Ruth Anne Evans knows a little about biology, philosophy, math, history, engineering — you name it — and a lot about Union students and Union history.
As a librarian at the College for thirty-seven years, Evans earned a reputation as a great librarian by helping hundreds of students research topics from small protozoa to the history of World War II.
But she has also established a reputation as a master historian of Union. One of the campus legends is that if you have a question about Union's history, Evans probably has the answer.
“You can virtually ask her anything that happened at some point in Union's history and she's likely to have some insight into it,” says Ellen Fladger, the College's archivist, who has worked with Evans for years. “The amazing thing about Ruth Anne is that even if she doesn't know the answer, she knows where to find it, and to me that is the mark of a really good librarian.”
Evans began working in the Union library during her summer vacations while she was a student at Smith College. She remembers those first years fondly: “It was the middle of the war, and we had thirteen people and two typewriters. That was fun — being eighteen or nineteen and surrounded by all sorts of young men — they were lots of fun to look at and talk with.”
After graduating from Smith, Evans worked full-time for a year at the library before enrolling in Columbia University's School of Library Science. She graduated one year later, became an assistant cataloguer in Colgate University's library, and returned to Union and her hometown of Schenectady four years later. Beginning as an assistant cataloguer, she later moved to reference and eventually became assistant and then associate librarian. In 1973, she became the first woman at Union to be named a full professor.
Although Evans “retired” in 1989, she still comes in to the library on a daily basis to help with a variety of chores. She is helping to transcribe and footnote the diaries of Jonathan Pearson of the Class of 1835, and she pores over the College history as part of the creation of a Dictionary of Union College History.
Over the years, Evans has become a remarkable repository of information about the College. “I keep thinking we should tap the contents of her brain,” Fladger says. “She just has an incredible amount of information in her head. She is like a walking version of the College archives.”
With such continued devotion to the College and substantial work in the library, one might wonder why Evans retired. She says the reason is automation, explaining that she was not comfortable with many of the technological advances in library science. “I still like a book,” she says. “I can't see curling up with a computer, but maybe they'll make a computer you can cuddle up to.”
She admits that for a while she was the “test case” for technological services. “If I could make it work, anybody could do it,” she says.
And so, officially retired but just as busy as ever, Ruth Anne Evans scoots around campus dispensing facts and Union trivia to those who want to know. As she cheerfully says, “It hasn't been dull, but most people aren't dull, and even the dull ones you can do something with.”