternative media like e-books and so forth. Do you ever see a time when, when books will be obsolete? 23:35: CM: No I don’t see that. I think, I think people will pass down to their children the love of books. We might have fewer people checking out books but, it, it, it’s just that, Larry Ringer said it so well that, “If you sit in, have your grandchild and he’s sitting in your lap and you’re reading a book, you’re having a good time. And he wouldn’t want to give up that good time.” I: No grandparent would. Let’s talk about your achievements. What three achievements are you proudest of with the Bryan, College Station library system? 24:19: CM: Well the, the Carnegie is my favorite. I had such fun when I restored that. I never got questioned about what I was doing, what colors I was using. I got questioned, “Did I have enough money?” And I said, “Yes I do, I do.” The friends gave us a lot of money for that. And we had a, a grant, an (I.T. grant?) of 800,000 dollars and we had to match it with twenty percent and the city council had, went, over, overwhelmingly voted to do this. And that’s one, that’s my claim to fame I think is that I restored the Carnegie. I: What about two? 25:00: CM: The system, the system is certainly a bright and shining example of cooperation between the two cities. And it’s a positive effect. And then I would say the staff and, and the people who use the library have thought of me as being a, a good boss. I’m a participating boss. I like to have opinions. They, they didn’t always think that I did that, but I always asked. When somebody came to my office and wanted to do something I said, “What would you do about this? Tell me what you think should happen? How would you manage this?” And that was, but I had a won-, I have a wonderful staff and they’ve been inherited by Larry and (word?) and her and he’s really appreciating the staff. He, it, didn’t take him long to find that we had people that could, who were very capable. I: Tell me what you enjoyed most and what you enjoyed least about being the library system director? 26:09: CM: I, it was prestigious to be the city library. It was, people knew who you were. People still stop me in the grocery store and the drug store, “You’re Clara Mounce.” And, and this, it’s been, it’s been a lot of fun to after you get over forty to be important. I: [chuckle] What did you enjoy least? 26:32: CM: I couldn’t come up with something. I: You couldn’t come up. It was all so much fun. 26:38: CM: I liked coming to work. I like being the boss. I liked that very much. I like to tell people what to do. I: Now did that make it hard to make the transition from going to work, being the boss, to being a retired director instead of an active director? 27:02: CM: No. It hasn’t been tough. I, I still spend a lot, I still am at library once a week. And I talk to Laura and (word?) two assistants. And I, I just. I’ve, I have no qualms. I, I can look back on a wonderful career and nobody’s poked any holes in it. Nobody’s told me that I wasn’t. [chuckles] Mayor (Connolly?) at my reception made the statement he says, “I hate to follow Clara.” Says that, “She’s so good at what she’s saying” you know. But he said, “I think I have something to tell her that will shock her.” And he said, “We’re going to be putting your, putting on, on the agenda to rename the Bryan library with your, your name.” And I, I just burst in tears. It was so exciting. I: It was richly deserved. 28:00: CM: Well and see people say that and I appreciate the, the opinions that people have. I: Now we’re reaching the end of this interview, but I want to give you the opportunity to add anything that you’d like or to tell me if they’re any questions that you wish I’d ask you, but I didn’t. 28:26: CM: Well I thought about one of them I’d add to this. I, I think people have to know that a career in librarianship can lead to some really successful stories. You help someone. They, they’ve come in and they need information and you’ve helped them find it and they go home happy. Sometimes people come in and they want something that’s not available but we usually can find the source of something and it makes it excited to be a part of that process. The, the community built a, when they built this library in Bryan, they, they had a co-, community wide contest with other commun-, with other cities, to see who could read the most. And they, (Paul Krafford?) was the president of the (autoboard?), he’s since deceased, but Paul was really the instigator of getting the bond issue passed. The state library gave them a, a donation a, a grant for 680,000 dollars. No, it was less, it was 400,000. Then they spent, the, the rest of it came from local funds and, and gov-, government funds. But they um, well I’m not sure where I was going with that. Oh. I: Can you tell us a little more about this contest? 29:59: CM: Well we, we had any, Paul wrote to the mayors of all these cities and told them that we, we can out-read them. I: We’re going to out-read them? 30:10: And we out-read them. I: We did? 30:13: CM: We checked out more books than, than they did. And so (Paul?) had, he had other gimmicks that he used. He was given the Texas State Library Trustee of the Year award that year. That’s, that was a, that was a great honor. But he really, the, the, the city spent twenty percent of the, it was close to 850,000 dollars that it cost them to buy the property, build the building, and furnish it. And can you imagine being able to do that today? I: You absolutely couldn’t. What other cities, do you recall which ones they were in the “We can read more than you can” challenge? 31:02: CM: No I don’t remember, but they were like cities, they were nearby. I: Like Tyler or (?) or. 31:09: CM: I’d, I’d have to go back to the minutes and look. I: All right, go back and look. That’s a wonderful. 31:13: CM: I’ve read minutes from the, from those, the early days. And it was, it was a lot of fun to find out exactly how much money they raised. And the fact that the city was supposed to contribute a thousand dollars a year to, and they had to borrow money to do that one time. But that was Andrew Carnegie’s con-concern, that they would support it after it was built. I: We thank you so much for taking your time to participate in this Heritage interview project. What we’re going to do with this is that it will come part of the local oral history archive that’s placed on the, the Project HOLD, which is the Historic Online Database, with the others that we’re doing of prominent folks here from College Station and, and people who were important in the county so we thank you so much for taking your time. 32:15: It was my pleasure. I: You’re charming.